February 7, 2023, Executive Session and Governing Board Meeting

001and um everyone I uh we're moving uh moving I remember where I am looking forward even unemployment uh it's November I like [Music] and showed everyone that and were and show everyone that and I also enjoyed the video of vegetable console right I enjoyed about SUV dealership without we've got to write in my 1B it might One Beat is when you can talk about things that we don't usually talk about like it might want to be I would like the world to be clean another thing I like is that we got to tell others who wrote them when I was there I felt I felt like it was a little bit different compared to the person but I like that because it was a large theater during the experience what we did in my 1B

002with was really good in my thoughts during that time played games and learned a new handshake we also learned more about geography it was really fun when I started [Music] responsible I'm pretty sure say sure what is this thing called go ahead and get started thank you to all the beautiful faces that I see out in the audience it's great to see so many people here or are going to start with their land acknowledgment and also if anybody in the audience needs any translation okay so if anybody needs translation just let me know and I will do my best to translate as much as I can um the Creighton School District at land acknowledgment the grain School District understands that our community of schools is located on the Anson Central land of the Odom Jude

003and ecumel Odom people who descended from the Hohokam and have inhabited these lands since time immemorial now Odom whose name translates literally to people are a vibrant culture and Community spanning countless Generations into the past continuing to thrive in the present and carrying a powerful Legacy for Generations into the future with this acknowledgment the Creighton School District formally recognizes that the traditional care and keeping of these lands by indigenous people is an inspirational model of community stewardship that we are committed to honor with practices policy and human relations and Miss Michaela can you lead us into the Pledge of Allegiance please all right that brings us to roll call we have MS Gibson McLean here Ms mcchafree myself Miss McCaleb and Miss Ayers and our far more welcome statement we want to welcome everyone to

004tonight's meeting and remind the audience of the request to address the board parts that must be completed and submitted to the board secretary if they wish to speak to an agenda item board policy provides for two cards why cards to be submitted in order to speak to an agenda item and blue cards to be submitted in order to speak during public comments due to the open meeting law board members are not allowed to address items that are not on the agenda this is per reference policy bedh and we go to recommended actions um I move the governing board approved the agenda as presented all those in favor hi all right and that brings us to public comments we have some quite a few public comments we do three minutes all right and our first is

005going to be Dorothy green good evening it's been a while since I've been up here because I've been really good about stepping back um I just wanted to do a quick technology department shout out tonight I've actually been holding on to this comment since November I've been attending the last couple online rather than in person but now that I'm here I want to make sure I give this public comment and shout out to the technology department I'm not sure if you guys are aware but the special education department has been understaffed this year in terms of we have a lot of teacher vacancies at some of our sites so the other teacher on assignment and I have been along with teachers at the actual sites as well have been covering extra caseloads so we've been

006holding our own IEP meetings oftentimes we serve as District reps but for these particular students we've been having to run and facilitate and run the whole IEP meeting had one of those scheduled for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and had a lot of work to do over the Thanksgiving weekend I get to the meeting I'm about an hour early because I got some things to do and print out my laptop won't work and I'm like panic mode so I quickly text Robin Griffith who works for the technology department and it serves on our assistive technology team so I know her well and we work together well Robin what do I do and we kind of sort of brainstorm some of the things that could have been none of those work within 15-20 minutes um Tim and

007Andre who just happen to be on the Gateway campus where I was doing this IEP meeting come rushing in to the rescue they figure out what's missing there's a court the cord is not fitting in correctly or something weird is happening I'm not a tech person and they leave and come back 10 minutes later with a brand new cord and I am able to get my laptop we all do everything through Synergy now with special ed so it would have been a mess if I hadn't been able to do that so huge shout out to them two weeks later maybe my cat walked across my keyboard not exactly sure what happened but something went wonky and I had to go to the actual help desk in person that time and ranel helped me spent half

008an hour gave him my advice and he fixed it and they're like magicians to me because I am not techy so and we forget sometimes how critical that technology has become for us to do our work so huge shout out to the technology department Russell does a great job and all of their Manpower do a great job so thank you I am also not a fan of technology so I feel it and I appreciate it as well um our next public comment will be from Kelly blakesley please forgive my frog voice I'm working over at full tier and also forgive my notes for the cold break as well um this evening I have just a couple of points that I want to bring forward the first is just a quick meet and confer update so

009as you know we've been meeting um since we returned from the winter break we've had three meetings now as a group actually in this room so Good Vibes um we adopted the policy last year to have the association have an official seat at the meet and conferred table and that went forward with its bumps and hiccups last year and I really feel like this year um we're fleshing out the process more and I just want to shine a light on the team members and the people that are really committed to being transparent and engaged in the process both on the district side and on the association side it just feels like there's more voice and more space for questions more space for Big Ideas and and for for us to really come together and collaborate

010in that same vein we are having to add an additional meeting because of how thorough the process has been we have a new facilitator as well which has been a really positive experience too because she's been very thorough in training um not only the new people that are new to to the team but a refresher and just being really clear in the expectations of what this new policy means and how we can unpack it together um so I just want to give a shout out to the team and to the process because um so far it's been it's been great it's been like I said transparent and members have been engaged with that we know that the legislature has a lot of work still to do and we have a budget that is not wrapped

011up or um hasn't begun just yet so we need to still make some decisions based on how much funding we're going to be receiving and what that looks like which is typical to the process so we know that our work within the district is not done and then our phone on the site level is not yet determined and historically what we've done is created sort of a then list and so that's our plan as a team this year again is to make sure that we prioritize all these big ideas and how we want to tackle each one should more funds become available um and I am based on how the process has gone so far very trusting of making sure that the team is able to do that work and get it done and then

012if we do need to meet after this even additional meeting we've talked to the team that we're okay with doing that and making sure that we're thorough and getting the process done right even if it does take an additional meaning or two um with that we want to show our support for the recommendation that the team has put forward which is to continue to have the district fund um the health insurance so we know that um the rates have gone up but the number that we received from is it Jameson is that his name this is the representative from Valley Schools um was able to give a thorough presentation to the group on probably more information that we needed but ultimately it boiled down to um the rate that we can all agree to so

013we want to give our um our recommendation for that and then finally I want to make sure that I get this in here we do support the contract timeline as well we worked backward to make sure that we um fit in what we needed to to be able to issue contracts we know that other districts around are doing that so we want to show our support for that and then finally we do want to make sure that cea is included in um all decision making for moving forward with the big decision of selecting a new superintendent so we know that a meeting happened a couple of weeks ago and we didn't really get information on that until I actually received a message from a board member so if we could just be just as transparent

014as we are with a meeting convert process moving forward with a selection of the new superintendent as well um as I like to say we want a real proper chair and not just a folding chair at the table so that's what we're looking for thank you for your time sorry thank you so much um next we have Ariana Sanchez here Madame Republic member of the board my name is Ariana and I am here to share my experience with special education um services and why I choose to move my student out of the district my son ended up injured by the first time they left his elbow broken and the second time and he ended up with a fight with another Sterling while he had his broken elbow and the five poster by the student on

015Snapchat and Tick Tock and I chosen to move up from Creighton and now he's been through a lot of bullying that this new districts so I just wanted to know I have videos and everything pictures like if you can help me with something do something about it thank you Miss Sanchez I appreciate you coming to us and speaking to us um and we can't really directly I just wanted to let you know the process that we can't comment just because the board law doesn't allowed us but we have different people here that have heard your story I'm sure somebody will be reaching out to you so I just wanted to let you know that okay thank you um next we have Nicole Marquez hello everybody my name is Nicole Marquez I'm a mother of three

016Creighton School District students I work for the Creighton Community Foundation as a community health worker doing snap Outreach enrolling families for food stamps SNAP benefits and I also helped found the Creighton Academy PTO I currently serve as the president there so I'm before you today I wanted to again congratulate Dr Lewis on her retirement and also comment on the upcoming hiring process so um personally one thing that Drew me to the school into the district was the focus on the duo language also the emphasis on the social social emotional learning promoting diversity and obviously with what's going on um in the state with the new state superintendent I want to make sure that here at our local level that we maintain that Focus that we push back where we can on and that we stay

017strong in supporting our students and supporting our vision keeping dual language in our schools and focusing on that social emotional learning because I know as an adult too I mean imagine if you had to forego all your social emotional needs and work every day as if nothing happened like that's we can't expect five to 17 year olds to do that you know and we we can't either so um you know hopefully we we can um maintain that so thanks again for all your work and I look forward to getting to meet more people and being around so thank you Miss Marquez I appreciate your words and lastly but not least we have Jesse giambra oh good evening Madam president members of the governing board executive team esteemed public great to see everyone I wanted to

018give an update for the good and Welfare I have been involved in the garden initiative and so I wanted to share an update that's not directly related to the district's work but related to kind of the garden movement overall and the Outdoor Learning experiences that um you know I just started seeing like wow there's so much support it seems like it's rolling out all over the country um so let's see two weeks ago I was able to have the opportunity to work on a micro credential for climate Justice with the National Education Association and I was able to get together with different people from around the state and the reason is because the Nea chose Arizona to be the example for climate Justice for the entire country and part of that has to do with

019the work that we're able to you know focus on with Outdoor Learning and with you know Garden education education and Hands-On learning as well so it was a really cool experience to get together with different people and talk about climate Justice and it really in the course of the past year of having our garden initiative it has become a lot more obvious to me the positive impacts that are truly this experience is is necessary for students to make progress in environmental or ecological issues in general if they don't have that you know grounding in their Elementary and primary years I don't see how they would really be prepared to experience and face those challenges that our entire world is up against and so we're doing something really right by having this Garden initiative and um

020you know at the same time I also got reached out to by The Yuma school garden Summit that was had and I was able to give a keynote speech about school Gardens and so I'm so excited about the positive things that I've seen in the garden as we've been able to bring more cultural experiences that are tied in and all I can say is I think that we can use them more more still and I think we can communicate even more just it's I was not always open-minded to it even as a child I might not have been but it comes through that experience of you know gradually taking baby steps to get in there but that modeling for like having staff meetings in the garden or or basically you know teaching us teachers how

021to have a class in the garden it can only be positive and beneficial and we're on the right um you know like in the right wave of the movement right now because we also have legislation that's just being dropped in the AZ legislature around Outdoor Learning and garden education so all I can do is you know I just wanted to share that because it's a little outside the scope of our garden initiative but at the same time I think we are the most exemplary district for this initiative and so let's just continue to put a lot of energy into like making it flourish to supporting the physical work and also to supporting the professional development and the connections that being outside can make to future career paths to the academics to the social emotional learning

022to the equity to to the connection to the land into nature so yeah it's all positive and let's keep going thank you thank you so much that moves us to our next item for a superintendent report everyone um first of all my mother passed last week and I want to thank so many people for the love and the Outreach and the cards and the flowers and the stories and the support bereavement of your mother is certainly a life-changing experience as you go into and through a deep sorrow of an anchor in your life so your support and and beautiful Outreach has been much appreciated I really do consider you family thank you um I know we have the state of the union for the president tonight and we're going to be interested in what some

023of the highlights may be as we focus on some of the uh attention to our social uh needs and educational needs um I am watching continually we all are watching the aggregate expenditure limit we have a step in the right direction this continues to be on the edge of Crisis some of us have kind of of course they're going to lift the aggregate expenditure limit of course it's going to happen and we're watching some of the horse trading gamesmanship that might be going on so let's just keep our ear to the ground on that the house did go through a third read and passed it and that was um the house only so there's still more stages to watch so let's just stay on top of that um we we really do have a sloppy

024Plan B that we're ready to move forward on but it's by no means our first choice if necessary so let's just keep our ear to the ground on the AEL lift through the legislature um it's national school counselors week so we want to acknowledge our child Justice Advocates and our partnership with Southwest Behavioral Services and carasolas we really appreciate as I think one of our speakers said earlier Nicole the the social emotional well-being of our children is critical to our well-being academically and our well-being in terms of intellectual curiosity um I want to thank Jeff Guyer and Yvonne Carvajal for Saturday's work at the job fair um the job fair probably had 30 districts there and probably had 50 possible candidates there if that gives you any indication of of the scarcity that we continue

025to face but thank you for your Outreach and I I know you felt connection with with several possible candidates and we will keep scrubbing that uh I also want to thank Leslie Owen and her team we had a marvelous um you know I love resources I heart resources for our families at the Family Resource Center we had 15 Partners there with us and just so grateful for the many resources we are able to provide for our family um and next I have some recognitions I hope you stand ready for some photos I want to first begin with one of the hardest things to achieve in the nation and in Arizona we have a marvelous Advocate who just retired Kathy webkey uh a national board certification and it's one of the most intense processes you'll have

026to have to ever go through again and we have a nationally board certified teacher who not only got it once but has now gone through it again to maintain her certification the national board certification was designed to develop retain and recognize accomplished teachers and to generate ongoing Improvement in schools Nationwide it's the highest certificate or certification a teacher May obtain national board certification is a public assurance that teachers have met the professionals High professions highest standards for accomplished practice it also signifies that teachers are up to date on the knowledge and best practices in their certified area and I'd like at this moment to invite Jody Hernandez to come up and be recognized for out standing [Music] well good evening thank you for those kind words Dr Lewis Dr Lewis had asked me to share

027my story a board certification to encourage other teachers to apply um a few years back I was going through a rough time in my career the am I just a teacher stage I Googled our teachers professionals and discovered and applied to the national board for professional Teaching Standards how hard could this be I thought I soon discovered it was a rigorous process which included writing papers taking Pearson assessments videoing lessons analyzing student work samples and data cringing while watching myself teaching the videos re-taping not passing the first attempt persevering researching and changing and ultimately improving my teaching practice um in 2012 I earned my national award certification which lasted 10 years this past year I completed a similar smaller process and maintained my certification for five more years benefits include individualized professional development networking college

028credit hours and an annual stipend from the district I'm currently the only board certified teacher in the district so I'd like to take on a new role hahaha um for the first time in my life I'd like to be a cheerleader a cheerleader for more Creighton teachers to become nationally board certified I encourage all principals and District leadership to help grow the number of nationally board certified teachers in Creighton thank you very proud of you we have several other recognitions and I'm sorry for the time that I'm taking but these cannot be ignored the Arizona School of Public Relations Association recognized Creighton School District for its Publications under public education Publications and electronic media for its Multicultural Outreach campaign and specifically it's curriculum dashboard equity and diversity so I'm not sure Emily if we have

029somebody up here to receive it and Michelle come on up that's right because this is your baby oh well finally again I apologize um the aspra the Arizona School of Public Relations Association not only recognized Us in that category but through the Multicultural Outreach campaign once again Creighton has recognized Statewide for the Native American Family program I would like to have somebody come up and accept that Michelle no more for you we're very very very proud of our curriculum team and the Outreach support um and finally who do I invite up for our Apple award where are you this evening we're very pleased to welcome two professionals distinguished professionals from Apple uh Carla mishkar with whom we've worked probably for six or seven years as we've worked to deploy one-on-one technology devices and whom I

030just met this evening but has been a valuable partner in the a plus process um and finally who do I invite up for our Apple award is that what you sound like that is not me it's not me I I sound much more loyalty so I'm pleased to introduce Dr George Chung from application Dr Lewis and board community members thank you for welcoming me to your community first of all um I'm saddened to hear that you're retiring and my condolences to your mother about your mother um I'm here representing apple on the part about something called Apple distinguished schools and what Apple distinguished schools is it's a recognition by Apple and if you don't know who apple is just take out your iPhone right um so I just wanted to make clear that this recognition

031is a very special honor when you think about the hundreds of thousands of schools around the world and and soaked that idea hundreds of thousands of schools there are only 728 and two of them come from your school district so I I put that in perspective because you need and the level of one commitment from all of the faculty on the schools on those two campuses as well as the leaders themselves so I want to separate this idea first of all that I'm going to introduce both of them at the same time because each of them need recognition on their own and so first I'd like to introduce Biltmore prep uh Preparatory Academy Dr Stephanie DeMar has been a phenomenal leader not only is she leading in this idea of making sure that her school

032is getting quality education she's making sure that there's bilingual understanding to there not just literacy but cultural and when you think about this for a moment when we think about the future over the for our students coming from myself as Peruvian chinese-american Spanish English and Chinese are the three main languages out there and what Stephanie Dr Demar I'm sorry and her team have really focused on is making sure that our kids don't just get a quality education but graduate to become biliterate in uh in Spanish and if you have not received this yet Dr Demar and her team will go ahead and pass this out to you this is a two-page story and one of the things that I've always said is in education we are horrible at telling our own story why because we

033just are focused on what we need to do day in day out which is educate our kids but I'm here to tell you that they need and this is what we need to do as a community is to really Shine the Light about what this school is doing and so if the rest of the community has not seen this by all means pick up a copy uh from Dr Demar and her team as well as I'm sure it's on their website they focus on this idea of and I might say this wrong because my Spanish is not as good or Google and that's the Tiger's Pride it is this idea of simply saying we are together it is pride that we have to helping our students Pride that we will be together and making sure

034that they have a future in this world that we're globally competitive so I'd like to welcome up Dr Demar as I present to her the award for Apple distinguished schools foreign I forgot to mention one of the things that you also have to recognize is that her school did not become an apple distinguished school once or twice this is the third time that they've become an apple design school which to me is the level of commitment not just for now but for the future and she continued continues with her team to show that she is committed and I hope that you all recognize her and her team and visit her school to see the great things that are happening with the use of technology and accelerating and giving new Pathways for her students the second

035School Monte Vista this school the interesting thing that I really want to point out is if you've ever heard about the world economic Forum the world economic forum is these great minds around the world it's talking about the skills that our students need today to prepare them for the future and so they said by the year 2022 which was last year they said creativity is the most important skill and if you look at what Dr Joel Lauren has put on his creativity is one of the big things that they focus on now you might be thinking this is school why are we focusing on that aren't we supposed to be focusing on academics aren't we supposed to be focusing on standard tests those things come what we need to help is help them achieve higher

036think about flying to the moon and the worst thing you can do is actually fly so when we think about that for a moment and he talks about six houses one family he isn't talking about just creating a school he's actually talking about creating a culture and if you think about that we all know how important culture is if that drives us to our families that drives us to our groups that we belong to because that is what he looks at he accepts the children for where they are and builds them into these houses and then creates a family so I I just want to help you recognize he has led his school not once not twice but three times as well and think about that again this is 728 schools around the world trying

037to get it once is already difficult enough but doing a three-peat while the numbers speak in itself with that being said I'd like to welcome Dr Lauren to the front so I can present him his award thank you again and if you have not had an opportunity uh for the community to see this please check out their two-page report or their two-page story that really emphasizes and if you have an opportunity to talk to them thank them for all the uh tireless effort that they've done for their students thank you thank you so much um that brings us over to item 4D governing board reports Ms Ayers would you like to start us off sure good evening I just have a short little story I'll try to make it short because I know it um

038so I was contacted by um a friend of mine asking if I wanted to go to the NFL experience with my students because I am also a teacher um I ended up inviting um Papago as well contacting Sylvia and so we had um set for all these students to go unfortunately due to buses in both districts um we weren't able to get Sylvia a bus in time um and I really like to thank the bus people here because I called them and tried to rent a bus from here and if it wasn't half day I probably would have gotten one um and Sylvia probably would have been able to go but I just think it's a sad thing that we can't get buses to go on field trips and our kids are going to miss

039this wonderful field trip because we have these obstacles in our way and we don't have enough buses we don't have enough bus drivers um but um I do want to say congratulations to Kelly at our site because the Cardinals who we are partnering with really came through for Sylvia and they're still planning on doing something really great at their school um so they don't have to go somewhere but um Kelly one of their teachers at their site got Super Bowl tickets um and so that was something uh really cool for her and I ended up getting Super Bowl tickets so I guess I'll see her there so I just wanted to say um say that so thank you thank you for sharing that um Miss McCaleb not too much just want to double down on

040school counselor a week um all of our staff um I mean teachers also sometimes play that role but um truly just appreciate the emphasis that we have in this District on SEL it's been mentioned already several times tonight um and with everything looming in our state um I think it is that much more important that we just recommit ourselves that that is you know the learning can't take place if the kids are not emotionally ready to learn um so I'm really proud of all the work that our staff do we are so appreciative of our counselors child Justice Advocates um and everybody that makes sure that our kids are feeling okay before we get into the nitty-gritty of the learning um also um just continue to be pleased with emphasis on the Outdoor Learning I

041think we really are doing something amazing um our leaders got to go out to voice Thompson Arboretum and leaders and some other staff members um and so from a leadership perspective learn about how important that is which I think is really crucial because we can have teachers who are all in we can have kids who love it but also that needs to be really taken seriously by our leadership to be sustainable um and there was very good feedback um I'm now getting harassed in my district about why my district didn't get that opportunity um so Creighton made people jealous um and then um doubling down on celebrating the tech department here all of the staff who earn the Apple a distinguished award that is a huge huge feat I can tell you that just as

042a whole our district Robin Suzanne isn't along with our district but the people that we have really looking at transforming what tech integration can do for our kids to differentiate for them to help meet their needs to make learning exciting to open up opportunities to speak to people all over the world and learn about things that are you know outside of their neighborhood those are huge opportunities and I just really appreciate being a part of a district that takes that so seriously being a teacher a flip teacher with iPads and with apple program in this District was what careened me into the edtech world and it really is important I've seen it transform the way teachers teach I've seen it transform the way kids learn so huge shout out to the Apple distinguished schools and

043everyone else who does an amazing job making sure our kids have effective and creative use of technology in our schools thank you Miss mcmah live Miss Mick shepherdy Gibson McLean um hi everyone I'll just introduce myself one more time because I think last time I introduced myself to like three people um whoever was sitting in the back there um so my name is Katie Gibson McLean I um am a public defender during the day for the county so I represent people who are charged with felonies who can't afford an attorney um I live just down the street two blocks away in my childhood home my family's lived in this neighborhood since 1985. I went to school in the Creighton School District I went to Monte Vista and I went to Baltimore Prep Academy and I

044so that's why uh well there was no apple or iPads well there were that's just yeah it was old um so anyway my brother also attended school and was instead and Creighton then in a self-contained classroom for his entire educational career so I have that experience with my brother I went to Camelback High School I graduated there I was a first gen college student I graduated from Mary Lou Fulton I got my degree in secondary and social studies I did my student teaching at South Mountain High School and I graduated at the beginning of the recession and didn't have a job and decided to move to Portland for fun um and so my husband and I worked there in Portland Public Schools I was a wrap around services and kind of the role of a

045social worker there at a high school in North Portland I did a tutoring mentoring Crisis Intervention home visits sat in on classes pretty much anything under the sun and I was there when the sun went down so that was my job and then I decided to go to law school and I do this now um I guess what I'll say is this also I have some great lifelong friends who are distinguished Professionals in this community who are among you and you probably don't know who they are um and they are graduates of this District I know that uh I know where our district has come from and I know where we can go and so that makes me eager and excited I also have two children a three-year-old and a one-year-old who I want to

046send to this District I believe in public education to my core and I do my job every day and unfortunately I have to conflict off of a lot of cases and meet clients who are from the same neighborhood that I'm from or graduated from Phoenix Union it's very very depressing to do my job pretty much on a daily basis and so to be able to make a difference on the front end and be proactive in stopping things like the school-to-prison pipeline or making an impact on that is why I'm here among other things in my other perspective so I'm grateful to be here and I'm excited to continue to get to work on so many things that we have already coming up on our agenda so thank you thank you so I just have a

047couple of things the first one is that on January 31st our lovely Governor Katie Hobbs did a national or not a national estate I wish it was National a stage of recognition of school board members and she did an actual Proclamation naming January 31st the school board day I know that January School Board month recognition but it's really refreshing to see somebody at a high level to actually recognize the service and the things that we do in endure our school board members so I wanted to let you guys know that that's what happened on January 31st Arizona School Board Association got a couple of their board of directors me and a few other ones um there so it was really really nice to see that and have that happen in front of us which has

048never happened before um also once the first time I decided to run for office I really stuck to how our communities and how different positions should intersect so a lot of the work that I do off of the school board is in the community in Dune direct at advocacy work so one of the things that I wanted to let you guys know is that we do have I volunteer with a non-profit that does expungements of marijuana um possession and I think that's huge because a lot of our children have parents cousins uncles that maybe have felonies or misdemeanors in that and we are changing lives so that expungement is coming up soon on the 18th and also the legislature just passed the law that if anybody has had a felony for a more non-violent family

049for a certain amount of years they actually can get it sealed off their record and it's completely changing people's lives because now they can get rental assistance they can you know apply for FAFSA so these are all like legit things that can impact the lives of directly impacted people so I wanted to share that information you can share to your parents whoever it is teachers and if you guys need information you can always reach out to me and let me know and um the last thing is that a while back I had pulled a whole bunch of different student discipline policies that we have at the district I have recently joined a school board partner's cohort and they advocated and they focus on anti-racist policies I just started my second class and it's really interesting

050to see what other people around the state are doing with policies so that's going to be coming up and I hope that we get the support from you guys in working into really what is the bare root of a lot of the system the systemic racist policies that we have set not not us as a district but just in general and being in that space has really opened my eyes to a lot of different things so that's a shift that I hope to see in the near future and hope that we can have as much as Community Support that we can um that ends my report so that brings us back to approval of consent so I move the governing board approved consent agenda items a through b and d through N I will be

051pulling C M yes so I move the governing I move the governing board as it reloads sorry I moved out of it so I moved the governing board approve a consent agenda items a through b e through L and n all those in favor I um I'll touch base on C real quick first which is um approval accept of donations I just wanted to point out one of the donations that we are receiving is from the bromo Prep Academy PTO they are donating fifteen hundred dollars to be used for expenses for our fourth graders to partake in the hermosi yo exchange program that they have so I just want to give a shout out to our ptos I know the hard work and the hard fundraising that they do to keep afloat a lot of

052things like libraries Librarians I don't know if you guys know but sometimes our budget doesn't allow for those things to occur and our PTO really really does step up so they're the forefronts of a lot of the things that we do in our school districts so that's the only reason why I'm pulling it to give that acknowledgment to the Biltmore prep PTO all and all our ptos in general but um the hermosio exchange was actually on our agenda and we're about to prove it so I just wanted to pull it so you guys know that um we always talk about making this more accessible to children and the accessibility comes to the parents and to the PTO and that's how we're able to bring more kids and bring more inclusivity to these type of trips

053that's my take on that so while you're on that item may I just add a comment first of all thanks thanks to everyone who made donations under this but I just want to call it Mac McDonald who is making another 800 donation well Melinda the Loma Linda Garden for uh I think like decades so a shout out to him for that yeah thank you for that too um so with that said with that with that I moved the governing board approved consent agenda item C in accordance with policy bedb Dash e all those in favor aye and then we move to discussion on item m M so I just wanted to pull this mainly for transparency's sake um um we are issuing contracts in a question is um are these all the contracts that we're

054issuing throughout the year or is this just some of them it's all right thank you yes these are all the employees contracts and okay so an administrator contract can you just name some of the job titles that that covers absolutely it is the 35 teachers the school psychologists a speech therapists occupational therapists physical therapists nurses certified support professionals administrators and exempt staff educational support personnel and notice of agreement and addendums for the 2023-2024 school year thank you and then there is um a couple so there's um paper performance and the addendum are just curiously signed by the clerk of the governing board which is me I'm just wondering why that is kind of odd isn't it it is I've never asked okay so do you just use a stamp for that okay all right and

055then the others don't have a line for signatures at all okay interesting okay um and then again just sort of transparency sake so we're issuing these contracts and then when we actually vote to accept the contracts um where we see like individual names like a whole bunch of people that happens in May or in June correct traditionally we want to make sure that the goal is to maintain an employees in many of our neighboring districts are already issuing contracts and they're giving about 10 days to 15 days it varies to return the contracts here in agreements with past meeting confer it's been 15 days in the inclusion of spring break so once we issue contracts our staffs have 20 days which they probably start for 20 days to return their contract which allows for looking

056around and doing interviews during the spring break so that's one of one of the things but again the goal is retention because if we go all the way till the end of the year and a staff member doesn't have a contract in their hands they're wondering do they want me back and we don't want any staff member to believe that we don't want them back we want to secure them we want to make sure that they continue or our families and for our students so we will vote on the actual individuals in after spring break then so all the contracts are with the contingency of the money in the budget being available right and so in the language that revised by the attorney from Udall chamwell considers the El AER approval and then the funds

057that are available to the district and so teachers will get uh the addendum as it states right now and then as the money and the budget is going prompt or solved then they will get an addendum with whatever recommendation whatever race whatever stipend is uh approved okay so when does that happen in May traditionally it's at the beginning of the year yeah and I just want to create Clarity yoga in my sidebar these come as a group as a blanket they do not come back by individual leaves so I don't want to create anything oh they don't understand okay that's what I was wondering okay so it'll come back to us in May as a group um what we'll come back in May is the updated salary schedules okay sometimes it's pushed into June depending

058upon legislature budget timing and then those updated salary schedules will be applied to the contracts which will then generate an addendum of Human Resources will generate more than a dollar amount um and then the same thing like this year we did stipends if there are stipends as those stipends are issued the agenda for those stipends will be issued um typically in the same week the stipended this issue to employees so if there's ever an individual contract that we want to address that would have to be done specifically as like a special agenda item we have our attorney here do you want to speak to it Jessica oh yeah I'm sorry Jessica I didn't see you there it's okay all right I'm getting over a cold so for individuals so for example for teachers all your

059teachers automatically get contracts unless they're probationary and the superintendent has recommended non-renewal of a probationary teacher all your other continuing teachers automatically get contracts so there wouldn't be any there wouldn't be any there wouldn't be any name for you to pick out the only reason Like A continuing teacher would ever not continue with the district would be if you were adopting a statement of charges to start termination proceedings same thing with your Administration and your classified staff typically everybody gets a contract unless there's a recommendation to you the governing board to non-renew their contract and then there's different rules for principals and psychologists and then typically there's a recommendation for anybody who's classified or um or at will there would be a recommendation to either terminate or non-renew but there's not really a process for

060board members to pick out names so unlike tonight where we had a Personnel um uh uh action where we have um individual names listed we don't do that for this process you typically and I can work with HR sometimes you would approve names right but you would not be you would not be taking out a name yourself as the governing board the only time you would be approving somebody not getting rehired is that the administration brought a recommendation to non-renew somebody or to terminate somebody okay because that's not my recollection of how we did it last year so maybe we can get a clarification um for the whole board that would be great we can do that I can work with human resources okay thank you you're welcome one more thing Jessica I'm sorry I

061just want you to sit down um maybe you could explain and this is just me curious um the addendums have signature lines is there a reason why the actual contracts don't have signature lines is it just been left off logistically or signature lines for whom we're like the teacher to sign some sort of acknowledgment that they've received the contract and are agreeing to it I'm just typically districts lately have been issuing contracts electronically so likely there's an electronic signature that comes through it and that would be why okay the document we have is just the contract and then literally nothing that says it's been acknowledged no date no side so that's why yeah most districts send it electronically and then there's an electronic verification okay and that is what we do there's they they accept

062it through our portal system that's attached to our financial system and HR System okay and then like I asked earlier these weird addendums have just the governing board clerk signature which I think is odd maybe you can take a look at that and I can take a look at that too yeah I can work with HR now you're welcome any other questions or discussion on itemm okay so I moved the governing board approved consent agenda item m in accordance with policy bedb-e by second all those in favor aye I I that brings us to 6A which is Gateway School update good evening Madam president members of the governing board it's my privilege to introduce Mr Andy Gutierrez and the team from Gateway School who will be sharing the work that they've been doing to make

063Collective continuous progress on their goals and create a strong community of Learners thank you all right good evening Madam president members of the government board and executive team my name is Andy Gutierrez Andy Gutierrez proud principal at Gateway Elementary School as you previously heard we are very proud of our work at Gateway we earned our first B in the school's history which we're very proud of and we had a meeting on Monday with the dart data action Response Team where we start to look at the data this year and kind of see where we're at and the nice thing is things look very promising for this year as well so we're keeping our eye on the prize we have a round of applause tonight you're going to hear from an amazing team that are going

064to be highlighting some of the successes and the challenges that Gateway has in alignment with the school district governing goals so without further Ado our team will introduce themselves when they come up good evening um my name is Georgina Russo are you she they pronouns and I will be talking about our Equity committee um at Gateway so our access diversity equity and inclusion committee strength is that it is a teacher-led working group that is meant to support Educators as they navigate teaching or school's unique population as we move into the second semester gateway's ethnic committee has shifted its focus from Gathering resources for educators to utilize in their classrooms we continuously work towards supporting our colleagues actively using these resources to educate themselves and um also create a more welcoming classroom environment and create curriculum

065representative of the students that we teach now for the fifth and sixth grade leaders we went ahead and we practiced or rather not practice but we did um the Yes program yes stands for the Youth Equity stewardship um so for the Youth Equity stewardship this is a program that happens sometime in September and it lasted for three days during those three days students from the entire fifth and sixth grade got the opportunity to explore the themes of community and what it means to appreciate each other as well as where they come from as an individual who is deeply passionate about equity and someone who works in the school setting I believe that the Yes program was a Great Awakening for students to think about equity and Community themes in order for Equity efforts not only

066to be meaningful but not but long-lasting there ought to be clear guidelines such as curriculum teachers can follow consistent great-wide yes sessions and lessons that teachers can utilize in their classrooms to allow us to continue sleep practice Equity work with our students in my language arts classroom about once a month we continue to practice sitting by the fire and writing in my one beats which was a lesson introduced by Benji and Wade during the Yes program although I have received positive response to this practice in my classroom it would ease the district-wide efforts if we had more of a structured program throughout the district rather than what we have now and now I will play some video um just a student um like student feedback from the yes I need those apples okay so this

067is America and she's one of my fifth grade students and what she is talking about right now is that she really enjoys that in my one beat because we do them about once a month in my classroom and she's talking about that um in my one being with this one was really good in my thoughts during that time okay I'm sorry before we do this um Alondra won she's a fifth grader um she's one of my babies and um she was in The District spelling bee so um we have to take her word into it laughs also learn more about geography it was really fun and we were always doing group games these games allowed us to have fun and learn a little more about each other the songs that they play were really cool

068and stuff they also showed slideshows and videos they asked questions about being courageous being a leader and being responsible when we answered their questions we spoke into a microphone in all I it was a great experience and or and show everyone there and I also enjoyed when we were all thinking about but we're going to like um so you could barely hear him but Angel was saying that he really enjoyed the in my one beats and he really enjoyed uh the his ability to be able to talk about culture and themes that he normally wouldn't have those conversations with his classmates during recess and whatnot so thank you for listening to me thank you for your time I have a quick question um do you as teachers are involved in the process because I know

069that we talk about what inclusivity and safety looks like for our kids but are we ensuring that that's spread out to a teacher level and how does the staff feel protected or inclusive in their own environment so do you guys as teachers get to partake in that too or how does that work um so in this is a I think well thank you for your question um this is something that we do navigate in the in our Equity committee and we do have conversations about the things that happen as a staff because teacher working conditions are student learning conditions so we usually navigate what can we do to feel safe as Educators what can we do to feel um like we are actually delivering the content that students need so that it's something meaningful and

070not just something that we're doing to like check boxes so these are conversations that we have within the equity committee and once we have these conversations that is why we started brainstorming at the beginning of the school year um what can we do like what are we doing what is our purpose here and that is how we came up with our first goal which was we need to start Gathering resources so that aside from all of like the district resources and wonders study sync like all these things we can have our resources that we use because the population at Gateway is different than the population at Papago and all these schools and so once we do that um we have these resources that we choose and then once we sorry I'm going in circles okay

071so we have these we have our resources and then we are able to determine the conversations that we have with our students and we are able to always support each other I've had many teachers come to me and ask me hey like I'm really struggling with this you are in the equity committee can can you support me with this and if we can support each other then we always go to admin to ask them for help yeah awesome I appreciate that thank you so much all right next up we have uh our PTO which you were just talking about we have an amazing Core group of 12 strong volunteers they're there pretty much every day working on things and then another 20 that come in and help on a weekly basis uh there are big

072pieces fundraising this year they've raised over three thousand dollars which is pretty good for a small group of selling shirts hoodies dollar dress down days and we had an amazing Carnival which we hadn't had in so many years so our PTO has done a great job next up you're going to hear from a couple of our parents who couldn't be here tonight foreign [Music] foreign [Music] assistant organization my name is [Music] foreign [Music] schools in our district that are able to have this grant um we're working really hard one of the struggles that we have is recruiting and retaining students you would think that oh I after school activities it's fighting tooth and nail to get students to be there and want to be there uh same thing with teachers our teachers work a long

073day and it's tough for them to be there till five o'clock at night so we're doing our best to try to recruit and retain those kids and so that way hopefully we can retain this grant because it's a great thing for our school and our community is the 21st century Grant separate from the 24 one 24th century I believe so I'm not a just 21st yeah okay maybe I'm wrong just kidding if there's another one we'll go for it I'm thinking really far ahead so um so with attendance or you can like are you guys just having trouble filling up activities we are we are so uh what we do things a little bit differently with our 21st century I know some schools they have where kids attend and they do math they do reading

074and then do an intervention ours are more student based so we get feedback from students but then also use our teachers and their expertise and their experience and organize classes for them so you can see a list of the classes that we have and it's both morning and afternoon that's what I was surprised because I was like yeah you know if it was just the reading and math I can see kids are like no I'm done but I'm like looking at this list and I'm going right so everybody want to be there and our biggest one is sports uh Mr gustillo and Miss uh Simpson they have about 60 kids that participate in sports alone so that's a strong sports program next up just want to share a few of our highlights those are all

075the Community Partnerships that we have I'm not going to talk about all of them a few I want to highlight though is our MVP foundation and that came on the consent today uh it's a group of uh former Sports agents that sponsor our kids to go to a camp in Williams Arizona and that's for male students and so what we did is worked with the Camelback Kiwanis Club to see like what can we do for our female students because we want to send them some more as well so they help us take some students up to Prescott Arizona that will be coming to you soon as soon as I work out the details with Scott Holcomb next up Jenny Strauss lawyers they provide backpacks uniforms books gecko store support and we're asking them right now

076to help us with our negative balance for the school for the food food I'm drawing a blank say that again Jay unpaid lunch balance thank you um and then they're looking to help our PBIS store as well and the last one is Career Concepts for youth uh they work with our sixth grade kids and provide them life skills the nice pieces they've always provided and maybe between 5 to 15 uh Thanksgiving dinners for our family they wanted to do more this year and they provided one for every single one of our sixth grade families so they all got a Thanksgiving meal this year so they're amazing so the next strategic goal that we're going to be talking about is the health wellness and safety goal um sorry my name is Brian Kinnon the assistant principal

077over at Gateway um and we have an amazing team that works on the health wellness and safety of all of our students at all times so the first thing that we wanted to highlight was success actually starts with showing up um we knew last year that we were struggling getting students into the classroom between coming off of covet and a few other things so we actually looked this year at the number of average absences per student in the first semester and that has gone down significantly having said that it's not all successes all the time and we know that so we are still having challenges with students who have missed 10 of the school year to date what we call chronic absenteeism we are working uh through the child Justice Advocate our community thank you

078I always forget what the acronym stands for our CEOs um and so we're working through them we're working through our child Justice Advocates we're working as Administration and behavior interventionists and teachers to really meet with those students who are struggling to make it to school and with those families find out what is in the way of them being here and then work to reduce those numbers also as of right now we are on track to reduce our chronic absenteeism from last year but it is not as drastic of a reduction as what we're seeing there we're on track for about a four percent reduction in that um which is still where we want to go but it's we have work to do and we're aware of that sorry name one reason why parents say that

079there's like an incident like why they miss school so much like what what's the stuff that you're hearing probably the two most common ones are we have students who are sick frequently um in that case we put them in contact with resources we have something called chronic illness forms um and so we worship them and their medical providers to find out what's going on and find out what additional supports as a school then we can provide because if the student is sick and they're missing school we want to make sure that we're providing them the education that they deserve okay and so we work with them through that um the other most common one is students just don't want to be at the school for whatever reason on that day most of the time what

080we find out on that one is there's an underlying conflict between the student and another student and that's where we're using our partnership with care Solace Southwest Behavioral Health Services and our child Justice advocacy program to work with those students and resolve the underlying conflicts most of the time it boils down to they got in a fight with their friend and they're afraid to go to school and face their friend again follow-up question regarding regarding the chronic illnesses I heard there was a form that you all have but um how often are folks with those chronic illnesses being offered or given the opportunity to start 504 plans um anytime at Gateway that we offer chronic illness form we review it and we determine whether additional accommodation thank you good evening uh Madam president among governing

081members of the board my name is Tim Yates I am the child Justice Advocate at Gateway and I'm very proud to be there um we just uh launched our PBIS refresh right after winter break um and what we really focused on was making sure that we were teaching or reteaching every student K-8 across the board uh to be kind to be courageous and to be a leader and what that looks like in various locations across our campus so the teachers were in charge of of talking about what PBIS and what being a gecko looks like in their classroom we discussed what it looked like being in the hallways so we actually took the time the very first very first week that we got back from school we took the time to physically show each and

082every student how to properly walk down the hallway how to properly enter into the cafeteria how to properly enter into the classrooms oftentimes we make mistakes and and make assumptions that students should just know how they should act in the in the classroom and oftentimes some of they're they're not taught that and and we get upset and get frustrated we find ourselves beating our heads against the walls because because we are just going around in circles and then we find that when we do a PBIS refresh or when we actually physically teach our students how to act or how to participate in the different areas amongst campus that PBIS Behavior goes way up and our our school becomes much safer our discipline our discipline goes our discipline goes down and we become much better and

083safer place and leading back to what Mr Kindle was just talking about making it a safer place for everybody where students want to show up so that it was our big launch for our PBIS refresh was to make sure that every single student knew what their responsibility was within within the hallways and within the within the classrooms and in the cafeteria um you see one of our students holding gecko bucks that is a big deal at our school they have they have the gecko store that is read by Mr Bowden and they love they love the gecko store and they love receiving those gecko bucks and they receive those gecko bucks by by being kind being courageous and being a leader across campus those really weird because I have a son in a different school

084and he's in middle school he's in eighth grade and for some reason that's still like he loves that like the fact that he can stash those up and use him for whatever they do he he just loves it so that's neat yeah it is it is very awesome to see we have we have some kids that they definitely they definitely hold on to those tight and and they they hold on to it like a bank account and they're just like ready to go in there and they and they're like Mr Yates get so many gecko bucks I have and they're like I have 150 gecko bucks same Chapel like this so awesome so yes it is it is a great program and a great way just to insensitize the the the the kids and uh

085just kind of give that extrinsic reward system so thank you guys thank you and I just want to add um one of the pieces you talked about you know this goes back to our SEO I just appreciate like yes there's gecko bucks and all the prizes but um one of the things you spoke to which is you know teaching them and not assuming you know if a child's struggling with math we teach them the math if they're struggling with behaviors we teach them the behavior so I think I just appreciate you know acknowledging that approach because a lot of times people hear PBIS or whatever reward systems it's not about that it's about how do you structure and what language do you use so exactly that's that's key thank you hi my name is Philip

086and Bowden when a student is experiencing a crisis or a perceived crisis at our school It's always important to provide the best support as they need when we talk about de-escalation or re-regulation we recognize that some students may need a quiet setting where they can receive very controlled stimuli while other students maybe need to go out and run outside for a short break or in a conversation with their preferred adult the goal is always to get the student back to the learning environment when they're ready to learn we know that whatever we do students our students children or children behaviors are going to happen um and so one of the things that we have focused on is what we call major infractions the infractions that require a formal uh discipline referral oftentimes a discipline consequence

087and alongside that every single time a restorative project or a restorative action of some kind maybe a conversation or something like that um as we were looking over our discipline data from the first semester you can see on the graph the gray is last school year the teal is this school year uh our number of aggressive incidents has been significantly reduced we went from 87 to 38. uh when we're talking aggressive incidents we're talking anything that would be documented as a fight as physical aggression or as assault and so we were able to reduce those significantly it was not a magic Band-Aid it was through a lot of hard work you heard Miss Rambo didn't talk about it yeah Mr Yates we're teaching the students how to function when they are upset we're teaching them

088explicitly okay we're upset with somebody else how can we use our words to get through that and how can we sit down with an adult in the room and give you an opportunity to talk through what's going on to prevent you from getting to a point where you feel like the solution is to use your fist to solve some problems um and so that has definitely paid off um unfortunately we did see a site up to you in the use of tobacco and marijuana on campus they were all in the form of vaping cartridges um we are working with I'm working with the assistant principal team we are all working to try to come up with solutions to that we're working with the child Justice advocacy department and I have reached out there is a

089police officer that I have met through the course of my work at Gateway School and I'm asking if maybe the Phoenix Police Department has any educational resources to help us show the students why this is a poor choice so that we can prevent it again it's always about teaching the students what is a better choice for you how do we want you to interact with this feeling and what this situation are there any Community Services like Southwest Behavioral that you can actually have come in and have those conversations instead of identifying you know police officers to come and talk to kids about that are also working with Southwest Behavioral we are not asking this department to come in and talk to them but we're asking for on this specific police officer is through their community

090outreach programs if they already have access to educational resources so that we can take those and adopt them and then use our staff to supply the actual instruction on it um the last one that you'll see up there is ditching this was a little bit strange when we were looking through it and trying to figure out what was going on we are offering electives this year to Middle School courses that they are choosing to ditch it was our Middle School electives um the pro the classes were chosen by the children it's a lot like our 21st century piece where they developed what was going to be offered as the courses they chose their courses and they were choosing not to attend them we were finding them hiding in different places we did develop a program

091in conjunction with our middle school and our special areas teachers for this semester where if a student is caught ditching their class then they are going to use part of their research or recess time the following day to make up the work that they've missed in that class so now leaving class just saying I'm not going to be there is not a way to avoid the work for the class and so it's actually easier for the students just to go to class and do the work than it is to do anything else we are seeing growth with it we've identified from this number there are about three students that we are still seeing consistent problems with we are in the process of working with families through home visits different things working with the students trying

092to figure out the underlying cause so that we can again go through and teach them what it looks like to function moving forward I have a follow-up just not to get super into the weeds but I think it goes back to something um Sophia mentioned in her board report earlier when we move on in the future and get really start to dig in into discipline policies I know you defined aggressionist fights physical aggression and assault um fights seem pretty self-explanatory but I'm curious what y'all's definitions of physical aggression and assault are okay so assault is a situation in which a student is functioning in the same form as a fight but the other student is not also pursuing that physical interaction so someone is striking another person someone is striking another person and that other

093person is simply trying to get away protect themselves and get to a safe environment it is a one-sided physical altercation physical aggression is one where we have physical interaction that is accompanied with anger it may not have resulted in that strike it may not have reached that level and it's kind of a gray area of the difference between the two but what we look at is we're determining it is what is one what is the level of harm that's caused what is the intent of the harm that is caused but in all cases in order for it to be documented in this way there has to have been the intent to cause some form of physical harm associated with it otherwise we don't consider it one of the aggression pieces thank you so much I'm

094a state the state provides discipline codes and definitions as well yeah I've I've looked at our discipline policies and also our handbook and there's no definition of like what does aggression mean so I was just like trying to break down how how subjectively these things are determined on a campus level thank you uh again uh Madam president members of the board Dr Lewis Dr dupin I just want to start by thanking you guys for the awesome opportunity to be serving in the best role that I have served in my 19 years as an educator um just a little background about myself I have spent like I said 19 years in education I spent 10 of those years in the classroom I coached basketball I coached volleyball I coached baseball I didn't then spent eight of

095those years as an assistant principal and I can truly tell you that being a CGA a child Justice Advocate has been the most rewarding aspect of my career and it's only been since November since I've actually landed the job so it is it is truly awesome to receive the Seesaw messages from our students who I have just worked with saying thank you so much for working with me uh and providing me coping skills on how to deal with different situations I've received so many emails from students just being grateful that they're there I had a teacher swing by my classroom by my office the other day and just thank me for uh working with one of our fourth grade students who tends to be one of those physical students when he gets upset um he

096was he was showing signs of being upset and getting ready to show aggression and she just reminded him to use the coping skills that I had went over with him and he calmed himself down he was able to calm himself to back down within five seconds and he was able to stay in class as opposed to having to go up to the office or come come in to see me so so it has been it has been a wonderful program and I just thank you guys and the Creighton School District for allowing me to have the opportunity to do that and what we've been doing is uh Community circles so uh we had discussed a little bit earlier about you know sometimes we have people that are just not getting along well with friends I

097had a group of I had a group of sixth and seventh grade girls who were were having a tough time and it was really just boiled down to they were just looking at each other wrong and they thought that there was something that was being said and they were all getting fired up so what I did is I sat down with them in a community Circle and brought them all together and we had a discussion and as we left every one of those girls felt 100 better and I still check in with them on a regular basis and ask how's everything going they say everything's going great so it was just me being able to bring a little bit of light and some insight to them that just because they looked your direction doesn't mean

098that they were talking about you and stuff like that and you know let's find some other avenues and Pathways to go instead of thinking automatically that we want to fight them or or we're scared of them because we feel like they're intimidating us and stuff like that we have developed social skills groups I've I provide I provide lunch lunch for many of our students who are struggling socially so I have them choose a couple of friends and they they come in and they eat lunch with me and we just have just gin weed sometimes we talk about how to how to help out and practice skills and sometimes we just have conversations with each other and the kids are kids are loving it we uh had a we had a third grade student who was

099trying to skip class A whole bunch um I got her into one of those lunch bunch and now she is getting back into class and where she should be and learning so it has been it has been awesome to to do to just have the opportunity to do that work so again thank you guys and then I'm gonna pass that off to the social emotional Wellness to miss twist and she's going to talk about that for you guys any questions about any of the social emotional learning and what we do oh one last thing sorry I just want to do the plug that all the cgas in the district we just got back from the so it is school counselor week we just got back from the school counselor at Arizona school counselor conference out

100in Fountain Hills it was absolutely amazing we have come back with a lot of information and loaded and ready to go so uh just be ready because there's a lot of a lot a lot of excited CJs out there with a lot of new plans and ideas of how we can how we can fix the world out there so here we go my gosh that is a tough act to follow um I'm Marie twist I'm one of the instructional coaches at Gateway and one of the things that we really have been working on for the last couple of years as a leadership team is connecting personally with our staff and how do we create those safe spaces how do we ensure that people feel heard and that everyone feels heard not just the loudest voices

101in the room so in addition to all of those formal and informal conversations that happen one thing we've done is intentionally set aside a couple of minutes of time every single week where we do a staff check-in it's technology it's just a Google form it's super simple there's always two rotating questions sometimes they're functional things like hey we need your feedback how did this routine that we've tried to put into place how did it go you know you're on the ground so give us feedback on it sometimes it's fun tell me something you're excited about that's coming up over you know the upcoming break but we always ask them to rate themselves how are you doing personally how how are you doing professionally and is there anything that leadership needs to know anything you want

102support with how can leadership support you and then because it automatically color codes for us we go in immediately and check in and do triage okay who who said that they need something who and then if they need something which of us is the best suited to actually address that problem and follow up so from there we take ownership over who can fix that problem or which of the leadership team who has the best relationship maybe with that staff member or with that teacher that they might feel comfortable speaking about with so and that's really been we've had a lot of positive feedback from our staff like some schools maybe they don't ask you know usually um what the percentage of teachers actually respond to those we do it during staff meetings so about 90

103perfect we carve out that three or four minutes every week to make sure because if we know if we just blasted it out in email teachers are busy their priority is not saying what's on their mind necessarily so we've made it a really intentional focused part of our routine every week I know this is only for teachers or is it all staff this is actually for teachers okay yeah thank you awesome thank you you got all the parts we've got a lot of parts to play it happens sometimes so one of the things as Mr Frontier spoke early on is we are a b School this year and we are keeping our eye on the prize on doing everything we can to maintain that and with that comes in this focus on academic excellence and

104so as we're looking through that we've done a couple things as one we're getting back to the idea of data Focus every second everyday data Focus but it's not about us being data focused entirely because ultimately I can know everything there is to know about the information about our school if the teachers and the students don't know it then it's not going to help anybody move forward and so what we've done this year is we actually have student data folders um in grades foreign first and second they are tracking their reading ability as they learn to read more words per minute they are also tracking their attendance for this first year we're kind of minimizing it in those grade levels as they learn to just get their feet under them and tracking it as we

105move forward and then as we go through in grades three through eight they're also tracking their reading per minute their attendance but they're adding in um some of the high leverage standards that we know are going to be important for them to master in that grade level and they're tracking their progress on it after each assessment that they take as well as we move forward they are setting goals with it so it's important to know not only where we're at but where we're going and so we're working with our students to teach them the idea that they want to know where they go and so in classes before they take an assessment they're looking at okay this is the content that's going to be coming in where were we last time and what do we

106want to do this time and what have we done to get there and then after that assessment okay where are we now where do we want to be next time and what are we going to do to get there and so we're really working on that and it's all tying in with our mtss process as well which is looking at individual students and their success I apologize we're taking long we're going to skip some of these slides um and honor the people that are here and they're going to share really quick we have MS via who's our teacher of the year going to share really quick about structured literacy uh good evening to everyone and thank you um so structured of literacy I started doing some research into it last few years it really really

107was interested and what that brought on to our kids in the primary grades I teach first grade and I know that is a very essential developmentally just it's one of those years where they learn to read and they learn to you know just believe in themselves they have that success that they can read they have all these words that they can read and so structured of literacy to me was just opening the doors to that and so in the classroom I have seen a big uh just Independence and when it comes to how do I spell that I'm not hearing a lot of that anymore so uh what we do what I did different is instead of having a ward wall we have a sound wall uh we teach a lot of the articulation in

108the mouth and so they're able to go get a mirror and they're able to go to the wall and they're able to say Hey how do I spell this they're able to do that on their own and so that's something that I have noticed that's different their literacy and writing skills again they all come together so when they're writing they go up to the wall and they just get a mirror and they just look and they go oh ah okay so so you know so they're able to do it on their own um so um also focusing on the phonological phonological awareness skills um letter and sounds when it comes to um their sight word learning it's not just memorize your words it's we can decode the words and we can look at those parts

109uh the word part by part and so they're able to go oh I can do it you know when they're reading they're doing the same thing so it's not just memorize it like there is there is some um science behind it um and then just the uh student engagement we do uh our practice every day you know taking from what the curriculum design um has for us to do taking from wonders and taking all of that and putting it into a structured literacy form for them to practice I have seen Improvement now this is the first time I'm trying it out I'm also currently doing the lotteries training so that has taught me a lot of how the brain works and why it's so essential for students to um go through the structured of literacy

110and I do believe that wonders provides that not a hundred percent but it does provide the steps that they need for that and so we have just kind of Taken and go okay like we can map these words high frequency words we don't have to just air write them like we can decode them you know Sound by sound for phoneme and so that's what I have seen in my classroom with structured literacy um and just going through the letters training and learning all of that just keep implementing that this year and the next year and just to see what is the growth that I see in these students um any questions thank you hi I'm Kayla Stanford instructional coach here at Gateway um in addition to all of the structured programs that Ms via talked

111about we also are using our data driven culture to inform the professional development plans for teachers and staff throughout the year we've been working on our classroom walkthrough data which indicates that we're still we are seeing an improvement in teacher Clarity and communicating the learning to students our next steps are helping to students to have ownership of that learning and bringing in some language development strategies we've had amazing Partnerships at Gateway with asu's teacher and Residency program hosting many residents um student teachers who have gone on to become full-time very valued very effective staff members and as Marie mentioned we have walkthrough data that we do share with teachers um so here is Marie mentioned teacher Clarity so in showing that students know what they're learning and that they have the roadmap in order to

112do that so um these this is from our walkthrough data so about 60 of teachers are posting their learning intentions so that teachers know um where they're headed as Marie said we are it's still still work in progress um and in addition to that we also have the student engagement component they go hand in hand if students know what they're supposed to learn as well as how they're going to learn it um has a profound impact and we're seeing that grow in our classrooms as well um with regards to the PD's are are there opportunities for differentiated PDS depending on like different uh different departments or subjects or grade levels so at our site we do diversify chunks a bit um and the district as well we have affinity group so teachers can um each

113site is a little different in terms of what they deliver to their staff but then we also have the opportunity as a district as well so some of the stuff we've done um is uh teacher Clarity um and our ELD team has also been delivering PD to our staff okay and our most previous facilitated by instructional coaches are our Educators given the opportunity to facilitate something that they have a special interest in so sometimes it's instructional coaches that our ELD committee is run by teachers and they are the ones who deliver um that component to our teachers and also our Administration Mr Kindle has led a good number of PDs over the last couple of years and I think that there's really a lot of value in having principals and assistant principals provide development as

114instructional leaders as well all right I apologize that we took a little bit longer I promise you it didn't take this long during rehearsals but any final questions any final questions I know you asked questions throughout but thank you so much for your time thank you guys appreciate everything and congratulations on that beautiful beach all right that brings us to our next item which is 7B and it's the special education audit um special education audit we're going to speak to specific policies and procedures that we do we would not be talking about specific employees or anything it's just structurally on what we do and how we are keeping in the coordinates I guess or to the loss of special education so I'll hand it over to whoever's presenting well real quick we just remember Mick

115Jeffrey had made a request to have an audit of our special education programs and service we felt like the best way to start in that process would be to share the regular cyclical work that has that's done as part of special education programming monitoring with the state of Arizona we can also share the most recent monitoring and the outcomes of that and the certification that came as a result and that will help drive the conversation and give potential Clarity to where we might go from here so with that Ms hardseff is going to lead our conversation this evening as soon as I get hooked up right thank you so much Madam president I'm governing board members Dr Lewis and the executive team it is an honor to be here this evening to share all of

116this information I will start out with saying to you it is extremely complex so I'm going to do my best to really break it down and give you actually some tools to look at that will help to break it down and so then that will help you be fully informed so you can make decisions you know moving forward with with whatever that may be upon your request before I get started um we have people in the audience that have been sitting here for quite some time and they need to be recognized because monitoring is not a one-person job it is a we and so we have different staff members that are represented representing uh different um roles that they play in The District so if I could just turn around a minute I'm just going

117to have different people stand up and I want them to be recognized for the extremely hard work that we went through collectively together the hard work was worth every minute and when you're in it you wonder a lot of Blood Sweat and Tears but when you get on the other side you can see the system changes I mean you can really see the strong impact for our students and that's all that really matters um in in the end so I want to start with um start with our resource uh representation if you would stand up as resource teachers colleges our preschool teacher oh she's preschool also our assisted technology specialist Dan um Robin I'd like you to stand as well because you're part of our accessible design team we work closely with it which really

118helps with accessible design um our department and I would also like to thank the principals because during this process they too were a huge support in the shifts that we were making at the site and also being there for staff as we were going through this process so thank you all foreign what I hope to do is basically I'm going to start out with a broader view um I think it's important to bring in the historical information because there have been monitorings through Ade over the course of time monitorings by Ade or like audits for special education they're very deep they look at everything possible Under the Sun and which is important for us to know and we want to get down to the raw data to really know the systems that we need to

119change so I think it's really important to share that and then there was an outside audit that was conducted in 2016 and we're going to share some of the outcomes from that um then we're going to take you to our most recent monitoring so there is a timeline that we're going to be going through um and the outcome from that and then we wanted to share so what have we done so what so what what changes have we made um as a department um always making decisions um for children and and how can we better serve our children so I want to start out with there's kind of I think if we if I can explain the forms that I just put in front of you um this is going to help as we get

120into the depth of the actual presentation so you will have I have a couple questions before we we begin the presentation um if I may um I've been working on this with Thursday since Thursday since it was posted for us board members um and I met with Dr Lewis on Monday and Miss hartzoff was pulled in to um help answer some questions we did run out of time um it was challenging for me to understand what this presentation was trying to tell us um because it's a lot of just bullet points without explanation behind it it was helpful on Monday to kind of go through that with you both um but ultimately um this presentation does not address the questions and concerns that I have which are more about Staffing and compliance issues and whether

121meeting the needs of our students from a day-to-day basis this Ade monitoring process is a very low threshold actually and it is random unless they find um you know issues which then they will go deeper in as we discussed on Monday um what I have issues with is is Staffing um so I would like to ask a few questions about that um what do you know about the staffing issues in your department like keeping high quality people and losing high quality people so for this evening's presentation um I wasn't focused on HR that isn't my that was not my understanding of the request the understanding I and I come to board meetings was that you requested the monitoring you wanted the monitoring and an audit and this is what I prepared for this evening so

122I don't so I did not request the monitoring I requested a board discussion of whether or not we would like to do an audit we did do an audit in 2016. that was quite a long time ago I don't want to go I don't want to spend an hour two hours going into the depth of what happened that many years ago um we we all know we have been um receiving um very serious concerns about Staffing and I have very specific questions about um how we are able to address our students needs when we have when we are losing staff at such a rapid um case we lost a school psychologist today that we voted on so my question is are you open to collecting data from your staff regarding retention we have always done

123that when actually that comes through the HR department so when staff exits everybody has an exit interview which we feel is very important as well we do monitor that that is reported to Ade what some of those results may be some of it's moving out of state some of it's um they're leaving the profession for a variety of reasons but we do collect that information and again I don't do exit interviews that's not my role um and I think it's important that it does come through HR from a party that is not directly involved in you know the special ed realm do we do exit interviews because I've been told we do not yes the practice for the Department is that we do exit interviews and then also the principles engaged in state interviews with

124the state interviews is to get the input for those highly valuable employees and to give the feedback of why they're always coming back and staying in our district so we do those types of interviews exit and stay interviews so when people who have left tell me I would I wanted to leave an exit interview but I was not there is no such thing where's the disconnect in that some employees um they're just turning their resignation letter and decline the exit interview they may have other channels to provide their input they can do it in writing if you don't want to meet with somebody but there's other other venues in which they can express their discontent or their feedback as they move into a new environment okay they've specifically told me they were not allowed to

125give an exit interview so there's a disconnect with with that um so are are there compliance issues when it comes to the implementation of iaps so if we went through this data um you would see exactly the areas that we're focused on okay which I think is important for this board to understand this process I have questions about I mean again we went through this it's it's been really challenging to create questions with with the way this presentation is presented um and and the eight the Ade monitoring process is not what my questions are about it is why we are having staffing issues within the special ed Department um and that is why I want wanted to discuss doing an audit so this is not what I've requested this historical document so I have a

126question um do we have any audits that give us information on retention of and and I know Jessica our attorneys right behind us because we're going off subject but just for um because she's talking about employee issues and not the audit that's what I was about to do oh okay yeah does the audit this artist that we're talking about have data about retention or how we're treating or staff issues that Miss Chef is talking about does this specific audit or is there an audit out there that exists that specifically there's actually uh one portion of the annual data information that I need to report is on teacher attrition and the information on some of the questions I actually obtained through HR um specifically reasons that people do leave other questions that they ask is like

127how many psychologists you know how many slps how many so they look at that number as well and then out of that number how many were new in a given time period um so they certainly have that um that's that that is really the only thing that I report to the Arizona Department of Education um informally if if that's what you're asking for and if you informally do that there's a way that we could get it back maybe like in another board report so we can keep looking into this like if you do have the data is there a way that that can be given to us so we again as a board look at it and then if we form more questions on that data because she says she does report it to somebody

128and then maybe yeah so there is data that we can pull that can be given to us um Dr Lewis if that information could be given to us so we can get a better grasp on it and see what's going on it's one piece of information about attrition very little piece yes but and and again I obtain information through HR you know and then we have our own um like Staffing counts that we do as well but that's something that you do annually as part every year is part of the annual data report it's it's a portion of this large report okay Mr mcshaffrey when we met yesterday um I thought your questions were so important and so aligned and I was extremely excited to come and present this evening and I didn't get any

129idea that when we had that one-on-one that I was off off base and what your request was so in my mind like I said I understand if you feel like well I didn't understand this it is complex it is deep it takes a long time to understand all of this information and honestly I think monitoring has a lot to do with teacher retention and why people stay or why people leave um you know part of monitoring too is seeing is student achievement and looking at that because we have amazing staff that work very hard and if we're not showing the results we need to pay attention to those results so I see this really as encompassing everything that you're asking for okay we had 10 minutes yesterday so and and you know we did not

130get through like two slides so um I finally figured out what was going on which was you know these are bullet points that you are now going to fill in for us but it is it is how the monitoring process works and that's not what my concern is I am concerned about what is happening with our employees and why they are leaving um and I have specific questions about about that that I would like to ask okay it's about compliance too parameter on it though too just because your agenda topic is audit so it needs to be within the framework of audits so for getting into individual employee complaints that's not going to be the subject of this agenda item and then any employee complaints need to go through whatever the relevant complaint process is

131either it's complaints about Personnel or it's a grievance about work conditions or they have a concern about um students not getting their needs met or if there are concerns coming from parents parents also have similar complaint problems which wouldn't be answered with this kind of discussion it needs to go through a process parents also have what's called their procedural safeguards notice where they can go directly to Ade if they have concerns about the particular Services of their students so I just want to put parameters in place because this agenda item was about special education audit which is kind of it's an overview and it's very Broad in programming when you Whittle down to individual complaints so I understand all of that um I had requested that the board discuss if we would like to do

132an additional audit on the special ed department just like we did in 2016 Dr Lewis at the last meeting you said hey yeah it's time for another one I initiated that internally on my own and I brought in an Ade monitor as the auditor Joanne Phillips who did that in 2016. so to replicate that it it's important that the new governing board understand you know the historical development of what are the elements of the audit if you didn't read the 2016 audit I think it's 60 pages um and it's something you want to begin with to think okay what have we worked on and what has been developed and then what has gone through corrective action and what programmatically needs to be sure that we're meeting with procedural safeguards making sure the IEP timelines are

133met making sure child fines handled you know making sure the elements of the department are in place so that's what a special education audit is and means to me um so thank you Chris for all of your hours of work to put this together for the board if the board would like to hear the elements of the audit and would like to guide me to go towards an audit I'm interested in the board's recommendation have we ever had have we ever had an external audit done that was an external audit in 2016. and did it report to the board or to Administration yes it reported to Dr Lewis it did not report to the board it was a public document for the district which is what we all represent okay I guess my question then

134next question is who um who informed or decided or worked on the parameters of that audit and what would be explored with them it's an industry standard that Joanne Phillips is an expert in I don't know if she's still conducting them that's who I think would be somebody to call but we can put out a RFP or an RFQ if that's something the board would like to do so if you want to look it will be aligned with the elements that Ms hartsoff has put together this evening I don't think that's what Ms mccheffrey's interest is I I honestly think that um what I was going to offer for this conversation if you would like to jump to the audit I can show you the outcomes you're not going to understand it as deep because

135I haven't been able to really give you the ins and outs which I would love to do at some point but I can tell you what we did from that particular audit to make changes within the district if that's of interest to you and that was an outside audit the agenda item is to for the board to determine if we want to do an additional audit beyond the 2018-1920 ETC um State monitoring I think it's important to look at last time we had an external audit while we were in corrective action what we did to get out of corrective action and what place are we in right now the Ade default monitoring is very intensive so I just want I'm not saying we shouldn't look at another audit I'm just do want to point out

136that like that's it's not just a yeah it is super intensive and they look at every single little thing and you can have 10 people read every single IEP over and over again and they will find one thing that needs to be changed and the whole process starts again but I think information on where like what happened in the lot in the last external audit how we made changes since then are there concerns that would Merit us then looking at an external audit again I'm hearing some things that feel like the lines are getting blurred between the external audit and the corrective action plan that's the result of on-site monitoring that was determined from the programmatic monitoring Yeah by two separate things and so I just want to make sure we're keeping those separate and

137so I guess my question then is was there any corrective action or plan from this audit or is that solely from the Ade cycle corrective action is used from the Ade cycle from the audit that we did in 2016 it helped us get a map to guide what would be the most and highest priority to make sure the Special Education team was getting towards being ready for a monitoring because we we had many issues that we needed to unpack in 2016. do you have any other I mean I'll ask my questions throughout the presentation I guess I mean you can't talk about special special education without talking about um employee concerns and compliance with IEPs do you disagree I'm not I won't answer that question because that isn't that I don't believe that's part of

138what we should be and talking about there can't be a discussion of employee concerns in this meeting because if an employee has concerns they have processes that they need to follow before the governing board can address it so I'm not saying about a specific employee or their specific concern what I'm concerned about is that we are losing staff because um we're trying to address I think what you're trying to get at and correct me if I'm wrong is addressing systemic cultural issues in Staffing there seems to be maybe a theme or that there seems to be um consistent consistency and folks leaving and reasons for leaving and so there seems to be a pattern and so we're trying to I think address that pattern with the audit among other issues so you'd probably be talking

139about doing something like a climate survey to see what kind of things come up but again an expression one way about a concern if it's going to be I mean you could address maybe themes in a general overview but but those one-way concerns don't also take into account you know if they're complaining about staff or working conditions it doesn't it doesn't take into account the other side of that which is the point of a grievance or a complaint process is that then the board would get to see if someone actually files a complaint back and forth with all the information both sides being compared to determine if there's some kind of policy violation or some kind of problem so that's what I'm thinking an external audit would do it would take all sides of issues

140no Ade does not do not monitor any of this I mean any of staffing issues an external audit still wouldn't go in and go employee to employee and ask what their complaint they might do something like a climate service yes that's what I'm asking for but specific grievances or complaints need to go through the process it can't just skip the process through an independent auditor doing these surveys right really when you're looking at special education you're looking I mean you're looking at programmatic items procedural items and it is extremely complex I understand that and I'm asking for are we open to doing a climate survey so anytime that there's been a climate survey or any surveys in the past all staff are included in that so we probably have results from years past um we

141also you know we do look to see we've had years where we have high retention we have years where retention changes but it's everybody gets the same you know climate and the schools as well you heard it from Gateway they're checking in with their staff routinely how are you feeling so that that's going on all the time in our district for all staff so when is the last time we've done a climate survey in the special ed Department it's not separate so I don't know we've been partnering with Panorama and so we've done Panorama surveying of staff and in staff like classified Personnel teachers and we did that last year we've also done it we just wrapped up a survey window the current reality with Panorama is that the partnership with Elevate through Ade was

142paying for that service Ade has severed that relationship with Panorama under the new Administration so we believe it's worth the district's investment to continue that on our own but we have to do some administrative work in order to to repurchase Panorama services but that's been part of our routine survey process for the last couple of years and we have every intention to continue it so who follows up with the staff from those surveys if they're in say special ed Department what I need to what I don't know off the top of my head is whether the the results that we've gotten to date are specific by role usually they're disaggregated by school but they're not necessarily specific to what kind of teacher you are if that makes sense or what kind of staff member you

143are so we would have to redesign the survey in order to collect that information in order to be able to follow up with specific individuals that said do get Trend data from it and we're able to pinpoint as was discussed themes topics issues and then usually what happens is that information is brought to staff leadership teams team leads full staff conversations in which the the outcomes are unpacked so if staff is feeling if there's a culture that staff is feeling they will face retaliation if they were to put something on a survey um who how is that to be addressed I guess so I mean that just goes back to staff and we are getting off topic so you want to stay on topic of actual special education audit so any staff who have concerns

144need to file a complaint and then the district has policies that prohibit retaliation that that is your process there's no other process that LeapFrogs over that okay so we can't survey staff within a specific Department okay um okay as a future agenda item that might be a future agenda item that you could talk about just a bit yeah okay um okay so then I move that we table this topic for a future agenda item and I actually asked a couple questions first yeah and and yeah if board members have questions I do have a couple questions actually I'd still like answered um but I don't again to respect everyone's time I did not request this historical audit so I don't know I I understand it now after you know working with YouTube and it's not

145what I asked for um uh so I don't want to go through an hour presentation and I don't want to put everyone else through it too when it's not what I asked for but I I do have a few questions and I'll if you want to start um maybe go ahead excuse me sorry so I guess my first question is where exactly are we within the programmatic monitoring cycle right now which year are we on right now so I think they decided the fifth year sixth year sixth year it was confusing because of the covet yeah thank you oh my goodness thinking I'm like on this okay um anyway it was confusing because of kova going through coven um we like what year were we in so right now we're in the sixth year cycle

146what's exciting I just recently looked at our risk analysis so there's three different kinds of monitoring um one is the on-site which is what we just went through which is I think it's a good process to go through especially if there's systemic change that needs to happen and then there is self-assessment and then there's just data review based on our newest risk analysis now we've moved if we were going to be in year four today we would do a self um assessment which is a huge celebration as opposed to um on-site still a ton of work um but again it would be directed from us so that's huge that's like Yay right that's the first time I've heard that so it was pretty exciting I I see that we got a packet here that said

147that that's a corrective action plan and I see the dates on there and so I see the monitoring close out date was 122. um did we meet all of the requirements for that closeout date is that why you're saying we would be in a position to do the self-assessment in the future so basically what happened our monitoring started in January 21st of 2021 the normal is everything has to be completed within a year we went beyond the year but what I want to say is there were many of these items that were actually closed out within the year there were some components that kept we had to continue to send files in some dropped off then in April some dropped off in May and then we had like two left that carried us over into

148the summer and then the final was we closed out August 21st of 2022. a state will only allow you to do that they really gave us Grace because it was all the aftermath and the midst of covid was part of it but they saw our progress like we take you know we take ownership we're in this to learn it we don't we give raw files what you see is is what we're doing and that's really important for us so um because they saw that growth as I just explained things kept dropping off we had met a lot of those areas within that year they gave us that Grace the worst thing that could have happened is that they would have held our idea funds but that did not happen so we were like that was

149exciting sorry oh that's good to know I I mean reading the pro there's this there's a programmatic monitoring handbook and I'm a nerd so I was reading it last night good for you and it seems pretty much like cut and dry and so it's nice to know that the like I'm guessing do the psms have like an ability to have some discretion and that's why they're allowing you okay also with that six year cycle the state still they can decide that you're going to be in instead of that waiting the fourth year they may come in two years because it's there's so many things that aren't working right um so that can happen the norm is like the fourth year is your deeper you know year where you're really doing that intense digging in a

150and a lot of file review um I gave you a copy too of the student swarm that aligns with the guide steps then that you were looking at that you downloaded from the online um and and I think what's important to understand is that when you see those sections if you look at the student form itself yep if you look at the student form there's the main heading so first it's evaluations and re-evaluations then there's another whole section on individual education plan and then if you notice under some of those sections like 2a2 there's many sub categories that have to be met if you're out with one of those you're out you are out of compliance so it's it's not like 80 percent you're in one out you're out it's All or Nothing yeah it's

151all or nothing yes and then like the prior written notices there are like 20 sub categories that we have to meet on the different kinds of Prior written notices that families receive um so again if you're out just one you will be considered out which is that just that gave us the structure of um our professional development um you know over time that's not going away we've built in process and procedures to really sustain uh where we've been and where we plan to go and um so other questions aside from the kind of the normal stuff that's required by idea and Ade to fill out in regular or special ed processes do we have like an internal special ed policy or Norms regarding note retention and record retention and if so is that written down

152somewhere can we get a copy of those so we do it we have our policies and pre procedures governing board policies and procedures um we also hand that out in the procedural safeguards for our families so they know how long records are kept um and we follow we always look at the state every year to see if those years have changed if it's five years if it's seven years and we you know we do that we store those records um what was there was another part to your question I think note retention so like psychologists I assume are sometimes doing clinical evaluations or doing other types of evaluations or folks are doing stuff that involves notes um I'm just curious if we ever do we have a retention policy for those as well our staff

153have their own working files but but what's in there typically because everything they do is through Synergy so they would just be doubling up their work so they're capturing their their their uh they're testing the child you know using the test um that they've chosen based on all the factors that they considered and then there's a test booklet that they're jotting things in or a child May write in as well they score it those would be things that would be kept in their working file because those protocols um really we keep those at the school all the originals of the met and the IEP those are sent to district office for the the um originals are sent to us and there is there's there's specific guidelines in how long those records have to be kept

154and then you say you shared that with um parents to share that with staff too do they have a way to access those guidelines so policy is anyone can have access to our governing board policies as well um our trainings whenever we do trainings and like in our monitoring they're aligned to um like the Federal Regulations State Administrative Code ARS if there's case law that drives some of it we'll have conversation about that if it's really shifted a practice so we're learning that um many people just have a hard time accessing the policies they don't know where they are I mean is it something in the professional development that talks about um how long records should be kept we certainly I I think they're pretty clear on how long those records are kept because that

155is um you know like we have the gal in our office that communicates that need as well and how long when those files can be stored at what point are they stored we do the same thing in our office as well and where they're stored um just because we live in such a legal legal and relate to this legal department um those are just non-negotiables for us to make sure that everyone understands um that process and if by chance there wasn't somebody then we would you know I know we just Revisited and had that conversation at one of our um sped leadership meetings um just to clarify and then that goes out to their groups to make sure that everyone has clear understanding and again we quote law or regs or you know wherever we're

156going to pull that from um on Monday we did um talk about the world um tool and I have gotten some concerns about that um the world tool yeah that and so Dr Lewis you asked yesterday is that tool something that we created um and it is um but there are concerns um that it might be a Gateway um to um getting kids to an IEP or to being evaluated um what what are your thoughts on that I would I would say it was the opposite um what that what the process was for one of our findings which we felt was our ultimate priority was under the term called language dominance we've always looked at language proficiency we look at acquisition over time I've been through many audits this was the first time we didn't

157I didn't finish one in a year so Jehovah definitely had that impact but um language dominance was the first I had actually this monitoring was the first I actually had heard that term it makes sense though we need to know when a child has two languages what is their preferred language so regardless of what their proficiency may or may not say like if they're pre-emergent emergent they still may prefer make perhaps the English language or they may prefer Farsi or they may and so it's really important for us to understand that another example is a child could visit their family in another country for the summer and they come back and now their language dominance dominance has changed why that's important is we have to make sure that we are using the appropriate um test

158to measure their outcomes accurately if we're not doing that that's when we're doing kids a disservice that's when kids could qualify and they shouldn't be that's when maybe some kids that are second language Learners end up identified as special ed and they never should have been so that I mean that was a lot of work that took us the longest to get through but the outcome has probably been the richest in shifting some of our thinking so would you be open to collecting data on how this in this instrument is influencing students access um because it's my understanding it's not evidence-based and that's you know one of the reasons people are having a problem with it so I'm well aware of that of these conversations and so basically what happened was we had to flip

159this really quick and so we had our bilingual SLP who all of it was research based it's survey it's like a Criterion referenced like a screening process whether a psychologists um because you know they're they're very accustomed to standardized types of Assessments what we did because we had to start somewhere to get us off the ground to try to meet this year um deadline was we brought in surveys so we surveyed parents survey students survey teachers plus a lot of other data that we're Gathering to make the determination parents signed for that so we decided we wanted to make sure we had their consent and that they understood what we were doing was was not the same that we were doing for all kids so we got their consent that got us started and then

160over the course of that year of monitoring we pulled a committee together than to dig deeper and and actually you have it um it's one of your links that you can see what that is for the language dominance committee work that was done some of the psychologists are here this evening that were on that committee um and we were able to put together a menu so people have Choice which we believe is very important we had to get started first in order to start making Corrections we have some staff that prefer to use that simple easy quick we have others that prefer to go with standardized and that's their choice as it should be as long as we get the information so again would you be open to collecting data about um whether this is

161how it was developed and what evidence was used in its development I think that's something that an audit would be helpful in just double checking I guess I would ask what like what's the purpose like what is it that we're trying to figure out I need more clarification because obviously I didn't I wasn't clear on what your request was and and I don't want I don't want to waste any of your time um you know presenting if that's not what you truly want as a board I'm just looking for are you open to data being collected on whether or not this is an effective tool like an outside impartial um uh expert um is there such a thing probably from um you know we have I was thinking that the group from NAU yeah probably

162the group we have some professors from NAU that specialize do you remember who that is I don't remember off the top of my head but we also have Hanover research at our disposal which is a research service that would be in a position to design a study around the effect the impact potentially development and effect and influence those are the three words I heard you use the development or the design the effect and the influence yeah I mean again isn't this something that an audit could include in the audience I don't think it's a standard practice yet it might be in development in the board direct the external Auditors on certain specifics if they have a touch of standard yeah if they I mean we don't direct experts experts bring a standard well this is

163the tool that we're using to determine whether or not kids are eligible for Specialists if we're trying to assess language dominance Effectiveness or language proficiency Effectiveness I'm a little it's language dominance because we look at proficiency we use the azella obviously so we know the stages of acquisition that they're in um now there's an ALT azella which is good to have now um warranted and needed and so basically you know that manual is put together it isn't one way to collect the data the state knew we had um like qualitative data and they wanted um quantitate they needed numbers so then the survey was able to say out of x amount of questions for the student you know they answered two out of six in this language or three out of six in this language

164that's what it's that's what it was set up to do and again it's not the only option it was it was a way to get started but we moved into committee work you know right away because it was work we had to do over the summer to begin with and then started committee work one thing I'd like to request from Dr Dubin and I think it addresses this and other things on a broader level would be um the district-wide demographic breakdown of students who are enrolled in special ed by um by Race by sex and by ell status just so we can get an idea and then be able to compare that to the total District population demographics to try to see if there's over-representation happening or if we can pull any Trends from do

165you know off the top of your head Chris yeah there's we're good we're not over represented um based on our pea determination and um our percentage based on total population to the total number of special ed students is within the range so I mean we can look at that data but the states okay thank you really like the um the manual by the way I think it's very comprehensive in defining the different levels of language acquisition language dominance and like you said there's there are research-based assessments on here like there it gives you options to ensure that you are making sure that we are not dual labeling kids or you know over evaluating kids um and making sure that language is not the factor that's getting them into special ed thank you on the idea

166indicator slide I don't there's no page numbers on this but it's right after the cycle one slide third one in yeah slide four I think it's four yeah I'm going the opposite way here yes yeah so again this is a was a really tough one for me to understand what is being what the story is with this um is there what is the performance data that is associated with these indicators do we have that so basically the state average what we're looking for is 20 in ela and math that was the last one um and we're under that 20 so we could be five percent six percent we actually decreased unfortunately during um covet time um when getting into that process um so I mean that's still it's all part of what that what yesterday

167question is on my question um our strengths suspensions expulsion um can we see that data like how did they determine that's a string I can I can print out the report okay I mean and also again to to Katie's question like do we have that disaggregated by special ed designation so everything that I do um in my role even though I do you know I have experience I'm gen Ed special ed principal director so I do I do look at the broad but in the department as far as reporting goes it's specifically based on kids with special needs identified needs okay so you would have that information it's it's through Ade and the and the exceptional student services department so that's their focus when you say the report are you talking about the Pea determination

168we have a pea determination that I can print out um but you can already see on there that we've met met but then we also have the risk analysis um that you're welcome to look at now I notice on here and then last night when I was on the ad website I I'm just curious why maybe they're lagging because it just ends at fiscal year 2020 when do we expect to see 2021 and 2022 so basically what happens is is because you report for a full year so let's say some of the data isn't even due it's really now sprinkled throughout the year it used to be due all at the same time and now it's sprinkled like throughout the year so I think the last data reporting is in August I think when it

169closes so everything is always in arrears because they have to get the full year in order to have that data and so we have to enter suspensions and all of that information when they talk about environment that's you know least restricted least restrictive environment you know how often how much of the time are they with Gen Ed teachers for example so when we track that and so we are just to confirm we are currently not in a corrective action plan no we completed it we we're done so and do we have kids right now um that are not receiving their IEP minutes if we do um and I'm not aware of it and you have information I need to be informed because we will we will look at compensatory Services I'm the first person that

170will stand up here will not let a student go without their services I too have a son that was in special education so I am adamant and strong about this so again and what do we say with Services an example we've if we have somebody that's out on FMLA um and you know Staffing is trying to cover what they can do um if we end up anytime that those minutes are short many times we can make them up over the course of the year if not we determine when are those going to be made up I mean as the Director I would hope that you would know whether or not we we are meeting those minutes and whether there are kids that that are not receiving those minutes I mean with the Staffing situation the

171way it is I would be surprised that we're not in that situation so again that's why I would like to look further into having an external audit again just like you did in 2016 Dr Lewis um I think it's it's just time to re-look at it and and and try and determine you know why we're having these issues so I moved to table this item so we can discuss it further at our future board meeting item or is it a genderizing that's what I was okay thank you you're welcome thank you very much I appreciate it thank you you're welcome thank you thank you you're welcome that brings us over to 6C this is a discussion about an asp policy advisories number 739-743 this is the first reading um I hope everybody had an opportunity

172to look over these so we can just table this to the next meeting unless anybody has any discussion now on any of these items I specifically didn't but it wouldn't be tables sorry I didn't mean tabling I might just I'm like wait moving it over to the next meeting sorry do we have any discussion Dr Lewis do you have any uh foreign okay further discussion okay great all right and that brings us over to 10A which brings us to representatives from the Arizona School Board Association will provide the governing board with an overview of the search process search team scope of work duties and responsibilities of each party posting an application process thank you so much for being here at 8 41 PM you all are doing the work of the people so we appreciate

173you obviously as the Arizona school boards Association we appreciate every bit of work that you do and celebrate you for your service I'm Tracy Benson I'm the associate executive director at asba and also the search administrator and I wanted to take some time with you this evening just to give you an overview of the superintendent search process I wanted to start off by saying though first of all we are really honored to be supporting you in what you know is one of the most important decisions that you will make as members of your governing board on behalf of the staff of the district and the students of the district and the community that you serve so thank you so much for your trust in us as an organization to be with you on this journey

174um as you are aware asba has a long and successful history providing superintendent search services to um School Board governing boards around the State of Arizona we really pride ourselves on a process that is transparent and collaborative and board driven and so just know that that's what you can expect from us during our time together going through this process over the next few minutes I am going to take you through an overview of our search team the process the different components of it give you an idea about the timeline for that as well and then of course entertain any questions that you might have about the overview so um I want to introduce you to our search team I me I am the search administrator for asba and and you can kind of think of

175me as sort of the Hub in the process sort of coordinating the different elements of the superintendent search process also a part of your search is Keith Greer who's the newest member of our superintendent search team and is on board as a consultant with us Dr Nick Clement is a long time consultant of ours doing superintendent searches around the state um uh Dr Devin Del Palacio um Devin Del Palacio who is our strategic initiative um an advocacy specialist is on the team along with Heidi Vega and their role in the process is really part of the community engagement and involvement aspect and they'll be um part of part of our team working with members of your community and staff and gaining input into the search process Ben Adams is the right hand man of all

176of us he works behind the scenes to make everything happens properly in the search process and then Julie bacon who's our leadership development manager will be working with you and your new superintendent um once selected to provide some transition facilitated dialogue and that sort of thing to make sure that you all get off on an excellent start with your new executive um the search process I'll be going over this evening you see up here on the screen and I'm just going to go through it um component by component briefly though because as Ms McLean pointed out it's 8 45 and I know um it's been a long day for you um so I want to talk a little bit about the timeline for the superintendent search and selection process you can really think about it

177in six phases and um well I'm going to add on a seventh phase which you'll hear at the end but phase one is really where you are right now it's developing the profile for the candidate that you're seeking to be your next superintendent it's thinking about the timeline and approving the timeline for the search process and then it's the community engagement piece whatever that will look like for this governing board in this District you all will will determine that this evening I believe that's one of your agenda items then phase two is really the piece about um posting the opening advertising the position recruiting candidates was which is the work we do on your behalf and also Gathering Community input through a variety of means which I'll describe a little bit more as we move

178through then phase three is where you all work to screen the applicants the applications that you get against a leadership profile that's developed by you with the consultants and with Community input community and staff input and when I say community I may not say staff every time but I do we consider staff part of your community and so if I don't think community and staff know that I'm including staff so I hope you'll be thinking of it that way too phase four then is where you get down to the interview process with your candidates and then your finalists there's an option for Community input at that phase of the process as well phase five is really where you've selected someone you're entering into contract negotiations with them that's where your attorney your legal counsel will

179step into place and then phase six is where the board approves the superintendent contract and as I said I'm going to add on phase seven and that's really that transition phase where the board is really working to build a relationship with the new superintendent and you're introducing that individual to your community and staff quick question yes between phase two and three some of us had had concerns um is there an opportunity if we get like a bunch of responses and we're not thrilled what does that look like if we're wanting to reopen or has that come up how do you address that in the past yeah so that has come up um not frequently I'll say but it you know it can happen where you know maybe you get a dozen applications and you you

180feel none of them are quite right for interviewing we can reopen the process um and um if they're a particular attributes or types of individuals that you're looking for we can more heavily Focus recruiting efforts in those particular areas if it seems to be that there's a gap in who the applicants are where they're coming from yeah thank you so follow up on that Tracy yeah I wasn't sure exactly where this fits in it but um you know one of the things that went through my mind is that perhaps it would be good to consider an interim I don't know if you can talk through what your experiences in pros and cons for um considering an interim my concerns are um you know when when we first hire a superintendent there's a honeymoon period that

181maybe lasts about a year or so and then 2024 the board turns over we'll have three seats open and then new board members come over and give the superintendent the benefit of the doubt for a year or so because they're new they don't know each other um you know I feel like we're we Face a lot of challenges right now in this district and and that there could be a benefit for us to um consider an interim what what are your thoughts on that in your experience um I will say it is not typical to approach it in that respect um typically if there is an interim place it's either that the superintendent it's typically that the superintendent leaves for whatever reason Midway through a year um we find that um I think that there's

182there is a a element of trust that comes with a permanent leader for the district and so I think that's why most boards choose to go with a permanent candidate um from the start um but I hope that answers your question um yeah I suppose so yeah okay um all right so one of the very first pieces so I just want to clarify kind of going on what Miss Gibson McLean said so because I'm my understanding is tonight we're going to approve a timeline as presented but if we get to a phase like just because we approve this timeline are we able to some point say we need to come back and readjust this timeline yes absolutely and the the items when we get to the point about screening applicants first round interviews with candidates

183finalists interviews all of those have a flexibility built in and and at the end of the timeline we make sure to have this sort of statement this asterisk that says this timeline may be adjusted with the agreement of both parties and so that really is to account for any you know eventualities that might come up that's why I assume I just wanted to clarify and yeah it's going back to transparency like yep good point thank you for asking that um so one of the first pieces and this is something that you'll be discussing tonight is the position profile that's really looking at the basic qualifications that you want your new executive to have and um you will see when you consider the position announcement that there are uh position requirements that there's preferred credentials and

184then there's characteristics that are involved in development of that position profile you'll also see when we get to that piece of your agenda where you're looking at the position announcement that there's a piece about salary uh compensation and so that is something that we provide uh a background for you about so you're having a competitive salary range that's Based on data that we've collected Statewide it's based on like districts and recent searches that we've done that are comparable so that's another piece of the process um I just I think the next slide shows our superintendent salary and benefit survey which is something that we've conducted every year for I don't know as long as I've been with asba and that's been about 15 years so it's great longitudinal Statewide data that that's based on the

185next piece of it is once you have created the the posting document you've identified what your requirements are we use our online application process which is Frontline the industry standard you know for Education application process post that online then we really get into the advertising and recruiting piece of it right where we're we are out there on your behalf um looking for the best candidates for this position we do it Statewide and we do it on a national basis we reach out to sort of the standard professional organizations we also make sure that we're reaching out to organizations that um that really work to nurture and develop diverse candidates for leadership positions like these and that happens in phase two the next piece of it is while that application is open is um Community participation

186and the per the whole purpose of community participation in the search process is really to add transparency for your community and for your staff but also to give you those insights so that you can use that in your decision making we we use that Community involvement and input that we receive to develop what we call a leadership profile that we present to you and you then in turn use for decision making about screening applicants about developing interview questions all of those kinds of things that's uh we call that the discovery phase and there's a variety of ways to approach that there is an online and paper survey there's Community input sessions um and sometimes districts will do focus groups so there's a variety of choices for that and I believe that's something that you'll consider

187later on in your agenda tonight Tracy and when you mean paper you mean that stuff can be mailed out to the addresses and everything right that's what you mean by paper you can mail it out you can distribute it from your school sites you can do a combination of the two I think that that's what most districts find to be most effective is to do that combination and you know you truly know your community best and what's going to be the most effective way to share that information out with them whether it's posting it on your website phone notifications social media whatever it might be or printing out paper copies and having it in school offices backpacks however you decide to distribute it so that you get an excellent return rate and really hear from

188all the different areas within your community so that's something we have a challenge with um is that it's not alone yeah is that something aspa can help us reach out further you know if we're not getting a lot of interest I think we can help you with um strategies and tactics to do that you have you have a much better communication channel for your community within your community than we do but we can absolutely share you know best practices and and strategies that have worked really well with districts like Creighton okay great for sure um there's another opportunity for Community input when you have selected your finalists and this is something we recommend and that many districts do and that's a community finalists Forum where um the finalists for the position um come before the

189community it's usually done on the same day that you all do the interviews with those finalists community and staff come in they have an opportunity to to submit questions for the finalists the finalists make opening statements questions are asked of them then they make closing statements and then every member who is at that finalists Forum has an opportunity to fill out a an input card which we then collect and share with you so that that can be a part of your decision making process how the community and staff are feeling about those particular finalists you chose so they're giving you information up front to help you develop that leadership profile to do the screening then when you get to the end where you have your finalists they're also providing you feedback on how they they

190feel about the choices this might be an asba question this might be RIT and Communications or working together but with that I definitely want that um but also can we is there an option or have you guys worked with districts where um they also either video that forum and their answers then and we can have that posted on a website or have them answer questions in another video I just know physically getting to events like this you know can limit how many people and so being able to have those videos like I know I've watched videos in my previous districts have been looking for superintendents and it was really helpful to make sure that we get access for that yeah absolutely both for the um Community input sessions and the finalists Forum um if you

191have the technology uh if you have the technology you can accomplish this someone's just been volunteered um but no truly you can we can have an interactive um online presence as well where folks can submit questions or ask questions or or provide comments that sort of thing so yeah if you have the ability within the district to do that we have done that and we can accomplish that for you yeah all right um next piece is screening applicants um this just so you know these next meetings where you're screening applicants interviewing candidates and finalists are going to happen outside of your regular meetings you'll need a special meeting to accomplish that um depending on the number of candidates you get a screening meeting could last anywhere from three hours to six hours I mean it

192could last longer but you know you have to control yourselves and now um but it they can be lengthy and so you'll you'll want to set aside special time for that and that again is where the position profile comes into play and the leadership profile comes into play and your search team will develop tools to help you sift and sort through those applications know that every single application that is submitted and complete for this is going to come before you so we're not going to hold some back that we don't think are appropriate we're going to bring every single one of them to you we're going to present them to you in a way that says here's the one that most closely meet the criteria and the leadership profile but here's the other ones as

193well just so you know that this decision is fully in your hands and just to clarify for transparency sake we heard tonight folks want to be involved you said special meaning what I'm reading here is executive sessions so we do the screening application applications in executive session which is not open to the public what I mean by a special meeting is it would be a meeting that's not your regular board board meeting time so it'd be on a different day than your first Tuesday of every month but wouldn't it be an executive session so yes some some pieces of this will be an executive session and screening the applicants will be interviewing the candidates and the finalists will be an executive session and I think that's important like kind of going back to that transparency

194like we absolutely want to have as many pieces of this that are by policy and by law and not violating uh FERPA and all those things um will be in the public but there will be stages where there are executive sessions so I think just being clear about what those pieces are yeah absolutely and you'll see those identified when we get to going over the timeline exactly how that plays out um and I think it's a really important to note and I have this on one of the final slides but that is the responsibility both of asba and this board in terms of confidentiality when it comes to the applicants and the candidates and and all of that so we really have to hold that closely and carefully um to maintain that confidentiality and I've

195had a question about that already so they can be kept confidential until they become a finalist probably right okay okay all right yeah okay position you don't like share out everybody's applications and resume and say these are all the teachers we're looking at and this is who were discarding and I mean there's a Personnel piece of it um the next piece is interview preparation and this hat this will happen during a meeting in public in Open Session and that is really where we work with you all the board to talk about how you want to proceed with the interview what what are the themes of the interview questions that you want to ask again they'll probably be aligned with what what your priorities are and what you hear and we hear from the community in

196terms of what their priorities are um the next piece is candidate interviews we are with you um the whole time throughout this process which I I think is important and hopefully you find reassuring um just to have someone in the room with you who um is experienced and who can help guide you through the process and make sure that um all the questions get answered and um asked and answered and in a proper way so we are we are with you for that that's part of phase four and then we're also with you when it comes to decision making once you have had your first round interviews with candidates your finalists interviews um you've had your community Forum we're with you during the deliberation process as well again sort of helping you work through that

197with the leadership profile and the rubric that's been developed to help you um make decisions that are aligned with the priorities that you have identified as a board for your candidate or for your future superintendent excuse me and then once we get to this phase contract negotiations asba steps back it goes into the hands of the district and your legal counsel to do those negotiations we talked to I mentioned salary range up at the very front the salary is going to be determined in this phase of the process we're going to identify the range up front so your candidates know um sort of what what the possibilities are but that really gets determined and finalized during this negotiation phase and then the last piece of it as I mentioned is the transition phase and that's

198really about building that stable foundation in terms of the relationship between this board and your new executive and then helping you be really successful in introducing that person to your staff and your community as as your new leader and executive um the last bit is roles and responsibilities and there's a lot of them they're in the search agreement I've talked about some of them here but the the key ones that I really wanted to point out have to do with protecting confidentiality and making sure that that as this process unfolds that we're doing it in alignment with the law and ensuring that we maintain confidentiality that we abide by you know the open meeting law that all the elements of the meeting are posted appropriately so that this process just goes right down the line

199as it's intended to and those are the items on the next slide that I point out um as well for asva's responsibilities um in addition really just so you know we are here for you um we are your search agent we're here to consult with you throughout the process it's your process it's not our process and so just know um that that is our philosophy and you can count on that and um the last piece of it is for us responding to you know public inquiries media inquiries and those kinds of things we're there to assist you with that as well and so with that um we're on the questions slide two questions one I think this presentation was really good at going Beyond just a bullet point of the process but it's not posted

200on our board Docs I didn't find it either where the power points are okay it would it be possible to have it I can add it to the agenda item because it was okay within the 24 hours well I was thinking in terms of other people accessing it because we get questions about the process I guess to follow up on that because this is going to be my jam I think board docs is very inaccessible for the public one of the things I would request if possible if we could talk to Tech about this is creating a temporary page that's like a sub page of our website for the superintendent process and we can share resources and information like this that's more accessible to the public and to our staff and students and Families that's

201a process that other districts have employed as well kind of a One-Stop shop you can put the link to the community survey there meeting dates you know that that are going to be open to the public related to that because I think this is a good like where are we at in the process like if I can quickly direct somebody to this it's much easier so full disclosure I didn't send this over until about 3 30 this afternoon no that's fair I just it was in my head and I'm like I want to make sure that that we have access to it oh and that's why we're not seeing it because he'll just put a link to it because I usually do that I just got it so yeah that is fair it is in

202the folder with the PowerPoint gotcha okay my second question is like when like a little kind of nitpicky things like looking at additional references like reference checks Beyond just what's provided and stuff like that is are we is that guidance for right now are we meeting with you all again to kind of hone in on that guidance like kind of as we get through each step yes so um I I'll address that also in the timeline piece but when we get to um you you've done the screening you've selected candidates to come in for your first interview um reference checks um what we call due diligence comes into play there right so there's reference checks and then we also look at sort of the publicly available online footprint of the individual as well so that

203we're doing our own um reference checking through those channels as well so we're bringing you as complete a picture of that um individual as we can and follow up on that um are you or will you or are you able to um do further reference checks and just what is listed yeah on their references uh you know I we typically check the references that are provided um and I would I would actually defer to Dr Clement on that because he is the one um in the search process who does that so um and I I suppose I don't know the legalities of it but I know it's done and I suppose you could do it by asking one of the listed references is there anyone else that I could talk to you know about this

204candidate something like that if you don't know you know if you're not it's a small town you know but it's but we're going National so so uh thank you for the uh opportunity to be part of the team and thank you for the question so as far as doing our due diligence there are a number of steps the first step is prior to the screening um I do a internet search and looking to validate or find issues that um might might be important for the board to see during the screening and I validate that it's not just one you know I will validate that with a number of articles that for example I had a situation and I'm not violating any because I'm not giving any names with a hit and run well that hit

205and run did not show up in the application so that's the first due diligence is to do that that type of search then once finalists are identified we do do um reference checks if something warrants doing a reference check beyond the application we can do that um as long as the reference check is following certain guidelines the um and also while that's going on with finalists asba will do a formal search through a third party that will find parking tickets and and that information will be brought to the board and then you decide whether that information would would be important in your decision making is that more like a background check yes and the company Universal so once and they we do the contacting the finalists and get the sign off to do the universal

206um so so I mean no one in the right mind is going to put down a reference on their resume who's going to give them a bad reference right so um but you you have to check them um I guess it would be nice if we could if we could talk to us yes talk to staff or you know someone who's not listed as a reference but who is a colleague or um an acquaintance through you work something like that you know I know it's done again I don't know of the legality of it I mean it happens probably very informally and by accident in many ways um what we have to do is make sure if we're doing it for one we're doing it for others and then um to be quite honest with

207you and I did HR for six years and people are a lot less open to doing a reference check um than they have been in 20 years ago right so but the way I do that reference check is I I will contact the person via email and ask to give me a time window to do phone phone calls so I talked to that reference check on the phone or do a uh or do a zoom it's my generic croissants when I get called for a reference yeah yeah so Tracy I do have I've got about two and a half pages worth of correct questions for you and I separated out by by each point that we were voting on so do you want me to wait until before we voters okay so um we're gonna

208go into 10B which is governing board we'll discuss and consider proving timeline for the superintendent search process so this is where we would ask I mean you can do your spill and then whatever questions discussion that we need on that we can specifically talk about the timeline okay um would you like me to run through this timeline document and as you have questions you could ask them I read through it um I I'm hoping everybody else did too so if we have questions now instead of running through all of it we can ask the questions and then if something doesn't make sense then we can elaborate on it perfect good news you already answered all the questions that I had about the timeline oh anybody else have any questions or discussion on timeline um I

209guess my so the timeline itself makes sense I know it's doable it feels like a lot but I know that it's it's doable um my and I know that we can adjust if we need to my only like from the get-go concern is the application period opening February 14th which is seven days from now um it being open for four weeks is fine and adequate but how much do we feel like in the next seven days we can advertise and tell people that this application is going to be posted I guess does that feel really crunched we begin um the advertising and recruitment process when the application is posted and open so that's when we'll start promoting it and we will start right on that day um the application opens and we start immediately posting

210it sharing it out in fact that very weekend February 16th to 18th is the double ASA conference where we will be having um an executive Search Booth an area where folks from all around the country will be coming who are interested in superintendencies and um we have a postcard designed and developed already to promote this this particular search which I think is going to be one that's very attractive so anyway we'll start right right from the get-go Miss McCaleb um promoting that so that that forward and that's the way we do it for almost all the searches we do and that period of four weeks definitely seems to be adequate if it seems that we're not getting the volume or the quality of applications we would reach out to to this board and say you

211know what we feel like we need to extend it by a week or you know whatever that might look like and then and extend the period for you that's why I was like I know this has been done it just seems like foreign do you have any questions it's not about the timeline though okay I don't either I just kind of have a like knowing that we will have additional this is kind of for the board to keep in mind knowing we will have additional meetings that we'll need to schedule throughout this can we make sure that we are proactive in setting those dates and maybe ahead of time yeah um I was just thinking about because I really want to make sure that all five of us are at all of these and some

212conflicts can't be avoided so yeah it has had has everyone checked their schedule on these um proposed dates I have so the way I looked at it most of them say week a lot of them say week of yeah so clearly for me that would depend on the day um so yeah that's the only issue I had with some of the meetings and this you know obviously is going to be based on what's convenient for your board um and you know we'll need to be here with you right of course so our schedule will come into play a little bit but we probably have more flexibility as one or two people versus you know your whole team as a board so would would you recommend that we we do set schedule like set dates with

213Hilda after this meeting and we can kind of go back and forth I wouldn't want to spend the time tonight yeah doing that although we like have some kind of calendar of like these dates in this week and be like who's available what date like almost like a Sign Up Genius kind of thing and then think about it but it looks like the first date would be a week of March Tuesday March 23rd March 7th the week of March well March 7th I believe is your regular board meeting okay where we we'd be here to provide an update for you on um the search status and also the review of the survey results which we would have I would close a few days before that and then any other components of community and staff input

214that we've received at that point um but yeah the the first meeting that isn't that needs to be scheduled is that meeting three where you do the applicant screening we have a recommended date there of March the 23rd which is a Thursday but you know obviously it is um it's your decision well then you said that screening meeting can take six hours yeah I mean three to six hours so you need to set aside a pretty good chunk chunk of time are we talking about like during the day whatever is convenient for it could be done on weekends too right if they have to do it on a Saturday yep you could do it you know from four to I think sometimes we started around three you know it depended on what was what worked

215it's just that some of us are teachers and we have testing and March I know I was like I was like I was like testing I couldn't take off work yeah that's like a no yeah okay that would be better than the State Testing is just the big that would be the weekend would be better for me too because the 21st is a board meeting and I also have a Phoenix Union safety meeting on the 22nd so a third night of child care is a lot yeah we can discuss that I think we should go through you right with schedule okay the only date you would probably you would want to I think have on a weekday would be your finalists interviews um in order to incorporate that Community input portion of it I might

216imagine like we do signs similar to community council right [Music] generally speaking then you gave us a time for that that's a rough time estimate for them then for the first round interviews do you have a rough time estimate of how long that usually takes it kind of depends how many candidates you know you bring in I mean say you bring in two or three which is probably pretty typical um you're thinking it probably an hour um for each one of those some prep time on the front end with the consultant you know talking about the questions for the interview kind of getting yourself situated on that um the community Forum itself usually lasts about 90 minutes you're going to want a breather between your interviews and that of a half an hour to have

217something to eat or what have you so it's you know it's it's gonna take up you would do all the interviews and then we would do the Forum right okay yep and then most boards then will um go into executive session and have your deliberations immediately following that look at the feedback um from the community Forum talk about your own impressions of how the interviews went and um you know make then come out and make announce your decision so meeting five is potentially the longest day yeah probably because you're including that Community Forum in there okay this is possible action if we have no further discussion and we're ready to take action in this and accept this is that we can make a motion now and just do it do you guys have any further

218okay get ready to spend a lot of time together guys I move the governing board approve the timeline for the superintendent search process as attached all those in favor aye passes perfect so that brings us down to 10c um discussion and consideration of approving an online superintendent leadership quality Community survey as component of the superintendent search process do we have any um discussions or any edits that we would like to do on this so um I see the board it will be taking the same survey I assume we will disaggregate who is taking the survey when we get it back to us as a board yeah it absolutely can be disaggregated and um in addition to the board taking this survey I should have pointed this out earlier but during that Discovery process the search

219Consultants will be calling each of you individually and asking you some key questions about what um the strengths of the district are and you want to see more of what the challenges are what particular qualities you want to see in your new superintendent and also any other considerations that you think are important so know that you know obviously you have a lot of say in this process but also that your individual viewpoints will be considered both in that way and then you know on this survey if you choose to take it so I think we need to also as a board consider how we're going to use this survey to inform our decision um you have thoughts on that in your experience um meaning you know um I'd be interested in how aligned we are

220with the community and if we're not what do we do about that you know yeah I'd be interested in the like stakeholder disaggregated by stakeholder because what parents say they want versus what teachers say they want can be the same or it can be very different and it could be quite different than what we as board members I think we want you know right and and you know that will be um that will be part of your discussion um at that meeting too on March the 7th when you're talking about the community survey um the Consultants will already have spoken with you about your you know feedback so um I I would guess that though there's probably more alignment that than you would guess but you know time will tell right and and that'll be

221a discussion that you'll have at that point so how do we how do we utilize this and present this when we bring this information back to the board we bring it back in a summarized fashion where we're sharing with you what the top responses were for each of these um seven or eight different categories that this survey addresses and we're also summarizing the comments that are provided in each of those open-ended questions you will also get the results of the survey so you'll have you know the data um not in an Excel spreadsheet but you know in a in a graphic format yeah and you'll be able to see what the comments are so so you'll have that um but when we when we bring it back to you we will have it summarized and

222we will have um in addition to the community narrative input right the open-ended questions um your input will be incorporated in there in summarize in there as well not separately but as a part of that whole bundle that will create the leadership profile um this these survey questions um there are a lot of them and I just wonder just thinking out loud really to my fellow board members um do we want to narrow the questions down a little bit um I you know I'm usually for more information than not but um and all for a couple reasons it's it's going to take a longer time for people to take the survey they may get tired of it by the time they get to question you know I don't know I'm assure you have you looked

223into I guess following up on that drop off with these and there can be you know persistence issues um sometimes there are where um you might have 700 people who respond and and find that only half of them complete the first half you know the the um eight leadership areas um but then you get a ton of um comments in the open-ended questions or it could be the opposite it really depends on it really depends on the community I wouldn't say there's a trend one way or the other in terms of survey persistence but it's something that you know you'll see when you get the results back this might be really technical does this show up one question per page how does it look automatically I'm sorry I don't remember we used Survey Monkey to

224host it so there is a way you know to show just one page at a time but I don't remember I know some people might be tired if this is one for a page I don't know I was just curious I mean I guess so quiet like I don't know if this is kind of where you're going with it uh Amy but like are there like these are all kind of sub categories were you thinking like are there three or four subcategories we would like to move to the front of the survey well in case people don't finish for instance I mean but let's go to number nine budget and finance there are a lot of says pick two but that's a lot of things to read and as a community member like what is

225most important to me you know that's a tough one um can you know what is most important to our community it just seems like maybe if they had four choices and they could pick two it might be more telling to us well and I I the only reason why I like these options and my perspective is is that we don't want to pinpoint people into certain boxes if we only have four options then it's almost like we're telling the people these are the already four qualities that we've decided so now choose from these two this gives and I get it some people won't fully do it but I think with the community forums and all the different aspects we're going to be able to grab the different people like somebody who may complete the survey

226might not be interested in coming to the community forum and and vice versa somebody that looks at this is like I don't want to do this but they'll come in person and give their public comment onto what they want or not so I personally like this just because it doesn't make me feel like I'm pinpointing my community on certain topics already it just gives a very vague and it really gives us a sense to see what what their understanding of it all this is at first and then what they really want to see in in somebody right so I mean I was thinking it would be very challenging for us to narrow it down to four that's the only problem it comes to Gathering data you have to think about the validity and the liability

227of a survey and it's really hard it's a very fine balance I do think the final page 10 and 11 are probably two of the most important questions though and wonder if we could move those up towards the front after we take oh I like that demographic I don't like but yeah sure I mean we can absolutely put those um as questions two and three okay if you want to get those right up front if I would avoid fatigue like right we can get their most pressing concerns out of the way yeah I mean there is a flip side of if they go through the questions and the topic sometimes people come up with things yeah that they hadn't thought about so my only caveat to that would be if we move them up could

228we have moved them up and then at the very end say is there anything else anything additional you want to add yeah that's always a great box to include it's a terrifying box to include and creates a dump of thoughts but that would be the cat like I really like having the questions up front because people are gonna pull out things they already know and feel passionate about yeah not feeling fatigued by all the questions but I know that I would fill this out and then go well man I wish I had put that as a strength or a challenge so so we can utilize a question that is one of the questions we use in the community forum and it's basically other things what other things would you like the governing board to consider

229in making it's just yeah yeah I think that'd be a good closing with regard to the when each question folks have the ability to identify a trade that's not listed do when you present us the data do you tend to try if it seems like it fits within one of boxes that wasn't checked but they just kind of described that differently or do you just present it as is which is present it as is yeah and then I forget I haven't used Survey Monkey in a while but can we guarantee that people can't take the survey twice you can okay I've never done that really bored and then um Can ASB a connect with our strategic planning committee or Consultants because I know they have they reached you know a group of 200 people um

230I'd like for those to ensure those stakeholders are engaged just because we know how to reach all those people um that would be great that's a good group of people that we have connected with they've done some real deep thinking on a lot of issues already I would recommend that someone from the district do that because you all are going to have more pull with your community than we are if you want us to we will but I I would recommend that you know you identify someone they would share the survey monthly linked with them basically yeah yeah take me yet but we can make that happen right like they get sure that that list of people they're taking notes on all our demands I can see it is this the survey that would get

231mailed out you can distribute it however you'd like so you can send it out electronically and encourage people to fill it out that way or you can print it and you can have it available however you'd like it or you can mail something out use QR code put that on there um I mean this is a big document to have to put in the mail probably cost you a lot yeah do that but you could or you could have printed copies at your school sites district office okay you know other places where members of your community gather so perhaps in our Dr Lewis you could provide us with an email of saying where the district plans to include it so that if if we're missing something the board will at least know who we're hitting

232who we're missing do we have in our schools um like in the front offices is there a computer in the front office that parents use that's available yeah like I was just saying like we we have yeah like we have a laptop and all of our front offices so parents if they need to register on parent view do we have that in our school offices in Creighton not precisely in the front office but in every Outreach specialist room they have an iPad or on a device that is available for parents so we could do something maybe in the front office have some kind of poster that says we would love for you to complete our superintendent survey please visit this room like let the front office know that you'd like to okay because I think

233that is a huge Pete like this would be very cumbersome on a phone QR codes are great but I would be like oh my goodness and where are my readers um so I think that would be good if we can make sure that parents are aware there isn't a computer here where you can sit and do this do we have any other questions or discussions on this survey no okay so I move the governing board um approve and the on online superintendent leadership qualities Community survey as a component of the superintendent superintendent search process with the edits yes 30 seconds um although it's in favor aye right that brings us to our next item where we will be discussing and approving community group focused meetings facilitated by asba to gain input on the leadership profile

234so right off the bat I did see that we saw um that we have and turn that in as well and our folks who are facilitating um Devin Del Palacio and Heidi Vega both are Spanish speakers as well um so that is really helpful in settings like that any other questions or discussion so um now that we've discussed this this is where we make the decision of how many Community forums we want uh I think really the the format that you want do you want those Community sessions to be open to anyone or do you uh want to do one as a focus group well what a focus group and a local group would be more like Invitation Only um and I will tell you some districts do that others have concerns about who's being

235included and who's being excluded when when you do a smaller focus on the districts that you have that you have experience with focus groups what what their what was their reasoning or who was invited um we've had Business Leaders we've had group of Faith leaders we've had another group called Community Partners that have been a mix of those we've had others that have been staff leaders from Individual School sites you know it it really can be um anything that you desire there's a particular group that you want input from of course all those people are also welcome at the community forums themselves so if you wanted a particular group or type of partner to be there you could definitely extend special invitation to them dear business partners please come to our community Forum on February

23627th right your voice is valued you know I feel like that would be for us I would feel like we're excluding people if we made one very exclusive people have a hard enough time like we did a morning you know like I think just giving two different options would give our community a better yeah chance and getting there so keep them open but if we and to like we could additionally extend into specific invitations to make sure certain groups come that we know typically don't come to community council or typically don't like go out of our way but yeah I would keep it open I would feel nervous about out the unintended consequences of focusing too much and as far as like casting as wide and that is possible depending on how attendance looks the

237reason why I brought up that's what the kind of the reason why I brought up the like kind of the breakout thing sometimes folks feel more comfortable in a smaller setting or with people who feel like they're of a like group like I am a teacher or I'm a certified and a classified staff and we're together talking about our interests um in which you know there might be parents who might not feel like they're in the place to speak up even though they did come to the Forum so I'm just trying to think of ways we can accommodate folks all sharing and feeling like they're heard even if we have two forms that are like just open to everyone is why I brought up like the breakout kind of thing so that there's kind of

238smaller facilitated conversations kind of a model of community council yeah big but yeah how can we make sure there's opportunity and how are we how do we make sure that those structures are in place so that you're not pit y'all aren't pivoting on a dime and one other thing that I I've been trying to find the right place for it um I think that there are plenty of our middle school students who are competent and capable to participate in this process and I'd really like to see yeah maybe get some students from kids Congress or some something be play a role in this process I'll tell you something really um neat that the Phoenix Elementary District did last year when we did their search was they invited a group of students to come to the

239finalists forum and and sort of have a private audience with the finalists before the rest of the public came in to get to ask some questions or hear from them so it's great to have you know how would that work into this it would be the final round so it would be something that we need to add in for the final round yeah that they they did that for the finalists but I mean you could certainly make a special invitation to students as well but two Brands oh sorry go ahead for the community input sessions but kind of to Branch off of what you said is when we have this community Forum so we invite everybody right but in community councils we have tables spread out we could do like if you're a staff member

240sit over here if you're a student come over here if you're a parent sit over here yeah so while the big conversations going they could have smaller conversations within that table and then just bring it over so I think that's something that we can work within the community so youth especially are probably not going to want to speak up in a huge room of adults and and that was one of my things but I hadn't mentioned anything because I watched Phoenix else and I saw how they did that and that's something that I was going to bring up when we talked about the finalists that I thought that was a really neat idea that they got um kids to have that one-on-one with them three and the kids ask the questions to the superintendents and

241they brought some epiphanies to board members are like oh crap I didn't think of that because the kids are thinking of it so that's a really good idea okay [Music] um so we're kind of finalizing right now like we want to we want them to be open no focused groups and I think I want to plan for allowing small group yeah so how would we do this as an action item yes no she's not sure I think you could motion to have your community involvement be two open Community input sessions and a um a community finalist Forum okay yeah so I moved the governing board approve doing two to community um facilitated meetings with asva and having a finalist community focused forum with the finalists all those in favor aye aye okay that brings us

242down to the discussion of approving the position announcement to be published on the asba website um and this announcement will include the district profile Community profile position profile position salary range District financial information and timeline and process I'm excited to tell you that you don't have to hear from me anymore but Dr Clement will take you through this process okay thank you Tracy thank you so in developing this we did some due diligence and um got your staff involved thank you so much um held uh and uh what we presented to you uh is as current information as possible um 20 years ago the to be quite honest the profile was more important than it is today um candidates are going to do their own due diligence but it's important to um give them a

243start and so this information provides that big picture overview um for many of the applicants they've already done their due diligence um and so any questions that you have regarding the profile and again we did do due diligence looking at um information about the district with the qualifications you want your net to be as wider than that as you can get um so the more required qualifications if the narrower the net is the the pool um when you get to screening the board will be provided that I will develop a rubric to guide you through the screening and that rubric will take this profile it'll take your input from the survey it will take the input from the discovery interviews it will take the input from the Community Focus uh sure I get my language

244right the community groups and that will then drive this rubric that will help guide your your screening so um all of that information and again the alignment if um if we get something a theme that comes up that will be put in that rubric I know this is a preferred requirement but I guess I don't know who could answer this anybody really that has the knowledge as far as if we're doing a nationwide search what are what are barriers we'd run into in terms of reciprocity or somebody's ability to quickly get an Arizona superintendent certificate so that's a great question um as you know the the law doesn't require the superintendent to have certification um I've yet to do a search and I've done 20. one of the largest districts Tucson unified and one of

245the smaller District Bowie um every board has required the certification um what you can do when you get to that negotiations you can provide a timeline for the superintendent to become certified and um in the reciprocity to this um to this point has it changes all the time so um there's a good chance that there's going to be reciprocity but if there isn't you can say you've got one year okay to get certified um I know the universities will have a like for example in Northern Arizona University has a way to get certified for a superintendent without having to go through a doctoral program and you can get it in a year thank you yeah great question it's not required by law right so yeah so I think it's great that we have it just

246as preferred because it doesn't eliminate the money yeah yeah I just didn't know if anybody would see it and think feel discouraged or especially from there another state they may not know that it's not required right yeah they might not just be thinking about it and they're part of the reason it's not required is because part of the superintendent could we change the wording instead of saying current Arizona superintendent and certificate just put current or can obtain one just so people don't automatically say crap I can't apply if I don't have but it's preferred experience it's not required experience yeah I know I'm just I think I'm just more so thinking about how especially none I don't know what term to use non-traditional candidates look at things and think that they're not qualified and then

247just don't bother if they see something yeah and you think that that's required yeah well I'm part of getting the superintendent like you can have an administrator certification but you also have to part of getting the superintendent cert is being able to intern with a superintendent which is not always an easy opportunity yeah so it can take time okay I'm on the same page as you guys I mean I I am I like the idea of having it open to non-traditional candidates so if but I figured having the word prefer there it does that but you let you what do you think I mean well um we can add language that says um or apply we've got language okay like I like current or able to obtain in Arizona could be and many of the

248applicants from experience will indicate that they have started the application process uh under this under there this is going to be crazy just to remove that line it's your posting um I I would recommend that even in with that caveat and um they're they're good at looking at the preferred versus the required um and also the rubric is going to reflect that um and you're going to get a spreadsheet that will indicate all of your applicants and the preferred and the required to give you a kind of a big picture so with the required and I know you said cast a wide net is the minimum of three years teaching experience the typical because three years is not very long of teaching experience it well ranges well I didn't mean to interact oh no sorry

249no it usually ranges from three to five so some searches um they'll have five some they'll have three it's like in some districts it's required that you have five years teaching experience to be an instructional coach so to say three years I was wondering about like even being is there anything about being a principal there is yeah sorry yeah principal building level Ministry I actually have a problem with this being under the requirement position requirements because I do think that eliminates non-traditional candidates completely we're saying for requiring this person to be a teacher at some point in their career I feel like I mean just personally I feel like you should be a teacher first and learn from there I mean how how are you going to govern over teachers when you've never even been

250in that field I I know those teachers feel very strongly about this um I I think it eliminates a lot of potential candidates that we might want to not shut the door to category um not in my experience yeah yeah I heard you saying what are your thoughts Tony I've seen non-traditional candidates who have chief executive officer um High business level skills be very effective um and it has an ebb and flow to the needs of the district so it's certainly possible I've seen it effective I'm kind of quiet because I'm toying with the same idea um I don't believe in super traditional roles I feel like a lot of people have the ability to do some but I I get where you're coming from on on that teacher aspect but it doesn't mean that

251somebody doesn't have the other attributes so um I don't know I think if we just said we want to cast a wide net um you know you're going to take these things into consideration very strongly I think um as board members but these we're saying these are required so it means if someone applies and they don't have that we cannot consider them right because it's unfair to the other possible candidates we shut out I mean I feel like pretty much all of these bullets with the exception of a master's degree apply to somebody working in education um to answer your question that would be you would put yourself at risk if you um named a finalist that did not meet your minimum your required qualifications given all that and given that these are not oars

252these are all ands and that there is minimum three years of working in an elementary school setting I would feel comfortable moving the teaching experience to the preferred so I feel like it's still casting that but you have somebody with relative experience within something in the school setting correct and not even like a school setting but in elementary right right I I'm okay with that too so she's saying moving the minimum of three years teaching experience in a public school system as a preferred and leaving the minimum of three years of experience working in elementary school setting as a requirement right yeah so I guess because these are all ands not ours yeah but if you're going to this is just a lot like aside from the teacher non-teacher argument um if it's a requirement

253to have been a principal or building level administrator but it's not a requirement to have teaching years you can't be a principal without having teaching but it's also building level administrator which doesn't include right which includes your assistant principal building level administrator okay does that also include District level administrator then would we need to specify that as well I guess I'm thinking there's all kinds of Administrators in a district not just at a school level that could be all over that so that allows that flexibility it does give it some parameters but um does give the definition of building level allows use some flexibility when you come to the screening is this what you normally use for yeah this has characteristics of every surge has some of these characteristics do in the the minimum and

254over time the minimums or the required have been shortened to cast The Wider net um you look at a search 20 years ago versus a search today the the required qualifications there are fewer bullets yeah I think I think she made a good point too I forgot about that principal building level administrator I don't know that I would become like that's what I'm saying like most of these bullets and things like somebody who's been teaching at some point like I don't know it doesn't it doesn't actually I mean he's saying building level administrator gives gives better flexibility that doesn't yeah so we could move the minimum of three years to the preferred and then take out principal and just leave building level administrator you can leave principal slash building levels yeah okay then that works

255this building level to me sounds like a School site not District he said it it's it's lexical okay yeah that's how we want to interpret it and so if we want to take District then that's fine we'll we'll help as you do the screening to make sure that we follow the law yeah and um provide you the oh so when you get to that kind of consensus about who you're going to move forward that we do kind of a check to make sure that they have the required and how we can defend that you're comfortable with that wording okay so here you were you uh want to move the first bullet to Preferred yes yes okay you can do that um one of the things that preferred characteristics I would like something in here put

256in um are candidate to have some kind of community engagement I don't even know how you would wear that but somebody who's actually well I guess demonstrate a strong commitment to building no that's different someone that actually has proven facts of working with like Community organizations and building the school better instead of just focusing on the school district on itself I don't even know how you would word that track record of building District Partnerships or District Partnerships yeah somebody that that actually has some community base and they're not just saying like oh yeah we're in the community and somebody that actually has some kind of experience in working with the community or non-profits or something hand in hand building Community Partnerships and collaborating building and collaborating with Community Partnerships or get that in as a

257bullet uh any do you guys need to add anything else on those no um salary and contract the 140 that range that we have on this where is this number coming from so the um we did our due diligence look first looking at the salary survey um superintendent salary survey done by asba um and then we looked at your comps in current searches last year this year and then we added um 5000 because of the market right now so 5000 at the lower and five thousand at the higher um based on um become closest to this District okay um actually was Phoenix out I mean it's this is all public allies so um we we went five grand over there um in their their range uh this actual salary will be negotiated um with your

258finalist between eobu and your legal counsel that's where asba will step out of the picture so to speak and uh salary and benefits will be negotiated with that with the finalists um this is the range that um applicants will be looking at your range they may do their due diligence but part of their due diligence does not include a call to you pretty clear in the application if that happens you need to notice me let me know the other cautioned recommendation is that if you know of someone that would be a good applicant go through your asba and don't contact them direct because we don't want anyone thinking they have an edge or an advantage oh a board member called me um versus your search consultant our job is to recruit for you so come

259that they should not be contacting you regarding any part of the profile where the series and especially not salary and benefits to get somebody experience do they like take that into account like they do with like teachers or principles like is that something too yes so it could go beyond technically that's your usually do that negotiations you're not tied to this you're not locked into this this is um a range but it doesn't you don't have it in policy you don't have you know you want to use that as guidelines but if the board wants to go Beyond this range it's it's your call just to know people will know and yeah you know I have like a special request based on that when we get to that point if we do end up in

260a situation Jay would there be a way for you to provide at least some advisement on what what would be responsible considering our budget what would be feasible in terms of negotiations and like how far out of this range should we or should we not go kind of thing I might be in a position to desire to recuse myself okay to possibility there may be somebody in the district that could advice certainly well also in the past um like without the search but when we do contract renewal and we had salary negotiations we had the attorney come in to share with us like kind of the comps he was talking about and like we couldn't keep it yeah but we were able to look at it at the time that we were doing negotiations okay

261and there's a whole other part of this which is stipends which um obviously is not included in this number and and they'll just come in it's a back and forth negotiation yeah this is super nitpicky but on page one it says a Creighton eighth grader instead of eighth grader sorry [Laughter] and I did want to add just a couple of words to that preferred knowledge and or training at the very last bullet it says knowledge related to enhanced student services such as as ell Etc um I just thought we should add Outdoor Learning school garden the cafeteria and multi-age classrooms that's the um good multi-age was in there advice under the preferred yeah yeah knowledge and or training got it did you get all those hit me with it again yeah okay Outdoor Learning school

262garden to cafeteria and multi-age classrooms okay and and the only other thought I had you guys on um our profile um and and like you said they're probably going to do their due diligence themselves so this probably is doesn't really make that big of a deal but um all of our schools are designated Title One however I think Creighton is very unique in that it's a very diverse District as far as who we serve you know what I mean we have 10 million dollar homes at one end of the district and then we have you know um unhoused families kind of throughout but more towards the southern I don't know if that's something because that is a challenge that we face that I don't want someone coming in um line to that fact you know

263I think that they'll I think that that does go back to um maybe having somebody who has built those relationships already in communities because that ties into if they come in here and they see that if they already have the mentality of those connections I I feel like a candidate would you know somebody that's here in our district would be able to navigate that better if they're already coming in with the vision of Community First so I think that's why that was a great and that is right our we have a Biltmore area and then we have our southern district and it is two very different ways I mean those are questions where you get into really building in yeah and I do think I mean when I'm looking for teaching jobs I was I

264spent hours on District websites like it's not an easy process to apply so I feel like someone's going to do their due diligence um salary and contract do we have any other um questions or discussions oh okay so with those edits um I move the governing board approved the position announcement to be published on the asba website with um our edits that will include the district profile Community profile position profile position salary range District financial information and timeline and process all those in favor aye all right that brings us next to we will discuss and consider incorporating specific questions into the application process for the position of district superintendent can I ask that we maybe table this I I'm sorry it's like after 10 o'clock and some of us work really early like I'm we're

265I'm into my 16th hour that I've and I'm not trying to be rude I just feel like this this deserves a lot more attention than I can give right now um and I would like to discuss this fully I think this is the most important part of this and so I would like to maybe table it and come back and discuss it more fully are there um are maybe you can answer about y'all's availability on February 21st well this is for the application questions yeah we we I agree with you February 14 and seven days yeah that's right so we have to get it done I think we should okay correct okay maybe we can make it yeah to clarify uh these are questions that will be on the application they are not the questions

266for the interview um those uh questions aren't even developed yet because we're waiting we have to collect all the data and then get themes um so these are um questions that will help you in the screening of your applications so and we're also doing the applicant the blank application which I thought was quite straightforward I assume everyone looked at that I'll just throw out my two thoughts on this uh sample application questions the ones provided I feel like I have heard the answers to those questions already um and those are you know those are superintendent questions that they can answer I I suggest two others just to throw crazy thing out there number one I think The Continuous Improvement um what what areas of continuous Improvement do you believe the Creighton's superintendent and board need

267to focus their efforts is a great question I would say how would you change your hiring practice to ensure we attract and retain a diverse Workforce of staff that reflects the demographics of our students and Community just for something different and then three how would you approach your first year on the job how would you address District culture Norms that need adjustment how would you improve parenting Community engagement with our within our district just to make them a little different than the standard describe your leadership style I think too can I see your paper I think two of those questions it could be more when we have those um when we have our finalists but I do really like your yeah where is it uh okay number two how would you change our hiring well

268not change our hiring practices but maybe what hiring practices do they know to ensure that we attract and retain diverse Workforce of staff that reflects the demographics of our students and Community I think that's a huge one it just think that we could pull people like out to us that we might I like that otherwise question I think these two could be more specific once we have like the three finalists and that could be more one one but this one for sure um on the superintendent sample application questions I think that's a really good question because it is an issue that we are facing and it is something that we're consistently talking in the district level of how do we retain more teachers or get more teachers that look like our students so that's a

269great sample question to start that conversation on the sample one yeah the first one I I like it but it would this be do we want to incorporate what we were talking about with Community Partnerships in the wording of that I I was just going to talk about rewarding that as well like do you know what I'm saying like be more specific not just with the commute like that and just because that's come up multiple times I don't know what the wording is so maybe so you're talking about number one on the on the sample okay yeah so what I was thinking was describe your experience engaging with our East Phoenix community and how that will enable you to strategically engage CSD stakeholders to ensure their input is included in District okay wait um so

270I think we need to so we're wanting to add because CSD stakeholders doesn't necessarily mean Community Partners yeah so could it be like describe your experience engaging with the community creating and collaborating like creating Community Partnerships developing or developing sustainable Community Partnerships I don't know something and how that will strategically enable you to yes did you get that no he was waiting until we go insert insert after community develop sustainable Community Partnerships and describe your experience engaging with our community and developing sustainable Community Partners they haven't they may not have been engaging with our community because this is a nationwide search right so we're asked on community yeah so yeah it's whatever Community you're from and in developing Community Partnerships I feel like we have another and me wants to edit that but it's a

271lot of your experience engaging with the community and developing sustainable Community Partnerships comma and how that will enable you to strategically engage that works yes could you email me the questions yeah Tracy's coming up to save us yes are you getting it are you word smithing for it describe your experiencing developing sustainable Community Partnerships to support strategic organizational priorities if you're looking for non-traditional candidates they might be different priorities or whatever other kind of organization okay okay is that thank you Tracy as a replacement for this or in a as an additional question I mean it's almost the same question yeah okay it's kind of a rewrite of that yeah okay cool all right any further um discussion on sapple sorry are we doing that one question yes okay and we're replacing it we're adding

272this adding it as a fourth yes okay that's okay fourth of adding a fourth okay we can um I'll just email that to Hilda yeah okay all right all right and one of the uh you're you're looking at the content but you're also this is an opportunity to see their ability to write um that's why it's important that you have your questions but um this is uh this is really the only part of the process where you get to see a writing sample um that is truly probably theirs not saying that resumes and letters but um a unique question promotes the ability to see a writing scene and I think even some of the yes some of the questions are generic but I think that writing can be very indicative of did you just spew

273out buzzwords when you wrote this or did you really like it does your voice come through because that's very different too yeah I mean no more discussion no okay so now I will move the governing board to um approve incorporating specific questions into the application process for the position of district superintendent with our edits all those in favor aye it's okay and I believe that that's done we're done with that I really appreciate you guys for that um I know it's a lengthy bracelet process but I I really appreciate all the back and forth and you guys actually making us feel like this is in our ball game so thank you I mean it is but it's nice to know that you guys acknowledge that too um future agenda items do we have any future

274agenda items yeah so um I would like a continuation or um re-examination of the special ed audit discussion and then a second one is um uh when I was at Cube um a suggestion that they had had in a presentation was that board members um the exit interviews or the letter that teachers or staff submit when when they're resigning so um perhaps an executive session with the attorney on how we can make that happen I don't know if that's an attorney question or um okay okay so executive session on exit interviews any other future agenda items all right I don't have any others so I motion we adjourn second all those in favor aye aye thank you guys have a great night there was one left I didn't take yeah it was on the top