001Mhm. >> I hate using it. All right, muy buenas noches. We're going to go ahead and get started. Our first item today is our public budget hearing, budget hearing for the adoption of revise number two, 2026 maintenance and operation, district additional assistant budgets. If you would like to submit a comment or questions about the budget revision, please um look over to the left side and we have the blue cards over there. At this time, the governing board of Clayton Elementary School District number 14 shall hold a public budget hearing to present revision number two of the 25-26 maintenance and operation and district additional assistance budgets. The budget revision is included as an attachment. With that, I will turn it over to Ms. Shapiro. Thank you, Madam President. Um our budget revision this year is uh
002the accumulation of the items that we reviewed in our budget study session. Uh we are not doing an additional presentation in order to maximize um our time with our budget revision. On those uh the the main areas on the budget revision that were updated from the last budget that the board has reviewed was the actual um at to this point, the latest ADM calculations. Uh we do that in an effort to maximize any student ADM that was not captured in previous budget revisions. Um the only other significant changes uh in addition to updating the student average daily membership um was uh the May revision reflecting that decrease of the 255 ADM that we discussed our enrollment decline in this year. It also includes the final carry forward numbers from 2024-25. When we initially propose our
003budget, we don't have those final carry forward numbers uh because we have not closed our previous fiscal year. So, it's important when you finalize your budget for the year, as we've discussed in the study session, uh that we maximize those dollars so we have the most carry forward possible uh when we close out this year. So, those are the two changes um in the final revised budget in order to ensure that we are reporting accurately and um taking advantage of capturing those carry forward dollars. Those were the only significant changes in our revised budget. Thank you so much for that, Ms. Shapiro. Board members, do we have any questions? Ms. Huit, do we have any public comments? All right. Hearing that we have no board member additional comments or public com- Okay, that's not for
004the budget hearing. Okay, perfect. >> [snorts] >> All right, with that we will conclude our public budget hearing and I will move over to our regular board meeting. The Creighton School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the O'odham and Akimel O'odham people who descended from the Hohokam and have inhabited these lands since time immemorial. The O'odham, whose name translates literally to people, are a vibrant culture and community's founding countless of generations into the past, continuing to thrive in the present, and carrying a powerful legacy for generations into the future. With this acknowledgement, the Creighton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices, policy, and
005human relations. That brings us to 3B, which is our roll call. We have Ms. Ayers, Ms. Gibson-McLean, myself, Mr. Jones, and Ms. Marquez present. We want to welcome everyone to tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address board cards that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary, Ms. Cuadis, if they wish to speak to an agenda item. Board policy provides for two cards. White cards are to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item, and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments. Due to our open meeting laws, we are not able to address items that are not in the agenda. So, if you have a blue card, we cannot address those directly. That moves us to item four, which is our approval of
006agenda. I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented. May I have a second? All those in favor? I. I. Thank you. And then, our next motion is I move the governing board adopt the revised number two total aggregate school district budget per ARS 15-905, and specifically 15-905E1 for fiscal year 2025-2026. May I have a second? Second. Hilda, does this have to be a roll call? No. >> I don't believe it does require >> Okay. It does. CAI requires it. Okay. All those in favor? I. I. Any nays? Hearing none, motion passes. That brings us to agenda item five, which is our student outcomes focused governance work. In the fall of 2023, Creighton School District adopted a student outcomes focused governance framework to ensure a focus on improving student outcomes. This framework is grounded
007in six research-informed competencies. Vision and goals, values and guardrails, monitoring and accountability, communication and collaboration, unity and trust, and continuous improvement. Guided by these six competencies, the board created a set of goals and guardrails. The goals reflect the community's vision for the student success. And the guardrails reflect community values and set boundaries for leadership. When this framework and within this framework, one of the most critical components is our progress monitoring. Progress monitoring is a structured conversation between the board and superintendent where we ask, does student performance match our goals? Is there evidence of growth toward the goals? And is the strategy strong enough to produce that specific growth? When done well, monitoring supports the district to buy modeling reflective leadership, clarifying strategies and next steps, setting clear priorities across the system, and providing continuous feedback
008for improvement. This is how we hold ourselves accountable to the outcomes our students deserve. This is how governance truly serves its community. >> And with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Olguin Pombo to go ahead and start our progress monitor report for goal four report three. President Carino, members of the board and Superintendent and we're excited to present goal number four. So I'm going to invite Dr. Dodds, Karen and Sarah Beth George, who's our coordinator for literacy. And then we also have a couple of our coaches in the audience. So thank you for being here. So for goal four is our literacy goal for third grade. And we want to increase our reading proficiency for third graders and on the state assessment we want to move from 18% proficient to 41%. Last year,
009we our goal on the state assessment was 22%. As you can see, we went down uh to 13%. So, this year we are need to double that or have more growth than we did in the past two catch up to that 31% for the state assessment. I'm going to turn over to Dr. Dodds-Carey to go over the data, and then um Sarah Beth George will share um our steps that we've taken, our inputs, and then our next steps. Uh good evening, members of the board. Uh Sarah Beth and I are grateful that for the opportunity to share with you the information we have specific to um our data that we've gathered from our December assessments. Interim measure 4.1, as you can see, the percentage of third graders who score proficient on the DNA English language
010arts post-test will increase from 19% in May of 2025 to 31% in May of 2026. You're familiar with this um illustration from our other governing board goals, but you will see that it shows change over time beginning last school year in the 2024-2025 school year to where we see present. Um this particular assessment, our DNA assessment, was administered in December, December's uh 8th and 9th specifically for this exam. Uh our third grade passing rates for this school year are five points higher than they were last year at the time of this assessment, IBM 2. And to meet the goal, we need to increase by at least 5% when we take that post-test. We identified that based on this data, we were near target for this interim measure. Once again, our beloved Sankey graph. This is
011the graph that shows change that is happening, and um Tyson, our assessment coordinator, thought it would be clever for you all to see that we had some movement and trending upward because we know that that is our ultimate goal. So, again, to acquaint ourselves with the Sankey graph. The colors illustrate our proficiency bands and they show movement either increasing in proficiency or dips. You will notice on this time we don't see any landslide down, which means that we didn't have kids who missed out on taking that assessment. So, we're grateful for that. And when we look here, you can see that um we do have quite a bit of change that is occurring combined between our proficiency bands. We have 85 students who increased in proficiency. The majority of the students, 283 of them stayed
012the same and 42 students decreased in proficiency. In our measure 4.2, this is the percentage of first through third grade students who scored at the 50th percentile as measured on the by the FastBridge oral reading fluency test. This will increase from 17% in May of 25 to 27% in May of 26. The FastBridge winter screening window took place between November 24th and December 12th. The winter percentage of first through third grade students scoring at the 50th percentile was the same as it was in the previous year. And to meet our goal of 27% for first through um third grade students, we need to increase oral reading fluency by 7%. And when we think about oral reading fluency, we just want to remind you that that is where students are reading. Um we are measuring how
013smoothly they can read, how accurately they can read, and that's important as a foundation for that reading comprehension. So, when teachers are listening to their students, they can then ensure that they are including other components of literacy to help their children become proficient readers. Again, you can see our Sankey graph um illustrated here. We can see that 74 students increased in proficiency. The majority of our students, over 1,100 of them stayed the same and 115 students decreased in proficiency. Interim measure 4.3, this is the percentage of students who score at the 50th percentile on the FastBridge early reading composite, that this will increase from 19% on the kindergarten early reading composite in May of '25 to 32% on the first grade early reading composite in May of '26. This particular screening window was uh took
014place between November 24th and December 12th. The percentage uh that we saw with our students that time was higher than it was the previous year by 4%. In order to meet our goal of 32%, we need to increase reading fluency by 13% and um for early reading composite in first grade, this is really measuring those foundational literacy skills, things like letter sounds, phonemic awareness, decoding, um and early word reading, similar to what we shared with you with goal three. And again, the Sankey graph here illustrates the change that was occurring within first grade. We see that 46 students increased in proficiency. The majority of our students, 326 of them, stayed at the same proficiency level, and 37 students decreased in proficiency. This slide provides for you the three interim measures as well as the uh
015the school comparisons. So, you can see the percent of students who are working toward um in achieving the goals we have for our interim measures here. And as we continue on, uh Sarabeth will begin explaining to you the plan adjustments and next steps that we committed to and providing you updates. We also want to share that the way it'll work is Sarabeth will do the the next few slides with the plan adjustments next steps, and then we did receive um questions from you from the board. So, we will alternate in um providing those responses. And at one point time, we'll also invite two of our principals up to help with um responding to some of your questions. Thank you so much. All right. So, these next steps and plan adjustments that I'm going to review
016are actions that we started taking in January based on the commitments that we made at the last progress monitoring report. And also, these are all the actions that we've taken since receiving the data that you just saw. So, we we had that data in our minds as we were working toward um these next steps. So, the new actions that we accomplished from January to March in terms of our coaching is that we added our third literacy coach. We introduced you to her uh in January. And what we did was we used a data analysis to identify four high-priority schools, uh which are um Excelencia, Monte Vista, Iron Mountain Academy, and um William T. Mackin. >> [snorts] >> And we were able to communicate like have that full cycle with our administrators in terms of figuring
017out how best the ca- our new our new literacy coach could work with our existing literacy coaches to provide support to those schools and those all their K-3 teachers. And our goal really was to prioritize weekly coach support for all kinder through third grade teachers at those high-priority schools. And so, we were actually able to create a model with three district literacy coaches to ensure that every single kinder through third grade teacher in our district received coaching support. Um in terms of specifically at those Excuse me. In terms of across the district, 70% of those K-3 teachers met meet weekly with a coach, and then the remaining 30 meet monthly. And so that's something that we also added, which was for all of our campuses, not just those priority campuses. And then in terms of
018our four priority campuses, we were able to establish a a schedule where 90% of our K-3 teachers who were at those four focus high priority schools received weekly support from a coach. And then the remaining 10%, the reason they were not receiving weekly support from a literacy coach is because they were already working closely with one of our other content coaches, which could have been um our student support or math or science or language acquisition. So, the main trends or topics that our literacy coaches have been working on working with working on teach we're working on with our teachers are um really supporting those site-based initiatives that are focused on literacy, and a large majority of the work really has been supporting teachers with getting that tier two instruction going, which is really small group
019instruction. And so some of that support that coaches provide is around the logistics of how do you schedule it, how do you move kids around the room, how do you support that independence, how do you select the materials, and then the that they're that kids are using independently. And then the other part of that is um what do you do when you have your students in your small group? How do you use these materials that we have? And so our next steps in terms of coaching are to continue those coaching cycles. Um we are reaching the end of the year very, very quickly, and a lot of this work that we're really proud of, we started in the second semester this year. So, we are working on developing a plan where we're able to begin
020in August next year. Another commitment we made was that we would establish monthly data meetings across the district with all K-3 teachers, not just those four high-priority schools I identified. And so, we did develop our data reflection protocol. We have two different sets. One is for foundational skills, and then one is specifically for our third-grade common formative assessment data that's based on comprehension skills. And so, at the time that we developed this progress monitoring monitoring report on April 17th, each K-3 team across the district had already met two or three times, and in those like very only meeting two or three times out of the 70 K-3 teachers, 76 right away were able to make changes in their classroom. And so, some of those were they finally started using small groups, or they selected the
021more appropriate materials. And then, there were teachers that with just two to three meetings weren't ready to start implementing changes, and so our coaches have been working with them as well as the site administrators in working that communication loop to be able to ensure that by the end of the school year, which really our fourth the fourth data meeting was in just like a couple weeks ago, I think was when the final one was. So, that they were able to make changes prior to the end of the year. And for returning teachers, we're excited because that means that they'll be able to start strong in the fall next year. I have a quick question. What do you What do you [clears throat] mean when you say the teachers weren't implementing what was told of them?
022Elaborate on that. Yeah, so in terms of the data meeting, what we the way it looks is that teachers come prepared with their data and from specifically from that small group instruction. And so with the coach, they're working on talking through um what kind of movement has happened with those students, who's growing, who's not, and what types of changes might need to be made in the classroom to ensure stronger movement or continued movement. And so many times when we have like that that small percentage of teachers who weren't able to make changes yet, many times it's because they're working on something different. Like maybe management is really a struggle and they haven't been able they still aren't able to do small groups because there's something else going on in classroom that they're really focused on.
023And so what we are still able to do um is provide that opportunity for them to better understand the data so that they are when they are ready to start implementing that small group instruction, they're more prepared. And it's it is it is a a tricky relationship because our coaches really are coaches and they are there to mediate thinking and support changes in behavior. They're they're not the administrator and so many of our administrators are able to be at these meetings and when they're not able to, the coaches make sure to keep that loop of communication going. Okay. Um the reason why I ask because one of the biggest things about our framework is that student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And I think a lot of the times on some of these
024strategic questions that we ask is what adult behaviors need to be changed in order for us to move the needle for our students. Um I get a little weary when I hear things um of that nature of well, you know, they were just an implemented because XYZ. To me, that just doesn't sound accurate. So, I think we all need to be doing a better job and making sure that at those adult behaviors are actually changing because at the end of the day, that's what's going to move the needle. It's not going to be We can set up all the processes and all the frameworks and all the coaching and all the data out in the world and if we're not having that change, it's it's only going to go so far. So, I hope that
025as coaches, I see a lot of principals here, admins, that we're really taking that to heart because that's what's going to move the needle for our students. Absolutely. I completely agree and I do also want to share like So, these are actions that we've taken that we've started doing in the second semester and one of the things that we as a support team were struggling with in the first semester was we were really, really struggling to get these small groups to get started. And this number of like 76% of teachers making changes in their behavior was much, much lower in the first semester. And so, yes, we did implement a new structure and a new process. It did create a dramatic shift in adult behavior from the first semester. We know that we're not there
026yet. Um But we're we're working on it. I mean, I I could just add we're continuing to um work with our principals and our teams to hold teachers accountable and it's just a process. Like I think about our learning walks we had, you know, no one like a very small amount doing learning targets and now we're like more like at 50% or more doing learning targets. and so it's getting better, but it's just not 100% yet. So, continue to work with that support accountability, which supported means like with the coaching, but also accountability from their supervisor. Yeah, and and and these are just some real conversations we do have because, you know who doesn't have time to change their behaviors? It's our students that we're serving. They don't. And I have I recall correctly before
027we started this framework, at one point we had 0% of the specific population of our students passing anything. So, it's a non-negotiable. And I love that, you know, we're working towards it and we're working, but we they don't have time. And we just looked at our data. There is no time of, you know, we've been in this work, we've been talking the same thing for almost 3 years, we're about to hit 5 years. It's it's go time. You're right. All right. So, another commitment Oh, next slide. So, another commitment that we made was to monitor the use of our Tier 2 materials. And this is one of our third grade teachers from Gateway School who this year was able to start using the materials. And remember, this is the second year that we've implemented them
028that we've had these 95% group materials. And so, in April when we were putting this report together, we looked and we saw that 67% of our teachers were consistently, and by that we mean three to five days a week, implementing small groups with appropriate materials. Um, and that shows an increase from in the fall when we surveyed teachers, and it was at 42%. Um, and then we also have talked as a group, worked um with our administrators to identify some of those barriers for teachers who are inconsistently or not yet teaching small groups. Um, one is, like I mentioned before, the classroom management, another is scheduling. Another piece is actually that these materials that you see come So, in her What is it? Her left hand? You can see little Ziploc baggies inside that bag,
029and there are a lot of cards that need to be separated and organized, and that our coaches have identified that that it has been a barrier to some teachers is that like additional prep for the first time that they use the materials. So, our coaches were able to put together a plan for this summer so that we will have all of these materials organized and ready for teachers to eliminate that additional barrier that we saw. In terms of our CFA or common formative assessment administration, uh we [snorts] had them calendared, but we added some additional communication layers. So, coaches sent reminder emails. We were already reporting completion rates to our administrators through our weekly newsletters at the school level or at the grade level. And so, what we added was our coaches were sending participation
030rates by teacher name and keeping that communication open. And so, one of the changes that we saw is that in So, in January, our third grade participation rate for simply taking the assessment was 8%, and since our last progress monitoring, since that 8% with these additional layers of communication, our participation rates for taking the third grade assessment ranged from 63 to 72%. Amira is something new that we were able to acquire through a grant and it is for all of our second and third grade students. So, in January, we are technology integration coach was able to train all of our second and third grade teachers by January 13th. We started as soon as we came back from break and here you can see the average student use in minutes. Our goal being that students average
03130 minutes a week on this. It's an AI tutor for reading. And so, we do recognize that we absolutely need to make some changes here as well. So, we collaborated our literacy coaches and our technology integration coach were able to work together on this because our technology integration coach, there's one for all nine schools and so and to support her reach reaching out to teachers, our literacy coaches have added a standing agenda item just to make sure that there is that verbal communication at least monthly. [clears throat] Like, how is it going? What are you encountering and how can we support you? So, one of our ongoing actions throughout the year is our series of professional development. We had one series, which is our creating professional learning, which are four sessions over the school year
032for K3 teachers. And let's see, that one is our foundational seminar on the left and then our other one is the group of 11 teachers and four administrators participating in that literacy cohort throughout the year. And so, we have finished those cycles and you can see the results with teachers being more confident that what they are learning is impacting their capacity and their student outcomes. Okay, a series of board questions include for high priority schools and grade levels, will we be utilizing any intervention specialist to work with our students directly either in small groups or one-on-one? And the answer to that question is yes. Our students in grades K-3 who are below grade level, they receive tier two or tier three intervention services. Students who receive tier two, they receive small group instruction from their
033teacher using that 95% group that you saw that picture of. That is a move on when reading approved curriculum. So again, in the state of Arizona with move on when reading for K-3 literacy, we do need to ensure that we are using SA rated move on when reading approved curriculum. Our the teachers typically work with about six students during that small group tier two intervention time within the classroom. There's also students who receive what we call tier three support. And tier three utilizes a curriculum called Sips, which is also a move on when reading approved curriculum, but that does not happen in the classroom with the classroom teacher. That happens with the reading interventionist. And students in those groups are typically in small groups, three or four students. We progress monitor the students regularly just
034as we would with the tier two. The students are specifically marked in Educlimber. Tyson works directly with our reading interventionist as well to keep track of the progress that our students are making alongside our reading interventionists. And the site allocations for our reading interventionists vary. They vary based on a 0.5 allocation or up to two reading interventionists on a given campus. All right, so this question was specifically around interim measure two. So the trend continues to look the same where our fall scores higher and then we increasingly decrease our scores or our percent of proficiency. How can we break this trend and what needs are you seeing that are keeping us from getting there? So, to break this pattern, we have to focus not just on growth but accelerated growth, particularly for those students who
035begin below or near the benchmark. And so, that specifically is around the fact that our students are growing, but because that growth is not fast enough, it looks like decreased scores. So, throughout our work this year, including our coaching cycles, our co-planning and co-teaching with teachers, professional development, and our data meetings, we've identified several consistent instructional needs that are those trends. One is inconsistent tier one core instruction. So, while strong practices do exist, we do not yet see consistent daily implementation of all five components of literacy, including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension across all classrooms using our core curriculum, one which is Wonders. And so, those gaps in tier one instruction do require students to rely more heavily on intervention. So, another trend that's contributing to this need Can I Absolutely. Yeah. >>
036I hate interrupting you guys, but um in terms of that issue right there, have we identified maybe what's getting in the way of folks not being able to hit all five of them you know, on a consistent basis? One common trend that our coaches have seen is scheduling like within those 90 or those 120 minutes is Yeah, it's really that pacing and figuring out how not to let one component take over and use up all of your time. And so, right now our master course schedules are developed in in blocks. Like, this is your ELA block, and then we have our proposed sample schedules, which break up the components for teachers. And what we're finding is that our coaches need to spend more time than we've been spending in one-on-one or in small groups actually
037helping that transfer of here's our sample, what does it actually look like in your context. So, in terms of our tier two small group instruction, which is in the class, is that we had do have strong resources. Um however, we do notice that the frequency, structure, and alignment of that small group instruction varies across classrooms, which impacts our ability to accelerate that learning for students who do need it the most. >> [gasps] >> And that's been a lot of we've we've seen in the our plan adjustments and next steps and how we've really made some changes to support that. Um we've seen a limited use of flexible grouping. In some cases, student grouping is not adjusted frequently enough based on current data, which does limit the precision of instruction and slow the process. Um There
038was a lot of lingo there. We were really breaking Absolutely. Okay, so flexible grouping is in terms so this is talking about your tier two small groups. And so flexible means that if you're in let's say they're really in these grade levels, it's typically phonics skills. So, say you're in a group and your group is learning silent E. So, how to read like cake, bake, lake, all those types of words. Not all of the students in that group are going to progress at the same rate. So, we need to be able to con- frequently look at the data and flex the groups. So, figure out who needs to move to a a group that's a little more ahead, who might need to repeat some of that with a little bit of a different intervention. And
039so, the trend that we see is students are often in the same group and they're not moving to their specific needs. And our monthly data meetings have helped with that to bring that to the forefront and show teachers how they can make those movements. I'm going to ask you, was it a a knowledge thing you think in terms of how or when to do that or more of a like classroom management or I yeah, I think it's all of the above and I think one common thing that happens is it is a really big deal as a teacher to start these groups. And once you start them, I like speaking from my own experience as a beginning teacher, I was so proud like I was doing it, I had my groups, they knew they were
040in group A or group B or the purple group or whatever and we were just I was so proud and I kept on going and then forgot the nuance of like that wasn't the end goal. So, that's where the coaching comes in. We're like, yes, absolutely. And now, and now. I was just going to add the other stuff especially with new teachers but even all teachers is that the other students are working independently at their level on writing and reading on their own and so planning what they're doing during that time when I'm when as a teacher you're pulling a small a small group. So, it is a lot of planning additional planning besides our normal like Well, it's tier tier one but also >> Right. Yeah. There's so many moving pieces and so sometimes
041it's also making the space for that conversation because we know that their planning time is so so small and so and they have their long lists of all the things and that is the flexing their groups might never make it to the top of the list. We're also making some changes in practices so >> Yeah. you know, it's it is easy to do what you've always done. Mhm. So, when a change is implemented, very often people are like, "Yeah, I can try this change." And that works great until there's some something else, some other factor kind of enters the equation. So, the minute, you know, I'll just give a quick example, you know, the minute like a single child or a small group of children become disruptive, now all of a sudden your whole plan
042starts to fall apart and what we do like as human beings, it's normal human nature, you revert back to what you're most comfortable and familiar with and so then you go back to the earlier way that you did things, right? But each time you do that it holds you up from become it's from having a high level of facility with the new techniques and methodologies that are being put into play. So, and so um you know, that's I'm not in any way, shape or form an excuse, but making these times types of shifts takes time. Like people need time to not only learn them and absorb them, but apply them and get to a point where they're able to apply them with comfort. And so there's an old expression like people used to always say,
043"Practice makes perfect." Practice does not make perfect. You can practice wrong a thousand times and all you're doing is reinforcing bad habits. Perfect practice makes perfect. And so that's one of the reasons that we've invested so heavily and we're trying to protect our coaching so much because the way you achieve perfect practice is when you have the opportunity be observed and coached and given feedback. So, even if you look to things like professional sports, even the best players in the world don't go, "I'm the best. I'm good enough. I don't need a coach." Those are the people that most want a coach cuz they see the value of it because it helps keep them at their peak. Oh, yeah. And can I just say as a master teacher, like I hate small groups. I hate
044planning for them. I hate like it takes so much incredible time and effort. and if you don't have great classroom management, it's probably not going to happen. And I do have great classroom management and it's still trying to monitor, you know, however many kids that you have and it's extremely difficult. Totally. I mean, I have executive functioning that I'm medicated for and this gives me a headache trying to think about all of the things that I would need to consider. So, I get it. But you're not choosing to be a teacher, either. No. No, but even though That gets in the way of my Even people that choose to be a teacher is still a difficult task to do, especially like and I'm saying this as a 25-year veteran teacher that it is difficult. So,
045I can only imagine what new teachers >> Yeah. like having to learn material and having to like even figure out what kind of teacher you are. And once again, I am also not trying to make excuses, but I can see why it's difficult for people, um, especially teachers probably within the first five years to do this, because I know I struggle sometimes to do it. Right. Yeah, and and I know haven't been on a couple learning walks, I've kind of seen in some of the classrooms where they've been in like the the the small groups and you see the teacher trying to work with this group of uh students, but then it's chaos with with some of the others and you know, with that it's uh this was early on, so I know that the
046coaches have been in since. Um, but yeah, again, like hats off to the teachers who have that classroom management skill and can do it. Um, but in my mind I'm I'm thinking now when we're talking about reading, so it takes me back to this podcast I heard. I'm sure most everybody's probably heard it already, the um Sold a Story, but I just remember they open up talking about a school who would have like a reading block, but instead of like sitting with their classroom, each student walks like walk to read, they walk to their grade level teach or not grade but their reading level. And so it's it's a whole different model and again, like so then we're talking about trying to not put adult convenience in front of student learning. Adult you know, student
047outcomes change change when our adult behaviors change, so maybe there's a better way that's not you know, for three groups of kids being left to their blocks or their iPads while the teacher's focusing on these struggling readers. Like maybe there's a better way um down the line to work on, right? Um but anyways, I'm I'm throwing that out there. But yeah, I you know, being on the learning walks, I'm like hats off to those teachers who really got it cuz yeah, I did see some teachers who just like had it, you know, but it's like how do we get the rest of them up to that and it's you know, and there's more to it than just kids learning to read, right? They're dealing with behavior issues and and all of that compounded. But um
048you know, we're taking it one one step at a time here and And we're we're addressing it by the professional development, the coaching and then also our principals have shared too, just also helping them with the planning cuz it is a lot of a planning and helping them understand how to task analyze, look at the data to put the small groups and what kids should be working on independently while the teacher's working with the small group. And it's not small group two is also tier one. So it's not always students that are struggling. It's meeting students where they are and where they are there in their reading. So some students might be more advanced than others and they're they're pulling groups for different different skills. All right. Okay, so that was the answer to the
049first to that was part one, which is what are the needs that you're seeing that are keeping us from getting there. And then the part two, slide 19 is how can we break this trend? So, to address these needs and break this trend, our focus moving forward is on strengthening that instructional coherence and intensity, right? So, that each student is receiving that strong standard standards-aligned tier one instruction, that we are increasing the effectiveness and consistency of tier two small group instruction, we are supporting teachers in using that real-time data to create those flexible groups, and leveraging coaching, PLCs as professional learning communities, and professional development together to build teacher capacity. Um and and our coaches, with the addition of our third literacy coach, we were able to make more movement here since January because we
050were able to make sure that every K-3 teacher, at least once a month, was seeing one of our three coaches, which is a I think a big deal when you got three coaches and 70 teachers. So, this work is also directly aligned to our move on when reading initiative, where the expectation is that all students are reading proficiently by the end of third grade. So, breaking this trend requires not just our continued effort, but really that sharper focus on accelerating the learning. Uh our next question is, "In-Ra measure 4.3 looks like last year's kindergarten, this year's first grade reading. If our youngest students aren't hitting their early reading targets today, how will that impact our third grade proficiency numbers 2 years from now?" And um we were real just kind of clear. You're exactly right.
051Uh these are our early warning systems, and if our first grade students aren't meeting these early reading targets, we are going to have a gap in proficiency. So, we have to work really hard at those foundational literacy skills. And to do so, that is our commitment with our professional development, our efforts aligned with the state's initiative for literacy endorsements. So, specifically here as you can see here, the crux of move on when reading is exactly that. And so, we need to make sure that we are utilizing our high-quality instructional materials. We have them. It takes time though, and as Superintendent Man shared, we're changing teacher practices. And so, just yesterday we were on learning walks and we were in a beautiful classroom. It kind of parallels a question that was asked about learning walks, but
052the teacher was pulling back and doing some progress monitoring with students, but then she also had students on their iPads, but they were using Amira and she is an AI reading coach. And watching what the students were doing with Amira when the teacher is busy because she's giving specific attention to a child. The kids who are reading with Amira, she listens to them and she gives them immediate feedback. So, one student was mispronouncing the word peered. So, after she finished her sentence, Amira stopped her and said, "Say this word, peered." And it showed like a little monkey like peering around a tree. And then, based on the science of reading, it had a human face modeling how to pronounce the word peered. So, the little girl in her microphone said, "Peered." And then they were
053able to move on to a new sentence. She made another mistake on the word stared. It stopped her. If she wasn't using Amira, she would have been reading on her own not having any idea that she was mispronouncing those words. So, when we think about oral reading fluency like we just talked about with our assessments, the tools, even though they might not be directly with their teacher, they can be getting that immediate feedback. That takes a teacher time though to even trust that Amira is the right tool because teachers like Heather, me, Sarabeth, like we love our things. We worked really hard create our things and to give up the things that we've laminated and stored for years that we have so much value in. We know it. We trust it. We trust us. I
054don't know that I trust Amira. But utilizing this AI tool, I think we have to help to build the confidence and the trust in our teachers. And um you know, next month when we see you again, we'll we'll reference a little bit about Amira and what the data is indicating to us. But it's a change in behavior. It's a change in our practice. So like last year when they were introduced to 95% Group, that was another instructional material that was new to them. So just in the last few years, there's been a a focus on the science of reading. They're going through training. There is a focus on adaptive materials. Oh, we have a new Tier 2 for you to try. It's called the 95% Group. Let's launch that. Oh, and we want you to
055do that in a small group, not whole group. And now, hey, we have Amira. We want you to make sure in your small groups, you embed Amira as one of your rotations. So there is a lot of change. I know it might not seem like we're making enough change fast enough, but our teachers are being very adaptive and they are trying things and they're figuring out how it works best for them. I sometimes liken curriculum planning like cooking. You know, when you make your recipe, you're going to figure out what's going to work well for your family and what's not going to work well for your family. Teachers are figuring out that that out too because they're figuring out what works well for their students. So when we think about what our commitments are is
056really looking at our curriculum, ensuring that everything we're doing is aligned with our state initiatives because we know that there's a reason for our state initiatives. They're grounded in the science of reading. They're grounded in evidence-based instructional materials. So I think that um our continued commitment to that as well as um continuing our cohorts. Our professional learning um professional learning is vital with this cycle. It's not just a sit and get. They learn professional development. They have coaches who also sit side by side during the professional development and then can walk alongside them again when they're implementing the theory to practice in their classroom and we just are going to keep keep working on it and keep revisiting it. Not just saying, "Oh, that didn't work this time. We're done." Nope, didn't work this time.
057What can we do differently so it can work better next time. So, it will take some time, but we do have the resources and we have the human capital to the for the most part to help us support our teachers. Interim measure 4.3 looks part two, it looks like our kindergarteners. What are we going to do? We're going to prioritize that weekly support from our coaches and they have been very flexible with their caseloads traveling between campuses, meeting in person and virtually with teachers in any way, shape or form. I'm strengthening those data conversations. We have a lot of data. It's a matter of helping teachers also learn something new. How do I analyze this data? What does this even mean and how do I plan my instruction because of this this data that I
058now see and then making sure we have those resources that thankfully we have been able to procure. I have a question. As we're learning some of these, I guess we can call them pivots [clears throat] that we're learning and these learning opportunities that we have, what are we taking from here and actually putting it towards when we have like, let's say, our new teacher orientations or if we know that we're going to have teachers that are going to be dissecting data and they might not be comfortable, is there a procedure put in place even beforehand that that could be part of a Creighton teacher orientation? I like I think one of the things that I think a lot of us struggle with is that when we're in this new movement of a framework, we can't
059continue doing the same things. We're going to have to start thinking of what works for Creighton regardless if it's Scottsdale, Osborn, Roosevelt, Phoenix Elementary is it, right? We all have different needs, we all have we're moving in different directions. I don't know many other elementary school districts that have Amira, which I think is amazing. Um so there's a lot of like new awesome things that we're doing here. What are we using as what we're learning to make sure that in the next years when we have everybody in front of us, new teachers returning and new ones, that that's being a set expectation and they're being taught on how to dissect a data or a pretend workshop. I don't know what that looks like, but you know, I love what we've done in the past years,
060but it's been the same repetitive same breakout sessions, same thing. And I I I I appreciated last year's cuz we were a little bit more student outcomes focused governance, but how's that evolving, too? And I know it has a little bit of I'm I'm going down a weird path that's not really directed to this, but it it's kind of intertwined, right? Cuz we keep talking about new teachers and all these things and they don't know what to do. Well, what are we doing to be preventative for that? Uh well, I I can share Dr. Burgess is planning it with uh Mary Twist and CIA, but as usually planning new teacher orientation, but you're this year Dr. Burgess is planning it. And obviously we want to align it to SOFG. And what we had what had
061happened in the past is the new teachers, you know how we have the the Wednesday PDs once a quarter, they would only have their own new teacher training. And I can't remember if it was just this last year we or the year before we changed it where they'd go to all the same content training that all the teachers do, and then the new teachers have a separate time where they're working on things that a new teacher needs support in, like classroom management. Because what was happening before is they were missing all the content stuff and just getting new teacher training. And so we had changed it where they would get the same training as everybody else as we're learning the new content from the different areas. And then they were also getting additional, like after
062school they're getting um new teacher training. But the orientation we're currently in the planning stages for this summer. I would also add, um, President Krio, that it's part of the whole system. So, presently when we think about data, we have our data wise days, our site leaders, um, many of them also do site-based data days that are with outside of that early release time. And as a system, we've just decided that we really need to revisit that professional learning community structure where there is, um, grade level time or content time to be looking at data working as so regardless if you're the new teacher or you're the veteran teacher, what does our data say and what can we be doing to respond data? That would be like an example of a system shift. So, it
063doesn't all just lie on the coaches, um, our our principals are vital to this, our, um, novice teachers bring a new perspective, our veteran teachers bring a new perspective. So, it's the system working together and us helping to create those conditions that allow people to collaborate and either learn their new curriculum or learn how to analyze their data or watch somebody else who has figured it out. Um, our communications team does a really great job after our learning walks, we give them names of teachers that we've seen that we want to highlight so we can get little snippets of teachers in action. So, if you see someone that is also a third grade teacher doing it, you're like, I can do that and now I know someone to reach out to. So, we are always
064going to get better at that, but I think we have to remember it's part of just like a a system shift as well for us to think about how we're using our time. Yeah, and I I think it's important I really want to be abundantly clear. We are not doing the same things we did three years ago. Like, we've been through massive shifts in practice and we're not just taking what Osborne did or what Scottsdale did. We've looked at best practices throughout the country. So, if you look at a lot of the things we're doing, there aren't a lot of districts in Arizona that are doing them and they are intentionally selected based on what we feel is best and most likely to move our students. So, a great example is I don't think you
065could find, you know, a half a dozen districts in Arizona that are using the data-wise process. But, the data-wise process comes out of Harvard, right? So, uh I'm not saying just cuz something comes out of Harvard it's good, but there's there's a ton of research behind it. Uh when we're looking at things like student behavior, you know, we chose the ruler method, which came out of Yale, right? So, and there are some districts like our neighbor Madison's using it. They're having a lot of success with it. There's nothing wrong with looking to a neighbor and saying, "They're having success with this." But, we are not just going, "Let's be this other district." We're cherry-picking the best. Now, when you do that, you are going to have a slow initial ramp up because you can't like
066there's no way for me to run a cable from my head to another person's head and transfer all of my knowledge and experience, right? Um thank goodness for that person cuz it'd be frightening for them. But, um but, we are moving as fast as we can. And right now, while our lagging indicators are still frustrating to us, our leading indicators are looking very promising. So, when you look at our learning walk data from the end of the year, are we Are Are we where we need to be? Absolutely not. Are we light-years away from where we were 18 months ago? Absolutely. And so, I know we talk a lot about this is the end of year three. We didn't even establish goals till the end of year one. And I'm not saying that as an
067excuse, but a lot of the things that have been implemented were either implemented as new inputs last year or they're being implemented as new inputs this year based on what we've seen from last year. And so, um it's really important I just want to make sure we're giving our teachers appropriate credit because they're working hard to implement these changes. We're seeing that hard work in the classrooms, and and it's just not going to happen overnight. So, I don't disagree with anything that was said because I agree with President Corrieo. Like, the kids don't have time to wait for us to get good at this. We need to move as fast as humanly possible. And by and large, I am seeing people work very hard to get better very fast. But, we also need to be
068assessing, and it's part of why this process is so important. We need to be looking at like where are we still seeing seeing stall points and gaps, and then dig back into there. So, how do we give more supports? And that's part of why this year we added the four literacy coaches and separated the literacy coaches from the language acquisition coaches because last year all four of our coaches struggled to do both in in every classroom. Thank you so much. That's also what I wanted to share with when we talk about like the three years. This is the first year that we have coaches specifically for literacy. And that initial year, we still had coaches on campuses. And so, there was a big shift last year where we created those content coaches, and the the
069literacy and language coaches were working with literacy and language across K-8. And now, we have only we have a set of literacy coaches that only are are primarily working with K-3. And at one point, I remember being up here last year talking about I don't remember it was goal three or goal four, but when it We have two different coordinators now, too, for each goal. Um, but we we were talking about the fact that when we sat down and we it would have been goal four cuz we were talking about our K-3 support from our coaches, and it was it was very small because we were spread so thin, and we I don't remember the exact number, but it was a pretty low number that kind of shocked us. We're like, "Oh my only like
070this small number of K3 teachers is getting support." And so, yes, year three of SOFG, but year one and really this is our first semester where we were able to create a system where every single K3 teacher has at least a monthly touchpoint with a coach. And we've talked about how hard teaching is and how many things need to be considered. And also that in with professional development, the research shows it doesn't make a difference if you don't have some support to implement it and that's where our coaches come in. And so, you're right, we're not where we need to be and we also didn't have the support structure um that we that we have been able to develop over time that we're still working on. We had to identify it, request it. The board
071was kind enough to grant the inputs, but then beyond that now, I mean even if you look at this year, one of the reasons it's that particular semester was we needed to fill all those positions and we had gaps in our staffing for that as well, which doesn't make a damn bit of difference because that doesn't help kids, right? Like we can't just say, "Oh, well, we had a gap in our staffing." But we were doing everything we could with the people that we had and now we're in a very different place now that we're fully staffed out. Absolutely. Thank you. Okay. Um Iron Mountain shows only 3% of third graders scoring proficient on DNA interim measure 4.1, the lowest in the district by a wide margin. What is qualitatively different about the school situation
072and does it require fundamentally different intervention rather than more of the same? I have the same question regarding Excelencia for interim measure 4.3. And before we invite the principals up, um some of the conversations we've had with them, um, Sarabeth, Dr. Pombo, myself, our coaches, we were, um, just really wanting to highlight that we need to continue to invest in our teachers and their understanding of the science of reading. We know that we have teachers who come from all different pathways of teacher preparation. And to really make sure that we are preparing them for the learners sitting before them. A weekly coaching support with our coaching cycles with co-planning, modeling, and then reflecting, celebrating. I tried this and it worked, or I tried this and it didn't work, how could I do it differently? Um,
073data-driven conversations, our professional development that we've mentioned before, and, um, we also have invested in our teachers in professional development aligned with the expectations of the reading endorsement from the ADE. Um, again, those are also, um, state-approved courses that we can take and we've invested in preparing our teachers with the, um, the training. And we do have, um, Principal Ledbetter and, um, Principal Earl. Thank you, Principal Earl, here this evening, um, to just share a little bit about their campuses, um, in response to this question. Good evening, um, board members. Thank you for inviting us up to speak. Um, speaking from the perspective of Iron Mountain Academy, we feel the same and we were actually quite disappointed with the data at that point. And so, when I met with the teachers, we talked a lot
074about that and how they had been working towards the things they were learning in the K3 cohort, they were really excited about them and getting additional coaching and data meetings, they felt they were getting more attention to an area that they personally didn't feel strong in. They definitely felt more confident in math instruction, and so, this was an area they One of them intentionally sought it out to be a part of this cohort and set up math this year because of that concern that they had for themselves, as well. So, that changed this year. And then, in addition though, and moving forward to next year though, um of the of the teachers though, one is not returning to our campus, but what is changing to be a different to be a math teacher in a
075different grade level to focus on an area of strength. So, that's an area that they they've reflected on and wanted to make a change with. Um but we are really are looking forward to focusing on students in third grade next year, making sure that we're following up with the data meetings, and also checking in on their own efficacy, their own belief in their learning. So, >> my question. >> That's something I I I feel like we've got to bring the students that I know we're doing a lot of adult work, but I also can't forget that we want to check in on the kids believing themselves. So, that's something I um I'm thinking about for next year. Well, actually I was going to say, um what are we doing I thought you were saying before
076the teachers, I thought, you know, it is hard to get a disappointing outcome like that. And like how are we working on their own efficacy and morale and and combating that burnout in terms of like feeling share that that I I take 100% responsibility for what happens on my campus, that that score is my score. Um that is embarrassing. It's it's disappointing. It's frustrating. It's it's a lot of things. Um and I can I can talk about the challenges of what excellency has been with with three principals in three years. I can talk about having the three staff deaths that we've experienced this year. Um I can talk about the nine mid-year resignations that we've had just in 10 months time. But none of those matter to kids. So, um you know, to to look
077at where we're headed though, I think is important. In the chair transition from Principal Fisher to Principal Guyer, there was a turnover of 17 teachers, which is pretty significant when um when you look at the numbers that are there. Um following year from Principal Guyer to me, there was another 11 teachers that turned over. This year, heading into next year, we're looking at probably between five and seven depending on how a couple of things land as we go. So, from 17 to 11 to seven. To me, that's meaningful because I I do I'm confident that what we need is stability. Can't build on shaky ground and it's been very shaky. So, we need to stabilize. Um we also need accountability. There have been some bad behaviors that have I think um developed or been conditioned
078or permitted to to persist. Uh and this year largely has been marked by combating that and holding people to account. Uh that isn't to say not to support them or to to celebrate them when good things are happening, but to to share a balanced and honest account of saying I'm going to celebrate you when you're doing amazing and I'm going to call you out or if you want to say call you in, I'm okay with that, too. But I'm going to I'm going to say what's happening and and challenge you um to start to adjust your practices. So, as we, you know, to to build upon that stability, I know that we mean need to retain our strongest teachers and we've we've done that. Everybody that I wanted to stay uh with the exception of
079one that that that I did my best and and this teacher was seeking something a little different and that's okay. Uh we otherwise retained everybody that I would have wanted to retain and that's important. Um we're going to continue our work with the teacher clarity playbook. We've It's nine modules. We've done one through four. Um, we'll do five through nine and into next year. We want to maintain our coaches and refine our plan. We did have a chance to speak with them on a regular and ongoing basis, but uh some of you have referenced how important that is to to not uh to build upon what you've got and not necessarily to change and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Hold on a second. Let's see what's working, and let's just make it better.
080It's You know, as the old adage goes, like first you do the thing, then you do it right. And I think this first year, these 10 months, was sometimes was just do the thing. Let me press play on tape and see what our campus um what's happening. So, um some concrete things that I can say that this these these data uh have informed some decisions include um using law and policy and staying within CSD practices to improve performance of all teachers. I want to give you assurances that that is happening undoubtedly, and if you would like to talk more, um I would invite you to campus. I'd be more than happy to share with you to the extent that I can. Um, we've reconfigured our campus to move first and third grade into our central
081corridor. Second grade, if you've been on our campus, is kind of like tucked in the back. Um, and over the course of time, you know, almost like a I guess a version of mission creep and just different uses of the campus, things are are just fragmented. Well, we're consolidating K5, so it's tight and the and the students are closer together and closer to each other, so teachers can benefit from that. Um, we're hiring uh in our our um first grade role, and specifically with the interviews we've had thus far, seeking track record of literacy success, and we do have a candidate identified. It's not a done deal yet, but um I'll I'll come back later, and hopefully I can report to you that we made that happen. Um, we're transferring a 15-year veteran with a
082track record of success in kindergarten and first grade into our reading interventionist role, and I'm excited about that. Um last year we piloted APTT night, which has a history in various schools in the district. We started at a K1 this past year. We didn't start it till late in the year. We're going to expand that uh to include kinder, I'm sorry, to include second and third in addition to K1, and we plan on starting that in the fall. And that's that will be something that involves, of course, being driven by data, but including parents as a part of the process. Um we're expanding I was going to we're we're increasing and this this will be something that as I look at my own calendar and how I spend my time every day, how I spend
083my time every week, needing to monitor and evaluate the implementation of 95% group, which I'm fortunate to have worked with this for years in my former district. So, it's I don't have to build the knowledge base. I just need to to set the tracks for the train to run on and get in my classrooms with that being the focus. Um and then the last thing anyway is updating our plans to ensure our our Eagle Readers are visiting the library monthly. Um it's been a space it's been a used space for a variety of things, but systematically as we reconfigured the rest of classrooms, that that room is the geographic or geometric core of the campus. Um and we'd like we are planning to operationalize getting people and teachers and kids on a systematic and regular
084basis to have exposure to books so that um that's a part of their their weekly diet as well as exposure to books, the joy of books, reading to kids, and kids getting off screens and reading books and being read to. That includes um I know we're talking predominantly about our first graders who will be third graders, but our um seventh and eighth graders just this year the teachers um made made a decision here in the spring to to to do novel studies. Um and some of our students had never read a book, and that's crazy to me. Um some of our our sixth and seventh graders is the teacher went on a leave of absence just 5 weeks ago. The teacher that moved into that spot said, "I know what we're going to do to
085finish this year. All of you are going to read a book." And they just finished The Outsiders, and they're making their graphic novels to to display a chapter that they've read about. If I get a date and time, I'll share it with you so you can come and see what that's like. So, I I just more than anything want to leave you with I take that data to heart. It's my data, and I I won't let that happen again. One way or another, we're going to find out how to get the job done, and we'll get it done. Thank you so much, both of you, for your comments. Um Wow, I I hear the passion in your voice, and I am in awe of everything that you've been able to figure out in that school,
086look at, change, and do everything such in a short amount of time. And I And I'm so happy that a lot of principals are here, because this is exactly where the magic happens. This is exactly This is not you're doing a good job, you're doing a bad job. This is really coming aware to what's happening in our schools, and what we're going to do moving forward to try to change it. And all these ideas, it's not my job to say that's a great idea, that's a bad idea. You're You're the expert of that school, and it sounds to me, I am now convinced that at least in that specific school, you have a plan of how to move the needle. And I think these conversations and these progress monitoring reports, that's what all this is
087about. It's not about us putting putting fingers on anybody. It's like, how are we really coming aware to what's happening, and what can we do moving forward? And I just appreciate everything you said. I appreciate all the work that you're putting into this, because I I know it's not easy. I I I go out, I see, I hear. I know what's happening, and it just makes my heart so happy that you know, we have all the individuals in here that are really trying to get it right to make sure that the only benefit that we have is the babies that families have entrusted us. Because just like you, even though I am not or us as the board responsible for the data, we're absolutely accountable for everything that happens in the system. So when we're
088out in grocery shopping or when I'm at the park with my daughter and a parent comes in from a school and tells me, "Hey, what's going on?" This is where the magic happens. This is where the conversation so I in good faith as accountable of this district can go back and say, "Hey, we're doing the thing. Come watch our board meetings. Listen to the beautiful things that are happening and all the things that we're doing to ensure we're moving the needle for our students cuz at the end of the day that's why we're all here. And I I don't ever want to make it sound like I'm not grateful. I I absolutely am. I mean, I'm the one that does this job without getting paid. All of us do that, right? We don't have a
089dollar sign attached to the effort of the of hours that we do. But we do it because we care about these babies and all it matters is how do we strengthen them so eventually it pours into their caregivers and their families and then we have a beautiful crayon. So thank you both for sharing and I just hope that these conversations like this this is a shining star. You get it A+ star today. This is a shining example of what conversations should be happening. I mean, the centralized that's such an out of sight like out of box thinking and that's what should be happening. Get wild with your thoughts. Do what you can do for your schools to make sure that these movements are happening. I I understand it. We might not get to our goal
090by the end of 5 years. So we're going to have to do it again. But if we're meeting those little milestones, then eventually we'll get there. But if we're not, then it's going to take longer and these conversations are what what happens and sparks that. So I appreciate you and I appreciate both of you for coming up here and being so vulnerable and open and talking. All right. So, the next question was given that we are below target on oral reading fluency and reference to interim measure 4.2 and also early reading composite, which is interim measure 4.3, is there a shared underlying cause such as instructional time, curriculum fidelity, or student attendance that the current strategy is not directly addressing? So, our current strategies do address those underlying causes that we've identified and been talking
091about tonight, including the need to accelerate teacher expertise in the science of reading and also in instructional planning and preparation, facilitation. We also need to continue to explore and provide support to our K-3 teachers with lesson planning using our curriculum resources and implementing that tiered support for students and teachers. And then in terms of the direct question about is student attendance maybe cause, we did We appreciated that question and looked into it and our saw that our average daily attendance in K-3 is the highest of all of our grade levels and each grade level averages at least 81%. So, we were able to Just as a side note, I think that's a fun funny fact because a lot of the younger kids that I talked to, they all talk about how much they love school.
092They're like, I can't wait to go back to school. And that's like almost at every school. Right. So, I find that Yeah. kind of interesting because that's what I'm hearing from these kids. They're like, "Oh, we can't wait to go to school." So, I love that. Um what are some non-negotiable adult behaviors that must be happening in every K-3 classroom right now to accelerate reading outcomes and where are we seeing the greatest gaps in those behaviors? Um we kind of keep reiterating the same things, but really being intentional in our planning, the use of our instructional materials, and utilizing time. Utilizing the time that we have for our instructional blocks, and investing the time in preparing for our students as teachers. Our current strategies in addressing the gaps that we've identified, again, we need to
093accelerate that teacher expertise in being prepared in teaching reading. All right. So, this question is about that second third grade AI reading tutor called Amira. So, only 5% of students using Amira are hitting that 30-minute weekly target. Given that all second and third grade teachers were trained by January 13th, why is usage usage still this low? And at what point do we escalate beyond coaching reminders? So, while there are several reasons that current usage is low, our focus really is on specific actions that will increase implementation and determine when escalation beyond just the coaching reminders is needed. So, our immediate actions are to establish those clear site expectations to help define when Amira occurs, how often, and who is responsible for monitoring that usage within the ELA and the SEI language acquisition classes. Also, to
094move from reminders to accountability. So, make Amira usage a standing agenda item in our professional learning communities and in leadership meetings with regular check-ins on usage data. And to also strengthen those classroom systems to provide coaching support to help teachers build those efficient efficient centers and procedures and behavior management to sustain that independent work so that we can see more examples of what Dr. Dotson shared with us in her learning walk. And then, to align that principal messaging to ensure consistency across all sites regarding iPad use as an instructional priority, not just an optional tool, or you know, not just for games. Not Not for games. And to address those technical barriers, to provide quick support on that microphone use, those are some of the challenges that we've experienced. Um the part two to this
095question is next level support, which really is dependent upon whether or not the grant continues, um which is to integrate into coaching cycles the use of Amira. And to clarify ownership, and this really talks about So when it says identify which teacher or team is responsible for ensuring each student meets that weekly usage target, that's because we have many like walk-to-read structures what in our our district where we have teachers teaching language acquisition minutes and ELA minutes, and they might be receiving those minutes from a teacher who's not their homeroom teacher, so then who like how do we make sure that the lines don't get crossed? Those are the things that we need to uh establish. I think a lot of the things you said earlier, when you spoke about Amira earlier, too, make that
096context gives a lot more I mean, when I asked this question, I didn't have all that context, so it I didn't This is all great information, and it makes more sense having heard the other stuff, too, so. Thank you. Of course. Uh 24% of K3 teachers have not yet implemented database changes from monthly data meetings. What is the plan to reach those teachers before the school year ends? Um again, our instructional coaches have been partnering with their site principals. They have been meeting regularly. We anticipate this data to look a little different in our uh next presentation. And as a district, we are working toward establishing those conditions for professional learning communities, which will also help to elevate the conversations around data. It's a very timely question. So, the SEI scheduling model is identified as
097a barrier to small group instruction. Has the district committed to resolving that structural conflict, and if so, by when? So, yes, master course scheduling plays a critical role in how we structure instructional time across campuses. So, we recognize the challenges of balancing scheduling within the various site models for targeted SEI instruction, and also the need for effective small group reading instruction. So, our curriculum instruction and assessment team is actively partnering with site leaders to refine that, and we just did that today. So, our curriculum instruction and assessment team was working with all of our assistant principals. We were all in the same room today, um working on our schedules for next year. And I was working particularly with two um assistant principals specifically on this um structural challenge. So. Uh Builtmore Prep is dramatically outperforming
098every other school across all three interim measures. This is concerning given the demographic difference at that school compared to the rest of the district. This is also a sign that the guardrails are extremely important to improve outcomes. Um in what ways are we analyzing the intersectionality of guardrail two with our goals to ensure that we close the achievement gaps within our district? And um this board member's interested in um having principals speak. Um guardrail two um for the public, um for those [clears throat] of you here this evening, um is specific to the conditions that we create, and it states the superintendent will not cause or allow conditions, practices, or procedures that are inequitable or insufficient to students. And um we really took quite a bit of time to think about this question, and anchor
099ourselves in what we know and believe, and truly are the core of us here in Creighton. And we want to ensure to you as a board and to our community that high quality instructional materials are for all kids. Every student in Creighton School District has access to high quality instructional materials. We buy them for everyone. Um every teacher has teachers' manuals. So, um everybody has them. Reading interventionists are on all campuses. We do allocate staffing for that intentional tier three reading support. Um there is a district standard for student and teacher ratios, so we are very intentional with the support of our human resources department. Um we have coaching support based on our teacher and our students' needs. We do try to keep our case loads around 16. Our literacy coaches have had a little
100more, um but they have been um good good teammates to us in helping to accomplish our efforts. Um professional development, it's for all of our teachers. We have cohorts where they can choose an area of interest, like we heard Principal Earl speak about a teacher identifying this is an area I want to strengthen my practice in. And we also have Creighton Professional Learning during the early release time, as well as site-based professional development that our principals are really intentional with what they know their teachers need. That is for all. Um and we were recently awarded an early literacy grant for literacy coaches in our highest need schools that would be available to us for uh next school year. And that's a huge shout out, and I really appreciate that grant because if um board members
101don't know the history of the grant is I think, from what I understand correctly, is in previous years it was being done district-wide and we never had this grant. And because we were oh, you know, student outcomes-focused governance, we identified some schools that maybe needed a little bit more support, and voila, we got grant dollars. So, that's just to show how this framework not only is about academics and all these different things, but it really narrows down who needs more the more support. Um, one of the things that they teach us in this framework it's is that those who are furthest from educational justice deserve the most resource and tools, right? So, that's part of the framework and big shout out to I believe it was Emily in the grants department that sought that out
102and had that strategic thinking of like, "Hmm, maybe we should do it a different way." So, I'm I'm really excited for that. Thank you. Oh, and one of the things the team didn't mention here, but I heard it earlier in one of the other conversations is um, when we when we got our fourth literacy coach, we didn't just say, "Oh, good. Now, equally distribute the coaches out to all schools." The use of that additional coach coming on board was actually targeted at the schools who needed the most support. So, again, that's another example of what you were just describing that happened in the course of this year. So, that is a shift in our thinking and focus. Like, traditionally, it's always been about there are nine schools, each school gets 1/9 of everything. Not really,
103it's it's weighted by student count, but um, but we're really looking more at, you know, um, uh, a needs-based approach, you know, where where is more support needed and really looking at each school as an individual. There are certain things that are non-negotiable that need to be provided every school. You see a lot of those in these bullet points here. But, at the same time, you know, beyond that, we need to be looking at how do we differentiate the supports we provide to to meet specific needs. Thank you. Uh, this question is the report shows 90% of K-3 literacy cohort teachers rated PD as positively impacting student learning, but student data doesn't yet reflect that confidence. How do we reconcile strong teacher perception scores with flat or declining outcome data? Uh something that we believe
104I know we kind of sound like a broken record at this point in time on our slides. >> That's okay. We don't mind. Getting the cat out of the bag. >> Um time, practice, and collaboration. And the framework that we really believe will lead to um strong impact is really not just the one-and-done professional development, but a cycle that involves knowledge for their practice, designing opportunities for teachers during their work day to have professional development, to then have the opportunity to collaborate with their grade level, their content, their best friend, whomever, a coach for that collaborative time to really digest it, try it out, get some feedback on it, and then also to have um that community of practice. So that knowledge for practice, trying it out in their classroom, and then really reflecting on
105how did that impact my students, and how did that impact my my self-efficacy? You know, how do I feel as a consequence of of this new effort? So really um this illustration on the right talks about the multiplier effect, and we know with the effect size, it's low effect if we only provide the professional development. But the more opportunity for collaboration, the more opportunity for practice and refinement, you see that it yields a high effect size of um 85% increase in our practices. All right. So many of the planned next steps are geared toward preparing for the next school year. What specific measurable commitments are being made today before the end of the school year? So shifting that like just K3 monthly data meetings to also inform instruction is one thing that um we've been
106able to do this year or in this last semester. Specifically, our coaches have celebrated the fact that those monthly data meetings have better informed the one-to-one coaching experiences that they're having with teachers. Also, working with principals on the Amira usage rates and in order to not repeat the same thing, we just wanted to reference slides 11 through 15, which is where we've been able to talk a lot about these things. Um I see we've identified four high-priority schools, Excelencia, Mono Vista, Iron Mountain Academy, and William T. Mackin, based on data analysis to determine coaching support. Can you help me better understand what that support actually looks like in practice right now, and how are we monitoring monitoring whether it is truly shifting instruction in those classrooms? And um we do have two of our literacy
107coaches here um who have been integral to this shift um in supporting those campuses. So, illustrated here on this slide, we talk about some of the changes and allowing our coaches to work directly with our teachers. Um as Superintendent Man shared, we looked at the data. We didn't just say three coaches, nine schools, each coach gets three schools. Instead, Sarabeth spent countless hours diving in to the data, looking for patterns, and um ultimately, we identified these four high-priority schools, and then we realized that some of the teachers didn't have coach support for one reason or another, or perhaps they were receiving it in another area, but this we saw as a greater need. And so, the really intentional alignment for the need and the coaching support being provided, I think um has been has been
108vital. So, the weekly coaching support um often, the coaching is um focused on planning and facilitating whole group tier one or small group tier two. The coaching support is a full cycle. So, they are working really hard not only to Let's not forget build the relationships with the teachers as they are willing to be vulnerable to share here's something that I I want to figure out in my classroom or can you help me get even better at what I'm already good at. So, that full-cycle gathering data, setting goals, co-planning, practicing this new behavior, reflecting on the new behavior, and doing it all over again. We also heard Superintendent Man say that earlier. Professional athletes don't think I've I've made it. I'm done. Nope, they continue to aspire to get better and better. And I think
109that over time we will see that confidence, but it will take some time. And then part two to this Again, we recognize that it will take time and just monitoring those shifts. The team has been um working really hard too to develop their own relationships. They were all new to each other as well. New to I'm new, Sarabeth is new in her isolated role for literacy, the team is new. So, again all of us getting in sync and getting into the same rhythm of shared philosophy and our commitment to our students and our teachers. Last slide, shortest answer. Yeah, I can answer I can answer this. >> Go for it. Thank you. So, this question is I also want to share that by June I'd really value hearing more directly from principals to understand better
110what their experience this year, what's working, and where the challenges still are. And as we think about strategy for this given the multiple schools we have, maybe we can split them half of the June board meeting, maybe July study session, thoughts. And so, we are in the planning stages to implement this idea. I mean, as you saw tonight we asked a couple principals to come up and as we're planning and working with our principals going through uh show the the evaluation process, we're working to have them come in June, right? We talked about June. >> we're really trying to target that June meeting because we have attempted July study sessions in the past and we've even struggled to get like a short board meeting in in July at times just cuz it's hard to get
111quorum when everybody's kind of spread to the winds. So, if there's a strong desire to do that, you know, we certainly can, but I just have not had a lot of success with it in the past. >> And one thing I'm going to say because I know my coach is going to come back and say something is he always tells me that one month you're not talking about students is the month that you don't care about students. Just putting it out there. That's literally what he tells me, so just saying. Well, we will be here in July, so we are >> [laughter] >> we we will be talking about students if if there is a time that works for the board to be part of that conversation. We're >> Or June, whichever one, but Yeah.
112Um I'm sorry. I know it's good to ask questions and I You know that meme that's like when you have ADD and you do like a week's worth of work in like 5 minutes or whatever. It may have been what happened here, but I really appreciate you answering all of these questions so thoroughly and I'm taking all this time to do that. I mean, it really did help connect a lot of dots and give me a more comprehensive view of things, so I really appreciate it. And we talked about this at our study session last week that, you know, I'll stick to two or three questions. Um If anyone ever wants to come shadow me at work and wants to see us ask different questions, feel free. It'd be fun. Um so, I'm sorry. I
113know I'm a professional question asker, so I didn't mean to go overboard, but I really appreciate I really [snorts] appreciate all the work that y'all put into this because it was clearly a lot, and so I don't take any of this lightly, so thank you so much. Thank you. Board members, do we have any other comments, wonderings, or questions? Ms. Marquez, you don't either? I thought I wrote down a note. Um The only thing that like I guess sort of a a wondering and thought is again, being a parent of a third grader, just kind of and and seeing like her progression and stuff and sitting in these the meetings and going over the progress monitoring reports. Like one thing that I I feel is is somewhat missing or maybe it's not being reported, but
114I feel like there's not necessarily enough like handwriting pencil to paper writing going on and I know that, you know, that is um huge in increasing literacy, letter recognition, and fluency, all that. So, um you know, maybe that's something that maybe on the learning walk can be pointed out to me more. Um but just like in my experience, it it feels like um you know, I feel kids could use more of that and that could, you know, possibly be even be a game changer. Um and I I've probably brought it up in a meeting before, but I'll leave it at that. >> [laughter] >> Uh it's a very timely wondering. I do want to share that we um as literacy as a literacy team and support of literacy, feel similarly. Um it's actually something that
115I just turned around when you were talking and smiled at my coaches because we talked about this last week and actually have tomorrow um we are meeting to develop a plan for this summer um to integrate more of that handwriting into our kindergarten units. So, we're starting the work. We are definitely in line noticing the same things. Love it. Any other comments? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for answering all the questions and don't ever feel bad for overdoing anything, Madam Vice President. I think we got really good conversations out of it and I think these conversations kind of help us, too, because one of the things that we need to be accountable and responsible to is getting better out of our effective questions. So, this is a two-way street, right?
116We can't overwhelm with information and ask all these things or get involved in the operations, but we will and we are working at getting better at asking strategic questions versus the ins and outs of how things work. So, we appreciate you guys also being patient with us. Um we're all learning together. Moving and see, this is not bad. This is not good. It's just a learning curve and we pivot and then we move on to the next, but I really, really appreciate you guys. With that being said, I move the governing board approve progress monitoring report goal four, report three. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. I. Any nays? Hearing none, motion passes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That brings us to item
117six, public comments. And we will start with Brandy Wilkins. And you will have 2 minutes, okay? Thank you. I'm not certain how this meeting normally is set up, but I've been to a lot of different meetings in the past several months. Um I've been to school board meetings. I've been to county supervisor meetings. Anyway, my name is Brandy Wilkins. I am a community member here in the Creighton School District. I do not have children here, but I live directly across from Loma Linda school. Um I guess I'm here to voice my concerns about maybe some of the things that I see happening in our neighborhoods. Um I'm part of also a rapid response group that kind of operates in this area. And um we support and check in on the day laborers over at Home
118Depot. Um we've had several instances recently where um family members have been detained by ICE. Um we have been door knocking and I feel sometimes like I'm screaming into the void, but trying to help some of our families here in this neighborhood. And I would I know that some of the schools have a policy on what to happens if ICE comes to your school, and I know it's happened in this area. Um so I'm just here to express my opinion about um hoping that our district can help prepare maybe the community and the teachers and people at the school um how to to deal with and prepare for potentially that kind of activity in our neighborhoods and how we can help support the children and the families that are being affected by that. That's it.
119Thank you so much. I appreciate it. >> [clears throat] >> Next up, we have Carrie Avery. Hello, my name is Carrie Avery and I'm a neighbor I'm a neighbor here in this school district and also want to express my interest in the school being prepared, all the schools being prepared if there's any extra ICE activity. You know, we already I know last weekend we had ICE at one of our local grocery stores. And how do we get our teacher make sure that all our teachers and our staff feel comfortable and also are able to recognize the signs of students are having difficulty or and also how to talk to students and make sure that all that's clear with our teachers. So just adding my two cents to what Brandy said about really wanting to help
120our our families and our students. Thank you so much. Appreciate you being here. Next we have Phoenix. [clears throat] Hi. Um I'm going to speak about the same things. I honestly prepared this for 3 minutes so I'm going to try and go fast but like please give me some grace. I'm and it's okay Miss Cuates we can give him the 3 minutes cuz I didn't do that in advance. That's fine. >> I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Good evening. My name is Phoenix. I'm a teacher in the Creighton Elementary School District and I'm very happy to say that I will be returning to my school for a third year. Much of this decision is due to the support I received from the Creighton community including my amazing admin team as well as this governing board's
121openness to listening to and acting upon its community members' concerns. I know that I speak for many other >> [clears throat] >> Creighton teachers and staff when I say that I'm very grateful for the guidance the governing board provided to our admin at my school regarding how to deal with ICE activity and what we could communicate to concerned students and families. My admin were able to give all campus staff a basic briefing last year when the current administration made clear they would be targeting immigrant families with deportation. Unfortunately ICE activity has increased drastically since then in ways that directly affected our campuses including my own. This March I witnessed seven unmarked vehicles pull over a car within view of my campus and detain the driver. It turned out the driver was a Creighton community member
122who had just dropped off their student to school. I informed my admin of what had happened and followed training that I had received from Puente Human Rights Watch a local immigrant rights advocacy group which has provided know your rights trainings for Creighton before. While I'm grateful that I have personally done trainings on my own time that allowed me to remain calm and take the appropriate steps, not everyone has those tools tools and experiences um to help them in an extremely stressful situation like that. It is for this reason that I think more transparent guidance from the school board regarding potential staff interactions with federal agents should be considered as soon as possible, including providing the option for different types of trainings to all district staff. There are many local organizations that provide training on topics
123like how to identify different federal agencies, how to interact with and most importantly how to identify student needs and provide age-appropriate resources. A great example of a district that's been providing its uh community with both transparency and resources is Phoenix Union High, which I looked at the agenda. It seems like you already are working with them on something else. I think that's really coincidental and really awesome. Um but they their district's site has a section titled immigrant resources that includes a letter from their superintendent as well as Arizona Attorney General Chris Mayes. Both letters provide answers to questions families and staff frequently have regarding how the district can and will respond to federal immigration activity on or near school campuses. An example of an important type of training for all staff is the ability to
124differentiate between an administrative and judicial warrant. An administrative warrant is not signed by a judge and does not require staff to to allow federal agents access to non-public areas of the school campus. It's important for school staff to know how to tell the difference between these warrants as well as how to talk to and identify federal agents so that well-meaning individuals do not get pressured into complying with actions they don't actually need to but they are most vulnerable students in danger. To conclude, transparent and uniform procedures including consistent multilingual communication to the whole community will not only keep our Creighton community safe when dealing with rogue federal agencies but also strengthen teacher retention. Current staff will be more likely to stay and potential staff will be more interested in joining our community if they can
125see that Creighton has a concrete plan for teaching them how to handle these completely unprecedented, terrifying situations that no degree or student teaching could possibly have prepared them for. Thank Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for those public comments, and Mr. Mann, do you just mind looking into some of the comments that were made tonight? Yeah, and that aligns with things that we've already been having discussions with. Thank you. Um could we put a I mean, given that it was public comment, and um that people are wanting to hear out is there a way that we could put a a reminder date for when we're going to maybe touch on this issue at a at a meeting in the future? I I don't think we can address that right
126now. No, I'm saying we can say that I'd like to hear back on this by this date, possibly. I'm looking at Ms. Suarez, I don't think we Can we have this conversation right now? >> Well, we really shouldn't, because we're not supposed to discuss I'm not asking for a discussion. I'm saying I'm asking She's asking you to look into this. >> Correct. >> you going to bring it back to us with it? I I will be able to give you a date. Um I don't have a date at this moment in time. >> Okay, I just want to make sure that it doesn't get sent into the ether, and that we That's >> not be sent into the ether. We don't have public comments very often, and I want to make sure whoever came here
127understands that it's not getting sent to the ether, and that it will come back. >> the ether. I may understand that, but I don't know that everybody understands. That is what I'm trying to get at. Yeah, I can't give you a date at this point in time, because I haven't talked with our partners about what dates are available, but I will be getting uh follow-up information on when that information will be available. >> And you can add it during future agenda item. That was what I was going to suggest. Okay, thank you. Um that brings us to our board and superintendent reports. We will go ahead and get started with governing board members. Ms. Ayers, I will start with you. Good evening. I don't have a lot tonight. I do want to thank my fellow
128board members and the district's exact team for our study session. I thought we had a really good study session. A lot of good talks. So I was happy for that and I'm just wishing everybody happy last few days of instruction. I know you're probably counting on your hands now because there's not that many days left. So congratulations on getting to the end of another year. Thank you for that update Miss Gibson-McLean. I don't have a report tonight. Thank you Mr. Jones. Okay. I Thank you. Good evening everybody. Three things. Uh Tomorrow we have uh the BPA groundbreaking new school. It's crazy to think about. Uh Two. I was able to attend the Larry C. Kennedy Sustainability Expo last night and it was just amazing to see so many students end of year projects displayed in
129their classroom. I got to talk with Mr. Smart who runs one of the special education classes and seeing those kids work on art and science projects that deal directly with the ecology of the Sonoran Desert which overall I think Larry C. Kennedy is doing a great job in environmental education for all the grades and um I got to see Mr. Roe and three guitar classes from Loma Linda BPA and Larry C. Kennedy performer concert there as well with Mr. Mann and they were phenomenal. [clears throat] So great job to all our enhancements in in school in all our schools, but like let's not forget, you know, how much art and science and all our specials enhance our children's education. It's just what I would want to say coming out of that expo. And then uh
130lastly, just a thank you to all our teachers for working so hard in this last month. We're at almost at the finish line, so thank you for making 25 26 so productive. Thank you, Mr. Jones. Miss Marquez? Hello, good evening, everybody. So, quite a few things. I was able to attend our volunteer luncheon. Hats off to Mr. Ivan Carvajal and his team of amazing CEOs. It was beautiful and I love seeing how um let's see, I I wrote it down. So, this year we have 14,595 volunteer hours. And that's just the ones recorded, cuz I know I didn't record all of mine. And there's quite a few and few other parents probably didn't. And I recall, I think it was 2 years ago we were at 8,000. So, so two Well, last year was 10.
131Last year was 12? Yes. It was 8,000. Okay, but then 4 years ago it was at 8. >> [laughter] >> I've been going to these for a while and they're awesome. So, y'all need to get your volunteer on so you could get to one of these luncheons, cuz it's a You don't want to miss this event. And um yeah, so I mean what that that translates into about approximately almost $290,000 if we hired someone to do that many hours. So, it's amazing and obviously research shows that the more involved parents are, the better student outcomes. So, let's keep up that great work. Um I also got to attend Excelencia's 25-year anniversary and time capsule opening and I was so excited. I took my daughter and really there was just this kind of like air of
132excitement and like nostalgia. Um. Getting to experience that. Um, a lot of people, a lot of fun, some good community partners were there and um, so it was cool [clears throat] seeing, you know, the new principal there interacting with the with the families and also it was really, I think kind of eye-opening seeing what came out of the time capsule from 20 years ago and seeing what went into the current time capsule. So that would be a great conversation. Outside of here to have. Um. I also got to go um, TCA CEO had a had a nice kind of end of year potluck cafecito with volunteers. So interacting with them and getting feedback about PTOs specifically. I know um, you know, we're at TCA we're trying to get our PTO set up for next year
133and and um, you know, I know other schools are as well. Um, Mackin had an amazing, amazing Mother's Day um, kind of like a banquet um, event and I swear there was probably at least a hundred hundred moms in there. So again, hats off to our CEO there, Lucia um, Gonzalez. Her and their PTO team did also a beautiful job and they had a mariachi and tons of food. It was beautiful. Um. I just can't read my handwriting. What else did I write? Uh, I'm sorry I missed the the end of year awards ceremony. Had some family stuff come up, but um, I typically like going there cuz it's really cool to see all the like employees and staff and teachers together and seeing all the the folks get their awards for for, you know,
134many years of service. Um. And let's see. Um. Also, I want to put some uh, some info out. So I know we had a few speakers touch on ICE, and I want to point out that there is a parent and teacher ICE preparedness training that's coming up Monday, May 18th. For more information, go to borderlandsinitiative.org if you're interested in that event. I attended one of those trainings before, and it's great great information for teachers, principals, anybody who's in education or on a campus in regards to what's going on with ICE. So, there's that. And then, um last but definitely not least, um staying in alignment really with um you know, our mantra student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. Um uh reflecting upon our last meeting and our vote on the iPads, I feel
135that um as a board as well as a superintendent, we may have strayed away from our guardrails. And I've had a conversation with President Garrido and Superintendent Mann about that. Um and also kind of take on ownership for my part in it and putting my own convenience ahead of of student outcomes. But it really made me kind of dive into more into our guardrails and how we adhere to those as we're making our decisions up here and working with our leadership team. So, I think you know, I I have a lot I could say on that, but I'm not going to um except for the I think the the one most important part comes down to policy. So, we don't have a good solid policy on um device use, and I think that could have
136really played better into that decision that we made um at that last meeting. So, um again, it's it's you know, I want to make sure that we are operating, uh conducting our duties in a manner that inspires broad community support of and ownership of board policy. So, I think ultimately in my duty where that come lies is is in that part and how we can move forward and make sure that that we're adhering to that. So, um I'll I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Ms. Marquez. Um some good news from today. Um McKin, was it the one the championship? No. Who won the championship? I mean, sorry. Not the championship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, tonight TCA won 72 against McKin and they're going to be going at Camelback to the championship at 4:30 on
137Thursday. So, if you guys have an opportunity to go support our lovely softball players, that would be awesome. I know they love to see all the faces out there. Um so, yay for them. And then I think there was another outcome of who's going to be in the finals from a game today that I don't know information on. Um sorry for messing that up. But, yay TCA. Um also Thursday, yes, I I intended the end of the year's award and that's such a beautiful space because yes, we talk about hard stuff here at the board meeting and I I just want everybody to realize that I a lot of us board members only get one board meeting 4 hours in a whole month to figure out how our decisions will impact our superintendent, our cabinet,
138teachers, and so on and so forth to our kids. So, sometimes that's why these conversations need to happen because it only happens here. We're guided by open meeting laws and there's so many red tape that we can do and this is the only space that we can have honest conversations to see what's going on with our students and how we can make it easier for them. Um [snorts] so, I appreciate it everybody that showed up. I would love to see more individuals our end of the years. I know that award ceremony. I know a lot of us put and our admin and volunteers put so much work into really recognize all the beautiful things that we have going on in the district with our staffs. So, that was awesome. And our study session it was
139great. We took an extra day on a Monday off of a board meeting to go into a few hours of really going honed in on our effective goal monitoring. So we do our homework at the end too. We get packets, we get homework, we have to read, we we have to answer questions. So that was spent on our Monday study session that was recorded. So if any of you guys have any questions on how we got here or the things that we're doing that can be watched live at our board meeting. So thank you for all of those that showed up and for cabinet members, I know that it's not liked when we add on extra meetings, but like I said, we only have a limited amount of time for us to make big decisions
140on how we're impacting our students. Um and with that concludes Just one last quick short thing. I forgot to say I want to especially all the principals that are here. I want to wish y'all amazing summer break and thank you for all your hard work. It definitely goes noticed and I love what you're doing with our kids and I love that you've taken on whatever thing that you take on and following with the SOF G and all that. We're in this together. Summer break. Thank you Ms. Marquez and with that I'll conclude the board updates and I'll turn it over to Mr. Man with for with his superintendent update. Thank you Madam President. I think really I just want to focus in on there's been a lot of recognition opportunities over the last couple of
141weeks. I don't know why they all clustered into the end of the year. It'd be nice if they were spread out a little bit more, but recently we had school lunch hero. I don't know if it's the week or the day. Either way, I do know that our school lunch teams are heroes and they work very very hard and so just wanted to give a shout out to them. In addition to that, we had recognition for principals. I think there was a principal's day and then very importantly last week was teacher appreciation week. We very much appreciate all of our teachers. They're working hard. We talked a lot this evening already about, you know, all the extra you know, I don't want to call them challenges but the shifts and changes to improve student learning
142that they're all having to dig into and yet when I go into the classrooms, I see them digging in hard and and working hard to help make certain that we're improving outcomes for our students. So appreciate them and and want to give them another shout out. Um But also for all of our staff throughout the district. I know everyone's been working hard all year. It's been very warm the last couple of days and so this is a challenging time as we roll into the last two weeks of school. So thank you very much for all of your hard work and we're so happy that so many of you are returning to work with us again next year and that's all I have this evening. Thank you, Mr. Man. That moves us over to item eight,
143which is approval of consent. I move the governing board approve consent agenda items A through N in accordance with policy 1-302. May I have a second? Second. Thank you. All those in favor? I. I. Any nays? Hearing none, the motion passes. That brings us to item 10, which is personnel. It's this conversation will be on the interest-based meeting confirm recommendations and I will turn it over to Dr. Lauren. Thank you, Madam President, members of the board. Uh Mr. Donald. Can we turn the video on, please? The the video? Video. We we don't want to kill the radio star, but we do need the video. >> [laughter] >> Yes. So close. I think he's just messing with me cuz I didn't give him a shout-out for being one of our What did he receive? Administrator of
144the year at our award ceremony? >> [snorts] >> Yeah. There we go. All right. Uh we'll start again. Madam President, members of the board, thank you so much for your patience as we got technology sorted out. Seems to always happen to me, uh but that's okay. >> I don't think it's you. Okay. Uh I'm going to invite members of our meet and confer interest-based negotiation team to come forward. They're going to help with the presentation. Uh they'll introduce themselves when they get up to the podium. Uh As you are aware, we are a district that values our interest-based negotiation process. Uh we've spent some time uh with the governing board talking about what that process is and what it is for our district. Um I do want to remind the board that in January you
145approved the following principles that guide the work that the uh interest-based negotiation team followed. >> [clears throat] >> Uh so, just to remind you, those goals uh guiding principles included alignment with student outcome-focused governance goals, sustainable salary for all staff, sustainable health care benefits, exploring revenue generation options, and adhering to budget recommendations. Uh just a reminder that our board policy does talk about what our interest-based meet and confer process is, and note that at the bottom, the scope of meet and confer uh is subjects that are open that are not limited to wages, salaries, but are not limited to wages, salaries, salary schedules, hours of work, compensation related to fringe benefits, and district-wide conditions of work that are non-instructional in nature. Uh just a reminder of who our team is. Uh the Clayton Education Association
146is designated as one of the um partners in this process in our policy. Uh then the other team members are made up of uh team members selected through the superintendent. Uh we also have a deep bench of support including uh myself, Mr. Shapiro, um our director of finance, Mr. Ruth, my assistant uh Roxana, and uh Lisa Menna, our HR director uh manager. Um we also are very ex- um thankful for the work that our IT department, especially Mr. Donalt and Mr. Pack, uh do to support streaming this meeting process. And then just a reminder, we had six meetings this year, and uh we finished on April 23rd. So now I'm going to turn the presentation over, and we'll start with Oh, this is Oh, we have one more. I have one more. My apologies. Um
147as we go through the process of developing interests and options based on the recommendations that the meet and confer team has, uh the team develops standards to make sure that the standards align to the goals of the process, as well as what the guardrails and our guiding and guiding principles are from the governing board. Uh so, what we see from our standards that were developed this meeting round, uh we had to reach consensus, we had to align to student outcome focused governance, we had to make sure that our options were in the best interest of children, that they were legal, and that they were fiscally responsible and sustainable. So then now I'm going to turn it over. Good evening. Dorothy Green, exceptional student services coach, current secretary of CEA and member of the meet and
148confer team. One of the most important things that we did during the time that we were together is really look at what values did we want to make sure that we are adhering to when we made recommendations and made decisions about options that were on the table. So um multiple times we got into small groups and the the time that I felt was most important and valuable is right before we started working on kind of prioritizing the compensation options and we got into diverse small groups. There were four of them and there were classified, certified and administrative representatives in each of the four groups and we really worked authentically on developing values that we as small groups felt were super important as we moved forward to consider various options that could cancel each other out,
149right? So there wasn't enough money for all the things that we wanted, obviously, and we knew we had to adhere to the amount of money that we were presented with from our resources in the business services department. So we really needed to think about we couldn't do it all. How are we going to decide which things move forward? So really doing that small group work and then looking at where was the consensus and the agreement across the small groups is how we came up with these values that every time we looked at a consideration, we went back to. And so for me that was a super important part of the process that we went through. And I just want to make sure that you guys knew that that we took it very seriously when we
150did that work. And now I'll turn it over to um other members of the team to start presenting some of the recommendations. I'm Amber Wickstrom. I'm the district technology integration coach. Um, the I know the benefits have already been approved, but because it's a package, I'll tell you a little bit about our process there. Um, we know that rising costs of health care has been difficult for everyone. Um, and our insurance, um, in order to keep it from going up more, we increased the out-of-pocket maximum. Um, the district is willing to absorb some of the costs. And we also want to develop a committee that would help educate and learn more about benefits in the district. Um, and there's the precision product that we have adopted that is the $10,000 in PTO and a age
15155 trigger. And the insurance benefits help us keep our teachers healthy and attract and retain teachers. And similarly with the precision product, it helps us attract and retain teachers by being competitive and providing savings to not only the employee when they cash out at the end of their hopefully 55 or more years, but to the district as well. Right. Um, can you go back to that slide, Ms. Shapiro? The one where it says one more. Oh, sorry. Russell, sorry. Oh, Dr. Larson, sorry. >> [laughter] >> Somebody go back. Just somebody take it back. Um and just to clarify, the district will observe all of the $40,000 increase, not just some of that $40,000 increase, correct? Um yes, because it met the budget that had been set aside for when we pre you know, obviously when
152we go through the budget process, we have to kind of like uh try to determine what those increases are going to be. Our budget was adjusted enough so that it could absorb that cost once the teams had decided to make the recommendation to increase the maximum out of pocket. So it was a shared cost with our with our employees. Our employees stepped up to the plate and by increasing that maximum out of pocket, that that will directly affect. But we do have some numbers that'll show we we feel like we kind of came to the table with that. Um and it also was a very high item on our employee survey. So the team felt it was really important. But again, because of our budget process, that's why we were allowed to absorb it and
153also again, only because of those decisions to increase that maximum out of pocket. Okay. And then since we're in the last question that I have and this is more for the team, if they were to ever get have some feedback and saying, "Oh my gosh, that out of pocket was way too much. What do we do?" Um how do we find out if there's a feedback? Do we have some kind of way of making sure that we're getting that feedback back from our staff? Yeah. I mean, actually one of the really exciting bullets on there is that we're developing that committee. That committee will be very interested in gathering feedback and also information that we can share. We know that we are going to have uh medical increases in the future. So, we want to
154really be intentional in pulling that information in and seeing how it's affecting our staff and what options could we have in the future to help mitigate those rising costs that we're looking for the next 5 years of increases every year. So, it's going to be a a big conversation um and that was a huge win for us to uh get to a decision to develop that committee. I think that committee's going to be very uh important in the next couple years. Okay. Thank you. I I would just add that we do get monthly reports from our Valley Schools partners that we look at. I know uh Mr. Piro and myself both get those reports uh and it gives a lot of data and a lot of information that that will be part of the conversation
155that we bring to the committee. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Eve Carroll. I'm the Effective Schools uh program manager, so the grants department. Um So, I'm going to talk a little bit about our working conditions recommendations. So, one of the things that we already have in practice is a work from home option for some of our sped related service providers. This would primarily uh be for psychologists, um but that is something that they work with their site supervisor in order to get approval to do that if needed when it's needed. So, we're just putting that in the agreement. It's already something in practice, but we just put it in the agreement. Um we're including the assistant principals in the efficiency study that includes division of responsibilities. We're um there's an efficiency efficiency study that
156is going to look at our front office staff and make sure that the division of responsibility is where it should be and we're going to include the assistant principals in that. And then we're also going to gather additional information related to the expectations for duties, including breakfast in the classroom across sites for next year's survey. The rationale for these things is that these recommendations aligned to SOFG goals and guardrails by tightening systems and procedures across all sites. And when increasing efficiency and then also it is reducing staff overextension and staying within federal and state compliance. So it's really important that we're uh making sure that we tighten some of those systems so that teachers and staff can really focus on SOFG things without other things getting in the way. Jay, I have a quick question.
157Um has the team been able to be briefed on our theory of change? Um we we talked about it very I did um join the team early in their work and gave some updates on the on some of the work that the board's been doing and that was one of the items that we brought forward to them. But we didn't spend a significant amount of time on it. It was just a quick overview. Okay. We also did some mindset work before one of the meetings. Thank you. Uh now we have several slides that will go over the recommendations as far as compensate or the compensation package. Um the first two have to do with the um pay for performance plan that I believe you just approved during consent agenda. So um the adjustments are for
158the certified amount to go up to 4,500 with an additional um thousand that can be achieved through reaching SOFG goals. And then uh an increase of the classified from 500 to 1,000 with those the classified staff also having access to additional funds pending SOFG outcomes. Uh an additional compensation recommendation has to do with adjusting the market demand. There's a market demand one and a market demand two related specifically to special education staff. And the recommendation is to increase the market demand one that applies to resource teachers and developmental preschool teachers to $10,000. It's currently 4,500 and then for the level two which applies to the regional program staff so the self-contained programs and they're listed there pace rise drive stars and places that amount currently is 7,500 and this recommendation is to raise it to
15915,000. Good evening members of the board. Ivan Carvajal your director of community education and outreach and I will continue with the rest of the the recommendations for compensation and so on. The next slide you're going to see that one of the recommendations also include the certified schedule repair. This is very important because it will help with compression and I know that my director by the board we have been working in compression but not fully solve it so this will be something that is will be critical in bringing those new hires that are being paid too close for those experienced employees and and prevent those further compression issues. Same with registered nurses schedule repair and the years of service of all certified and classified employees. This is a very important to address because as long as
160we want to be competitive we want to attract attract new talent but also we want to retain those who have been given a lot of years of service in our district. The next recommendation includes the assistant principals extending their contract and this is with no increase to pay just adding two additional weeks of work for for their contract year. Another thing that it came through the stories that we hear from the members that we represent during the process is that we have some of our 30-hour classified employees that sometimes, as we all get excited to be on a break or on a holiday, they don't get that excitement because they don't get that those paid holidays. And so, when they come back out of the holiday, their check is shorter, and then that furthers put
161them away into wheels and other things. And so, as we hear that, we were able to recommend or to find that at least 3 days of holiday pay to be to those groups of employees. Because we value what they what they do. Another thing that is in alignment to achieving our SOFG goals is having district subs. And the district subs are crucial because when our teachers are sick or they have other commitments, we need a reliable sub to continue that continuation of high-quality instruction. And so, we know that our district subs were we like solely on on them to provide that service, and we know that we want to stay competitive, so they don't go to other places. Um As we are continuing with inflation and everything being super expensive for everybody, every employee, we
162were very conscious about the big priorities, but also ensuring that everybody will get some sort of a incentive or stimulus into their base salary. And so, the recommendation was with the leftover funds, at least 0.79, and you may be wondering why that number? Because it was the number that was left to to provide. Of course, if there are other priorities that the numbers are less, then we like that number to be increased. There's one group of specific that you're going to see singled out in this page, which is educational secretaries, and to extend their contract from 11.5 to 12 months. I I closely with this group in Brussels, too, and this is the um one position, I think, that is responsible to accurately tagging in our system all of our students based on their needs,
163whether they belong to specific demographics or specific service. Uh and thanks to that properly identification of data, that's how our district receives allocation of funds. And so, the work of the educational secretary to ensure that there's accurately data recorded on time, so we get those funds to continue to provide services to our students. It's critical. And so, we believe that fighting the decline in enrollment and ensuring that they are there to provide the excellent customer service that they do will attract more students and more families and more funds to our our district. Uh last but not least on this slide is uh we know that as part of our SOFG goals and guardrails, we know that our most fragile students are our special ed students. And sometimes we're not competitive enough and we have to
164rely in contracted services. And so, hopefully by increasing the $5,000 to the base salary to the psychologist, we're going to be able to retain the ones that we have and attract uh uh other fantastic um psychologist. The next series of slides are going to be a rush I have a question. Can we go back? Yes. Um as I just wanted to go back to the point 7.9% for all employees. That's just like a um that would just be a pay a base pay increase, is what you're saying? Correct. And I know that you said that it had to do with kind of what was left over. Was that Were there other things discussed for that amount of money? I'm just thinking about, you know, depending on your base income and your tax rate, like how
165much worth it that is. And I'm not trying to like make a judgment call here. I'm just curious what conversations were had here and if this was like how we landed here for like the best possible use of that money. Well, as you can see in all of the recommendations, different groups, the most of that need the most which is our classified employees, they get a lot of benefits in in here, the teachers. And then we want to make sure that we appreciate and value all of the employees and so make sure that the 79% to all employees include the three groups of employees. And so yes, the money can be used for other priorities, but based on the stories that we receive based on the priorities collected on the survey that we put out
166for all of the employees, compensation keeps being the number one thing. And we all feel on the food prices, gas, as part of the rational that I'm going to give you is that um you just receive information from Sarabeth and director of curriculum Dr. Kim Karents that our teachers are concentrated on the science of reading. Well, sometimes they don't have enough time in the day because their salary doesn't stretch to all of the things and so they have to have a second job. And so what we're trying to this extensive and creative compensation packet is trying to bring the help to those groups of individuals and make sure that whatever we have, we put those resources to those individuals. And if I could add and I'm just setting up a prompt for Ms. Shapiro, but
167member Ayers actually asked the question the other day about, you know, when you look at this list, you see 0.79% there. This is not just a 0.79% increase for employees because that's one element in this giant list. And so I know I know Ms. Shapiro spent some time today looking at some of these pieces because if I understood correctly like certified schedule repair for a lot of the teachers is I think you said something like $332 of an increase just from that certified schedule repair. So, I know you prepare >> One tiny piece of it. Yeah, one tiny piece. So, but when you start to put all the puzzle pieces together, this become this adds up and becomes a bigger number. So, um do you opening the floor for you to share anything you were
168I know you were scrambling to pull some numbers together. >> you know, I think I actually was able to effectively pull those numbers, but I I want to defer to the meet and confer team. They put together great presentation. They know that I have some additional data and I'll be happy to share that when they're ready for me to do it. >> Okay. Sorry, I didn't realize it was integrated. I have another question, too. And I think I know the answer, but I just want to point it out. So, um the $10,000 for resource and the $15,000 for um our other programs, which I'm assuming are self-contained >> Self-contained classrooms. And then the basic increase for psychologist. Um this is a cost savings, correct? Because then we will not be using the hope. Correct. Like
169a big cost savings. Is it a cost savings? Uh you know, we know that we spend um a little about a million dollars more than we would spend if we had employees. And these are strategies that we're attempting to see if these will make the difference because the the amount of those are minimal compared to uh moving away from some of those contracted services and then having them come in as employees. So, we are really hopeful. The team came up so with some strategies. This was outside of the meet and confer dollars because we're hoping for um kind of like our transportation um expansion. Uh we're looking for innovative ways to put money in that pays for itself. So, the intent and hope is this is will hit pay for itself. We will watch it
170very closely. We will be gathering that data. It's part of the data that we monitor, Um and it'll be a data-driven decision. And then hopefully we can report back that it was some success there. Thank you. Well, fundamentally if nobody bites on it, right, then nothing changes. So there's no cost. And for each person who bites on it, it sounds like it's will generate a cost savings while also improving the compensation of our staff, right? Right. Yes, and I just want to also want to add that in the past year we have brought to the board tier raises or 1% for everybody the same. And we have here the feedback and and and the stories again to address the multiple concerns. And so this year we'll really make sure that we look deep into the
171SOYG goals and different strategies to attract and to provide the achievement for those four goals and all all of the guardrails. And so the the next uh slides, and if you have any questions, please stop me. Um the rationale for uh As I said before, uh the biggest goal is to ensure that the compensation really uh by increasing the merit paid, we are aligning the staff efforts, tying it to financial incentives to ensure that everybody is involved in working together to achieve those four goals and all of the guardrails. It also uh creates collaboration because if I'm a teacher and I'm or I'm a crossing guard or clerk, I may not work directly with the students, but knowing that now there's going to be an incentive attached, I'm going to be more interested in knowing
172about SOYG and what's my role and my part and what influence do I have to achieve those. And that creates uh the conditions for success and shared vision that we need in order to achieve the goal for 2028 uh all of the all of the goals. Um the talent strategy is com- com- competitive merit pay, including the proposed $3,000 recruitment retention stipend. Um and you guys just approved it, so thank you for that. And it's uh just like you hear um Mr. Lodato saying the 17 teachers between the transition in principles and all of the ones that he's going to have to hire. And so, making sure that we have a strong compensation package, merit pay, performance pay, uh it creates the stability in the classroom in order to continue advancing uh the achievement and
173the proficiency. Um the salary compression, as I said, for years we have been working in making some gains in the compression, but really, really going deep, and kudos to um finances department and our assistant superintendent, Vanessa Shapiro, uh because it is a massive and very laborious thing and solution to create multiple salary schedule repairs that really ensure and look down into each one of our employees and saying this employee needs to make this amount compared to that one, it's it's amazing and laborious. Um >> [clears throat] >> we also want to make sure that by fixing the years of experience, we are sending a strong message to our teachers uh who are dedicated and have long-standing and long-term commitment here in our in our district that we value their experience. And we also want to
174make sure that we stay competitive so they don't that talent is not stolen by other districts, and they also help us recruit other friends that they may have in other districts so we can get those excellent teachers to continue our growth. Um and if somebody's listening and looking for a new district to work, Clayton School District, please come and work for us. We're still hiring. Um >> [laughter] >> How to Um we want to make sure that um by the 0.79 uh uh salary increase. It's a strong message also that recognizes the rising cost of living and promotes equity for all staff. In that way, if there's an incentive of being able to pay your bills with one job, not with two or three, then the rest of the time you can concentrate in classroom
175excellence. We also We discussed earlier the strategy for the market demand for our most fragile students and most in need of special ed students. We want to make sure that we don't rely so much into contracted services, but we attract those great special education teachers so they can be part of our community. I already mentioned about the great job that the educational secretaries and the importance of their data and how they help us gain more funds and properly identify all the students that are critical to get title funding and grants. And the next part is Dorothy. So, we didn't set out to have a 0.79 raise, as you can well imagine, and there definitely were We got again into small groups and we worked on different recommendations for packages, some of which included higher percentage
176raises, but if we had gone with those, it would have meant that some of these smaller items that are earmarked for specific groups within our district would have had to have been left out. I know it doesn't feel super satisfying to advertise, "Hey, you guys, we got a 0.79 raise." I don't like it, either. I wish we could at least get to a 1 or a 2% raise. And we also wanted to make sure that we had full consensus. and the the process that we went through made sure that everyone had a voice, and we were all in agreement at the end to this package being what represented the most equity across the entire district. We wanted to acknowledge that all members of the Creighton School District are valued and important, and we wanted to
177fix some of the things that were specific to certain groups, and this plan does that. And one of the things that um Mr. Man just um talked about Vanessa being able to do was to look at it's not just a 0.79 raise, right? Nobody's just getting a 0.79. Everybody's also getting those other things, and then when you do all the math, it ends up being a higher percentage raise overall. That's not how it looks on paper, but when you do the math, that is the case. This particular slide shows you how much each of the items cost, so you can imagine um you know, we did look at some of these costly items and say, "Wait a minute, maybe if instead we don't do that, we can give a higher percentage raise." But we looked
178at all the options, and we also wanted to set up the district for a good space moving forward. That was really, really important to us, and that's why the schedule changes and the years of service changes needed they they need to take place in order to build a foundation that we have to build on moving forward with more consistent raises that are equitable across the board. Right now, because of how we've um kind of had to piecemeal since all the way since 2008, probably even before that, trying to get as much money in people's pockets as we possibly can, we did some creative things with salary schedules that have um I'm surprised she doesn't have more gray hair, but have Vanessa should look like me and have lots of gray hair, because she has spent
179hours upon hours trying to figure out, "Why does this person make this? And they're the same job title as this person who makes this? And how did all of this happen? It's insane." So, um really fixing some of this gives us a good foundation for moving forward with being able to be equitable in the raises. Now, that being said, if some of the things come under cost, we did all agree as a team that any excess money within the 750,000, cuz we were being very responsible and staying under that or at that amount of money, but any amount that can go towards the raise for all, that's where any leftover money was intended to go. So, they can get us to a 0.83, or you know, a 1.0 would be amazing. If anybody wants to
180give us more money, I'm sure we would be excited about that. But, to stay within our 750,000, this was the package that we all came to consensus on and agreed upon. And then, our next steps. So, May 12th, we are make bringing the recommendations to the governing board. Well, sort of. Not in the study session, but here. Uh that changed a little bit. And then, the next step will be um CEA will incorporate this into the consolidated professional agreement plan, which will need to be um provided to the lawyer to um look at, as well as approved by members of CEA and other employees for feedback. Then, you guys will be presented with the final draft on June 23rd, in case there's any little things that lawyers change. Um and then, we'll be able to
181approve the salary schedules based on this information. And then, we're available to answer any questions you might still have. And um whenever you're ready, if you have questions for the team, do you want to do those first? Or I know Russell has my document that I put together today. I'm sorry, it's kind of raw. It's spreadsheet. We love the spreadsheets. Um but just wanted to make sure before I jump into that. Go ahead and then if we have any questions, we can move forward with that. Sorry, I thought you you were going to pull that up. I've got it. >> Oh, sorry. Okay. Oh. Do um Joel has it. Okay. If we want to make that big. I think I put it on 150. Um so as the team talked about this year was I
182think one of the most interesting 16 years that I've had uh with meet and confer so far and I didn't think that could happen. Um I really thought smooth sailing year three. Uh but I really want to also thank the tremendous efforts of the compression and com um compression and compensation committee. Um they were the ones that were able to look at my work initially and tell me am I on the right track cuz it was a lot of work and a lot of hours and just a lot of just just trying to get it to that place um that we can move forward and have a nice foundation just like Dorothy said, um that allows us to go into these conversations and and real a big goal of mine is to have this data
183historically given to the meet and confer every single year. Um it's consistent. They're able to um we can all understand what it is uh at this point in time with the uh schedule repair and the compression problems. It is a layered approach. There's no way when you have a compression issues in a district to fix those in one or two years. It is a multi-year always keep an eye on the ball kind of problem. Um you make it a lot harder for yourself if you don't present that information consistently, transparently, and in a way that your meet and confer teams can have real power to say, "Oh, this is it we need to bring this all up." Or we need to bring this all over. Or you know, have some um strategic ability to do
184that in a timely way. This year we ran pretty long with this data because it was just so extensive. I mean, I overloaded that team and I really appreciate their patience and they're just honest feedback to me as we went through the process because I needed to show them how complex it was but give them choices at the same time. It is not me saying this is what we got to do. It is that team taking a look at all of the work and saying this process is is the right way you know, with with that support and that information. So I just I as always it's a challenge and we have lots of good conversations and talks but the one thing that we held really true to was that budget and how much bang
185for our buck could we get and help these groups and everything that they told the story for. So I'm really excited about this. I'm so glad that this request came forward. We we've been struggling to get a communication piece for this really tricky year and I think that one of the things that everybody's eyes go to is that point 79 and I want to reassure our staff that that is not that is the the piece that was left over and we're like we need to make sure that we have wall-to-wall all staff are being recognized in some fashion even as we take care of these problems. There will be more schedule repair. There will be more compression in the future but we did take a big chunk out of it this year. So when we
186look at our employee categories, one of the things that we're doing is getting to a consistent measure of what groups look like and we're basing that now and in the future to our salary schedules. Those groups are nice and clean. They stay consistent. We know exactly who is in that group and how much they cost. In the [clears throat] past we kind of made our own groups and I was having to do a lot of what let me pull these guys from over here and these guys from over here. That's how we created some of the um process One of the processes is to create the 1%. It's not to say we're going to do a 1%. It is a mechanism to just do some math so we know how much things cost and we
187can kind of gauge it. Um so in this case uh after um all of that work um the things that these percentages include uh are those schedule repairs which um were pretty extensive for our certified staff. Um last year we gave our certified staff a years of adjustment. Um it didn't translate as well as we would have liked it to because when you do a years of service adjustment, not everybody's going to get one. And so we have some uh intentional actions we'll be taking this year to make sure people understand how their pay is being affected. I'll talk about that at the end. Um so this year the years of service adjustment um we tried to apply that throughout the rest of the schedules. Again, some of the schedules are a little trickier and
188we're going to need a little more time to work on them. It just wasn't possible to accomplish it in the one year. Um so we'll continue to do that. Um it also includes the performance and merit pay which we kept holding off on because we weren't sure um if we were going to get our 70% approval. Um so all of those items um are being included. So for our certified regular ed uh group their minimum percent increase with all of their Oh, I do want to say also not included in that are the additional dollars for um as we wanted to create curiosity and um influence people's thought process through SOFG and and that parallel processing. Um that's why we added those additional dollars. Those are um goal-driven dollars and it's a additional thousand dollars
189for uh certified staff through the performance uh base pay process. And it is uh, additional two hundred dollars. Those numbers are not included here. We don't know ahead of time where we're going to fall with our goals and, you know, so we just that's out there, but I didn't want to put it in these numbers. Um, so this does not include that. So minimum uh, percent increase for our certified regular staff is 3. 04% and max is 4.47. So you can obviously see it's a lot more than 0.79. That 0.79 is included in there. Um, it's a little bit more and again, this is the work of the committee and this is why each of these percentages are so kind of all over because each group needed different types of repair. As I said last
190year certified got the years of service, else their percentage would be higher. Um, this year it's uh, greatly based on their um, schedule repair. But a teacher in this district next year the least amount that they would get would be 3.04%. Um, and then going down our our hourly educational support staff, I know that that's been really important to us. Oh, you know, I do want to I do want to say something about that, too. I put some stats down here at 3.04%. Um, there are 17 teachers that sit at that lowest base. The rest um, and there's about 180 FTE throughout the district for those. The FTE some are like 0.5s here, so there's more people than FTE. Um, but of those FTE 17 are at that base, so they're at that lowest amount.
191The 163 are more. Can you remind us of the base? I'm sorry. Uh, the base is um, 50, it was 50,000. We're increasing that to 50,863, I believe, for regular ed teachers and it's slightly higher for um, our uh, STEM teachers. I think it's 51. I can't remember what uh, that ended up being. But last year we had that great accomplishment to get our salary schedule lowest amount that a teacher could make was 50,000 starting and then with their education and years of service they can move higher up into the schedule. [clears throat] So when we talk about that base, those increases are throughout the schedule. So if you add 500 to that, it 500 is going into the rest of the schedule also. So everybody's getting that. Again, it's it's a lot of stuff
192that I think we'll be able to bring to the board in the future and just it'll be a lot clearer, a lot less complex and um uh more concise. I know this is like a uh extreme question, but hearing the this the increase, I think it was like you just said like 800 or so dollars, right? Was there consideration of how that increases in the in the income tax bracket of 10% because of the $50,400 takes you from 12 to 22% in your income taxes? I I'm just making sure that people are aware of that. >> sure I don't give any tax advice and that's not my role. >> But what I'm saying is like I'm I want to make sure that people are thinking about those things and what impact that has on what
193people are taking home. Right. >> And and I think that's a big deal, especially when we're talking about every penny counts. And so you could be taking home less even though you're making $800 more. And I just want to make sure people are like, you know what I mean? So that's kind of where my brain's been. I've been like doing all this math and that's why I asked the question I did about the 0.79. And for some people it's going to mean they're taking home less money than they were before. And I think it's a good point to clarify as we're making these things cuz yes, I know we don't give tax expertise or we're not tax attorneys, but it's also important for our staff to know that if they're doing this, I don't want
194them to have this thing of well, now I'm making less money, what happened, right? It's all on tax and to each its own, everybody's meant supposed to know their own salaries, but I think as we're making these changes, I think are there good conversations of what unintended consequences look like just because we're putting out numbers and saying, "Oh, look it, we're giving all these increases." And then it bites some of us in the butt, which to each its own, I just We We do We do have mechanisms for staff to be able to mitigate that. So, as public school employees, all of our staff have access to the 403b program, which is pre-tax dollars. So, you know, my what I would guide staff members to do, and I have shared this with staff members, is
195to take a look at those things, work with whoever your tax professional is, or if you don't have a tax professional, find one of the nonprofit groups that supports people, because you might be able to put $1,000 away into a supplemental retirement account and actually reduce your tax burden in doing so. So, we we do have all of those mechanisms. Um it's just, you know, it's sometimes difficult, even though we make those recommendations to people, to get people to understand how critically important it is um as a benefit to them to be able to take advantage of those things. We have some communication pieces and, you know, I'll take that in consider consideration of something that I feel comfortable sharing. Um I It Each person's individual tax scenario is so different. It's very hard to
196give blanket advice. Um but we can, you know, always refer people to their uh tax advisers um to determine how these increases could affect them and strategies. And And we definitely have access to um those TSA providers, and they're very happy to help people with tax savings and um setting up those uh accounts that we're eligible for as public school employees. Yeah, and and I don't think it's the direction of the board to go out to every person and make sure that everybody knows what's going on with their taxes, but I do think it's a good message to have when individuals or we're speaking of this this could be a possible unintended consequence and then it's up to them to figure out if it impacts them or not, right? But I I think it's also
197good conversations to have and while we're in that subject, too, I think wording and how we're messaging certain of these stipends are going to matter a lot because just recently I heard you know, with these incentives it will get people to be more they didn't say bought in, but they said something along the lines of to get them more into SOFG. We want them to be curious. There are some Our crossing guard who comes in for a half an hour a day, works before and after, is very little on our campus, is not getting our SOFG message unless they're coming to our board meetings or coming to our community events. And so I think when you have something that touches your pay, you want to understand it. For most people, that was definitely something that
198that we were interested in was to get more people to to be curious and to want to dive in. We want every single person in our district to have an understanding and I just don't know that that's really happening across the board. I think we are catching our big groups. I know our teachers are are more informed, our principals, our executive staff, but we need to reach every person and cascade that information out there and I think this is a method. It's just a tool. It's a layered approach. Which I don't disagree that everybody should know, but I I am going to push back on putting an incentive on getting people curious on an expectation that has been set by the governing board. Absolutely. >> That to me doesn't translate well. So this is why
199I'm saying that the wording and how we're letting individuals know in our system that it's not let's throw more money at you and you become curious about an expectation of a district. It's this is the expectation and ask you start meeting these certain things and then I believe it is our job meaning admins, teachers, or whoever is responsible for that realm to make sure that every staff member is receiving the expectation of the district and not the other way around. I do but not believe it is the employee's responsibility to become curious about something that has been implemented and is a non-negotiable. It is our job to make sure that we're bringing everybody a par to what the district's doing. So, I think there's a communication disconnect there and I just want to make sure
200that we don't get in the habit of doing exactly what is was stated in this board meeting that we want period of people curious. No, this is expec- expectation when you come into the district. How do we help you understand this more versus well, maybe we'll have these extra dollars and hopefully you jump on board to what we're doing because that's what it's sounding like and I don't want to I don't want to go back and forth, but that's just what was said and we can replay the meeting and I just want to make sure that when we're actually having discussions, that's not being conveyed because that's also a false representation of what this work is. Absolutely and I appreciate that input. >> though? Isn't it won't that be very like like spelled out within
201your paper performance handbook? Yes. Like that like that But ultimately as as um Madam President, I appreciate those comments and I agree and it's really hard in these settings like you said to communicate this effectively when we know the other things that we're doing in the background to reach every staff member. So, as I said, it's a layered approach it and and I'm absolutely open to communication just some guidance if there's another way that we can communicate that in a way that I think touches that that's not our expectation. We're not saying But I can see how that looks that way as we're presenting it in this one single forum. So I you [clears throat] know, I'm I'm very happy to communicate this in the best way possible to ensure that everybody understands that there
202is no one part of our budget that's SOFG. It's the entire budget. It's every dollar that's up here is a part of SOFG. We were just excited to to be able to showcase some of those areas. And and I I get that it gets in writing, but what we're saying needs to match what we're doing. And sometimes if we're saying other things or pivoting or painting it in one way, it can contradict what's actually being implemented in documents or whatever. And that's what I understood it was the communication to the employees about that. And if I'm to understand correctly cuz this is what happens in ours is that it's literally spelled out within the paper for performance handbook cuz they have their own like handbook. And so that's like literally in there and like they
203have to present that to the staff at the beginning of the year. Do we have something like that already? Uh we'll be developing it now that we have a plan. So we do have information in the plan that was proposed and the previous version of the pay for performance plan was not very detailed. So what I've been committed to and working on is additional information to make sure that it's communicating what we need it to communicate. Okay. There's there's a number of corrections that were put into place this year for our pay for performance plan because there some of those components frankly were missing. And so Dr. Lauren and Ms. Shapiro have been working with the teams to ensure that moving forward we're not only hitting all of those components, but that we have all
204of the necessary pieces and parts. I just like to add that. I did mention that the tying to the incentives, the expectations, just like you say correctly, the expectations are clear and they're not negotiable. And it's our responsibility to communicate them, to inspire people, to explain them, and to make sure that they understand their role into the biggest system. But one thing that we know about the framework is the adults' behaviors. Students' behaviors don't change until the adults' behaviors don't change. And when we're trying to change behaviors, we try to have incentives to promote that that change of behavior. Sometimes it's praise, sometimes it can be incentives that are monetary that will help you have a better life and less other part-time jobs and have more time into the classroom excellence. So, that was the
205the connection of the point that I was trying to make. Sorry if I misspoke or gave a different impression. Yeah. Yeah, I I don't I don't trying to get into some philosophical discussion, but I think like in general we're talking about pay for performance. And when it comes to the incentives, I get what you're saying about the expectations, and I get what you're saying. And so, in my mind I'm thinking like if we're if we're being real about how this plays out in practice and in real life, like there's going to be some element to this that involves something that's that involves the word incentive and like I I I think that's just natural and expected. Yeah, it's human behavior, right? I I I I understand that. That's psychology 101. Um it's just getting to
206the nitty-gritty, making sure that it's not just this added-on expectation cuz with the way that things are looking, who knows if we're going to have all extra funding coming these next two, three years. So, just as as long as that because just as we're pivoting to making all these great decisions because of the amazing budget stewardship that we had the last few years, things could escalate very quickly and roll back, too. So, as long as we're just making sure that this is great. We're we're I'm so grateful that we even have the dollars to be having these conversations, but that may not always be the case, and SO G is a non-negotiable when it comes to that, like learning and making sure kids are moving the needle. Budget is always Yes, if we have it,
207cool, and if we don't, then we're still going to have to do the work. So, I just want to make sure we're not combining the two and making this expectation that as long as SO G is around and as long as you're working and curious about it, you're going to have all these added on whatever it is, whether it's incentives, stipends, whatever. It It doesn't have to directly be dollars. I just want to make sure that because this is a new process, it doesn't become this, you know, narrative or expectation. And I appreciate you putting out in your raw PowerPoint that it's not including that there because it gives a more realistic picture of what that what that is these percentages are. Yeah. And um but, you know, I think, too, we'll have to message
208this appropriately, and I'll I'll talk about that a little bit, too. But, um uh I want to go to the hourly ESP. I know that we've had um a big focus on these We showed you some of that years of service. Um I I almost got to It's just uh uh horribleness? I don't know. Uh 30 years and I'm making $16 an hour. Uh we all felt that that was an immediate and a crisis. And so, we wanted to really lean into that. Um and so, those years of service, though, it's interesting because some of those people, like a crossing guard, um their percentage uh including with that 0.79 and their 500, it ends up getting them up to that 2.8% but they're very part-time. Uh so the percentage is it looks um like it
209looks. And then that maximum is a 4.67 almost a 5% for our hourly ESPs through that schedule repair and years of service attention. So we're going to continue to do schedule repair with them. It is not completely fixed for um our hourly support personnel. We're in the in the process and we'll move right into it next year in our other committees. Um we are looking at job function, responsibility, uh ensuring that those are in alignment so that we have career paths in our district. You should be able to do what I did. I started my career as a duty aid at a school. I'm now the assistant superintendent. So there are career paths out there for people who want to grow and we want to make sure that we support that. If somebody's a crossing
210guard and their goal is to be a teacher and be in our classroom and make that difference, we want to have a pathway for them and we want to support that. So that's the other thing that that having these good schedules and then having good compression work, um it allows you to align those job responsibilities properly. We're doing a lot of work with that and we'll continue to do that this year. Can you explain or tell me a couple examples of an exempt salary educational support personnel classified staff? What kind of uh okay. >> example? Let's see. >> Office manager. Office manager. Oh, the position itself. >> Thank you. Okay. >> Okay. I I I also was asking that because it has the lowest minimum average increase and the highest maximum average increase and I'm
211just what wondering what's going on there like It is so individual because we had some people who were very um out of alignment and hadn't had those increases. Got It just depends on when you started working. Um it it's so individual and and that'll be interesting as we move forward to to communicate that. I also want to point out that um longevity is a big thing in this district. They've we've done a tremendous job. I really um give a big shout out to the committee for doing that work in the past that I came into this. Um so uh at this point not including longevity, 67% of our hourly staff make $20 an hour or more. But we also need to make sure that we include space and we told these stories when we were
212in meet and confer. There are some staff that that don't want to move forward. I mean, their their life needs to be supported in a certain way and we want to pay attention to that cuz we want everyone in our community to have a place here in Creighton. So, if you want to be a crossing guard, you can be a crossing guard and be at that income level and it's something that we were talking about just earlier with the taxes. There's other types of benefits that you can get based on your income. We were very intentional about that. Our goal is not to overprice people out of the things that they can get, but we want to allow our staff to have choices. I I personally know several um duty aides. I don't know why
213I keep going back to duty aides. I just think they're kind of under underappreciated sometime and crossing guards. Um I know a duty aider was a duty aide for 30 years and she never did anything else. That is all she wanted to do and she was the best duty aide I ever came across. She knew every kid by name. I it was just it it's fabulous. So, we want to make sure that our educational support personnel have choice in those personal choices. And we we believe we've kept that space for them to choose the path they want to choose and and what situation financially makes most sense for them. But we do know that living in today's world is hard. So, 67% of hourly making $20 or more, I think that is a really huge
214win. So, 20 or 28? 20. Thank you. Yep. 67% not including longevity. Longevity obviously pushes that up. Um and then I would I So, those were actual um increases based on actual staff. These other groups are a little uh harder to nail down and I would say that all of this will be confirmed and checked as we go through our payroll process that verifies all my numbers. We go person by person. Um so, these are the other um salary schedule groups. We have another educational support group that is our classified exempt. These are staff that don't get paid hourly. They get paid in a salary basis. Um they tend to have higher levels of certifications. There are uh transportation or not transfer our technology staff, um our higher manager level staff, um our office managers.
215And so, uh they're um also receiving some increases. Their compression was um kind of all over the place. And so, that max is is really just a couple of people that have to be adjusted. Um but they all fall within this range. Keep in mind that's the low end. It's kind of an average and the high end. Um the psychologist obviously with that $5,000 base, um that's affecting that for them. They're also getting some of those other incentives. The 1,000 for the um performance-based pay increase and then also the 0.79%. Our nurses, um we've tried to um work on the schedule. we're going to have to do more work in the future. I'm glad we got this part, but um I just think this area is an area of concern for me in the future.
216We'll want to do a little more deep diving in uh how comparable we are to peer districts on uh these salary schedules. Um the speech therapist, occupational therapist salary schedules, we see some um space there. And then also administration, we had some years of service adjustments that needed to happen with our administration. But something else that I want to make sure that everybody's very aware of and I and I think this is a talking point when you talk about the medical benefits. So by absorbing um those benefits through that budget process and then also with the um uh the changing that maximum out of pocket. What we were able to do and this is a direct benefit to staff who are utilizing our medical benefits, which is not every person in our district and everyone
217has a personal choice of what they're picking here. I'd say majority of our staff are employee only and the district covers the employee only for um the regular core plan at to no cost to the uh staff. With that increase, if we had had to put that cost back to employees, that would have increased those employees to a 67 um almost $68 increase monthly. Uh that's 1625. That is a cost that is a benefit to our staff. Um that is a cost they did not have to uh come out of pocket with this uh upcoming year. So these are um depending upon what the choices are, it's another piece of information that these would have been the increases to staff to stay on their current medical choice. Uh and I you can see the monthly
218change for them. This is the change from what they're currently paying to what they would have had to pay and then what that annual cost would have been for 21 or sorry, 24 pays. Um some of our staff are on 21, so it's not exact exact for every staff member, but many are on 24. So that is another benefit. Um you can't really put a percentage on it. It's very individual choice. Uh but we absolutely understand um how life changing this type of cost can be and I think Creighton is doing a really great job and as I said with that uh committee, um it'll just even get better and we'll be able to um, do some deep dives into how do you keep those medical costs low with the least amount of impact to
219the district's fiscal future health and our employees. So, those um, and then also I wanted to let you know, uh, when I was talking about um, oh, two things. That, um, I did tell you about certified years of service, so one thing. Ed Secs, I also, it didn't come up in the presentation, but they are critical to our transportation expansion. Who was I'm sorry? The educational secretaries. Um, they are also uh, going to be critical to um, uh, navigating that increased open enrollment that we're expecting from our transportation expansion program. So, that was another reason that the we felt that was a really good lean for that uh, particular group. Um, and and they said it many times, helping us to bring in and combat that declining enrollment. We need to look at as as
220many strategies as we can uh, to slow that down. So, um, with all of that being said and with all of the different percentages and all over the place, the takeaway is is, you know, most of our staff are getting way more than .79% We will look at uh, communicating that in various ways with our groups, but one of the things that we're dedicated to doing, um, we had this discussion this week. As I work with payroll, um, we're going to be creating individual letters for every staff member that goes through each of their, um, increases and why they got it. Some people didn't get a years of service. Um, that we have people who've been in the district one year or two years and they've got 10 years credits of service because we give
221uh, credit for outside Creighton. So, keep in mind the years of service that we talk about through our compression work is Creighton years of service. So, we're making sure that our tenure Creighton person is making as much as the person that came in and got 10 years of uh, experience credit. So, we're making sure to navigate that for our credit years of experience. And last year, as I said, we did a really good job letting people know that they were affected by years of service. We did not do as good of a job at letting people know they weren't affected by years of service. And so, we did get some feedback that maybe that communication wasn't as broad as it should have been. So, this year we're going to be very intentional and we're going
222to get those letters out to the staff as an estimated amount for waiting so we don't have to wait for their addenda later when they return. We're going to get that out by Friday before staff leave for the summer. Want to make sure that they know where they fall within all of those percentages. Thank you so much for doing this. I I appreciate you. We've been struggling like I'm like they're getting more than 0.79. I don't know how to say it. And so, that feedback just got me in the right space. And I was able to put it together and it looked a lot worse, as these ladies know. I come to the table like here's a bunch of stuff. And then through with their help, I'm able to like get it down, get it
223down, get it down. So, I just I was thinking with, you know, a union mind because, you know, and and I am a co-chair on my IVN, but I think the messaging is really important and I think it's important that they see this. Because 3% I mean, you may not think it's a lot, but like I think when we scrimp and every year and you have to realize that most districts, I'm not sure of how many districts now pay for full insurance. I mean, I pay out of every paycheck, so I feel like to me that is a decrease in pay and I got a cut in pay last year, so I think I I think it's really important that the union messages this out, but I think it's even more important that we message
224this out um across the district so people can tell other people like we are like we are really about We're a premium district that plans well and we look to the future. We don't just look at today, we look at um moving forward and that's why we stick to the budget. And even during meet and confer, they came back and said, "Hey, we could get to 1% for just this amount." You know how hard it is for me to go, "No." We did we challenged >> [laughter] >> 2,000 lower. Can we go to Can we go to I was like, "Not one penny." Um but >> [laughter] >> as we do process, you know, obviously we have some staff leaving and things like that with the payroll department. We'll we'll vet all those numbers and
225that 0.79 could change. It was put into our agreement um that we will stick to that 750,000 and that is really important to me. It is how I can plan forward and do my best to keep greatness healthy as possible for as long as possible through all of these uncertainties. Um and so it is a big part of my process is sticking to that and I I appreciate the meet and confer team um understanding that and supporting me with that and I I don't mind that you asked me. It does make me feel bad. Um uh but I absolutely appreciate the board uh allowing me to have that process and helping back me to say this is the disco district's fiscal future health and um that process has has come along and I just it
226was so much easier this year having your support and I just want to tell you all I really appreciate it and I I think we did a really good job for our employees this year. Really good job. Board members, any other comments or questions? I just want to say that it's just really impressive to see all this work that you've been doing. You know, we have a a big getting a big team of folks and going through this very in intentionally and um you know, looking at I mean, I look at a spreadsheet and I look at these numbers and I'm like But so it's cool that you're doing this and I and I do believe that this is something that's um going to help with recruitment of teachers and retention because it's it's done
227by y'all. So, thank you for all your hard work. It goes back to if I had a million dollars. If I had a million dollars and investing in our staff is one of the items that is really important to Clayton because as we move forward and as we get lean, we want to make sure that it's quality that's here at Clayton. We're a stellar district and maintaining that I think is investing in our staff. And and you know, as we said, everything is SOFG and that will come to play as we navigate and and get lean in the future cuz um nothing's looking different. The birthrates aren't changing. I'm now planning out to 2060 and making some thoughts. [laughter] So, um but if it does, uh we'll be ready to pivot. Uh but for now,
228it's it's strategic planning for the future and we're looking far. Board members, any other questions or comments? I just want to thank the team. I know it's a lot of work and um I I personally love the IBM process. Um I think um it's great that you guys can work together. Um I always felt [clears throat] that when you have the teams that can work together and understand each other, um I think it creates a more cohesive um district. So, um I'm really happy that you guys did that this year and um yeah, good job. Yeah, [snorts] um really thankful. I think Heather and I have been here 6 years and starting from a process where we didn't even have this and it didn't even exist to getting to the point where we're at now.
229I was just watching some of our first board meetings and oh my gosh. Um so it's a big thing and I know um I never want anything that we say to be too harsh and we recognize all the work because I know that we were not even close to this before the shift of the board and before the shift of the superintendent and you know, all the cute um new um cabinet members. So we really do appreciate all the work. >> [laughter] >> They are they are adored. I mean that's going to get me in trouble so I ain't going to say nothing. >> [laughter] >> I'm >> [gasps] >> I plead the fifth. Um [clears throat] but yeah, so thank you guys so much. I know it's hard work and I really really appreciate
230especially you um Vanessa because we we come at you with some hard things, right? And sometimes there's other conversations that happen so I know that given all this work, it it's we're all working together and we're all coming to the same solution. So I really really do appreciate it because if some of you guys have not watched this previous board meetings or what was happening in this district three, four, five, six years ago, I think we're in a really really amazing spot to make some even greater and bigger change. So I appreciate everything everybody does. Student outcomes chan- don't change till adult behaviors change and I think we are doing an excellent job so far. We can always >> [laughter] >> keep going and doing better. All right. Thank you so much. So um that
231brings us up to our next item which is 13A. And board members, I hope you guys all had a moment to look over this resolution. We will be discussing the education funding um resolution. So the governing board will discuss and consider adopting the resolution calling for a halt and reversal of education funding cuts and urging full and equitable funding of public schools in Arizona. The model resolution is attached. Um it is up in our governing board docs. I do not want to read all of it um just because it's not I mean it's written out. Um this was created by Copper State Education Alliance, which is um we decided to become members for them and they do a lot of the policy work for us and this comes in a very timely manner. Right now,
232we're at a complete halt with our government because our we're in a divided government. Our you know, governor's a Democrat. Our legislature is a Republican. So, they're they're messing around with our dollars and also this expansion of ESAs. We know what that does. So, this has been vetted through our um attorney because there are some open petitions out there. So, this does not conflict anything that's going on right now. This is just a resolution of us coming together as a board and really um making sure that our legislature knows that this nonsense needs to stop and our public dollars belong in public schools. So, I don't know if any of you guys have questions or comments on it, um this would be the time. I know. Good. All right, I can I say anything? Does
233anybody have anything to say? Um, I'm just out of curiosity, are there any other school districts um looking to adopt this as well? Who is C S Copper State. Copper State, there we go. I wouldn't know what other districts are doing. Um, I do know that certain services get provided to members. So, I'm not sure if that's something that's something that we would probably have to ask Copper State. Um, but I'm not sure what other districts are doing, but I know that this is available to members and it's part of the advocacy um work that they do on our behalf. I mean that I like it. Obviously, you've heard me talk about what's coming down and how bad it is. So, I I'm all for speaking up and standing up. So. Yeah, and it just
234talks about fully funding IDEA. It talks about, you know, opposing any proposed reductions into K-12 education funding, uh all these things. So, it looks like we all went ahead and were able to read it. So, I'm going to go ahead and make a motion. I move the governing board approve a resolution on F20 FY26-27 education funding. May I have a second? I second. All those in favor? I. >> I. I. Any nays? Hearing none, a motion passes. That brings us to our item B, legislative political report. Does anybody have any political or legislative updates? I mean, the update is that we are at a standstill right now because nobody is actually at the legislature. So, in case you didn't know, Mhm. they've taken a recess until June 1st. So, people must go on vacations before
235they decide the budget. Um, so that's what's happening now. Vanessa, right? We'll see what happens. I have no problems meeting with you guys from a volcano. >> [laughter] >> Great. Yes, to be continued on our budget. All right, um hearing no more other political legislative updates, I uh that brings us to future agenda items. Do we have any future agenda items? Oh, and then Ms. Juarez, we can just take away the CSA model resolution since we went through it today. Just an update, we are going to be doing a board self-eval in June, so if you guys want to know how the board is holding themselves accountable to the student outcome focused governance, you guys can watch that board meeting live. Any other agenda items? Um yes, I'd like to add a discussion on uh
236uh district-wide policy on device use. Okay. And then Ms. Juarez will give you the proper documentation for that to fill out. Okay. Hearing no more future agenda items, I move to 15A motion to adjourn. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? I. I. I. Any nays? Hearing none, motion passes. Muchas gracias. Buenas noches. Good night to everybody. >> We are going to sing this song. We're always