001right buen noes we're going to go ahead and get this meeting started we're going to go ahead and get started with our land acknowledgement cron School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of the oam Jude and aim oam people who descended from the Hohokam and having inhabited this lands since time in Memorial the oam whose name translates literally two people are a vibrant culture in community spanning countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgement the curan 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 human relations now Mr
002man if you can lead us in the pledge of the allegiance aliance flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible andice thank you that brings us to our roll call we have Miss MC cheffrey myself Miss MB and Miss AIS present at this board meeting Miss Gibson McAn just excuse her she had a prior commitment with work all right and 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 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
003order to speak during public comments due to the open meeting law board members are not allowed to address address items that are not on the agenda and that's per policy be DH and that will go ahead and bring us to approval of the agenda I move the governing board approve the agenda as presented second all those in favor I I I thank you okay and that brings us to public comments it looks like we only have one public comment today and that would be of Miss Blake can go ahead and cap her up here please yes please thank you tonight I'm here to speak on behalf of the association as a whole um when we heard about this choose my words carefully uh lawsuit related to The Dual language program specifically speically in our district
004and across the State of Arizona we were disheartened to say the least and just kind of anxious and worried and not sure what our next steps were um upon further investigation we decided to take an action step of creating a um statement related to dual language that we then had our members vote upon because we spoke sort of anecdotally amongst our members and we wanted to make sure that that did in fact represent the views of the association as a whole so we crafted a statement and then we sent it out to our voters to or to our members excuse me to vote on and we'd like to read that statement tonight um and then I'll end with just a little thank you as well so here is our statement related to um dual language
005the kraton Education Association supports the implementation of dual language programs in our kraton school district and across the state these programs promote cultural diversity inclusivity and respect among students they Foster critical thinking and problem solving skills while preparing students for a globalized world bilingualism enhances academic excellence and build strong linguistic skills for students which Aid them in all subject areas dual language programs offer our kraton students valuable cognitive advantages open doors for Global opportunities and brighter Futures dual language programs are an essential investment for our communities so I wanted to read um publicly our statement and then also just say a big thank you to our board um it's very appr propo that two of you are wearing our shirts tonight which just is really touching and um was not expected so thank you for
006that upon further investigation in what our next steps are related to this lawsuit it became clear that it's really up to the board um in terms of any changes or dismissal of these dual language programs and as soon as I heard that I just breathed a sigh of relief because I know that the board that sits before us here and Katie included as well is's not present tonight um wholeheartedly supports these programs and stands with our teachers and students and so it just made me just get some reassurance um amongst me and our members that we have nothing to worry about because we know that our board supports language program so just a huge thank you on behalf of me and our association thank you I appreciate it that brings us to our superintendent report
007Mr Man you have the floor thank you madam president um it's interesting the first thing I want to share is In This Very Room on the 26th of September we actually had the first session and I believe Madame President you kicked us off with our board um committee that looking into our student discipline policies and so um the meeting went very very well um one of the main orders of business that needed to be attended to was the selection of a chair who is Brian Kindle from Gateway School and vice chair who's sitting in the back of the room um Mr James Diaz who uh was kind enough to step up for that role as well and so um that team clearly has a lot more work to do but it was very gratifying to
008see that team here and I would have left it for um our board member Katie Gibson mlan to share since she's our ex officio board member but since she's not with us tonight I wanted to make sure that we shared that out in a timely fashion um in addition to that we've completed the first round of our on-site coaching um with our um Equity work and so uh Dr AR Ariaga Dr Bates and Benji Howard have been working with the site leadership teams at all of the schools and their work is to be able to develop um an understanding of our current challenges and build professional development that will support the site working groups and the staff at all of our sites so this is sort of that next layer of of drilling that work
009deeper into our organization which we're very excited about um and then I know if teachers are listening some of you have already started fall conferences but officially fall conferences start tomorrow evening and so um we're we're uh not only very excited for this opportunity for our teachers and staff to connect with our families and our students around their learning but we're also I think many of us very excited that that means that the following week is fall break so I know um some are off some are here during that week and what I'd like to extend is I know there's been a lot of hard work for the start of this school year but um anyone who can take an opportunity during this week to go ahead and rest and recuperate a little bit and
010recharge those batteries um I'm hopeful that that week provides that opportunity for you and then the last piece is our fall break kind of Falls at an awkward time this year because it falls during the time period when the nation will be celebrating National lunch week not national school lunch week um so but if you know our Child Nutrition and wellness team they're not to be foiled by a simple C calendaring challenge so um they have big plans to celebrate when our students return after fall break they'll come back I think still ready to enjoy the support that they receive from that team and the national school lunch week was actually designated believe this or not as far back as 1962 um when then President John F Kennedy was the one who put it in
011place to help promote the importance of a healthy school lunch in a child's life and the impact that it has on students both in and out of the classroom and it's why I've heard often heard this board um espouse support as as I myself do that as a nation we really should have Universal free launch so we're still hopeful um as the new farm bill is in the process of being on the table in Congress we hope that they will take that next step forward to ensure that every child receives um healthy meals every day that they're at school um the Child Nutrition teams created some fun menu Concepts along with daily raffle prizes and a grand prize of a blowup game chair that's planned to encourage our students to take part in the celebration
012and apparently they've also made it clear the superintendent is not included in that raffle so I guess I won't be winning that game chair but that's okay um but please keep a lookout um on the Child Nutrition Wellness Facebook page for fun updates on those celebrations as they happen not next week but the following week so thank you for the time to share all of that and uh appreciate the opportunity thank you Miss MC cheffrey do you have a board update I do yeah I um since our last meeting I attended the Arizona School Board conference um the law conference and um the we had a couple keynote speakers that were very inspirational which is one of the reasons I like going to these conferences um it just you know I feel like at times
013they're preaching to the choir but it is you know it's just it really kind of rallies you to to hear um what similar things that you believe I suppose in in in wanting to do what's best for kids and um that part was great and then I went into one of the breakout sessions and um heard some comments um that were really um disappointing um um from some presenters um and they were discussing um School discipline and talking about um the fact that an African-American boy had been disciplined um and that caused a whole thing where now the discipline records are being requested for the entire district and really the presenter said he was a bad kid um and then another presenter in that same session said you know the problem is that some people
014just can't get their head wrap their heads around the fact that middle midd schoolers are not going to stop using the nword so these are this is language that I was shocked to hear in 2023 from people presenting to Schoolboard leaders District leaders um you know as a parent I don't I just can't imagine ever saying about my own kid oh well I got a lemon he's just he's a bad kid you know and and that's it um that just doesn't happen in our district our values are we love every child as our own you cannot say he's just a bad kid if you are loving that child as your own you know students children can make very bad choices um sometimes terrible choices and they should face consequences for that um you know we
015know some consequences just don't work um but it doesn't mean they shouldn't face consequences but I think you know having Middle School schoolers stop using the nword in 2023 and there's many other words that they shouldn't be using as well that is a goal we should all have and and we should never stop striving for that and I think making comments like that somehow makes it sound okay so I was I shared my um you know my concern with the leadership at asba and I think it will be taken to heart um and I just wanted to share that with with kraton because I I hope that we aren't using that language when we say that we love every child as our own that doesn't mesh with that language so um I wanted to share
016that I don't think that we do um but it's it's it was so disturbing in 2023 to hear um those kind of comments thank you for sharing that and that kind of goes into the student outcome Focus governance framework right one of the major things that they say is that adult student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change so that's one of the um main takeaways of that governance framework so I I'm hoping too that we are taking that to heart and it really starts with adult behaviors on who these kids are seeing in the classrooms um so yeah thank you for sharing that Miss maleb do you have a board update sure um just double down on what Mr Man said of please try to relax next week um enjoy conferences this week um
017make sure to highlight the POS positives kind of going back to loving every child of our own conference time it's sometimes it's difficult because you're having those hard conversations but every single kid in this district has something we can celebrate um so hope everyone has great conferences and actually gets to relax next week um last was it last week was the groundbreaking yes um it's been a busy few weeks um but uh we all got to go to the lck groundbreaking ceremony last week and it was wonderfully done it was thankfully a beautiful night weatherwise um and it was just really amazing to see um there were uh previous staff members there there were community members there were alumni of LC there as well um and it was just a really amazing moment and excited
018to reach that checkpoint and keep moving forward on that project thank you so much Miss SS um good evening I just want to thank um cea for putting together that statement um I love that we can all support each other with that and um I still need a t-shirt so I would love to have F of your t-shirts and I will totally wear it um so thank you for that uh parent teacher conferences are always I always look forward to them um I think meeting parents and talking to parents parents uh kind of gives you an Insight sometimes into um the children's lives and so uh I always look forward to it so uh but it's also such a stressful time I feel like I've been working hours and hours and hours this week just
019like I know most teachers are to prepare for that um so please do have a restful Break um I probably will be stuck at home now because you know electricity in an old house 55 house 195 house went out um but I just got my PPP money so you know Universe give money there you go to your house so um at least I'll be able to rest at home I suppose but have a good break and rest thank you so much um I just have a couple um groundbreaking as well thank you to everybody who attended that was a really neat thing it's the first time as a board member or as a board president that I've done something like that so it was really neat to have the community open um we started off
020with our land acknowledgement we had a foot truck out there it was great um I actually live in some apartments right across the street and it's just crazy to see how even the kids talk about when is that school going to be built you know we miss walking to our school because they're getting bust over to Loma Linda so I even know the kids are looking forward to it and now that they've been seeing stuff you know building they're like oh this is so cool everybody's a little bit excited about it and hopefully for the red um ribbon cutting we'll have a special little ceremony that hope um we're working on and we'll bring out more details when that comes so we're going to try to make it as as memorable as possible um another
021thing that I wanted to share too that um I know Mr Man is everywhere and does everything but is that we had some visitors from actually court site that came out to us and toward our Kon Academy because they were so taken back by all the wonderful things the multi-age the Project based learning and dual language program that we have at that school so they drove the superintendent and um the board president along with another board member came and did a tour they were fascinated by Our Family Resource Center so again these are all things that we should really really be proud of that when um at the Arizona Schoolboard Association you know this gets presented to other school districts especially because they come from a rural District they're like wow the possibilities of actually
022being able to do these type of things for our kids so they were really really in awe of everything that we're doing so should really be proud of you know what we have right now I know that we have a lot of challenges but that's just goes to show how much that of the work that we're doing that actually other people are starting to notice of the things that we're doing in in the districts so that was neat to have and have them tour that and Miss cardier did an amazing job on explaining you know everything that they do on that school even to taking accountability you know the discipline policies that they have there how they really put it on the kids to fix their behaviors and how they do it they even have
023this four-step system that the kids put themselves in and they reach you know higher levels this is really neat what they're doing over there so um I was really proud that we had a a school district um in Courtside wanting to tour us and learn a little bit more of what we're doing so they can improve their school as well um and I believe that is it from my board update so that will bring us to approval of consent I move the governing board approve consent agenda items a through J in accordance with policy bb- e second all those in favor I I I thank you that has passed and that brings us to our next item which is basically the review of policy DJ which is the bidding purchasing procedures women minority owned businesses
024Enterprises so this is something that I brought forth um one of the things that I've shared this before is um that I wanted to develop myself more as a board member is really looking over our policies and making sure that our policies are actually matching what we're saying and what we're trying to do um this bidding and puring procedures D talks about how certain amount of contracts should be given to small small um businesses or minority owned businesses but it doesn't really it's almost like it's just like a blanket statement that says yeah this is cool this is what you should be doing but there's no accountability within the policy that holds us accountable to how much of this should be going or if we really have a process set up to make sure that
025that is being done um so when I pulled this policy and I wanted us to discuss is how you guys look at this policy and what we can come up with to make us a little bit more accountable to actually delivering and making sure that our small businesses or our minority owned businesses or women-owned businesses my my apologies are getting some of these um bidding um opportunities right so one of the barriers with that is that we were kind of Mr Man and I were brainstorming and actually a community parent from builtmore prep um we started talking and it's like well how are these business going to that you guys have sometimes it's a very monopolized you know it goes into this RFQ a lot of people don't really know what that is how that
026goes so in Translation with this policy we decided that maybe we should have a lunch in and in that lunch in we invite small businesses people around we bring up you know XYZ School may be having a roof that needs to be done within the next year and we have X amount of money and letting the community know what constructions are going to be occurring and that way it gives the opportunity the community it's the transparency with their money and what's going to be done in the facilities with the school but it also gives an opportunity for these other um small businesses or minority owned businesses to have an opportunity to bid in now the great thing about the bad and the great thing about this is that there's certain steps that you have to
027do to in order to put in bids after a certain amount of money for school districts but there's actually a nonprofit out there that helps these small businesses get Grant and get into the process of RFQ so I was able to find this nonprofit they are called rail CDC I think I've mentioned them before and they actually have their whole sole purpose they have certain quarters um I think East McDow is one of the quarters that they just took over that overlaps a little bit of our district and their whole sole purpose is how they um help these small businesses and get the correct licensing so they have the same Equitable opportunities to put in for these type of projects so that's something that we've kind of been working on and I just wanted to
028get a feedback from the board to see um in what direction would you guys like to change the language how this would work or what your vision or what your thoughts are on everything I just said so I will turn it over to miss SS first or Miss MB do you have questions or suggestions already go ahead I know that was a lot I know um I really like the idea um of reaching out to our small businesses and um because not everybody watches these meetings um so just being informed about you know what projects are upcoming um in a s similar but not um fashion like in our district we have started trying to have quarterly lunch with small businesses and nonprofits and partners um to just really w rally around so like not
029specifically this but really rallying around the fact that you know here's how our district can help you here's ways you can help our district and help the small business owners around us network with one another and just provide that space so um when you mentioned this lunch and I was like that's kind of an offshoot of that and maybe that's also something we can um include um and the nonprofit information is really cool I like the idea of fleshing this out a little more as far as like I think you mentioned like having some kind of process to make sure we do it um I definitely want you know legal advice on quantifying numbers or percentages just because we want to make sure there's not unintended consequences where we hone oursel like we always want
030to aim for this but if those aren't options coming in and now we're delaying projects you know um due to that so I just want to make sure we're really careful about whatever language we use especially if it's coming down to quantifying numbers that we make sure we're not pigeon hauling oursel too so that's it thank you Miss Aris do you have any comments or questions I think Lindsay kind of covered some of the things that I was thinking about um I do like the idea of the lunchin um I like how you guys do the quarterly I mean I think that's a great idea to connect with our community um because I feel like otherwise it's sometimes hard um to know when I'm connect and I would love to be like a part of
031those luncheons and speaking to these people and um seeing U ways that they can uh we can work with them and they can work with us um so I I'm glad that you mentioned the nonprofit because you know I worry I know that like big projects like our school buildings and stuff like I know it's probably hard for smaller smaller you know groups and businesses to to do such big projects but there should be times that you know even even if it's a smaller project that we can involve involve people in our community um with these businesses so um thank you for putting that out there you're welcome Miss mcaffrey yeah um yeah no I think this is great to H have this as a discussion Point um I know that private businesses can set
032you know percentages very easily I don't know what the hurdles are for a right like entity and obviously we would need to follow those procurement laws um but I think just putting it out there that we would we have this goal and you know and have our attorney help us figure out if we can set a goal or not but I think the luncheon is a great idea I mean that's you know I'm all for more Community engagement and um small business engagement within our community think that you know I have I think that there's been a perception that we are we've been friendly to certain vendors um due to you know friendships um and from a transparency point I think we this is a great step to say you know we we want everyone
033to have an opportunity to um bid on things that are appropriate for their company to bid on so I think this is a great um timing to get this moving um and I think only good can come from it I mean we I don't think we're utilizing all of the the businesses we don't have as many businesses as other districts have um we I think this is probably changing but um I think we're the largest employer in this district is part of our problem with the tax base I I believe that is correct from the work with when we when we do reporting on our bonds and whatnot um that we have to look up all the top employers yeah without a doubt we we dwarf most of the other employers within our 11 square
034miles yeah so so that's a challenge that we're you know we're going to face probably for for some time to come I mean the data center that is coming doesn't really employ people is the problem as well um so anyways I think it's it's hard work so I think it's it's something we need to start looking into and working on yeah so thank you for bringing it to us you're welcome and then I don't know what the best way to do this but um there was some feedback on it and the way that we were thinking of doing it is adding something along the lines that says the district shall prior prioritize businesses Partnerships with wbees through intentional advertising of contract opportunities directly to local wbees and by establishing minimum annual goals for the percentage
035of District contracts awarded to wbees the superintendent shall report progress to these annual goals in regular board meetings on a quarterly quarterly basis I mean that's just a a a rough draft but it could look something along the lines that way we're not actually saying you know like 80% of your stuff needs to go there because I can see how that can be uh an issue and then we can tie it into a goal then you can update goals each you know we could update goals each year and having an option of including those goals as a basis of the annual superintendent EV evaluation to so that can be all um put together um I don't know if I should send you something so you can send all to the board members with that addin
036all language and then seeing how everybody feels about it or how that could look and maybe run through some drafts and then once we as a board decide what we want to look at it then we can take it to the final step of having actually our attorney vett it to make sure that we're in compliance with any regulations I I don't know if that sounds good to everybody yeah that seems like a good first step yeah yeah okay perfect and the only reason why I'm bringing these things up I already I kind of mentioned it but I want us to be really intentional with our policies right they live there for a reason and if we're out here saying yes we believe in this we do this and we want all this but it's
037not reflecting our policy then that to me that sounds like a problem so this is why I wanted to bring this forth we have a lot of constructions um coming up and what I've noticed too is that the majority of the time anyways they're Outsourcing to all these smaller companies anyways so we're paying a bigger dime to have somebody look for these companies as itself it is when we can go directly to the people and I get it sometimes it's easier to go through one person but um I do believe that our community thrife better when we work together and if we're funneling that money back into our community it only makes our community stronger and that goes back to like the Community Schools model right that we're not only taking care of our school
038but we're taking care of a community and the people that we live in it because at the end of the day it works out best for our students and the communities that we live in so that was where I was coming from and I'm really thankful that the board is kind of on the same feeling so I appreciate that I'll make sure I get this drafted so we can start looking at it and then eventually have our our first read of it so thank you for allowing me to bring this forth I have a quick question man if for anything that goes to an sfb Grant does that affect our how does that I know the answer of the does but yeah for the clarification how does that affect our ability to have any say
039in who's doing the work te technically um the district is in charge of procurement even when it's an sfb grer I think they may now I think the the primary strategy for improving that team is just change their name as frequently as possible so I think they the division of school facilities now or something like that within the Arizona Department of administration but um they they are they do point to certain specific procurement methodologies that are considered valid and so that may Place some limitations on the the sort of the meeting point of board policy and the requirements in order to be able um to fund those grants so that'll be another thing that I appreciate you bringing it up because it's probably another area we should investigate to see what the impact is but
040when you look at the I fully recognize Mr Wells and his team have done an amazing job and we've received a lot of Grant so it's it's a significant amount of money when you look at it in aggregate against all of the district's expenditures it's it's still a relatively small amount so even if there's greater challenges with trying to engage with these um wbees in relation to trying to increase a percentage of the business that um that they're able to participate in um it certainly wouldn't box us out from continuing to do that in other Arenas um where we're doing that that procurement and purchasing so um as you know Marez said we'll certainly get this in a form that the board's in favor of and then um definitely The Next Step would be to
041work with our attorney to make certain of two things one that what we're doing is legal and in alignment with State Statute but then two um you know because they have a broader range of experience with other districts and we can tap into Miss Shapiro as well and her experience in other districts to also try to figure out where some of the unintended consequences May lie and and try to make certain that we build that structure in such a way that it's mutually beneficial to the district the community and those businesses that we engage with and that it doesn't ultimately create you know headaches or challenges that are limiting in our ability to provide you know high quality services and supports we want to provide for our staff students and Community okay awesome any more
042questions or discussion okay seeing none um we we'll go to our next item which is future agenda items do we have any future agenda items okay I have two I would like to put in a future agenda item how the discussion on the board hiring their own attorney versus using a district attorney and receiving additional legal advice regarding um the lawsuit and executive session and Council doesn't have to be present that would just be more of a a conversation between us or I don't know if we needed to have Council in that we do okay so um just do additional legal advice and I'll get you those future agenda items over all right nobody else has anything else so that's it I move the governing board adjourn okay all those in favor I thank you
043guys W noes hopefully I hope you make it