001Good evening. At this time, we'll start the meeting for the Desaart Unified School District. and will stand for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And first up we have audience with individuals. Okay. We don't have any of those tonight. All right. So then we'll start then with the superintendent update. Thank you, Madam President. Um tonight a few quick items. I'm thrilled to share that Jill Hoppy, our principal at Canyon Ridge Elementary, has been selected as one of the 2025 Maricopa County Exemplary Principal Award recipients by Maricopa County. So, if you remember back, this award recognizes exceptional school leaders uh who have fostered a thriving school culture, maintained
002high teacher retention, and driven uh student achievement on their campus. So, we want to congratulate uh Jill Hoppy on that award. We'll be celebrating soon. and I will get that information to the board. And uh next I want to just thank everybody um the four campuses mainly the the governing board for graduation that went off last week. Um we had actually five graduations. We had promotion from sundown and our four high schools. Everybody did an amazing job. Put in a lot of time and effort to pull off four great events and uh just want to say thank you for everybody involved and thank you for making a great evening for our kids. So with that that's it. Thank you Dr. Croto. Uh next we have governing board update. Nothing from me. Okay. All right. I
003attended um on May 6 the Freedom Traditional Spring concert um for band, Orchestra, and choir. Great job students. Um, on the 9th I attended, excuse me, Sundown Mountains um, ceremony and I just want to say thank you to Principal Musi and staff for a wonderful ceremony. Congrats to all the graduates. And then on May 14th, I attended all four high school graduations. Um, so congratulations to all the the students. Um, I really want to thank our safety team, um, all the admin staff and for our, um, DSB for broadcasting and allowing parents that weren't able to attend to watch it online. So, um, that's all I have. Uh, I also attended the, um, four Daart High School graduations, uh, last Wednesday and it was a great day of celebration for all the seniors. Um almost
004all the students stood up when the principles named all of their clubs, activities and academic achievements that the students had been involved in and the band and choirs were excellent and I also attended the Sundown Mountain graduation. So I'd like to thank all the or wish all the seniors the best in their future endeavors. Thank you. I too attended the high school graduations and want to wish all the students the best of luck. It was an incredible experience and I was thankful I could be there. Thank you. Just want to also um echo Dr. Cto's uh sentiments for uh Principal Jill Hoppy and just congratulations for uh what just an outstanding award. Uh thank you for all that you do. I also attended the Freedom Traditional um band and choir concert and that was so
005much fun. Uh good to see all of the students just um having a good time um performing their um art. I also attended the sundown promotion ceremony and it was as usual a beautiful event. uh going forward. I also attended all four high school graduations and just want to say a special thanks to everyone involved in pulling that off. Um we had, as many of us know, we had a last minute um change from the stadium to the arena and it was just such an incredible event and much more intimate than the stadium has been. Uh, it was just a a really neat experience just to have that at the at the arena. Very special. And that's all I have. Next up, we have the consent agenda item D1. I will entertain a motion. Would
006actually like to uh ask that we remove an item. Just one moment. would be on uh E4, the overnight approval of overnight and out of state travel. And it would be item um the Huelet Packard Enterprise, Las Vegas, Nevada line item or doubts for $2,300. That would have been moved to item D7. Is that correct? Okay, I have it. I just hit refresh again just in case. Hold on. Sorry. Can I just make the motion? I move to approve consent agenda items as presented with exception of Can you remind me what that was? With the exception of E4. I second the motion. Motion carries. Are you okay with me moving forward? Okay, moving on to item information discussion item F1. Dr. Croto. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, tonight we are following up on an information
007report on our Spalding pilot program uh that we uh had scheduled um by board request. So, I will turn it over to Dr. Asai to handle this item. Good evening, Madam Presidents, members of the board. It is my pleasure to present with our coordinator for research and achievement, Miss Aaron Morris, on what we're learning from our Spalding pilot. Madame President, members of cabinet, members of the board and cabinet, thank you for having me this evening. I will be going over data on Spalding instruction at Countryside and all other non-spalding schools. Sorry. This evening we are going to look at Dibble's data of both kindergarten and first grade students across the district. We reviewed Dibbles reading composite scores. As you know students take this assessment three times a year. Beginning of the year, middle of the
008year, and end of year. Dibbles indicates if students are acquiring grade level grade level literacy skills needed to become proficient readers. Whereas AASA measures how well students know the state standards. In the following slides, you will see three groups of data from Freedom, Countryside, and all other non-spawning schools that have kindergarten and first grade. First, we will look at the combined percentage of kindergarten and first grade students who scored at or above benchmark at the beginning, middle, and end of year. The chart on the left is the 23 24 school year in the first year of implementation of Spalding at Countryside. And the chart on the right is this current school year, Countryside's second year of implementation. In looking at the endofear percent of students at or above benchmark, we can see that last year,
009Countryside had 39% of their students at or above benchmark compared to this year where 53% of students are finishing at or above benchmark. At Freedom each year they have about 90% of their students finish the year at or above and the non-spalding schools have about 61% of their students finish at or above benchmark. Now we will look at the same data but broken down by grade level. In 2324, kindergarten's first year of Spalding implementation for both teachers and students, Countryside had 48% of students and the year at or above benchmark. In 2425, during the teacher's second year implementing Spalding and the students first year receiving Spalding instruction, 69% of students and the year at or above benchmark. Freedom averaged 90% of their students ending the year at or above benchmark over the three-year span and
010non-spalding schools averaged 69% of students ending the year at or above benchmark. Now looking at first grade in the 23 24 school year, a year with no spalding implementation for teachers and students, countryside had 32% of students in the year at or above benchmark in 2425. the first year of Spalding implementation for teachers and the second year of Spalding instruction for students. 37% of students ended the year at or above benchmark. Over the same three-year span, Freedom averaged 84% of students ending the year at or above benchmark, while non-spalding schools average 53% of students ending the year at or above benchmark. Next, we'll discuss a few limitations. There are two key limitations to consider. First, Freedom operates under a unique traditional school model, which may impact comparability to other schools. Second, it doesn't account for
011the day-to-day differences of a school, such as intervention programs or teacher assignments. For example, Countryside had one long-term sub, and the non-spalding schools had three long-term subs in the 2425 school year. This concludes the Spalding data presentation and Dr. Asai and I will now stand for any questions. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Um I maybe just for our uh some of our new board members and maybe some some audience members, can you speak to the differences? Um you mentioned like the unique environment at at Freedom maybe compared to some of our other schools. Can you speak to that a little bit? So, Freedom being a traditional school um has a different structure to it. Freedom's our only school with uniforms. Um they do have a very uh a very like I do, we do,
012you do a very direct approach to all they do. Um another unique thing about Freedom is if you look at the beginning of the year data, I always say beginning of the year data was not my students. That's what their parents sent them with. Um, so they do come in at a higher rate of reading for the beginning of the year, 74% compared to 38 or 45% with other schools. So those are some of the things that do make Freedom unique. So when you say they come in at a 74%, is that the kindergarten or are you talking kindergarten and first grade? Because we had both kindergarten and first grade combined. Kindergarten comes in a little bit higher than first grade. If we were going to dug it and I don't have that data at
013my fingertips, I could provide it. Um, they do. Erin, do you remember for kindergarten? If you go to the next slide where it's broken apart, that's all together. Those are end of the year. But that's kindergarten. Yeah. Yeah. No, we could get it for you, but they tend to come in higher. So, I'm I'm just perplexed that we would have kids coming in at a higher rating score or doing Spalding and then the next year they go down to a lower. So, if you can explain that. Yeah. if you look throughout the year. So if we look at let's go to well we'll do beginning of the year mid year and end of year. So the dibbles target changes with time and it changes with grade level and what they're expected to do. So when
014they're in kindergarten I'm expected to say t this is a t t says t. I may be expected to read some nonsense words like tat. When I get into first grade I actually have to read sentences. So it tends to go down. Not all kids start reading fluently at the same time. So something called the or if the oral reading fluency comes into play in first grade. So typically in first grade if you look uh the results do go down a little when you on this one if you look at kindergarten um all schools will use freedom because it's on top. They were in the 90s all year at the end of the year for kinder but then it drops down to the 79 and 80s for first grade. So it's not that kids lose
015ground but they're not making progress at the pace it is. I do want to I did want to point out something else on this slide. So Spalding involves two years of training. So when we see that 48 in the middle of countryside, those teachers had only had one year of Spalding training and then they implemented and that's a new group too. Each of those kindergarten groups are a new group of kids. One one was the 22 23 23 24 25. Those are end of the year data for new groups of kids. In the second year after those kindergarten teachers had had two years of training. Mind you, it is a new group, but you do see better results in the first grade in the 2425 column. That is with only one year of the Spalding
016training and the whole Spalding training actually takes two summers. I think it's just important to have some context just like who is freedom also around what does the Spalding program look like and that could account for you know those first graders. I'm interesting to see in 2526 do they go up like the second year did with kindergarten? I can't tell you that yet because we're not there. Right. Thank you. So, what else besides the uniforms and the kids coming in at a higher with the traditional um format that freedom does that the other schools are not doing? Can you provide some more clar clarity with the reading pro um so I mean with phonics? So, we're not talking about we need to understand that Spalding and 95% aren't reading programs, right? They're phonics programs. When
017we talk about reading, we talk about five things. We talked about uh phmic awareness, phonics, I'm so sorry, vocabulary fluency and comprehension. Spalding or 95% only does two of those. They do the phonics and the phmic awareness. So it's kind of like I'm teaching just notes with those programs versus the other uh the other three are covered in our reading program. So the main difference when we're talking about phonics for this um 95% is a little more scripted. It requires less training. So the teachers at at Freedom I would say have more training. They do go through the 72 phonograms uh versus the six syllable types that 95% covers. So there are some differences between the other schools and freedom and how they teach phonics. And under our pilot, did we do the freedom model
018or did we just do the two pieces? Because if you're looking at the scores that Freedom has and you're saying Spalding only does the two main areas, why is Freedom doing so well and Countryside doesn't seem to be improving? And I understand the two-year training program, but so I I do get that, but what is the difference that Freedom is so successful? I think it has to do it, you know, it could have to do with monitoring fidelity of program. Freedom does have less teachers uh for a principal to monitor. Um the principal's detention is not divided and I just think when I'm thinking about monitoring at countryside, I have a phase program. I have STC and I have eight preschool classrooms on top of all my other K4 classrooms. Um, I know, you know,
019when I was a teacher, I'd like to say I gave my best every day and I did, but when my principal came in, I stood up a little bit more once in a while. Uh, so it could be the frequency of monitoring and those expectations for when I'm in the classroom. Um, like I said, I do I do think some of it with the phonics is attributed to the base. Most kids, you know, we see from that data come in knowing a says ah, and so it's easier to build on. It's harder to make gains, but it's easier to build on. So my scores once I get in the 90s, it's hard to go from 90 90 to 92. So that's one of the things I want to be cautious with Freedom's data is you
020can look on the next slide and say, "Oh, well they went up they went up 15 and countryside went up 23." That's one way to look at it. But because Freedom was already high, it's hard to stay high, right? Um and that's something people take for granted. I mean that it's hard to do. So under this Spalding program, we only did K in first grade. Correct. We're rolling it in one grade level at a time because we didn't want to switch it with, hey, in kindergarten you learned the six syllable types with 95 and now you're learning 72 phonograms. So what we did is we rolled it into kinder and this year we did kinder and first. The plan is for next year to do kinder first and second and then kinder first, second, and
021third. Okay, we're excited to see how that rolls out because if my phonics are stronger, really my fluency should be stronger. Anita Archer would tell you the biggest prediction of comprehension is fluency. Um, and that's what the AASA or state test measures, right? And that gets to and we kind of cut short about what are possible next steps. So, as we're looking at next steps, you know, we could talk about continuing the countryside of pilot ne pilot next year uh which we had originally planned to do, expanding the pilot uh Spalding pilot to other schools or convening a committee to review the feasibility of expanding Spalding districtwide. I did kind of put in there some of the estimated time and cost. Um the time has to do with training teachers in the summer. You have
022to get teachers who are committed to coming to 40 hours of training in the summer or we would have to work it in throughout the 26 27 school year be early release Mondays or something for the next year. We could find 40 hours there. Uh Spalding does charge us about $800 a teacher. And then the materials uh so that's how much it'll cost a countryside next year. Expanding the pilot to another school would be about 7,600 per grade level. Um, if we just if we choose to do a committee to look at it at this time, it would be about 20 hours. Staff doesn't get paid to serve on committees. They do it um just to further their professional commitment and research in the field. I'd like to make a comment on the one of
023the slides, the percent of students at or above benchmark comparison all kinder and first grade. Well, when you on the uh first grade, you start with countryside at 30% and then they end up at the end of the year at 53%. So they do increase by 23%. And that's the same as freedom except they start at 75% and end up at 90%. So they're you know 15% higher. But I mean countryside did make did do well with the first grade with Spalding. I don't I don't I don't understand why the 23 24 is that because they got a substitute. 2324. I do believe Chantel did have one substitute. Huh. Yeah, there was a substitute that took over in Kinder. So that that is one of the limitations I guess of Spalding is when a sub
024comes in or someone comes in. 95% does not require as much training because it's so scripted. I'm basically reading the script. Um but when a sub comes in, you know, to get them that 40 hours of training, we really don't have a good method for that. Uh but I that could account for the lower scores in 2324. also in 23 24 only kindergarten was doing you know kind only kindergarten was doing um Spalding but at that same time I think that's where that's where that dip was with the 48 first grade had the 32 and they were doing 95 so and then also you used it says non-spalding schools that was like 14 other schools could that have been different if you had just picked one other school or I mean you're it could have
025I mean definitely it would have been a nonspald building schools. I mean, you have schools that are huge. You have schools that are small. Um, you have schools you have schools comparable to Freedom where kids, I think, Canyon, they probably come in at about 70% the beginning of the year reading. You know, you have Thompson that probably does a little less coming in the door reading. Okay. Why was uh Countryside picked for this? Countryside was picked. Uh, basically uh Connie and Chantel have a good relationship. They're very close to each other. They've gone to each other's school to monitor fidelity because we wanted checks. We wanted to make sure of what was happening at countryside was the way Connie was doing it at Freedom. Uh with Spalding because Spalding does not have a tier 2
026and tier three intervention. We do use at Freedom, we use 95% for our tier 2 and tier three for intervention. So if a kid's in uh intervention at Freedom, they do get that. Uh so we it was important to us that the principles were able to go to each other's schools and observe and give each other feedback as well. Was Countryside the only candidate when this was uh brought up as a pilot? Countryside was the pi the one we decided to do the pilot on? Like I said, you know, that could be a discussion. Is is there another school we would like to see this expanded to? Uh was Countryside picked because it was our lower performing school up against the other elementaryaries or I'm just trying to understand a little bit more background. Countryside
027was picked because of its proximity. It's easy for us to get over there for it's just in that proximity. We're all three in a row between the district office. So Adriel can go and look. So we could go and look so the principles could talk. Okay. Um my question actually goes off of what Mary Jane kind of asked. Um I would have liked to seen the data a little bit cleaner where you would have picked the school that kind of resembled countryside uh test wise instead of grouping all 14 schools or all the non-sparting schools together because that kind of can I mean we could definitely find somebody that has the same the same. When you say the same, do you mean the same size, the same scores coming in? So, um, typically the same
028size and the same scores going in and that's why I asked if Countryside was picked for a particular reason, if like it was considered a lower performing school or something like that. I would I would I would ask if like at that moment in time we would try to match another elementary school. It would have been hard to match a school with Freedom to have a school not with Freedom with Countryside. Oh, with countryside and do two pilots at two different places. No, not two pilots. What I'm asking is so we can do the statistics. You'd had Freedom Countryside and one other school that was performing like Countryside prior to the pilot. Yep, we can definitely bring that back. Okay, thank you. Okay, I got several questions. Okay, because I'm the one who brought this
029up because I'm excited that we are doing the pilot program for Spalding. Um, my first question is Freedom has been doing Spalding since it's in session. In session. Yes. So, I'm assuming, I could be wrong, but when they started, I'm sure their numbers were up and down until the teachers were actually completely trained um in knowing small. I'm looking at Principal Wolfford because I don't have that historical data. She might They've always been high, huh? Yeah, they've always they've always been high. Okay. And then um with the nonspalding schools, they're all using 95%. Correct? Yes. Okay. So, we've been using 95% since when? 2006, 2009. 2006 or 2009. For tier two, just for tier one, we have been using it since 2014 or 2015. We adopted 2014. When move on win reading became law, we
030had to have a tier one, tier two, tier three. And then for tier one, we've implemented for three years and that's the fun export. When we adopted HM, we um actually had to step back and go online because of the pandemic. So we were doing Florida virtual. It is impossible to teach virtually kids phmic awareness or phonics. So, our teachers begged, "We need just a phonx core program. We've got to clean up and clean up fast." So, that's when we brought in our HMH for fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. But for funological awareness skills and phonics skills, we had to get something that was true to honoring our state standards with the six syllable types. Because with the syllable types we know alone an open or a closed syllable addresses 50% of our English language 50
031to 70%. So if kids know closed syllable like the word cat then they're going to be able to chunk words. So we had to get something quickly because we were our data showed that we were in trouble for these foundational skills. So it was about 3 years ago that we implemented right after we got back into in-person off of virtual learning. So 95% was started in 14 at a tier 2 intervention level only not as a tier one. When was it a tier one? Tier one was three years ago. So it would have been 2122. Okay. Okay. And how long has um Freedom been using Spalding? Since 18. Six years. For six years. Okay. Because I'm just curious that if we've been using 95% pretty much as long as Spalding and we're not even seeing
032close to the numbers and Spalding is using it with fidelity. Okay. All right, those were my questions. Thank you, Dr. Sai. Um, when before Freedom opened, it was I think it's Park View, I believe. Um, and I know that when it we were transitioning to open it as Freedom Traditional, uh, there were certain requirements that would have needed to be met to be able to be enrolled in that school. Um, is that correct? Originally freedom was opened yes as a traditional school and I believe at the time there was an application process was there yes there was an application process to get into freedom right like there couldn't have been like maybe excessive absences severe behavior issues things that a countryside would would not be able to so countryside is designed to be a a
033neighborhood school I have my kids going there and freedom is an open enrollment school we have no besting to freedom So, I mean, we don't have applications to get into Freedom anymore, right? But you do have to apply for open enrollment, but initially though, initially, yes. Okay. Um, and just for context, I mean, we've got three board members up here that have um at least one child going to Freedom. Um, I know many staff members of Daart have their children or grandchildren going to Freedom because we know it's great leadership, great staff, great curriculum, as did my niece and nephew. Yeah. Right. Right. So um it is really like the choice school um of people in the know that are aware of the benefits that the curriculum has there and I I think that is
034one of the unique pieces um that we can't discount when it comes to to freedom. Um I myself have said I didn't like the um the terminology sometimes that people would say oh well freedom has different kinds of parents. Um but I I see that a little bit more now. um as far as just some of the limitations that maybe some of our other schools um have in in implementing something um like this. Not to say that Countryside can't be, you know, super successful. Um and I don't discount the results as being unsuccessful, you know, as they stand right now. I think that there's great potential um for this especially, you know, when we're considering that long-term sub. Um you know, if I could ask, I don't know if um Mrs. Mcnes can speak to
035this, but you know, how how do staff feel about, you know, Spalding? I don't I don't think we officially know. Miss Mcnes can tell you how we haven't officially surveyed. It might be a great idea to officially survey teachers, but Chantel can speak to what she knows. Sorry to put you on the spot. Thank you, Madam President. Governing word. Our staff has embraced balding. Of course, it is a new learning for them and um they they have embraced it and they have seen um positive results from their students from it. But I like any program, the longer that we teach it, the more experienced we become, the more well-versed we become, and um we will get better at it. Okay. Thank you so much. That's all I have. Thank you, Madam President. Before we go
036on, just thoughts maybe in the discussion. There were some options on there. We we plan on continuing um with the pilot. Um this is not a voting item or or that, but just to take the temperament. Um does anybody really have strong feelings one way or another? We intend to continue that pilot at Countryside and and continue the training and the experience and teachers getting better at uh implementing it. So that is our intention. Thank you. And I think that we're going to be having a a curriculum study session coming up in the next month or so. Um most likely July or August. Yes. Okay. We could maybe talk about this a little bit more then. Okay. That sound good? Yep. But if anyone else has comments, go ahead. I one thing I just want
037to say is I I think every child in in the school district deserves the same great education no matter what school they go to. So we need to keep that in mind um when we look at curriculums and how they're affecting the students, the community. If it's positive, we should really look into it. And I believe that we're that was almost member Drake's exact words when she asked for the pilot. Thank you for doing it. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And we will continue to monitor and we will be bring back the results from a like school. Okay. Thank you. And I think a survey of the teachers would be a good idea. We can definitely do that. I love that. Thank you. All righty. And our next presentation is on the information
038on district writing requirements. That's also me. Um, the purpose the purpose of the review on district writing requirements was really to review where cursive is taught in the Desaert Unified School District. Um, before you and the board has these printed out so you can see them a little bit better. Even with my glasses, I can't see this that well. Uh, you'll see all the uh these are just the language arts standards that a third grade teacher is expected to teach. There are 49 standards that the state has outlined in ELA, not in math, social studies, and science, but just in ELA for third grade. Uh 49 and the 180 days. Of those, the state went through and they said 15 of these are essential. So if you look at the green highlighted, those are the
039standards the state has said, we understand that you're going to teach all of these, but we expect your kids to get to mastery in these 15 standards. And most of these 15 standards are what makes up our state label. So when the kids take their test uh the doubleASSA at the end of the year, the majority of their test questions will be on these essential standards. We are happy to have the essential standards. They are new. So we are thrilled. Um we used to have to do our own essential standards and guess. You will notice the little red in the third box over the red that is where writing comes in. Writing is under writing fluency one and the standard reads demonstrate and apply handwriting skills. A. Read and write cursive letters, uppercase and lowercase.
040B. Transcribe ideas legibly in cursive in manuscript with appropriate spacing and indentation. This is taught daily as noted in the HMH pacing guide. HMH is our reading curriculum for third grade and it outlines it. So, this is what the HMH pacing guide looks like. Uh, teachers get this. It tells them here's what you're teaching in week one. And if you look over in the second column, it talks about uh handwriting. So in week one of second grade they are learning their lowercase I and lowercase T. If you look below that they are learning in week two lowercase U and lowercase W. As these are explicitly taught teachers give little lined papers. We all remember the lined papers. Here's how you make an eye. The teacher models. Then you practice your eyes and so forth. Uh
041from there students practice at centers. They practice in their daily work. Uh this is a sample. As you can see, we have a ways to go with this sample. Um, although it was in math, we still need capital letters and punctuation. Uh, but I had just asked principles, hey, can you tell me that kids are using their cursive? And these were pictures that were sent from a principal of students using their cursive to write to take notes in math and explain in math, which gives us evidence that we know it's it is being taught. Um, we need to obviously refine that a little, but it's there. I will stand for questions. Anything about cursive? Yes, sorry. I'm gonna go um the 3.3. If you go back to the slide um with the Yes, thank you.
042demonstrate and apply handwriting skills, read and write cursive letters, upper and lower case. But when I go to the next page, week one, I'm learning lowerase. So, I I took a clip out of the map. The whole map is about 30 pages. They do explicitly teach the uppercase as well. Okay. Because and why are we starting it in third grade and not second grade? I'm sorry in second grade. I misspoke. They start in second grade and then they reloop in third grade. The state defines it in third grade. So it's a reading it's a state standard in third grade. However, we start have it mapped in starting in second grade. And how do we carry it forward after they learn it? Do we have them do their paperwork in cursive for classrooms as they're moving
043forward in the grades or h how do we ensure that they continue using it after we after we teach it? We really don't require that they're doing anything in cursive. They can lots of assignments are done via computer. Some are done um you know they print and some choose to use manuscript. Thank you. So it's basically two years of using the cursive is that's pretty much it. It's two years of instructing in cursive. You know, I guess I would liken it to we teach them to add one number by ones by ones in second grade. We don't loop back to it in sixth grade. It's used in context after that for other things. Um I guess that you check a little bit more. Uh we do give kids we do give kids choice in the
044way they write currently. Okay. It's not a standard after be primarily it's not a standard after third grade. So we don't really enforce it. Okay. If it was a standard, we would enforce it. Correct. If it was a standard, we would. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Um, I did jump online. I was trying to do a little bit of research and I came across it. It says that the Arizona cursive writing standards say state board of education in 2016 approved new academic standards known as Arizona college and career ready standards which require cursive writing instruction through the fifth grade. They say by third grade students are expected to read and write in cursive ensuring they can create readable documents by the end of fifth grade. So, do we go up to the fifth grade or just
045stop at third? We do not currently have it mapped to fifth grade. That is something that we can definitely go back and do. Okay. Because I would really like to see this um uh intertwined um or incorporated through actually K through eight if we could. Um because the more research I was doing on cursive because me I grew up with cursive. all I knew. Um, that's all we were taught growing up. That's all I know, you know. And there's even kids that can't even um write their names. They can't sign anything. So, I think it would be extremely important to bring it back. I know it's very time consuming and I know a lot of people say it's outdated. You know, just give them a Chromebook and have them type it. But to me, I'm
046all about cognitive learning. the whole writing paper um because of what what you comprehend and retain on written materials. I think it's better for the kids. Um I think learning cursive helps with um motor skills and um the whole cognitive learning. So I think if it's if it's possible if we could probably incorporate this more in our curriculum and like I said member Drake we could definitely incorporate it more. You know, it comes to when you look up here for a third grade teacher that have has kids all across the spectrum that some, especially if they transfer to us, may be way behind in reading a couple grade levels and I have these 15 standard 49 to 15 standards to master and my math and my science and social studies. You know, I can't guarantee
047you that it's always going to be a priority that I'm going to be able to get every kid there, right? And and all transparency. Okay. No, I appreciate the honesty. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, moving on to item F3. Dr. Cto. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, tonight we're at uh the time of year for the superintendent's end of the year goals. Um, and if I can get this to work. There we go. Uh just a quick overview. Um you do have an executive session tonight. You do have all the data um at your disposal, but I'm going to give a quick overview of where we stand kind of like when we did the midyear um report in December. Uh just to let you know where we stand. So starting off our our goal a these
048are the district goals and the governing board goals. We do have a study session coming up in June 2nd based on the district goals. Again, I align my goals to the district goals and the schools align their goals to my goals. So, it's important that we um take the time to align all these and make sure we're all rowing in the right direction. So, goal A, the governing board goal is academics. Every student in all schools will be prepared with the knowledge and skills to achieve college and career success. Uh goal one of that is design systems that promote academic achievement. Goal two, design systems that pro promote college and career readiness. So, where are we at on those? Um, goal one, um, we have elementary benchmark data that indicates the district's on track to
049meet or exceed the, uh, doubleASSA state averages in ELA and math proficiency. Uh, our high school benchmark data indicates the district's on track to meet or exceed state average in ACT, English, reading, and math. Um, we have benchmark results that indicate the district's on track to maintain or improve proficiency among ESS students in both ELA math and supporting growth goals. So, we are um meeting those goals and moving towards achieving that as uh and that we will report more as you know as uh the scores become available and the state starts to release those um in the next few months. Uh goal two is design systems that promote college and career readiness. Um we are on track to me or exceed that goal. Um for the past three school years the districts increased the number
050of students earning college credit. Uh it has increased the number of students earning seals or internships. Uh we are the leader in the seals for the state of Arizona and we continue for the second year in a row to be those leaders. Uh and we increase our CCRI points um which is a huge indicator um of our school labels at our high school levels. So that is goal A. Um goal B, culture and leadership. Uh the governing board goal is Daert Unified School District will recruit, train, and retain highly qualified staff to cultivate a culture of success. Uh goal one under that um under goal B is by the end of 24-25 school year, there'll be an increase in DAART's recruitment efforts to hire staff. Uh goal two is by the end of this year,
051uh DAART's customer service plan, DAART cares, will further be expanded. So those were the two goals set for me. Um the progress towards those goals is that to date in goal one the district has attended or hosted 15 events. Um and our advertising strategies evidences strong growth in interest and activity at job fairs. Interviews increased by 51.9% uh this year. Walk-ins rose by 152% and candidates recommend to hire went up 39 uh.4%. Um, as you know, our retention um is off the charts and uh that's a lot of efforts to uh this goal and and uh the recruitment and retaining our uh teachers. Our digital display ads, we really focused on that. We cut the cost in half. Um the the impressions and click-through rate has increased. So, how many people are clicking on our
052ads, seeing our ads, we not only cut the cost, but we increase those impressions. um evidence increased employment ad reach and engagement. So, as we look at those, we know we're out there, we're reaching people, um we're doing a good job. We also launched the teacher preparation program, and it's been expanded this year to include the K K8 teacher prep program. Uh this is a program where we are growing our own teachers. They come to us with bachelor bachelor's degrees. We've been approved by the state to uh grow these teachers and and uh get them certified. So that has been a s a success. Goal two um goal two is we have launched daart cares um and we have further expanded it. So we have uh kind of peeled that onion back and now all
053administrators have participated in the in the customer uh service training. We are going to continue peeling that onion back uh more and more so we can get more people involved. As you know, last year we created that DACAR CARES plan and now we're getting out of there and doing uh the things we need to do to put it into action. So, goal C is our safety. A huge one. Um the governing board goal is um that Desaert Unified School District culture will consistently be reflective of a safe and secure environment for all stakeholders. Uh something very near and dear to all of our hearts. Um and we take this goal very seriously as we do all the goals but safety is is up there. So the goal one was by the end of the 24-25
054uh school year all campuses uh will have conducted safety checks, audits and inspections. Uh goal two was throughout the 2425 school year we'll identify and implement additional safety protocols, policies or procedures as necessary to current industry standards and practices. Um there's actually four goals in this goal C. Goal uh goal three was throughout the 24-25 school year 100% of all non-compliant items that require immediate attention is identified through the safety drills um inspections and audits will be addressed. And uh goal four was by the end of 2425 school year training will be expanded to ensure all groups are performing safety measures successfully with immediate support and feedback. So progress towards goals um on track to meet or exceed this goal. Um part of that evidence was uh last uh board meeting when you had the
055opportunity to have an executive session on a lot of the safety things um and the audits. So that we had eight campuses fully uh completed with the safety audits. Again, those safety audits are very comprehensive as you saw. Um and that is an ongoing part of our three-year implementation cycle. Um, and we will have two more of those by the end of this month. So, they did one the other day and I think they have one more to go before the end of the school year. Um, we had 527 random safety checks by our safety team. They have been uh conducted averaging 17 sites per week. So, that that is a great feat by our safety team. Um, each sites checked at least once per month, sometimes more. And all locally scheduled weekly drills have
056been verified through completion records and a action afteraction reviews um which serves as a centralized hub for drill related documentation. So they review those drills and move through there. Goal two was identifying and uh additional safety protocols. Uh the safety teams implemented multiple system updates and cross departmental processes um with regular cabinet updates. We constantly have safety updates in cabinet um which provide uh the new new additions and implementation plans um and we demonstrating ongoing progress in improving district-wide safety and emergency management. We're always looking for better ways to do safety and things we can do to make sure uh we meet those goals. Uh goal three, 100% of non-compliant items. Very important that we go back and address those. So all non-compliant items that were found at any of the safety checks, the audits,
057um they were reinspected and resolved within 30 school days, um as uh evidenced by the 30 6090 audit reviews. Again, you got some of that information last week, uh data was recorded and reported monthly on items needed attention uh with resolution summary via the tactical audit briefs. Um and those are tracked extensively. It's not something we go do a check on a campus and then we say, "Well, you need to do better." They follow up. They make sure we're doing better. Um they go back and reinspect and do those things need to do to make sure we are complying. Um and the last goal um by the end of the 2425 school year, training will be expanded to ensure all groups performing safety measures um successfully, they do it successfully and have immediate support and
058feedback. We are on track to meet that. So our our safety team meetings um were conducted according to the safety calendar uh with topics that reflect the national school emergency events and and those topics. Uh we used a rubric to improve the quality of afteraction reports. Um the reports were reviewed and analyzed with quarterly summaries shared with uh cabinet and our SSOs or SRO's and security guards were observed to ensure training practices were followed. So that was the end of goal C. Goal D is our resources. The governing board's goal oops uh governing board's goal is that Daert Unified School District will identify and maximize available resources to support student success. Again, our financial well-being of the district. Um to look at that, let's see. Goal, there we go. Goal one um was using input
059from district stakeholders identify, prioritize, allocate, and monitor budget resources to support the district goals. Again, we're on track to meet or exceed that. Uh records of annual meetings with department administrators and community uh committees have been maintained. Annual meetings have been held with all departments for requested budget allocations and employee benefits trust board meetings have occurred quarterly. Uh we have a transparent district and site budgets are available on our financial website. Again, I urge anybody that wants to look into our finances. There are uh continual rhetoric out there about how schools mismanage funds or we get dragged into other pots of other school districts that do not do it right. And uh that is simply not the case with this district. And I invite anybody that would like to look at those. uh they are
060available online and we are open to anybody that wants to look at our financials. Um monthly bud budget status reports for the district and site administration have been distributed to the governing board departments and schools. So we give you those reports. We do our our normal board reports um and we have fiveyear capital plan projection has been completed. So uh we are constantly trying to be proactive rather than reactive um with the resources we have and develop plans uh to make that happen. And the last part is maintain fiscal compliance um and accountability as evidenced by timely budgets, annual financial reports and clean unqualified external audit. Again, last meeting you had our external auditors come report that we did have an unqualified external audit opinion uh which is the best that you can. Uh we
061continuously do our professional development and training sessions with the finance staff and administration. We've done all budget and financial reports um by the deadlines mostly before. Um all mandated state and federal reports have been completed and our annual financial or comprehensive financial report um for 2024 has been completed and our our finance department continues to be top-notch and receive multiple awards for year after year and um I know the governing board's well aware of that. So um with that that's kind of the update of where we're at on on my goals. Uh you do have more supporting documents if you'd like to see them. Um they'll be in your executive session. Um but with that I will stand for any questions or comments. I have one question. Um when the goals were set up last
062year, was they was it clearly defined the difference between um meet and exceeds? There is no there is no n okay I just want to make a comment um thank you for this this is wonderful very detailed and I'm excited um on the direction that we're going um goal B where you talked about progress toward goals and evidence um I just want want to say that I'm I'm ecstatic um that we got 94% of the of the 1,225 certified contracts were accepted. That's phenomenal. And as of May 15th, and you can confirm or deny this, 90% of the 995 notice of employments have been accepted. Or is the number more? Madam President, govern board of members, that is inaccurate. It is 93%. [Music] So that just that just shows the great leadership here and I'm
063just I'm so proud to be on this board and work with all of you. So thank you. This is wonderful. Agreed with everything that board member Drake just said. Um I think that the retention of our employees speaks volumes to the leadership here. Um you know Dr. Croto, you have an amazing um perspective, but you also have a an amazing team under you um that continues to support your vision and the and the vision of the of the governing board um which I think are fairly aligned. So, just appreciate everything that you do, everything that your team does um in supporting our students and really focusing on academic uh achievement for everyone. Thank you. And you're correct. I have an amazing team and those feats on those goals are are not me. They're them and
064their alignment and their drive to be uh the best. So, team is amazing. Thank you. Part of that is your the the culture and the leadership that you bring though. So I know you want to discount that, but I I won't. Oh, thank you. Thank you. If nothing else, we'll move on to action discussion G1. Dr. Croto. Thank you, Madam President. Uh we are now u moving into the Steve Mattingly show um with a host of recommendations here and to welcome some new people to our district and we are very excited about that. So with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Mattingly, thank you, Dr. Croto. Madam President, governing board members, uh like Dr. Croto said, uh all six items are mine. The first five are recommendations to the board as far as
065our administration um recommendations. So, uh I'll say this in the beginning that uh the process uh is very thorough. Uh these are very highly qualified people. Uh some of the best and the brightest uh we attract and we also retain within our own system as well. So, I'll start. The echo is loud. I'll start and just uh so we'll just have them stand up instead of come to the podium and tell a joke or anything like that. We'll keep it simple. So I'll start with Miss Ginger Richards if she could stand and be recognized to the governing board. Uh Ginger comes with us with 28 years total in education. Uh she is uh total 17 years and as an administrator, seven of those years has been with the district successfully at Simmeron Springs. Uh so
066and uh as the board doc say she has a masters in educational leadership as well. So, we're excited to recommend to the governing board your consideration uh to be the new principal at Valley Vista High School. I am very excited to make this motion. I move to approve the appointment of Ginger Richards as high school principal for 2526 school year. Second. Motion carries. Congratulations, Madame President, governing board members. Uh the next uh recommendation I would like to recognize Dr. Michael Fowler. If you could stand. Let me scoot this way. I'm sorry. Uh we're very fortunate to make the recommendation as the interim principal of Simaron Springs. Uh with Michael's background, he uh he comes with a total about 35 years total in education. Uh what's really exciting is the 25 years in administration ranging from
067an assistant superintendent and a successful principal and everything in between as a director etc. So we're really fortunate to bring you to tonight to recommend to the governing board to uh as Dr. Fowler, the interim principal at Simon Springs. You [Music] I move to approve the appointment of Dr. Michael Fowler as interim elementary school principal for the 2526 school year. Motion carries. Congratulations, Madame President, governing board members. The next person I'd like to introduce and recommend is Aaron Keeling. Did I say announce that right, Aaron? I'm so sorry if I didn't. All right. Sorry. I even went and asked him. I said, "Hey, give me your correct." Anyway, uh so uh he comes with a background of 14 total years uh in the education uh three years experience in the administration. He also taught for
068Daizart Unified School District as well for 10 years. So, we're excited about that and has a masters in educational leadership and it's cabinet's uh honor to recommend to the governing board uh Mr. Keeling as the assistant principal of Shante Asante Preparatory Academy. I motion to approve the appointment of Aaron Killian as elementary assistant principal for the 2025 2026 school year. second take. Motion carries. Congratulations. The next recommendation, Madam President, governing board members, I'd like to introduce Tammy Tracy. Thank you, Tammy. Uh Tammy comes with extensive background as well, 29 years total in education. Uh she's actually taught for the district for seven years as well. She has a masters in educational leadership and we would like to recommend to the governing board that she be appointed as the assistant principal at Kingswood Elementary. I motion
069to approve the appointment of Tammy Tracy as elementary assistant principal for the 2025 2026 school year. I second motion carries. Congratulations. And our final recommendation uh for administration uh madam president, governing board members, uh like to introduce you to Amy Lungberg. And Amy has been in education for a total of 13 years. Uh she's worked for the Daert School District for six years and we're excited to bring her aboard as an administrator at the at Freedom uh um traditional school with with your consideration there. I move to approve the appointment of Amy Lunberg as elementary assistant principal for the 2526 school year. Second. motion carries. Congratulations, Dr. Credto. Would you like me to continue with the last action discussion item? No, you're good. All right. Oh, actually, hold on. Yeah, hold on. Yes, I will
070as soon as president tends for it. Ask for it. I was thinking number seven. Oh, okay. Um, moving on to action discussion G6. Dr. Croto. Thank you, Madam President. Uh, we are discussing theou tonight um and bringing that for the approval for the board and so I will have Mr. Mattingley introduce that topic. Thank you, Dr. Cotto. Madam President, governing board members, this is an annual process uh that the governing board engages in annually. I would like to just give a brief a brief background behind it. According to the records that that I have access to this uh memorandum of understanding between the board and teachers association has been going since 2001. Uh so that's whether it's gone further than that it may have. I just don't have access to that data. Uh so uh
071please know that uh myself Sarah Mendoza is here tonight. If I can recognize Sarah along with myself and Dr. Jane Widge have met since August starting in August reviewing this document uh for the board and um there's no um concrete changes that you've received. Uh you have an administrative uh document that allows you to see the changes and additions. Uh please know it's uh the updates pertain to updating accurate table content uh corrected titles that are no longer in use. So we're using correct titles. Uh that's not an a mistake. Just things change over time even in one year. Also u we did we're recommending that we change some of the vernacular that loosen up or tighten up depending on what we're talking about that uh when responsibilities are needed or flexibility is needed. Uh
072so uh we deleted groups titles companies names if they're no longer in use. We eliminated those. Um, also, um, any type of activity that's no longer in place or not our practice, we eliminated those as well for accuracy. And then any acronyms that weren't defined, we would define the acronyms. You'll see those changes in there as well. And then this is just a writing style. We eliminated using the first and second person in there. In other words, we got rid of you and we said the employee. Uh, so those are minimum changes. Uh there's like I said there's uh no uh dramatic changes that that uh that I can sit here in front of the governing board and recommend that you take caution. This is a process that I am going to recommend for consideration
073that the board consider accepting theou. Madam President, if I can add on to that. Um you do see a reference to attachments in this document. The attachments come separately and are approved by this governing board uh separately. So they are not attached to this. For for instance, if you look at attachment three, it's the certified non-eing salary schedule. You have approved those salary schedules already. We bring them separately to you. So, um, just to clarify those pieces. Motion to approve the memorandum of understanding with the DAART Education Association is presented for the 2025 2026 school year. Second. Motion carries. And we have an item G7. Correct. Correct. I need to refresh. And we do not need Steve for G7 just to clarify. Oh, sorry, Steve. All right. Moving to item G7. Dr. Curtto. Thank you,
074Madam President. I I stand for questions. I believe members Scava, you pulled this for information and technology. So, we will stand for any clar clarification or questions that you have on this. Yeah, it's the it's the line item from June 22nd to 27th with the Hila Packard. It's conferences in Vegas. Um just wondering why we're sending four people. I will have Miss Bedell is in charge of this department. and I will have her answer that. Miss Madam President, members Gabbara. So, because this is the annual um conference that really is the one time that we do send our network operations team, we want to make sure we have all those um topics really well covered. So, all the four areas. We have a security architect going um our network engineer as well as our two
075network technicians. And so, obviously, they span out to make sure the agenda is fully covered. The rate or the registration rate is entirely covered within our support contract already. So there is no additional um cost for that. Um regardless if we send one or two or five, it's already included within the cost of the contract. And so in order to ensure that that 4-day conference is well covered in verse, we make sure that every single one is going to attend different sessions and then they come back and bring it back to the IT director just to kind of discuss how they can better support the district overall. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that they're all different positions. So clarify that. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. [Music] If there's no other discussion,
076I move to approve overnight and out of state travel requests as listed. I second motion carries. This time I'll ask for if there are any requests for future agenda items. Yes. Um Dr. Croto, before I went on vacation, I did ask about um presenting for the school um extracurricular activities, grade requirements. If we could have a briefing on that soon, that would be lovely. Thank you, Madame President. Um member Dist, I believe I did send the date with that. Hold on. I will tell you when that's I'm sorry you did. I just remembered. My bad. Um, I I will tell you real quick. I believe it's in our June meeting. Um, and Jenna is telling me it's in the June meeting. So, we do have that scheduled ready to go for the June meeting. Thank
077you. I'm sorry. No problem. [Music] Okay. I move to establish executive session to be held immediately during a recess in the regular meeting. Second it came up. Oh, didn't vote. I got to vote for what I I am so sorry. I can't. Okay, at this time we will reconvene the meeting and we'll begin our action discussion J1 at this time. I move to approve the superintendent's year-end performance evaluation and performance pay in the amount of 18% reflecting the superintendent has satisfactorily achieved the approved goals for the 2425 school year. I second Motion carries. This time I move to adjourn the meeting. I second. I vote yes. Sorry. Are we voting to adjurnn verbally? Oh, I shut down. Motion carries. We are adjourned.