June 27, 2023, Governing Board Meeting

001thank you our special meeting second all those in favor aye aye aye and this takes us to our budget hearing and Mr Germany Madam Madam Clerk and members of the board um and thank you madam clerk for sitting in as our president this evening um we have uh this year both the truth in taxation hearing and a proposed budget hearing which are combined as is allowed by law and mistina dumelian who is our Director of Finance is going to walk us through the information for this hearing the hearing will be immediately followed by our first agenda item in the board meeting being a vote on the budget and the adjacent ways tax levy um so that will immediately follow this hearing let's do one uh Madam clerk members of the board and exec team welcome

002to tonight's meeting um the first slide we're going to cover says truth and Taxation that is for the adjacent ways tax that we are proposing the amount there is 750 000 it does have a breakdown for you so if you look at line C2 that would tell you the increase of taxes for every hundred thousand dollars of your home's valuation um funds for adjacent ways can only be used for Approved adjacent ways construction projects or maintenance projects so if there was money left over in this account we couldn't repair lights or carpet or anything like that it's also over the oversight for this fund is the school facilities board so every time you have an adjacent ways project it goes through their verification and approval before we can spend these funds the next slide kind

003of shows you a breakdown we have the numbers that you saw in the new build for next year for lck this is specific to the adjacent ways portion of that we also have the transportation deal South Drive that we have put off for several years at least back to the Creighton days that's the drive that all the buses go down all the delivery trucks that's in pretty poor shape so we've put this off as long as we can and then we just have some minor issues anytime an issue pops up that might be an underlying utility or a sewer line for us or a fencing issue that impacts neighbors we are allowed to use adjacent ways to correct that so that we don't push further things onto our neighbors so that's the adjacent ways truth

004and Taxation portion the next slide goes into our actual budget hearing um we did assume um an enrollment decline like we have in years past we did however minimize that to attempt to capture as much budget capacity as we could because these budgets actually set the tax rates for our property owners in the district our mno is significantly high right now we've been talking about that for a while the meet and confer recommendations some of those recommendations will obviously hit mno in general and also some of our carry forward so things like the longevity increases those are ongoing costs um the pfp increase for classified staff that comes out of mno so that would be an increase some one-time costs include um the 16 hours for classified staff and the eight hours for certified staff

005that's a one-time cost so we put that into and the no coming out of Esther we have the hourly increases for the highly qualified AIDS those typically hit hit impact mnl more than any other funding source so we've got all those things coming out we also have some remaining things that were in Esser that are coming back to mno the final two items that were originally an mno that got moved to Esser is the other half of the assistant principal's positions we brought those back in January so in our last budget hearing you heard that that got brought back as of January 1st this budget has the full impact of that cost and in here um and then we also the other big ticket item moving from Esser back to mno are the cost for

006daily and long-term Subs that's typically anywhere between six hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand a year depending on you know various circumstances across vacancies injuries illnesses those kind of things on the next page you will see the breakdown um and I have a summary on the next page but on this page I did want you to note that for average teacher salary we just put a placeholder in there one percent we expect that to go up if you'll recall at our May budget hearing our projection of three percent went up to seven percent just from the longevity increases for teachers so I do expect this to come up but I need to wait until all of the new teachers are on board and we can actually run a more accurate average for that um we've

007got some summarizing there on the next slide um it we do have a budget um capacity increase for mnl so that's positive news um however we um also have adjustments that will be made um those will be um coming out on the budget 75 in November so that could be enrollment loss that could be less carry forward than we thought it could be more carry forward than we cost so there are some adjustments that happen later but right now it's projected to be a budget capacity increase we do have the federal pandemic relief funding Revenue in this budget as well it is decreased from last year obviously because we've spent a lot and already um put that into our statements for last fiscal year so that's the only decrease on that front page that you

008will see um you can see on the next bullet point the increased base level so the base support level has went up and that accounts for some of that budget capacity that's included in this budget and just a reminder that in December we pretty typically always have a budget revision that's required so we'll have that coming forward as well as far as future budget challenges you've seen a lot of these and we've went over these a lot of times but what I want to highlight is the second bullet for declining State revenues and general fund balance because we we have got some new information that's pretty pretty um alarm I won't say alarming but concerning um the tax cuts in we we now have something to look at so for May of 23 2023 it

009decreased by 44 percent so that's an impact of about 175 million dollar loss to the general fund the esas that we've talked a little bit about those have actually are projected to increase by 72 percent and the funding for that alone is 900 million estimated and then some of the economic factors but also part of the general fund too it comes out of the state's general okay um there are some economic factors um one of the concerning things they have seen is a decline in sales tax which feeds into um several of our funds within the budget we actually were expecting this last year and didn't see it and we're surprised by it we are starting to see the impact now so you may see some decreases in different funds including mno classroom site funds

010prop one two three there's fund 20 that feeds into this so we have that going as well is there any way to try to anticipate what those changes might look like and amount wise or we just typically get we do get some projections later on in the year um this was the this was the first one I've seen I don't know Jay if you've seen more come out this was the first this is the first item that I've seen come across our desks from a lot of our organizations saying wait a minute we might have some red flags here but later on in the year they'll start projecting that and the numbers will start flowing out to the schools that anticipate a lower amount here lower amount here yeah and there have been some there

011was a significant problem with classroom site fund years ago where the dollars that flowed in flowed immediately out and so when you had a change like this like there was a year and a camera was 2010 maybe it was 2011 where all of a sudden classroom site fund plummeted and districts struggled to be able to even meet their basic needs out of that fund and this and the state did change the way that those revenues are managed I guess for lack of a better term and so they tried to normalize them to some extent so um it doesn't make it not a it doesn't make the problem go away that sales tax revenues were down but it does it'll it'll help even out the decline in those funds coming to us so there shouldn't be

012like a stark all of a sudden we're not getting any money from that um because and I don't know the exact nature of the mechanism but they're doing something where they're holding some of those funds back and Doling them out to ensure that there's not like you know a bankruptcy of that account for some reason thank you and I believe that's our last slide so we are opening it for questions at this time do board members have questions Miss Ayers let's give something I just wanted to say you know before I was on the board I went to like an all day long training with uh Jay I forgot what even the organizations I think it was a partnership through asbo and maybe asba together yeah it was very interesting I'm not a math or

013money person but it um helped me get some insight into this whole process how it's a year-long thing it never really just kind of continues into itself um and I know there's a lot of folks involved and so I just want to tell everyone I appreciate all your work I know this is I there's no way I could do this job so I know it's some people's wheelhouse but and they enjoy it but thank you so much to everyone who's put work into this and continues to put work into it and I know we have other folks who don't necessarily work in your department who also give input from our district so I just want to appreciate everyone for getting this um getting this to us and I hope to talk to Mr Mann about

014how we can make our budget and process even more accessible to our community because you know that's my that's my I don't even know what word to use I think I think we originally met because you were the same homeowners association meeting where I was there to help shed some transparency on budget things yeah so I think we will be very copacetic on that movie so just thank you to everyone thank you the public they can do so questions I guess if anyone has a question you can come to the podium okay all right thank you very much Mr doomley and that will take us to um our regular meeting do I need to make a motion Hilda to move us no okay I want to just call it to order and do this okay

015yep [Music] members of the public who wish to address the governing board may do so in person or if you would like to virtually submit a comment please email Hilda Juarez at Hilda H Juarez at creightonschools.org that's on the website by 2PM the day of the meeting so she can send you a link in instructions board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda um and I am going that will take us to the land acknowledgment Creighton School District understands that our community of schools is located on the ancestral land of ohodom Jude and akamil Odom people who have descended from the hohokum and who have inhabited these lands since in Memorial time in Memorial whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant culture and communities spanning countless Generations

016into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for traditional care in keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an aspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to to honor with practices policy and human relations um and now we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance Mr Man Would you lead us in that pledge allegiance of the United States of America Republic which it stands one nation under God so roll call myself Amy mccheffrey Miss Ayers and Miss Gibson McLean are here um and welcome statement we want everyone to 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 org

017policy provides for two cards White cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards in order to speak during public comments due to open meeting law board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda that takes us to approval of agenda and I would like to table um [Music] sorry my iPad is still acting up so I've got to thank you items n a b and c okay so I would like to table 10 a b and c as those are Miss Korea dolls um agenda items and I would like for her to be able to lead us in the discussion on those second all those in favor bye thank you and we need to vote on the agenda correct otherwise yes as amended

018yeah yeah [Music] move the governing board approve the agenda as amended I second all those in favor aye aye thank you okay that takes us to public comments and the first I have is Gail Smith and are we going to do three minutes yes [Music] good evening Madam president members of the board I'm here tonight um my agenda is twofold the first in this public comment is to address the bullying that is happening in the schools um as you all are aware from my last comments my son Derek has been assaulted multiple times he has been racially bullied um Derek came home for several months stating to me that he wanted me to shave off his hair that he didn't like his curly hair and that the kids were making fun of his curly hair

019and I just kept assuring him that I loved his hair and that he should be proud of his hair and just because it's not like everybody else's that it you know it doesn't just because it's different doesn't mean that it's it's wrong and that he should be proud of it and this was going on for months then Derek started coming home and telling me after an incident on the bus that for a long time he's been being called a monkey at school that the kids are making fun of him because of his black skin when I brought this to the attention of administration I was told that they didn't think the kids meant anything by it well maybe one or two of them did and there were no consequences for these kids Derek had so

020much anxiety that he he was sick he was physically sick the next day and could not go to school and that continued these incidents have happened for a while according to Derek these have been happening for a long time but Dirk doesn't feel like he has a voice in the school he's also been physically assaulted to the point of having to go to the hospital and something needs to be done what I found during this whole incidence of assaults and bullying is that the district's policies do nothing to protect the victim the district policies attack protect the perpetrator and there was nothing for Derek to keep him safe at school and other districts that are close by including um the bolts District their policy or assault is an immediate 10-day suspension those children were not

021suspended and they attacked my child again the next day on the bus and our policies we need to look at our policies for bullying and reassess how we're going to keep our kids safe and protect our children at school and that I would really like the board to look into this thank you thank you our next public comment is Maru panel good evening my name is Marie panelly that's okay the pen was light um I just would like to um follow with Gail's comment of um I would really like someone to look into the bowling my daughter attended a school in the district and has since moved out of the district and gone to Madison and it was like a breath of fresh air the change in environment because she wasn't getting picked on and

022she was able to use the restroom and not get locked in or locked out by the bigger kids and um I just really feel like it was something that needs to definitely be looked into yeah thank you thank you the next speaker is Cassie Headley good evening Madam president and members of the board my name is Cassie Headley and I am a Creighton School District teacher and also a parent of two current and one former who just graduated eighth grade from the district I come to you tonight as a parent to bring to your attention the issue of bullying within our schools I made the difficult decision in February to withdraw my eighth grader from the school he had attended since the third grade due to extreme bullying my son who had always loved School

023began to hate school and it would be a fight every morning to get him up to go to school my happy outgoing son became an introvert and would isolate himself and be quiet he wasn't sleeping he wasn't eating he lost 10 pounds his grades were drastically affected and he missed 16 days of school because he was physically ill he did not tell me for the longest time that this was going on and when he finally did tell me he told me he did not feel safe at school and he felt he would get in trouble for speaking up about the bullying and he felt he did not have a voice for himself my heart broke for my child and of course part of me was angry and frankly I am still angry that this is

024was going on it was a very hard decision for me to withdraw him and not one that I take lightly but I withdrew him and enrolled him in Creighton Virtual Academy for the remainder of his eighth grade year within two weeks his grades were back up to A's and B's and before he graduated he made honor roll twice he finally felt safe and was excited to log in every day to school and no longer was a fight to get him up he began sleeping and eating this is not okay we need to do better as Educators and make sure our children and students feel safe and that they have a voice to advocate for themselves and know that they can speak up to any teacher or adult when this is happening we also need to

025make sure that any form of bullying is not tolerated at all I did not want my child and do not want any students to become a statistic and feel that they have to take their own lives because of bullying our children and students deserve better we need to do better and have policies put into effect to protect our children thank you our next comment is from Jessie giambra hello good evening board members and executive team and to the public I wanted to make a comment tonight to be forthcoming about my future plans and I'm personally a person who you know when we get into kind of a recursive cycle I really like to just try to break out of it and try something new and I'm also someone who like my whole life I've just

026sought after the best teachers ever and I'm doing that again now so thank you for you know this process of approval um in order to allow me to have an opportunity to go to India and I'll be studying a course called return to Earth at Earth University and it's the A to Z of agroecology and I really I did want to try to take a sabbatical so that I could continue working for the district and further the vision of Outdoor Learning and I won't be doing that at this time but I'm still really excited to go and get knowledge and get experience because you know we're just at a time in our in our world where we're like constantly in cycles of just being busy and work and and you know the whole world shut

027down for covid but it's like the world kind of needs to shut down again but for biodiversity and to change these cycles of you know the distress of the youth and the way that they're taking out their anger and emotions on each other and to really reconnect with our roots and to really reconnect to what's important in our society and to you know find a new relationship with nature because I think that's one of the big things under threat right now and it's like everywhere is talking about a climate crisis biodiversity crisis so I personally volunteers tribute uh to go abroad and to just do everything I can to learn about that and then to come back and I'm from here my roots are here in this school district and so even though I won't

028be you know working for the district while I'm gone I'm really happy that I'll still be able to you know further the vision and uh just put my best self forward so thank you so much and tata for now I'll be back and my intention is to come back into the classroom in January and to just come back and um you know the whole time it's like you know that the children are just always you know at the front of my mind and in my heart and the families and so yeah I'm just excited to go on this journey and I thank you so much okay that takes us to superintendent report Mr Man thank you um so this week we are wrapping up our summer school program at all of our schools I'm happy

029to share that we have had nearly a thousand students it's the largest summer school cohort we've ever had in Creighton which is pretty awesome um and that program will run through this Thursday one of the challenges we had with summer school this week and this is the bad news piece is if you'll recall about three years ago we had fire suppression lines burst in the Biltmore front office and flood out our front office and we hoped after that was remediated that we would never see that happen again we hit our hottest day of the year yesterday and unfortunately it had a similar experience with that with that bursting so our Dr Demar has done a wonderful job of making the adjustments that need to be made to feel terrible for her and her team our

030facilities team has really really come together to help support her and get their whole front office staff moved into the library location and summer school went on as planned today and I think you know I've heard the board talk a lot about the importance of communication and one of the things I was really proud of is that even in her you know depression and despair of the disaster that had occurred um what she said to me was well the good news is I had all the communications already prepared from last time so I was just able to send them out again so she did a great job communicating with family so it's hard sometimes to find the positive thing um and uh you know as the as the summer progresses um you know we're hoping

031our teachers and the staff that are not with us 12 months are getting some well needed rest because we've got a lot of work to do coming up this fall um and uh just look forward to working with everybody I'm I'm here uh sort of in a adjunct capacity of this afternoon but when we're back in August it'll be my first opportunity to sit with the board officially a superintendent I mean I'm really looking forward to our board study session on that scheduled for later in August so thank you very much thank you um so that brings us to governing board reports Miss Ayers good evening I just have a couple um things um first of all we are finishing up pride month and um my friend writes a a Blog called wake up call

032and she had one this month and I just want to read a little bit of it because it really struck me um it says I want to be clear in recognizing that Prime month is a time to celebrate the lgbtq plus community and its progress however it is also a time to remember that the fight free quality is not over and it's arguably more at risk now than over the last few decades Pride was started as a protest and will always be until the lgbtq plus Community truly has equal rights which are human rights um so I just wanted to talk about this because as you know I was married to a woman I have been married to a man um and a woman before and um I often talked with my wife about the

033possibility of having our marriage not recognized as being a partnership and that always scared us unfortunately I lost her last year but I still want to acknowledge that this is still a difficult thing for people in this community and just to support to support that Community um also I would like to uh even though Miss uh Dr Lewis is not here tonight I would like to thank her for all of our work in this District um unfortunately she couldn't be here tonight but I'm not sad that Jay's here um so thank you Dr Lewis for all the work that you've done for this District um and I hope after you get better that you're able to um go do all the stuff that you should be doing on retirement thank you thank you um thank

034you for sharing um that Heather I appreciate it I think it's good for us to share parts of ourselves and not just be business all the time I think it's good for folks that work in the district and especially for our youth um and even someone who's my age you know going to school I can't imagine my friends being supported in the ways that they are now even if there's still lots more to do and so just to be acknowledged acknowledge your human existence and who you are and like all of who you are any of our kids out there um I hope that they feel that on a daily basis and if they don't I know we have more work to do obviously um so thank you heather I appreciate it um I I

035don't know I always feel like I should write down something before I come here but that's not how I do things obviously um so I'll just say this you know I left the last meeting um pretty amped obviously um and so I'll say you know I always appreciate folks following up um and I think maybe moving forward um I think for me just like making sure that we're not just doing things at the minimum of what's required um and and when I'm asking for things or saying things I guess I'm not doing it just to be mean or rude I'm doing it because I I expect Excellence for our community because oftentimes we get subpar things and so you know if if a blueprint to me has less detail than 150 000 I spent on

036my house and we're voting on like a million times that then I am a little skeptical right and so that's just where I'm coming from and hopefully no one took any offense to my attitude or how I get I'm just very passionate about things um and so I'm just hoping moving forward when we're voting on huge amounts of money that were I guess give and I don't know if it's not been the practice in the past but I'm not in the past I'm here and so moving forward if I'm ever given a vote moving forward again on something that's cost that much money I'm just saying my expectation would be that we have a lot more details than what we were presented with at the last meeting obviously I trust moving forward as we go

037through this process that will continue to have transparency with the community and if we don't I'll continue to push for it so um I'm excited all that saying I hope no one left thinking that I didn't feel excited about the possibility of a new school or what we have there and what we can grow there um I also um I had something in my mind and here I am not remembering what it was I don't even know I'm not going to belabor it I'm not just going to sit here and talk on and on but thanks everyone I think that was really the only thing I was going to address thank you um I just really wanted to say how um much I'm looking forward to working with Mr Mann um and I'm very optimistic

038about the future of Creighton with our board situation and Mr Mann coming in so that is it um that will take us yes we miss the adoption of the budget budget oh okay I was wondering thank you all right see it was after the approval of the agenda it's it's unusual I see it because it sits in a different place my apologies okay let's go to um item 2B which is adoption of the 2023-2024 budget pursuant to policy DB and approval of the adjacent ways property tax levy sorry catching up okay I moved the governing board adopt the total aggregate School District budget per a a ARS 15 905 for fiscal year 2324 um and the adjacent ways property tax levy second all those in favor aye aye aye sorry I'm a little slow on

039this one okay all right that takes us to approval of consent oh sorry I moved the governing board approved consent agenda items A through Z in accordance with policy b e d b e second all those in favor aye [Music] all right that takes us to six Educational Services governing board will discuss and consider approval of hiring an outside vendor to conduct a special education audit okay then you have your public comment cards for that yes and we have comments thank you okay we have several public comments for this um the first is um and this is 6a right now just so I don't have to go back thank you um first is Marie Pannell yes good evening um I'm Marie panell um I'm a parent of a former Creighton School student my daughter Abigail

040I attended Loma Linda from pre-k to second grade I noticed her struggling with numbers and letters in kindergarten and I spoke with the teacher and was told this was normal for her age so I let it go first grade was mostly online because of the pandemic and she continued to struggle with reading and math her teacher was overwhelmed with online and spent most of the time yelling at the kids and assigning for homework what she should have been teaching by the time she got to second grade I suspected very strongly that her struggle was due to dyslexia I found she was behind and told the teacher I thought it might be dyslexia I asked what we could do about that and she said she would ask a few weeks later she got back to me

041and said that I would have to go and get her tested and then let the school know the results I had no idea how this was to be done so Abigail continued to struggle her teacher also invited Abigail to attend after school tutoring four days a week for the rest of the school year most days she came home with pictures she had drawn during this time what was the tutoring for I decided not to put her in summer school even though I was asked several times by her teacher instead I bought a program to do at home that was for reading for those with dyslexia she blossomed she had asked in the spring if she could change schools and so with all that was going on I decided this was a great idea we changed

042schools and districts and it was like a breath of fresh air she began to attend Madison Rose Lane and when she began to struggle again I suggested to the teacher that I thought it might be dyslexia this time the teacher offered to have her tested she found she was found to have dyslexia and was two years behind in her reading and one year behind in math an offer of services was made and accepted what was the reason for Abigail to be denied this while at Loma Linda if she was so behind she needed tutoring why was nothing more done I was lied to I feel like because I didn't know what should be done and they could get away with it I feel the school worked to avoid to test her and offer services there's

043no excuse for this thank you thank you um the next speaker is Janice Swanson foreign hello my name is Janice Swanson and my parent to a five-year-old who was evaluated by the district for Special Event Services when he was three and a half he was just demonstrating disruptive behaviors in his preschool that were not ruined after meetings with this Preschool teachers directors and Southwest human development we landed on having him evaluated by the district as we were concerned about his social emotional development and his sensory needs he was not eligible for services after his first evaluation to which I appealed and disagreed and asked for a second evaluation or for an FBA if not the ability to get an IEEE to obtain a private evaluation the appeal process was never made note to me but

044thankfully others made me aware of this I was given a second evaluation and was again projected for services right communicated the spirit of his issues including being told that he would be ultimate preschool and submitted several teacher reports and a letter from his preschool directors before his second evaluation he was expelled and was on the verge of being expelled from his second preschool all of which was communicated to the special inbound my son was later referred for and has been in both behavioral therapy and occupational therapy for over a year now and I find it very suspect that other professionals Educators have recognized his need for services but yet this is this District not instead I was made to deal that I was an overreacting parent and he was just being a boy but in

045reality I was getting honest accounts and trying to address issues as soon as possible before he started I feel this District needs to take a look if there's a second look at the special ed Department I'd say of pale to help my son and per part of this reason he will not be attending this District this coming year thank you thank you very much okay the next um speaker is Gail Smith foreign members of the board I come for before you tonight again um to speak about my experiences with Creighton special education department for the last five and a half years at five months of age my son Derek began receiving feeding therapy and later occupational therapy at Phoenix Children's Hospital at 16 months of age Derek was evaluated and identified as having a fine

046motor delay a sensory processing disorder and a speech and language delay he began receiving Occupational Therapy Services speech services with a zip and continued his therapies at Phoenix Children's when he aged out of azip services at age three I brought him to the district to be evaluated for special education services the district screened him and said that his deficits were not severe enough to qualify him however they did not evaluate him they used a Peabody that was provided by me from Phoenix Children's Hospital I disagreed with the findings but we had no choice but to continue services at Phoenix Children's at age three and a half Derek entered head start at lck Derek's Head Start teacher reached out to me and expressed concerns with Derek's fine motor development she stated that he avoided coloring writing

047painting drawing and cutting with scissors he would avoid it at all cost and was easily frustrated when he was required to do so she suggested that I reach out to the district again and have him evaluated I did so and the district sent an ot to screen hem when the OT arrived at the school to screen him he was standing at the gate waiting to be led into the Head Start area with my son and my sister who dropped him off at school from that she had just come from therapy at Phoenix Children's dot stated that he was there to evaluate my son and the teacher introduced him to my son and stated perfect timing this is Derek he's just returning with his aunt from therapy when the OT called me to discuss the findings

048of the screening he made up a whole story about how he met my son that was not true I immediately called him out on it and said my sister had already told me how you met my son and asked him why he would make up a story like that I brought this incident to the attention of the special education department I felt that lying to a parent during a screening was not only unprofessional but that it was unethical I made the district aware of this that OT still works in the district he stated that he didn't see any problems with my son's fine motor delay that he couldn't pick him out on the playground and had to ask the teacher which one was my son despite being introduced to him at the gate um Derek's

049fine motor he was continuing with OT therapy during this time before Derek started kindergarten at Mackin okay I'm gonna refer to the attorney okay so we can ask questions even though we're at an agenda item okay all right thank you very much and I appreciate all you moms I'm and it obviously was not easy for you to come here and speak so I appreciate it thank you okay um right so our recommended action here is um move the governing board approve the procurement office don't say that okay okay so based on legal advice that we received in our executive session we are going to I'm not going to repeat it I'm just saying based on what we discussed we are going to change the motion you you may propose a different motion right yeah so

050the better way to proceed to proceed you if anyone on on the board would like to discuss you know give their opinion and discuss the agenda item and then after if nobody wants to discuss then go ahead and open it up for motion and whoever has a motion to make would make that motion and voted and voted it just makes it very difficult to discuss when it was an executive session so you just share your opinions about this topic in general you don't discuss any leadership yeah you can share anything that's your opinion about this topic okay okay um so on the agenda it is to approve a vendor for a special education on it um just learning about Audits and what they do I don't think it's going to address the concerns that have

051been brought up um and and I think that there's other ways that we can do this especially with a new superintendent um and so that's my feeling about a special education on it so as I've stated for many many months now um I have heard too many disturbing um allegations from both staff and parents not to do something more than what what we've been doing which is nothing for the past nine months or so so um I think there are a couple options um that we have um to to make a motion on tonight and do you have anything else that you want to share about the topic I mean this is our time to discuss because once we do the motion we're done so anything else you want to say thank you I just

052it's it's really difficult when an attorney comes in here and tells me I can't really say anything you just can't talk about the specific conversation yeah to the board was about whatever legal topic we were literally anything you've said is your thing to say and you can say it again okay okay I mean I feel like I've been obstructed these past nine months by um by this District in trying to get help for families and staff who have very serious allegations um and we must do something what we discussed um is not even um I'm not happy with with I think what the outcome is I trust Mr Man to um move us forward in the right direction so I feel like I am disappointing um people who come with very serious concerns um by

053by not um doing what I had hoped we would do but I I have I have 100 trust in Mr Man at this moment to um make some moves in the right direction um I'm kind of at a loss for what else to say I have said a lot already this year so um I'm staying consistent with that um and I I just don't you know I don't like what I'm hearing and it is it is in our hands to do something about it yeah I'll just say that um you know as a board we have to take into consideration a whole lot of things right from legalities to what we're hearing at board meetings to what people say to us outside of board meetings to making sure we're not involving ourselves in some sort

054of conflict of interest all sorts of things I will say that given all the information that I possess in my brain I do believe that there's something that we need to do here um like knowing and getting uh kind of more information and learning about all the different processes and I'm not just talking about tonight I mean we've had we've had this discussion a few times now um I I think that there's a way for us to move forward um that's both um cost effective that is um hope that I would trust would be effective in moving forward and addresses most of the concerns that that we're concerned about um the other thing I'll say is this um you know it's it's going to take a lot of work on everybody's part but a lot

055on Mr man's part um to to build back any trust that's been lost to build back any um sense of culture where folks don't feel uh fear in speaking up specifically people that work for this District um it's going to take time right and I know I think maybe we mentioned it a little bit at another meeting but you know it's hard to say after you know folks have been wading through things to like be patient with us what I am asking is that um we are going to do something tonight um but I am asking that there be just a little bit of trust and hopefully we can deliver on that and start to build some of that trust back and when I say we I'm in the district um and I'm hoping that

056that as we continue to build this back we can also impact some pretty great change on the culture of our district overall I think this is a starting point there are many other things including the issue we tabled tonight that are places that we need to address um so much so that sometimes I feel overwhelmed on like where the heck do we even begin but here we are with one thing that's in front of us tonight and so for um the first thing that I'd like to move is to direct um the superintendent Mr Mann through Finance to gather cost estimates so that the board may consider um cost estimates for a potential evaluation at a different juncture just so that we are able to get that information presented to us and to the public

057so that we have a little bit more information before we make a decision like that a second all those in favor aye um and additionally I'd like to move um to request that the superintendent um Mr Man form a task force that addresses uh records retention practices and special ed percentages of special ed education evaluations being completed as compared to formal requests for evaluations climate surveys of current special education staff former special education staff and special education parents specifically I'd like this task force and or Mr Mann to follow up with those uh parents and or staff who've made public comment at any point in this past school year additionally we'd like to include focus groups made up of different um I don't know to say interest groups or stakeholders or Affinity groups whatever that

058looks like from your own expertise we direct you to look into testing accommodations for standardized tests at uh excellencia and also direct you to look into special education classroom self-contained ratios for kindergarten students and any other issues that may come up through these focus groups and the task force and information you get back from these surveys tasks task force and whatnot and we'd like for you to come back and report to the board at minimum on a monthly basis at a board meeting or study session a second all is in favor aye aye and I'll just make one other comment um that yeah we did have a lot of policies on the agenda tonight that we're going to get started on including discipline um a whole bunch and because I I do think we've realized

059you know that is our role as governing board members and we're feeling I think as board members that some of our policy policies are outdated or not working for us so that is something we are going to attack and I think that will help us move forward in a in a really positive way so thank you very much okay this will take us to all right sorry [Music] all right that will take us to the Asa aasa test scores in English language arts and math and I do have some comments thank you takes a village okay our first um speaker is Ariel Williams so Miss Berg I do have some public comments first I'm sorry sorry oh no Dr Berg sorry hahaha um hello Arya Williams teacher in the district um this stole a lot

060of interesting comments I will like to say I have experience being called monkey the gorilla noises and then having a stuffed monkey left outside my door and then coming out of my room and then a group of boys just standing there smirking so I understand when your kids are going as a teacher I experience it um so good evening my name is Arya Williams I'm a teacher in the crane school district um someone once said don't let anyone tell you that standardized tests are not an accurate measures um the truth is of the matter they offer a remarkable precise method for gauging the sizes of the houses near the school where the test was administrated um I um I think we should challenge you know the traditional beliefs about education to think critically about the

061way we approach teaching and learning we should focus on the process of learning rather than the results um We should strive for equity in education and recognize the importance of relationship and collaboration um with that being said I feel like history is repeating itself if you look at um balanced literature even though we all knew kids learn from phonemic awareness and phonics curriculum companies came in trying to make a quick buck and they convinced everyone to go to the balanced literature approach I feel like we're doing the same thing with technology I think we need to roll back the one-to-one Technologies devices in the schools um K5 is not doing anything remarkable with the iPads that like if we were to roll back to one to one outside of State Testing that it would completely

062crumble their world I know we're in this belief currently that if the kids don't have iPads they're not doing this and then the iPad they won't be um ready for success in the future but reality Millennials um grew up without technology we're coding we made presentations we do graphic design we do animation because we figured it out and I think that these kids will figure it out I don't think that they have to be on the iPad in the school building I think they will be able to eventually figure it out I think their bosses would rather have someone they can read and do basic math been making a presentation on the iPad um I think that we should focus more on number sense I've been in the district and I've never got a number

063since training in this District but I've gotten it and another District I came from I feel like we need to focus on number sense because that is the foundation of mathematics um it's good to talk about fluency and conceptual understanding but the kids don't have numbers since none of that matters sorry bye thank you um I can finish up your thought that you're on Just for anybody else yeah um provide professional development on um creating efficient productive instructional routines that's something we're missing um teachers often say well wonders don't work for the kids HOA doesn't work for the kids I think teachers need to learn and be trained on how to modify the curriculum So when you say it's not working for the kids what exactly that lesson is not working for the kids that

064you can modify thank you our next speaker is Barbara Halden good evening both um Administration and public my name is Barbara Halden I was a former teacher in the district and since I left about two years ago almost three years ago I followed very closely what's happening in the district because this district is very near and dear to me so I'm standing here today after I looked at the outcome of the last test and it is shocking and not only for this District it is shocking Nationwide um I think that this district has a tremendous potential you are very small you have um already created one school that is really different with the Creighton Academy you are on the road to create another school that is outstanding this is from what I've seen at the

065presentation if you can build this school and if you can start teaching in 21st century Style you will get rid of all the problems we are facing at the moment because you will be creating something for our students where they are feeling safe they are feeling loved and they are getting back to where they came from they will have the support because they will have these natural spaces that will help them to understand where they came from and what it this this this planet is all about but you need to really change education as well you cannot only do that on the outside with the buildings you need to go inside and I think you have great teachers you have great support people look at Ms Williams which he just said I just hope that

066you will find the time and the the strength and just to dare you know that what you are asking your students to do just do it and really really find the strength to step a little bit outside of the box and do something different because I know that this District can be outstanding and you will get so many families that will follow you with that thank you very much thank you and our next speaker is Jesse giambra hello thank you one more comment before I go um well I think you know my response to these test scores is I just feel like it's a reality check and I also feel like it expresses what people have been saying and asking for all year every year and I know we had to go through covid but

067also these scores have been coming back really terrible for before coven too um and so it's just important to be honest about that and so when I looked at the next steps list I really felt disappointed and other things too and I wanted to just add three suggestions to the next steps list and the first suggestion is please listen to the teachers because they know exactly what is going on and they know exactly what's wrong and they are asking for it but they also don't have a venue to do it in a particularly constructive way or particularly structured way meaning that staff meetings are not the venue because there's not time for that built in and honestly they end up coming to cea and we do the best that we can and so here I

068am to be to speak on behalf of them as membrane as a as an officer of cea the second thing is our professional development um not to be rude but I personally have learned a lot since I've been here but I haven't been taught anything in about five or six years not in coaching not in professional development not in targeted ways at all and I wish I had and I've heard quotes from people all year that say things like I wish that I could just learn and grow something like that from my mistakes I wish I had people helping me to get better and I do too because I didn't go to school you know to be a teacher I learned it later and so I really do want to learn and grow too things

069like differentiating to many different levels of students uh you know obviously class size and behavior has a huge impact impact too and so that's on it's on listening to the teachers and what they need and then also just giving them the training that they need in order to do it because when I see like failure like 81 or sorry 91 failure it's like not the students failure to me it's our failure to prepare the teachers to teach the students what they need and we have so many great things going for us I mean I just love the things we're learning and doing at our school but the test isn't going to measure that you know and so obviously it's flawed to begin with but we still can do we need to do something vastly differently

070in my opinion because what I saw from the next steps was more of the same and it looks like more data but I think we need less data and more common sense because we have the data but the data is flawed because of the iPad thing as a technology teacher I totally agree with the comment about technology um there's just it's just it's it's it's YouTube and games and that's like such a huge distraction and it does contribute to behavior but so my third thing that's a suggestion or recommendation is back to the cultural competency I have it in place in my classroom I have 100 participation in my classroom and cultural cultural competency it's hard to express what that is when it's um you know it's not like a tangible thing but just to

071finish up we know we have ell students we know we have a hundred kids from the res at Mackin we know that we have these cultures that whose needs we need to meet and we know we have teachers from out of state Etc and I know that there's modules like four hour modules from Tony Sierra one hour modules from aea we can roll out this type of training and there and then to me that's also the success in the behavior and the social and emotional um and every other realm and dimension of what we're experiencing during the school day so thank you so much thank you okay Dr Berg all right good evening Madam president members of the board cabinet um thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you our preliminary very

072preliminary analysis of our aasa scores um this evening I'd like to start off with um having doctor been open and share some of his thoughts on some of these slides and then we'll go into a slightly deeper analysis I would like to begin by thanking Dr Berg before the board for 25 years of service this is Dr Byrd's last governing board evening with us and ironically the first presentation she did as director was state test scores and her final presentation with us this evening will be a state test scores so thank you Michelle for your service thank you so we wanted to start off tonight a little bit with a little bit of a different frame um you know we certainly agree with much of what's been said about the importance of of holistic learning

073meeting the needs of all children and I wanted to bring us back with we felt it was important to come back to our strategic plan and those progress indicators because the team that's built the Strategic plan and that's been monitoring it really placed a high level of emphasis on academic excellence and they established multiple indicators to be markers of progress along that way and the three indicators that were established by the strategic planning team had to do with passage rates on these assessments increases relative to the increases Statewide and we wanted to be very upfront about the fact that this year's scores did not come anywhere near the targets that were established in the Strategic plan so we acknowledge that there is substantial work to do in terms of meeting the indicators that we've set

074for ourselves and um you know as we look across just straight across our scores we observe that the English language arts scores decreased by two percent the math scores stayed the same from the prior year the test was unchanged um you know so that represents fundamentally a flat level of progress and we acknowledge and own the challenges that lie ahead so everything else we're going to talk about we want to reference to that frame we know in our consistent message to our teachers to our kids to our parents is that our kids are way more than test scores our teachers efforts are way more than these scores yet these scores are an important indicator of the impact of our work so with that there are some contextual realities and factors and I do want to

075just remind the board that if you have questions or want to discuss any of these topics please feel free to jump in at any point um and ask so as I stated you know we're statistically constant from 2022 we did have some increases in passage rates in math anywhere from one to four percent at five of our schools when you look at the other schools there were some decreases as well so that accounts for the the lack of change we did observe in places where scores had slight increases that two things seemed to matter one was the Fidelity of early literacy intensification efforts and the application of strategies learned in the math cadres so where play in schools where in grade levels where there was some some Fidelity to that work there seemed to be

076an alignment with those increases um we did in looking at our math we saw some areas where the new the new instructional resources into math seem to be having a potential positive impact and of course pandemic disruption remains evident particularly in grade three and Staffing Transitions and position vacancies also are part of the reality of this work in our analysis though this is kind of outside of the test score Arena one of the first things that we look at um when we're trying to understand what has occurred and where to go next is with regard to students experiencing absences and what this slide is intended to show is The Chronic absence rate and so state law policy sets chronic absenteeism as anyone who is experiencing absence is greater than 10 percent of the school year

077so that's 18 or more days and what we see is that that rate has remained constant for the last for the current school year just finished and the year prior that means that one in four students isn't present for a full school year to experience the instruction and we acknowledge that this needs to be an area of focus for our coming year and you know working on the relationships working on the invitation and the support needs to our kids and their families and certainly we want to acknowledge the safety needs and concerns that kids some of which were shared tonight which may be impacting what we're seeing here the thing I want to point out is that this is all kids K-8 this does not reflect any kind of breaking out of just kids who

078are tested on aasa so it might be a little bit different we haven't gone in yet to look at you know Middle School versus kindergarten or or upper grades lower grades those kinds of things but that's a piece of the work get to be done Dr Burke so um just every year just to kind of give you a background once uh test scores are made available to us we begin our work immediately however that data is just in raw form so certain factors that the state department continues to work on over the summer such as the high you know like um if someone hasn't started the school year with us or they've moved around that data is not reflected in this and that is something that's going to be continued to be developed as we

079move closer to when letter grades are released later on in the year um additionally one of the things that we always try to do because we know how we can compare to one another but we feel like it's really important for us to kind of take a look at like what's happening out there and that information doesn't become doesn't come to us publicly right away so we actually work with relationships with other school districts and other Partnerships that we form to be able to get an analysis of schools that are like us neighboring school districts other um you know even schools that aren't like us we want to make sure that we're taking you know a hard look at what these scores mean you know not only you know for you know what's happening in

080our district but how do they compare for others because I mean it's just my philosophy I don't want to wait for the big test of life for those things to to come out so it's really important for us to do that however because this information is not public we do have like agreements with our partner districts where we don't release information publicly and help they are able to do that so this is a very preliminary analysis is not reflective of all of the school districts out there it's just reflective of those partners that we're willing to share with us on the condition that we were able to maintain that confidentiality because they have constituents that they work with as well so we just want to admit that this is a very very small sample without

081revealing anything that would then reveal the identity um is there any information you can give us regarding how if these are two similar districts if one's dissimilar and one's similar in terms of demographic size Etc they're both it's hard to look at something like this and not know that and then give it any waiter value so that's why I'm asking it if I may oh yeah remember McLean Gibson McLean these are two districts that are within the Phoenix Union footprint that are demographically similar to Creighton okay thank you and what I also would say is once this data has been more processed and people have had an opportunity to share with their boards and share with their communities and as we get closer to letter grades coming out we will bring to you a more

082robust set with names oh yeah as long as one on almost everybody's board docs and nobody had no I was all over the place y'all so I was like happy to see this but I wanted some and we'll provide that the other thing I wanted to say just in full transparencies they're not districts where current board members are also staff oh [Laughter] yeah but um but it's more just about that we do really care about that process and we want you to know that that's something that we actively work on um because it really just it gives us a better idea of where we are and the things that we need to work on as well um and I I would say that it takes a lot of work I'm just gonna because I'm a

083toot the horn of my department because it takes a lot of work and relationship building and Partnerships with other school districts to be able to get this information this is not a practice that is something that is typical that was something that we that people were willing to share even five or ten years ago so I think that it's really important to say that you know I just I feel really proud of of that because it it helps it helps with that message for all of us as Educators in this in this field so um but um again this is raw information so it's all students um and so relationship isn't leaving with you right no for sure [Laughter] absolutely not um they're they're they're hard workers no not at all not at all um

084so as you can see in as this is Ela um Creighton is relatively stable across all grade levels so we know that um in third you know third is a big grade level for English language arts because that's when our movement move on when reading comes out you can see that we're a little bit closer in um in in comparison to our to our other districts fifth grade tends to be a big a big time with standards standards tend to change after fifth grade I get a little bit more complex and rigorous so we see that our kids are you know are stable across the air um and then sixth grade does does tend to to be a dip um but we also come back in eighth grade and that's when we really want our

085kids we see that slow growth in a lot of our schools that you know we really want them to be as close you know reach get as high of scores as they possibly can for high school because that's an indication of how they're going to be able to succeed so that's just a couple of things that we look at um and um yeah if we could go on to the next slide we have a similar situation I'm sorry we'll have to pause can I sit on my yes yes of course feel free I'm like a flamingo and it thank you take a little bit of a higher point and then you see a bigger dip down to sixth grade um there's a significant um change in the complexity of Standards which we'll show you um

086and so what you see is you kind of get that you know you they build those foundational skills to a certain point and then they have to be able to leverage them across very different standards and then you see you start to see again a a slow grow towards that eighth grade eighth grade is a big grade for all districts because of part of the letter grading system is that eighth grade Improvement and so that's an area that we always like to keep an eye on so on this table you'll see that we have the um the change in percent passing from school year 22 and to to school year 23 in English language arts and in most of our grade levels we were relatively flat our highest positive changes in fifth grade and our

087lowest was in seventh grade um I think Dr dupin kind of explained that in his first uh slide um and then this you can see um what this looks like according to our different um schools um there was little change over um between the two years there was a couple of schools that maybe had a little bit more than others yeah you're on this side yep you're good we're doing English language arts first okay okay so um I as you may I think um our peers back here talked a little bit aasa is what's considered a summative assessment that means that it's cumulative and like what the kids have all learned and and it's sort of we don't want to say autopsy but it's like the past right um but we always try to find

088a way to ensure that we're looking forward and how can we use this information to help our students and help our teachers to make informed decisions about next steps differentiation those sorts of things and so um we always kind of aspire to like how do we use this data to make those instructional decisions and so this year we did we had a different approach as to um see if there was a difference across the different domains that's about as specific as you can get in looking at this data um and to see if there was something that maybe we weren't keeping our eye on where we you know maybe was it like reading for information you know because that changes a lot over the grade levels was it was there something that you know they

089were missing some foundational skills and what we found is that it's pretty consistent you know I mean I was even surprised writing was you know it's still in there as well because it's receptive as well as output um so I think you know for us that didn't necessarily tell us um you know hey there's something that's standing out to us but what I think this is a way that this can be productive in a way that we see being able to use this is in conjunction with the other tools that we have right so when we know that like 68 of our students are you know are still below Mastery when it comes to those reading for information or reading for literature like what are those foundational skills that we're doing and so even though

090it seems like okay we've been talking about this reading it's like well are we really applying those things that we're learning in the trainings to make sure that we're adhering to those and um and if students you know I do know that sometimes we can have too much data I'm not not disagreeing with that but if we can be more smart in the way that we're utilizing our data and so utilizing this along with fast Bridge which is our new screener that we're going to be using and taking a look at like oh how does that align with some with this domain that can make an impact down the road because you can group kids according to skill use your you know different strategies to be able to help and approach them with that so

091we're hopeful that by use you know knowing that this is where we're at how do we use the tools that we have in conjunction with that to move forward will be helpful for next year and help more with those individualized decisions that teachers make for students in the classroom um as and here we're moving over to math this is a table you'll see that we have um the change in percent from school year 2022 to 2023 and in most grade levels again we were relatively flat with our highest positive change in fifth grade and with um at six percent and our lowest in eighth grade so we did see that and that kind of goes to those standards we know that um and we'll show you those in a minute but just that those foundational

092skills that tells us that more of our students are getting those um and on here you'll see um that we have according to change the one thing that um I would like to just point out hold on um is that this is this might be an example I'm going to highlight Gateway because we did see a positive change there we know that there was a lot of work in coaching and working with teachers in math on that and um lck we also had a lot of teachers who were participating in math Cadre so the you know we are those are where we're kind of seeing maybe there might be some alignment to some of those strategies that we've used so when we broke down the domain analysis with aasa what we noticed what you know

093we knew this is that the the standards aren't built the same Ela standards you have those three domains go from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade right um but in math they're broken down into three five six seven and eight so these are the major domains that that students start building from kindergarten through fifth grade [Music] go ahead and go to the next one and then you can see in this is where there's a significant change in the complexity and so when students aren't as strong in those foundational skills that can be very challenging for them to make that jump and leverage it into that other piece so you just go back to the one again Linda sorry I like pretending I'm the one doing it yeah we can do that all right cool

094thank you you're welcome um so um you know the standards they're structured differently and in three five the focus is more on those foundational um foundational skills and changes to that sixth grade similar complex skills and standards um it shows that there's very different um you know difference between the different domains it just means we need to get stronger in all of those areas right that's what we need to really focus on but it does indicate that we we do have an opportunity here to use tools fast Bridge actually has a math screener that is similar in its structure where it's able to help students to help group students based on skill and need and that's something that we can have you know utilize moving forward for next year DNA also gives us a lot

095of work and then hmh has a growth in a growth measure and a tool that does allow students to work on their pathway um so when we're looking at this this past year there some of these pieces where we were able to put in place where the I'm going to let you read all of those but I'm just going to kind of summarize some of the big pieces we were able to um put in place a development of an observation protocol that we focused on evidence-based practices for instruction and content specific needs and we're able to use that tool both at the district and the site level and in uh using that tool we had over 80 percent of our of our what we were seeing in classrooms were that teachers were you know it

096improved over the course of the year but they were utilizing our resources our curriculum units and those pieces um we also were able to continue our efforts to build future capacity in the science of reading through letters aim pathway training and sips coaching and we're also able to provide training to All In Math to all Math teachers and provide extended training through Affinity groups and math Cadre and it's the extended training Through Math Cadre and Affinity groups that is the more in-depth training to do that on a scale with all teachers it's a huge undertaking but all of our teachers were trained in our new programming this year and finally we were able to provide training at the leadership and site level for our data analysis and use our assessment tools like DNA and portfolios

097to help make those instructional decisions in the classrooms and we were also using this um data analysis principles were able to work individually with teachers to create goals for their students so as we think about the next steps and priorities moving forward some of this has already been spoken to so I like Dr Berg will not read all of them to you over there are a few that I'm going to highlight and one is that evaluation of of data about students is students experiencing absences because that is a critical concern for us and regardless of how good the pde is or how good the instruction is when students aren't here they're not learning so we're going to really seek to prioritize that effort um Dr bird talked about fast Bridge you might be familiar with

098Dibbles or with ice deep I steep has been the screener that the district has used for 15 20. many many years and so we took the Bold step moving forward for the coming year to replace I steep with fast Bridge which is much more robust it covers all grade levels and it is a spinning tool that is useful in both reading and math and so we're eager to learn to use it effectively and to gain data for learning um and that was piloted for one year so far is that right yes okay Jeffrey that's correct and it is part of the it's aligned to the new DNA benchmarking system that we piloted two years ago and fully implemented this year so it's all one aligned Suite instead of two separate tools like we've had in

099the past and then I think in terms of the leadership piece one of the things we want to highlight is the development of an annual goals and progress indicators dashboard Mr Mann in in working with the strategic planning steering committee has really gathered and and framed the idea of having a transparent progress indicators dashboard that we can refer to on an ongoing basis so when we talk about things that do indicate the impact of our work such as absenteeism rates um Benchmark data other components from our strategic plan that we can be communicating about those the fast bridge scores for example on an ongoing basis uh rather than you know once a year or less frequently so we're excited to lean into those strategies and and this man's also leading the effort to make some

100changes to how our leadership Council team functions relative to teaching learning and and a data wise process so we're actually framing out the development of the agenda so that there's a very frequent focus on the standards that Dr Berg described student progress relative to those standards and then our teacher needs uh relative to supporting the kids on the standards so we've got a busy year ahead and we will continue to bring you information about these data as they become more available and as we learn more but at this time we'd be happy to respond any additional questions or thoughts that you may have Miss Earth yes um first of all thank you Michelle for all the work that you've done I know it must be incredibly hard to leave a family after this long um

101but good luck on your next Endeavor I know you'll do a great job there thank you so much um second thing I know this is always the time of year that teachers dread um getting these scores back and um I know I dreaded um constantly for a number of reasons none of which have to do I think with my teaching because I feel confident in myself that I am a good teacher um it's taken me a long time to to say that but um I think it's hard for teachers to understand um or parents I guess the community understand that these scores are so little of the things that our students have done and can produce throughout the year and then you get slammed by these test scores um and so it makes us always

102question um ourselves and I'm sure the principals feel the same way um because they're always a disappointment so um I know what I've done through the year with my students I'm proud of what my students have done throughout the year and I'm sure our teachers are proud and our principals are proud of what our students have done um there are very few teachers in schools that do not work their whole heart and put everything into being a teacher there are very few of them um and so I don't take big stock in these scores um because we just haven't seen the progress that our kids have made throughout the year and if we had a complete picture um we probably wouldn't be um you know so down on ourselves when we get these scores out

103um so everyone knows how I feel about these scores and um I don't think it's a true reflection of the incredible um smarts that our students have especially when you can see a student coming from Mexico and entering into the United States and being able to take one year from one of our teachers and being able to be fluent English speakers by the time they they get out so um we see that but that's not always necessary necessarily what the public sees and so thank you teachers and thank you staff for everything that you do for our students we know that you're amazing amazing people and you guys are amazing Educators so thank you let's get something um thank you for your service to the district um it's really great when we can have folks

104who can be in the district for such a long time I I wish we had even more people who've been in the district for 20 25 30 years um so I appreciate you thank you thank you um there's just like so much to unpack when it comes to this stuff as like um a product of this school district someone who then struggled academically in high school a little bit in high school and then a lot in college um and then even as a law student like you know all of it comes back to like your fundamentals right um and then also having worked in education my husband was a math teacher I mean I was surrounded by this for many years um and so I get and I only ever have worked in Title One

105schools I've never no I've only ever went to Title One school so like I get it right and like as we've acknowledged this evening like there are some shortcomings right um and we see that in even the data from the peer districts and even if that's just small it's still it isn't that I mean it's kind of significant looking at that for me at least um it's hard to just throw away an entire thing and say like you know we can't acknowledge this because of the inequities exist because then we can see the inequities even on a microcosm in our own within our own data within the district right like there's no way that the schools with the most white or the most like socioeconomically advantaged students should be that far ahead of our other

106students right at other schools it's just not fair um and you know I appreciate trying to like figure out what we're gonna do and and maybe mold it to our our strategic goals um but this District hasn't prepared the majority of students to be successful at any High School since like before I was born like 40 years ago and that has to do with a whole host of things including like a white flight socioeconomic stuff and of course school choice right um that being said I think there's plenty of things we can do moving forward I think some of them are on our next step slide here I think that if we are doing what we should do which is you know listening to people who are in classrooms every day is probably the most

107important thing um it's easy to draw a lot of parallels with my job and and and kind of the Dynamics of that being in another government position and um you know one of the biggest complaints of Staff Attorneys at my office is the people on the fifth floor were on the fourth you know their bar cards are a little Dusty and they haven't had a client in a while but they like to pontificate to us about how to do our job every day right um and I think a lot of that can be drawing parallels with the same issues here right um so I think that the best thing to do is really really spend some time even before we like finalize this next steps list I'm like what are people who are our experts

108who are on the ground with our kids every day I think we should be doing okay some of those things that I've heard and I was happy to think that in my mind when I was already thinking about this we're on like the same page but some of the feedback that we've heard tonight and outside of this I've received some emails um and and just looking at this from a broader picture right some of this is from our district culture as a whole from you know the things we've already discussed tonight behavior issues from covid which we can't blame everything on cover but it's certainly still a lingering concern for many things um student safety student wellness staff safety staff Wellness I mean as much as we push trying to make sure our kids are

109healthy in every sense of the word we have to do the same for each other um and so I think all of those things we don't none of these things exists in silos or vacuums and I know I'm creatures of the choir here and so I think we've really got to make sure that um we're you know it's a multi-faceted problem and we got to have multi-faceted Solutions and so I think outside of what we've just heard here tonight there's other things that we're going to be taking on as the board and as the district to try to that don't necessarily directly sound like they're going to impact something like this but we'll hopefully in the end have a long-term outcome right um and and I'm hoping that if we do things the right way

110and that we listen to the right people and and listen and then act on what we've heard that we can impact a bunch of different things that then in the end impact this in the long term um I think that uh you know one big thing that we've that we heard um at public comment and that I've gotten emails about and just comments about is is like effective and meaningful and intentional professional development that folks feel like they've taken away something from um you know we we've all uh sat through professional development that we could sleep through or uh probably did sleep through or um could like just feel like we wasted our entire time right or we could have been done doing something else and so um I think part of that then is

111going back to the people again and finding out what do you want and I'm not saying this to try to kind of Judge what's going on at the district office when it comes to planning this and I know we have committees at play but what I'm hearing is that there's some disconnect there so we need to go back to the folks who are supposedly benefiting from this and making sure that what we're offering is what they want is Meaningful to them and impacts them in the ways that they would like and so I'd really like to see that moving forward um obviously class size is going to be an issue I I don't have the answer to that it's going to be a tough thing moving forward but I definitely think it impacts this um

112I think that another thing that we can do and we've discussed is like relationships Rapport that really builds into that chronic absenteeism it's absenteeism which is a hard a hard data point to look at um especially having been someone who's like job used to be like going to kids rooms and getting them out of their bed and bringing them to school so I know that we're strapped for like the because it's just every we're strapped to the you know everything right I'm hoping that our our cgas can help with that I'm hoping that we can employ some of the things I've discussed previously about possibly hiring someone with an MSW who can get interns possibly starting a Vista program those are things that are supports that can really help us bring down the chronic absenteeism

113they can also help with these Behavior implements and of course I'm all over the place here and so I'm just trying to like make sure we're seeing that like you know we don't have the answers right now there's some people that do have some of the answers and there's a whole host of other things that I think are going to impact this um and moving forward and I still think like as much as I hate test scores as much as I think they're inequitable as much as I think they don't measure things that they should um that we're already like on an uneven playing Ground when we begin these scores are abysmal and I don't want to blame it on any one person or group I just think that there's so many things as a

114district we can do to work on this and I know people are willing and ready to do this otherwise you wouldn't be here and like what Heather said teachers whatever few teachers I don't know who they are that aren't there I don't know how you last so like you're not gonna last if you're not here for the right reasons and so I know people are here for the right reasons and I know we have the will in all of you to like make all of these changes and move with us um and I know that if we just keep chugging along and we keep building and doing what we're hoping to continue to do that this can this can change my you know my hope would be that um you know 10 to 20 years

115down the road that picture is a lot different right it's a long time to have a status quo of just like super low test scores and not great matriculation and things like that and so I know that our kids you know can be excellent and are many ways and can be excellent even in these ways um and so I'm just excited for us to move forward and really I hope and I and I think the only way to do that is to listen to the people that have the best answers and those are the people that are on the ground every day in the classrooms and start there and then we can move from there so I really appreciate this presentation um I think there are a couple things in this presentation that maybe if

116I was a teacher I'd be like um that one feels like a little bit of a slap but maybe we can start there and it's okay we can just start a new conversation and figure out how can we adjust some of these next steps to make it feel like it's something that folks are bought into and we're not just going to be shoving things down people's throats and folks aren't invested in it again so thank you so much for the presentation and for letting me go on and on thank you um so it's hard to top either one of those but um I'll just make a couple comments I don't think we've had chronic absenteeism at Creighton prior to covid right it's actually I think in the slide we go back yeah it really was

117we were you know in in a very low percentage and always with the school letter grade formula we was able to gain points for our excellence in attendance So that obviously has an effect on on on academic achievement and we heard some comments I mean I think the comments we heard tonight are such a little slice of what's Happening um and and you know there's some optimism out there too and I'm optimistic too that you know we can only go up you guys we we have nowhere to go but up right now and we have to be thinking out of the box um and you know we heard some reasons why kids are not coming to school and that's um I don't want to say easy but when we hear these things we should be

118able to address them you know um I think school refusal I mean I learned about that with my own kid that that is a thing um and you can only pull your kid out of bed in their pajamas so many times you know um it's not okay you know that's not really the solution I've done it too many times um so but these are things we can address and I think that's hard work but we need to be addressing it because it is affecting our student achievement and I think it's you know there's a lot of things like that going on but then there's also you know the fact that we have so many new teachers um and I hear some consistent feedback about there seems to be a mismatch with the standards and what

119you know teachers and doing and that is about professional development and it's also you know we have these new baby teachers because we have such turnover that is also not easy I know um but there there seems to be a disconnect there too so I mean I know you guys know this um but anyways um again I'm gonna go back to trying being optimistic and for us not to be afraid to step out of the box and um you know try and make it fun for everybody I mean I I think the feedback we did get is at Adventures learning is what we want to be doing but we don't want to make it a joke you know um we need to be serious you know this is the bottom line our kids need to

120be able to leave here and be successful in high school so thank you very much and thank you Dr Berg for all of your service I appreciate you thank you very much if we're gonna I mean if we're gonna adopt adventurous learning for our students we should be willing to take that on ourselves and that's why we're talking about thinking outside the box again I'm taking it seriously but at the same time obviously whatever the hell you gotta just switch it up if it ain't working move on like we'll figure it out right okay thank you that takes us to okay waiting for the iPad um okay adoption of salary schedules for the 23-24 school year and Mr carbajal will be presenting this for the board but I just wanted to make a quick comment

121on it before he does I you know we just had a very long discussion about some of the challenges that we have and I think the first important step is to honor our teachers and staff and so um I'm you know very pleased with the fact that what you will see in these salary schedules or the recommendations that came forward from our meet and confer team and um you know that that collaboration I think is really important um and what I heard from the board and from the comments is absolutely true what you saw in next steps are sort of an initial swag based on what we've seen so far we haven't even finished parsing the data yet um but that same type of collaboration is what we're looking to have in order to be

122able to come up with long-term viable solutions to also improve our outcomes for students so um with that I just wanted to connect the two because I personally believe they're connected and I'll turn it over to Mr Carvajal thank you Mr Man uh Madam president members of the board or you're going to present it uh and brought forward today uh Mr Jamin mentioned is the Creighton School District meeting compare professional relationships committee they have engaged in the interest-based negotiations beginning January this year 202-33 and ended in May 20th 23 and so the highlights that you see listed over here are the recommendations that came forth out of the meeting confer interest rates negotiation um and I just want to add that in order for us to meet all of the needs of our students and

123change the systems we need to have the right people in the bus the right talent and with these uh recommendations we want to make sure that we keep the talent that we have and also we attract other talent to our Creighton family so we can continue to serve the students in the families of our district and with that I will open the floor for any questions that you may have on the salary schedules any questions questions no I think obviously we've gotten some great presentations already so thank you again for all that okay sorry just waiting for my iPad oh here do you want me to read it sure uh thank you all right I moved the governing board adopt the salary schedules for the 23 24 fiscal year second all those in favor aye

124thank you okay so we're gonna move on to B approval of executive director for human resources it is quick great pleasure members of the board that I communicate that I can comprehensive search was conducted for the Director of Human Resources um the department uh the human resources department advertised the vacancy on our system as well as on the Department of Education Arizona School Board Association Arizona School administrators Association for school Personnel in the Arizona Association of Latino ministers for superintendents there were seven applicants in the pool for the position and after a rigorous interview process that included a screening for minimum certification certifications according to the job description experience related to the field um and in a very rigorous investor activities that included a 90-day plan for the new um for the new director on

125the vision and what they will do for our districts to elevate the department to the next level top candidates were selected to interview with a panel comprised of teachers staff and administrators at the panel supported two finalists for the executive team interview so it is our pleasure to bring forward the candidate uh for tonight's name which is recommended is Dr Joe Lauren um Dr Gerald Lauren currently serves as the principal of Monte Vista school he began his career with Creighton School District in 2013 as a special Project Director for for assessment and also serve as a principal of filmor Preparatory Academy he currently holds a Bachelor's of Science in education from Southwestern University as well as a master of counseling from University of Phoenix Dr Lauren received his Doctorate of Education in educational leadership and

126administration from the Arizona State University in 2013. it is our pleasure to bring to the board this wonderful candidate for our human resources department and Mr Men I believe you have something to add too yeah I just I want to add two things number one first my appreciation to Avon Carvajal for all the effort that he's put in in his time serving as interim and also all of the Care and thought that he put into this process um there were some components of rigor to the process I wasn't even aware of until the finalists came forward and when I saw finalists coming forward with a 90-day plan I thought well people actually pay attention to our board and what they're doing and and Leverage The Good practices that are there I've had the opportunity to

127work with Dr Lauren since I eat before I even began with the district he's probably tired of me telling the story but I was hired I was still working at my prior District my prior District refused in television interview about dual language programs and I reached out to my new district and they said well you should talk to Dr Lauren our principal at Biltmore Preparatory Academy I immediately found that Not only was he using professional and individual but even when you abandon him to the lights and cameras because I couldn't make it to support him at the television interview he is also apparently amazing on camera and that's when I learned that he also had a background in theater as well so I am very excited that this recommend foundations coming forward but I also

128have a lot of care and concern you notice there's a lot of Monte Vista support in the room tonight because they very much love him and but they also recognize that sometimes when you love someone very much you have to share them so they're I think also excited to share Dr Lauren with the rest of the district in his new role and we will do everything in our power to make sure that we get them a leader to follow to support them so that was what I wanted to share thank you very much um board members would you like to say anything before we make a motion can I say something after yeah okay yeah um so I move the governing board approved Dr Joel Lauren as executive director for human resources effective July 1

1292023 second all those in favor aye um [Applause] Dr Lauren would you like to face doctor would you like to say anything you don't have to he's good on camera uh members of the board um Mr Mann and my friends in the audience I am humbled and I am very honored that you would bestow this on me I have a really strong sense of belonging in this district and that started oddly enough with Michelle Berg she and I met each other at ASU in our doctoral program I didn't know anything about Creighton but over the years that we worked together I learned that Creighton was a special place and I'm so pleased to be part of the community that has become that special place for me I will endeavor to do everything I can to

130help with all of the things that we heard this morning or this afternoon in this meeting I do have an extensive 90-day plan but Yvonne has added to that list so there's a lot ahead a lot of things to work through I am pleased to be able to use the skills that I've gained over the years as a principal working with certified and classified staff helping to build a community and helping to support growth in our Professionals in all levels in all areas so thank you so much for this opportunity I first want to thank Mr carbajal as well thank you very much for straddling both positions as an interim really really appreciate it and thank you very much Dr Lauren congratulations um I know you guys are going to work together in the transition

131and congratulations thank you yeah so the same thing Yvonne thank you so much for all the work that you've done and I know that um your community back at the parent Center is very much excited to have you back and I'm so glad you're staying with us um Dr Lauren congratulations I know your staff are gonna are gonna miss you greatly because you are an extraordinary human being I just I find you very kind very thoughtful and I'm very happy for you thank you so much I am happy that you are coming back to our our like a community Resource Family Resource Center and everything that you do in that role um and I thank you for doing both of these roles it's a lot to ask of somebody so appreciate it um it's a

132parent not even having been here very long the respect that you have and um that you're competent you're professional but at the same time you're someone who's going to be caring and compassionate and empathetic and I think that's perfect for this role and I'm just happy um that we have you here um and so I hope that we can find someone that everyone's happy with to replace you Manifesto so thank you I hope so too I'm going to work really hard with Mr Carvajal to make sure that that happens yes so that takes us to approval of academic director of for curriculum and instruction thank you members of the board uh again a comprehensive service was conducted for the academic director of curriculum instruction um the human resources advertising the following agencies Department of Education

133Arizona scope or Association Arizona School administrators Association for school Personnel in the Arizona Association of Latino administrators and superintendents there were nine total applicants in the pool for the position and after again after a rigorous interview process that included the screening in basket activities for all the top candidates were selected with a panel comprised of teachers staff and administrators the panel supporter two finalists for the executive team interview and the candidate that it's been recommended is Dr Larisa pombo uh Dr lorisa pombo is currently the director of Elementary initiatives at the Leona Group schools she comes to Creighton School District with 26 years of experience in education Dr pombo holds a bachelor of art masters of education and a doctor of Education in educational leadership Innovation from Arizona State University she began her teaching career

134in 1997 as a fifth grade teacher at Peoria Unified School District where she was promoting to Improvement Specialists assistant principal and principal we are so happy to bring also this top-notch candidate for recommendation and Mr Men yeah I just wanted to share and like of course ask Dr pombo if this was okay to share um she is not with us this evening it is not because she isn't wonderfully excited about this opportunity um but her family had an opportunity to visit her husband's family who live in Spain um and they have not been clearly it hasn't been an option for several years um and so you know she's an amazing professional her question to me was do you need me to not go on my trip and my answer was I need you to go

135on your trip and not only enjoy your family but get lots of rest because there's a lot of work to do so um she's she's definitely up for that challenge in the finalist interview she just absolutely blew us away not only with her depth of knowledge and understanding but her focus on collaboration and I think you know we heard some of that this evening um you know when people spoke and from our board that that collaboration is a key element and so I think you know this is well we certainly will will miss Dr Berg and we love her um you know being put in the position to to need a new person in this role I think we have found the absolute perfect person and then I will share one little other anecdote about

136our new individual not only will she be one of our newest Creighton family members from the perspective of joining our team but she is actually already a member of the Creighton family because she lives in our district so that's actually another cool connection so she very much has a vested interest in the success of our school [Music] I moved the government approved Dr Larissa pombo as academic director for curriculum and instruction effective July 13 2023. second all is in favor aye okay that takes us to 10 which we tabled so it takes us to 11 future agenda items does anyone have a future agenda item um our next can we just have a reminder out loud of our next meeting it's not August August 1 and 15. I have one that I'll add while you're

137thinking um and that is Hilda I'm gonna need your help on this one but it's I would like to add to all of our policy look at is the policy where we renew staff members because currently the board can't see that list so we're voting blindly um you know what I'm talking about I think we had this discussion previously at another date I'll work with you I'll work with you on that side are we is it our plan then we just tabled it did we table those agenda items for the next meeting then that would be the Assumption okay I'm just making sure I'll work with okay I just want to reiterate the fact that um I brought this up two times and I would really like to see this put into place is the

138district-wide behavior plan committee um I think we've seen enough comments um tonight included that I feel like that that needs to be maybe a committee or something that really needs to um we need to start focusing on our Behavior plan I think I know and not not to violate the agenda or anything but I think the purpose and obviously Sophia can get to this I think the purpose in those agenda items is not necessarily just to look at the policies themselves but to like it was to start a discussion about something like that so that we can impact those policies and that also in particular and that is something we're we're moving forward and we're a little bit further behind where I'd like to be at this moment in time but some things have shifted

139and changed faster than expected so um but I I've had some I haven't been able to take as much action as I would like to take yet but I've had some great conversations with cea and I've actually gotten some great not only feedback from them but support in helping us find some individuals who would help to serve on that team because what we really want to do is is get people that not only can be active participants but that can help us both identify problems and help us identify potential Solutions anything else on that well before we adjourn I just wanted to say I hope everyone takes some personal time and does something before we see each other again does something nice for themselves takes a day off more than one day off whatever you

140can do please have some semblance of a summer so on that I move the governing board adjourn second all those in favor aye aye foreign