001so I guess I'm curious where everybody else is at in terms of their feelings on whether they feel like whether everybody feels like this should be something that we just get through as a board or whether people are also thinking that we should have a more collaborative process I'm just curious where folks are at um just to add to that so for the past three years since this is my third year as a school board member we do have task force that do behavior um we have a committee I think Jesse sits on one of the Committees for the past three years we've had repetitive teachers come up and tell us that the discipline is an issue we had it in a study session I don't believe you were at that study shame because you
002weren't a board member yet but we have had these conversations and this is the only reason why I decided to take this because I feel like we've been branching off and creating that task for this task for doing this doing that and it's it's been happening since I've been in here and not one policy has been changed to reflect the things that we the good things that we are doing in the district so our jobs as school board members is yes to have Community input I feel like we've have had that um the past three years there's been task force there's been all these but it's also we are the policy makers of the school district that's what we got elected to do and in it is our responsibility to make sure that these policies
003stay up to date and that they stay to what the community is saying I don't think any of us up here have not heard I I feel and everybody can speak for themselves but going to schools and being involved this is a repetitive thing that I hear at every single school and there's never been a one time that I haven't gone to a school where some kind of behavior issue or some kind of like what's going on why are we doing this this way why are we doing that that way so this is why I decided that as elected officials of this district and of this community we should take the step and now letting the the community know this is what we're looking at this is how it's been vetted what do you guys
004think if there's more discussion but I I don't think adding on another task force to this would would change what I've already what I personally have already been hearing the past three years but that's just my sentiment and my thought on that if I could just so we have a policy BDF advisory committees as far as I know every committee that has gone on in this district has been a superintendent committee which has not been created or or designed by the board advisory committees under that policy are created by the board for specific purpose they have a Sunset date they have members who are chosen by the board to be on that committee superintendent and at least one member of the board no more than two obviously are going to be on can be on
005the committee um the only catch is that they follow open meeting law I guess where I'm coming from also is having been on the Phoenix Union Safety Committee for seven months and knowing how large that district is I get it that our committee didn't just deal with the issue of sros we dealt with safety as a whole and our recommendations to the board were just this like how to address student Behavior how to address so many of these things Within These policies and it was teachers students parents community members staff members all on that committee voicing what they thought should be kind of the priorities Within These policies and while I know we're policy makers I still believe that um I don't know that us just having some discussions at a board meeting given the
006amount of or I guess I should say the lack of public activity I've seen at our board meetings is enough to meet people where they're at and to get the voices that we need heard so for me when I'm saying that I'm saying I want something that's going to be transparent that's going to be an open meeting that's going to have people at the table from different uh from different uh I don't want I hate the term stakeholders I think it's stupid but no offense if you love it um whatever you know what I mean I want different people at the table and I want us to like actually have a conversation because I think also another thing is if we're summarily passing um policy things there's going to be you know no unknown unknowns
007there's going to be things that people might get mad at us about for like our opinion about but if I could sit down and have a conversation about the real impacts of some of these things and what it looks like and plays out like in the system I mean there's conversations that can really change heart and hearts and minds and maybe there's something I can hear from a teacher or staff member or parent that can also help me in deciding something that gives me information that I'm not necessarily always going to be aware of so that's where I'm coming from I'm not asking for a task force I'm not asking for to go to a committee that's going to go to die or committee to nowhere I hate those I think those are a waste
008of time and money and resources I am asking for a very specific thing I wasn't making a motion right now but that was essentially my suggestion that's why I'm clarifying it is something that's really going to dig into this and the whole work of the committee would be the beef and the substance of these policies and making sure there's something that people can can uh can buy into because I think that's another thing is that um the reason and maybe part of the reason and a big reason I'm just assuming this obviously that things are not being equitably administered is that folks don't have buy-in to things that they don't have ownership over or that they haven't helped created or that they don't feel like they can um really key into and so I think
009if we could come together and do this in a collaborative way uh then we can get more buy-in and and more Equitable Administration once we do adopt something because folks feel like they probably have some ownership over it and don't feel like they're getting forced stuff down their throat from the top down because I know in most service jobs mine education that's how it feels a lot of the time so so kind of that's just where I'm coming from overall and I think that that like these conversations for each one of these could be so I mean the notes that I took on these last night I mean the conversations for every single one of these I have so many things to say about every single one that's why I was like oh we're going
010to be here if we really want to do this tonight I will do it but that's why I just wanted to start off with that but I'll leave it at that Miss Ayers so I have a few things um along kind of the same line most of my questions are very general questions not like about a certain one um and I do appreciate that you're pushing us to move you know into this forward-thinking era like I did read through them last night when I was at the vet because I had a lot of time um so I did read through them and like a lot of them I was like this is this is good but I have some questions as well I'm obviously not a lawyer into that kind of thing but I guess
011I am not proficient enough to know if they align with like the Arizona State Standards um or statutes um and then I was thinking and I wasn't thinking along the line of um you know a committee or anything like that but I'm not opposed to it either these are just some general statements that I was thinking about um it looks like there's a lot of changes so I was just wondering um like on the district level what what would putting these things in place look like and what would be some of those strengths and what would be some of those challenges um so it's it was it's not negative or positive it's just some things that I was also thinking about as well thank you Miss Michaela um kind of similar like I'm not opposed
012to having some discussion tonight but I think the to truly do this change like it's deep change and it's good change and it needs to be our priority but I think it's gonna go beyond tonight because a lot of this is very balanced like finding the balance and the nuances because there's stuff in here that I fully support like just scratching it but that I do know is not in compliance with State Statute if we get rid of it and so we really need to navigate like where do we make changes because we can make changes to our policy but there's certain things that State statue would still override and how do we then refine our language to make sure that our priority and our mission aligns with where we're going while still understanding that
013at the end of the day like there are things we have to abide by um so I think there's just a lot of it's a lot of really meaty work to find that language that works rather than just eliminating things that like you said like there's a good chance lawyer will come back and say you have to include something about this and then we're kind of back at square one where we have to go okay well how can we include that language um because I agree with a lot of the changes it's just we're gonna have to find that balance um the other kind of going off sign you said and like the thought of bringing in an Advisory Board is one thing like there were sections in here that I think definitely need to
014be changed but I want to be careful about removing some of the like they weren't even necessarily controversial but it provides guidance to our leaders so we also have to keep in mind our school and District leaders are not going to go through all of the ARs they're going to look to the policy for kind of the Layman's versions of Step by Step so when we're navigating this we just need to make sure that we're putting things in place like not eliminating so much stuff that our leaders don't have guidance because we want to make sure there's no unintended consequences um because there are a few things and I'm like well if that guidance isn't there then we could end up having negative consequences for the child that was doing the discipline so there's a
015lot to it I'm not opposed to having an advisory but I think it needs to be very defined I also don't want to see another task force that goes on forever um but I don't think it's a bad idea having other people at the table while we are the policy makers getting that perspective from okay if I'm a principal how do I put this in action because that's very different than what we want to see but like what are the nuances of every day when this happens in that situation how is it handled so I'm not opposed to Advisory Board Miss Jeffrey um yeah so I Echo everything you guys say um and as you were as I was making my comments I just thought I would wait but I was thinking about wow cea
016you know wants to do like a a listening tour and it's about discipline you know because um I think I've heard from a lot of teachers um and parents that people feel like um there are no consequences for actions now this is a restorative practice way that we're going which I love we've been talking about restorative practices for eight years but the the sense seems to be that restorative practices means no consequences um so I do want to I do want to get feedback from our teachers um because I there is a sense out there that the kids are running wild you know and this is not what we're we're not trying to do that the board does not think I don't think kids should not face consequences for actions but things like suspensions long-term
017suspensions do not fix they just don't fix the problem and I don't think you know we really dug deep enough into restorative practices but I would like to hear you know have a listening tour have a committee I really think that's probably the right way to do it a board-appointed committee um with the right people on there um because I do think we need to have we've been trying to do this for eight years and it hasn't been working so I think this is a great very first step to bring all of these to us and say but then I think next step is to say okay Community let's get organized and let's get feedback from people because there will be unintended consequences from this stuff even when we go through a board-appointed committee um
018but I think we want to really be careful and review it um before we take it to Jessica and I think you know when I saw the Pendergrast um presentation at um nsba you know they they have committees for policy change and the um they said the attorney is the last person who sees it they get everybody at that table first including students um when they're making a policy change even if it's um uniforms right you know so I thought that was really great because they don't want the attorney in there too early um because we really do want to attempt to get feedback from everyone so I think I I was thinking this is yeah this is a beginning of a very long conversation about this but it's a great one to be tackling
019right now Mr Man any thoughts just it's it's actually really nice to just hear everybody's open thinking um I think everybody said something you know that kind of sat with me um I'm gonna be just brutally honest I don't know if that's like appropriate sitting up here or not like my first reaction to advisory committee was oh dear God another Community right um but then listening to the conversation it sounds like it's not the same type of committee as what we're used to um and then I have I have a perspective you know that I think there's two things that are happening here I think one of the things like I loved what um what president Kario doll said about you know we have these better practices but our policy doesn't reflect them so I
020think that's something that's really powerful for us to have policy that reflects the work that we're doing um and again I'm going to be brutally open and honest about something my frustration in you know hearing and having some conversations around State Statute is we're still Bound by Statute in some of these cases and it bothers me that some of the statutes are the way that they are so I also kind of see us making a shift where we can comfortably make the shift is almost a political statement as well and then I wonder if there's more we can do to advocate for changing those things at the state level because clearly what we're seeing come out of state policy is going the opposite direction of the conversation that we're having a night and it would
021be nice for this conversation to not only be the Genesis of us creating policies that more reflect you know the nature of what we want for our children and our community but also to be able to help push that forward at a state level because sometimes our hands are tied by those state level decisions and also because many of our neighbors we have some amazing Neighbors in this community you know feel the same way that we do and they're sort of you know held back by the same strictures of Statute as we do so I know in in having a had a very brief conversation with Jessica she's very happy to work through these things she's always expressed let me know what you're trying to do so I can see how close I can get
022you to that um and so I think we'll have a strong partner there but I I do agree um with the feedback from Pendergast the the board member mcshaffrey shared that probably the best place for that to live is after whatever other vetting we've done so we don't like have to send her eight different versions and have her weigh in on eight different versions of what we're looking at doing um and then I heard a couple of folks use my favorite word um unintended consequences or some permutation thereof um I do think one of the things we need to be really aware of like the one thing that struck me as I looked through it is some of the changes to the time frames and one of the things I'd like us to back people
023who know me know I'm a big fan of seven habits of highly effective people so one of the habits is begin with the end in mind and I always like to backwards engineer things so I want to make sure we look at some of those things so there's some places where we say um in this version well for any suspension over one day it requires a hearing but is it practicable like does that create a situation that's impossible logistically because there's also notification requirements so can you schedule get a hearing office officer and get the notification out in the time frame that's prescribed now that doesn't mean that that shouldn't be our standard but then I guess the question would be is there a way we can frame that so that way it doesn't create
024those challenges with being able to implement hopefully that makes sense as an example um but you know by and large conceptually sentimentally and then I guess I'm kind of pushing it further with like let's push it further we I really do feel like this is the right work for us to be doing right now and I don't know if it's because people have been reading this or if it's because um it's just where we're at as a community and as a board and as a leadership team but a lot of what I heard in the board reports tonight also very much aligned with the work that's embedded Within These policy changes so um Miss thank you for that Mr Man um Gibson McLean um what would that look like then since I'm not familiarized with
025what you just proposed well I wouldn't be prepared to to make a motion tonight mainly because you're supposed to have a written specific statement of the purpose of the committee dates for filing reports a date for the sunset which facilities supplies equipment and clerical support will be provided to each committee um and then kind of the other things so I guess that's those are kind of the things we would need to kind of figure out um and I'm sorry I didn't come like prepared with that tonight because I also didn't know what everybody's thoughts were and no it's fine um so how about this or if it's even right in time [Music] a mentor who once said there's always money for the things that are important and um I think time time there's that old
026expression time is money money is time right so I think on both time and money there's always time and money for things that are important and and I certainly and apologize I don't know if I'm supposed to weigh in in this way or not but I wouldn't beat yourself up because we weren't agendized to put the committee together anyway so but we have a we've kept a pretty light schedule for August 15th because of one of the other items that's being brought to us and there's certainly room on that calendar and probably enough time in the two-week time span to get all of this together to try to bring that back as an item for August 15th if if the board so desires yeah that's that was going to be my suggestion suggestion and then
027in my 101 when I do it with Mr Man Miss Gibson McLean if you could join in on with that so we can discuss that and just bring it as a future agenda item with this and we'll just table it and and see how that that would work but I I just went and took the lead on this and figured out like this is it and this is great this is why I need voices and I need your guys's opinions and thoughts because now I know what direction to move I just said you know what I discipline's crazy here so let's get started somehow great one but this could be a starting point this could you know be a launch pad so I don't I hope it doesn't feel like we're throwing away the work
028here and then I think it's something we can start from um and another thing just to add while it's still on my mind even though I promise I took my meds this morning um you had made a comment about kind of being putting ourselves out there right and you know I'm the type of attorney and person in general who likes to try to be creative and creative about subjectivity in many of these things right and there's so much subjectivity even within the criminal code and that means that subjectivity equals power and if our folks who are implementing these things don't really have a full grasp and understanding about the definitions of things and or the implications of things and are quick to say something falls into something that could really create some crazy things for
029a kid or a whole family this is really where I'm thinking the creativity comes from I think we can still operate within statute and put ourselves out there as being very Progressive in the way that we're addressing some of these things well can I add on to that just because my District spent the last year totally Reinventing our entire code of conduct and it's been and it's you know there's still going to be changes but it's similar along those lines where we're like okay how do we work within statute we want kids you know that there have to be consequences at some point but we also want to push towards restorative and and you know what are some alternative ways to do this but like it's it's been such a crazy balance and we brought
030in principles and we brought in teachers and we brought in students you know to talk about like what does this actually look like when you put in the place and I think well first of all thank you for doing this work because I think it is huge like this is a amazing launching Point um and I think if we really go through this and process intentionally and we change policy then the next step is let's look at that code of conduct and because that's really where your administrators see okay where does this fall where does this fall that's where you have that language that both students parents teachers that everybody understands that like you're not going to get into every possible little category in the policy I think that I just want to like note
031that so we don't forget that like once this policy is revised or all of the policies then the next step is let's look at our practices and what other documents do we have in place that will help people Implement policy as it's been decided on but also make sure that everything aligns we're going on for that not that I like loved this student conduct policy but I think we could replace that with something that's super aligned with the beliefs we've adopted as part of our strategic goals and plans in a way that creates like Norms that everyone who's involved in this District or a member of our community has should be like in agreement with um I don't know if that looks like making you know a whole new policy that's like something like that
032but I think that would be really great and that was another thing that I was going to add like the stuff that got completely taken out doesn't mean that it can be back in but it was just really crappy wording and so we were like just wondering I'm like some of this like we do need something about this but that was the intent of it of like hey this is a major red flag what are you guys going to do to fix it yeah like that was like the one of the steps to start getting her wheel spinning um so yeah and I'll just say like on a personal note going through this last night some of this was a little and I'll say the word triggering for me one of them being the section
033on confinement my brother went to school in this district and was in um I don't want to get emotional my brother was in special ed and he was placed in solitary rooms by himself in this District less than 30 years ago and it's very personal to me that we still have a policy like that it's unacceptable and it's not something we should have yeah there's a lot of stuff in here that obviously needs to be looked at needs to be raised and for that same you know we can't keep saying we're moving forward as a district and we have a policy that's been sitting there for 30 40 years it just doesn't make sense so um this is the start of all those conversations and I actually do like your idea I I just get
034into this mode where like three years we've nothing's been happening nothing's going nobody's doing anything so you know just go and throw it out there but I think that's what we'll do next is that we'll set up a meeting um so you can give us that information with um Mr Mann to figure out how we can go about getting that done and actually getting more input and I really want CA to be as involved as they can in this just because you know they're their Forefront they're the union reps to a lot of our teachers and they it would be great insight to work with them hand in hand on these these issues so when I think like Katie said there has to be ownership right to this too and I'm really curious to hear
035the rationale for all of the changes which I think that maybe should just be saved for the committee right um I assume a lot of it is because a lot of this this is very subjective right and it can be interpreted differently and it also goes to a little bit of the stuff that's been going on in the district just um because it is subjective you know and it goes back to that well I'm interpreting this as this but you're interpreting as this so we have now two different outcomes and the whole aspect of this too with even the certain words that it doesn't give a lot of room for subjectivity to happen it's just kind of blame Bland but you bring up another good point that once this is done we're really going to
036have to tackle on our code of conduct just to make sure that that is implemented in this too the um sorry you have to make a part of like the the every year routine is not to just present this to somebody or give them a booklet read like this is something that has to be edu like you know I've been practicing almost six years in the criminal code and like there's so many things in here that are from that and like I don't expect anyone in this room to to know right like there's no I mean there's some some of this stuff so like I mean there's I would not expect any teacher or staff member who's already so I totally get all this and I know exactly what I'm supposed like that's just like
037a crazy expectation to have of anybody and so I think that's where we also need to meet our folks who are on a regular basis and get them the information and make sure people feel comfortable and safe themselves in these situations right so we'll just leave it with that then we'll follow up us three with each other and then we can have board communication as well not violating open meeting law but you know Juarez be our Communicator like always um do we have any other questions or discussion in this before I move on to the next agenda item I appreciate you guys working with me on this and being so receptive to this I I do appreciate that so all right on the back but like this is exactly what I would expect to be
038on a board for is to have an actual conversation about something and not have some like smoke and mirror going on where we're just like pretending that we didn't talk about something and somehow we're miraculously passing something so I really appreciate having candid conversations having people in the room that we could have Canon conversations in and reminding that we can pull in people from the audience whenever we want if we want to ask a question appreciate it I think that's what elected officials and especially School Board should do more often because there's way too much on the Civil Wars where people are like oh we all got to be in agreement or vote the same way or look like some sort of united front when that's just ridiculous that that would even exist so I
039really appreciate the conversation and I hope that we can just continue with it awesome thank you all right um that brings us to Future agenda items do we have any future agenda items all right I do have one Speaking of all the changes um I would like to put on the future agenda item are student governance model work there's a new model um out of all the things that I do in school boards I've gone around with different districts and asked them what governance model do you guys use to bring out your policies or whatever it is that you guys are doing in your district and here in Arizona I think we're the Wild Wild West nobody knows what governance model they're doing nobody has an actual anything we're just kind of up here and
040going with the flow so Texas um not to go too much in detail but Texas uses a certain student outcome governance model and that's what I would like to present to the board to see if that's something that our community would fit our community and would be interested in adopting as well so and have an actual presentation as well on that so um hopefully that comes on the next board meeting so we will have be having um Dr Ramos coming in and presenting so CA if anybody would like to know from CA make comment comments come parents those are here in the room let your parents know because this is going to affect their children too and I think it's something that everybody's been asking for so hopefully we can have people in here to
041get information and get as much feedback as we can um it'll start at 7 pm oh yes and our next boarding meeting will start at 7 pm that's August 15th good to know I'm sorry yes because oh because of the presentation oh okay I thought there was another etiquette I was like we got an exec session for two hours oh no no no okay so let's start at seven yeah we start at seven and we'll have that presentation and other fun stuff all right um no other future agenda items I move the governing board adjourn all those in favor aye aye thank you guys have a great night drive safely buenas noches foreign