001e e e at this time I'll call the meeting to order and let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Crystal Chaffin and Jennifer Drake we'll rise for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you um first up we have item B1 audience with individuals we do have one read the statement this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to AR ARS 38-43 1.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for future consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time
002limit of 3 minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and tonight we have Dr Steven Neil good evening good evening Madam president and members of the board my name is Dr Stephan Neil and tonight I want to actually talk about an event that actually took place at our school with which my son is a proud uh graduate of this school the use of the force and cision hurting teasing or threatening behavior is an aggressive or passive aggressive manner constituting bullying this behavior is often repeated and habitual used by people who engage extremely and cunning Behavior they may present friendly exterior but behave unexpectedly exploring sarcasm rolling of their eyes displacing rude facial expressions or refusing to cheer for
003members of their high school team moreover they isolate their target fostering feelings of anxiety insecurity in the definition of bullying was clearly displayed by members of our staff for our minority students this year there were a list of eventful experiences faced by our minority assous I mean players such as being Ambush racial slurs being excluded from Team pictures videos not cheer for when approached at the plate stats inconsistently documented rude and dis disrespectful references to Tom Brady roasting at a banquet not recognized for State honors in purposely neglecting recognizing any student athlete that was preseason recognized by the media so often our minority players here it was an honest mistake absolutely not when you heard bully Target or Bel little a minority student athlete or or parent within our community that is not a mistake
004it's a clear assign a bad judgment or poor moral character and this Behavior should not be tolerated by the daart Unified School District whose vision is to power in preparation excellence in the journey success for a lifetime the district girl goal is to recruit train and retain highly qualified staff and volunteers to cultivate a culture of Student Success well that goal is not being reached by our minority student athletes within our program the program does not reflect your next goal of safe and secure environment and stakeholders for all what I Envision in a coaster some boosters is to provide helpful advice does not judge or whole grudges truly is passionate about helping others in their potential and have a deep understanding for sports and NCAA rolling but I want to say a gratitude and thank
005you for our coaches and Bo for teaching my kids and minority students how to overcome adversity how to smile even though you want to cry and you want to break inside and encourage them to never give up on their dreams thank you for your comment Dr crto can you follow with the board on this item yes I'll have Mr mcy follow up okay thank you next we have item C1 superintendent update thank you Madame President uh just some quick updates tonight um like to congratulate our Shadow Ridge High School softball team uh they were the 6A West Valley region champs as well as the Shadow Ridge High School boys volleyball who also were the 6A West Valley region Champs so congratulations to those two teams um our Valley Vista High School unified track and field
006team were state champions uh the the unified team took home four um out of seven individual state champions in that track meet so uh congratulations to the unified track and field team at Valley Vista High School um best buddies um has been recognized at Willow Canyon High School it's the top overall chapter um for the 23 24 school year so we want to say congratulations um and a job well done to Willow Canyon High School um along with that too uh at Willow Canyon High School Tyreek Jones won the State title in the 200 meter in track and field shattering the school record and he ran that 200 meter and a 21.45% and the last piece um dier schools had three students receive honors in Arizona's ninth congressional district art competition sponsored by uh Congressman
007Paul gosar uh the annual competition started in 1982 and was designed to celebrate and encourage students uh student artists from across the entire nation so every year uh students submit entries to their local Representatives Office the winners are selected by a panel um of congressional district artists so Abigail aosta excuse me a junior at Valley vissa High School won second place for her piece called realism animal eye portrait done in prismacolor pencils uh her work will be on exhibit in Congressman goar's Washington DC office um for a full year uh additionally Abigail was awarded a total of $4,500 in scholarships from Mojave Community College and Arizona Western College for her artistic accomplishments Parker fiser uh also Valley Vista High School senior won third place for his drawing Sedona Skyline also created using prismacolor pencils um
008his artwork will displayed in the congressman's district office in goodye for a full year um Parker was awarded $2,500 in scholarships from Mo um for Mojave Community College and Arizona Western College and then lastly um honorable mention went to rosala lemus a junior from Dart High School her piece in a box with was created using uh gach paints uh Congressman goar presented Rosella with an honorable mention certificate and a commemorative coin um the winning artwork was unveiled during an award ceremony at the desert caberos Western Museum in Wickenberg Arizona and all the submissions included various mediums such as paintings drawings collages prints mixed media computer generated art and photographs so congratulations to those three students on their outstanding accomplish lishments and last I just want to say thank you to all our admin our faculty
009staff and students for an amazing 23 24 school year um it is officially over as of today so I want everyone to have an awesome summer that's safe fun and definitely full of excitement so with that that's all I have thank you Dr croo next we have governing board update okay um let's see um on May 18th was National speech language pathologist day even though it's just a couple of days ago um and I just want to thank all of them for helping our students improve their communication skills um I attended Sunset Hill spring band concert and Western Peaks Innovation showcase there sure a lot of talent talented kids out there um congratulations to Connie Wolford for who's the principal at Freedom Traditional Academy for receiving the exemp principal award and of course attended the
010graduation and so congratulations to all students and uh the class of 2024 looking forward to seeing what you're going to do in the next chapter of your lives so thank you I too had the pleasure of attending all four High School graduations um want to extend my congratulations as well to the class of 2024 uh it truly is a highlight of being a board member I specifically always take note of of looking at the students that are in line like three or four back waiting to have their name called and just seeing that anticipation on their face and that excitement is just uh it's a beautiful thing and I'm honored to have been a part of it and it's it was a beautiful day um so congratulations to all of you and your uh future
011endeavors and then um also just want to take a moment to um send my thoughts and prayers out to our dyser community um and family members we've had two very tragic situations occur um in our district over the past week just days apart um and so just want to send my heartfelt um thoughts and prayers to them and also um just sincerely thank our Our First Responders not only our Surprise Police Department and fire but also the neighboring um EMS uh First Responders that were a part of those two tragedies I understand that um some of those same responders ERS who responded the previous Friday actually responded days later to another tragedy so um just thoughts and prayers and my heart goes out to all of you and just take care of yourselves and um
012just know that we're all you're all in our thoughts and prayers I also attended all four of our high school graduations uh congratulations to all of our graduates and to all of the um parents and Guardians out there that um stuck it out along with them I know it's not easy um also just want to you know piggy back off of what Miss Pritchard said um you know I know that our community is hurting um not just our community but also people in our district and this kind of hit close to home for many of our employees um just want to say that um again you know our thoughts and prayers are with you I know that this is a very difficult time for for for many people that were that were close to the
013situation and that's all I have next up we have the um consent agenda and I will move to approve consent agenda items as presented motion carries all right um next we have item F1 Dr croo thank you madam president uh tonight I'd like to go over um the superintendent end of the year report uh based on our goals that we set at the beginning of this year so um we did the midterm around December and I would just like to present to you some of the updates on these goals so starting with Goal a academics um as you can see again reminding you our board goal every student in all schools will be prepared with the Knowledge and Skills to achieve College and Career Success uh the goal that you accepted the superintendent goal was
014to raise academic achievement across the districts or across the district through implementation of our plc's of professional learning communities increased accountability on student learning so success measures for those goal one is to grow 3% average on K State Testing and 0.25 on our act uh goal two on success measures was 100% of principles participate in a series of four data chats with cabinets uh designed to make the adjustments to the instructional practices and interventions basically using data to drive our decisions um and improving instructions and goal three 100% of the focused schools again identified will partner with ed services for intense monitoring um which will include visits by assistant superintendent uh Educational Service staff and and so on and the fourth goal 100% of schools will implement the PLC process with Fidelity so how are
015we how did we do and that piece um kind of success measures goal one all actions um are still in effect for goal one as you know we just finished our student testing uh so those scores are starting to roll in um and preliminary and and I will update you as we get more and more um as we go out through the summer so we do not have a full set of that data yet um on goal two um we had principal data chats with cabinet um 100% of the principles um at the start of the school year after Benchmark one and after Benchmark 2 um that goal was achieved 100% um and you do have copies of all the um all the paperwork to show you all the benchmarks and all the data that
016we collected to go over um with our principles and cabinet went through that with them uh goal three our our education services provide a variety of services so thank you to them on our Focus schools uh we did co-planning lessons with observations feedback on lessons content specific strategies modeling of lessons uh ed services did a wonderful job with our Focus schools and I want to thank them for doing that and our fourth goal uh created our P PLC rollout plans um and continue to provide a professional development to staff on an effective implementation of the process as you know we really um started out on this Venture last year um by getting training we are doing more coming up in the next few weeks it has been ongoing through through this entire year uh we
017did receive a a Governor's Grant to use solution tree um on 12 campuses this year so with implementation of our PLC processes um we had on-site solution tree training for campuses um teams on January 18th and we continue to have all kinds of PLC training through our district leadership teams so that is going great um I will not tell you that everything's perfect and it's 100% of plc's but it's is a journey it's a journey and um we continue to work on that Journey on on making our teams better and and using data goal B um is culture uh your goal for the district was dice Unified School District will recruit train and retain a highly qualified staff to cultivate a culture of Student Success uh the goal for me enhan systems and procedures relating
018to recruiting hiring and retaining a highly qualified staff so we said the success measures at the beginning of the year by the end of this school year we're going to increase in communication Avenues consistency and CommunityWide Outreach for employment opportunities and we're going to by the end of the school year um launch a comprehensive customer service plan and we're going to develop it and implement it with our stakeholders so on goal B um as you can see uh we made some great strides on goal B and goal one we had enhanced marketing programs targeting advertising to prospective candidates uh we had marked increases in ad Impressions website traffic interviews and recommendations to higher at Career Fairs you can see some of the stats there so we generated 52,800 from our digital marketing efforts that is
019up 132% from last year uh we also had uh 228,000 in total career fair registrations uh that was up 500% uh 186 interviews you can see there and 109 recommended for higher so our efforts in marketing and doing all that uh Ryan Renee um and our marketing department Dr polling your department they're doing a magnificent job um in in attracting people and getting them in here goal two our customer service training uh we had daer carees approach was developed and provided to all administrators campus office staff and our district office staff as well so we will continue to follow up with our daer cares um throughout our trainings coming up uh goal C is safety um the board goal for safety is the diert Unified School District culture will consistently be reflective of a safe
020and secure environment for all stakeholders uh your goal for me is continue to provide increased focus on Safety and Security for each di our facility through enhanced safety protocols we had three success measures um by the end of this year all campuses will have conducted regular safety checks and inspections in addition eight campuses will cond conduct a full safety audit as part of a three-year implementation cycle uh goal two was 100% of all non-compliant items that require immediate attention as identified through our inspections and audits that they will be reinspected and resolved within 30 days and the third goal was by the end of the school year uh training on safety operations and practices related to each position will be completed with uh all 13 SRO all security guards for high school campuses and administrators
021throughout the district so how do we do on goal c um every District site had a minimum of five visits this year so if you multiply that out um that's well over 100 visits uh that our safety team conducted this year um basic saf site audits have been conducted districtwide um full safety audits as you've seen before were were completed on eight of the campuses as was described in the goal uh goal two there were 32 immediate deficiencies that were addressed and those were addressed and taken care of um within 30 days and multiple trainings have been completed with our sro's high school security guards and administrators so just a shout out again to the team uh to Jason Kevin uh and Kevin um on the safety piece it is a not only our safety
022team but is a districtwide approach to making this happen so I just want to say thank you to everybody um for having safety is is on your mind and one of the top priorities and our last one is goal D which is resources um your goal or the for the district is a diert unified school district will identify and maximize available resources to support Student Success uh the goal for me was continue to identify and maximize available resources both internally and externally to support Student Success uh two success measures increase Capital reserves and to maintain or increase the applications to school facility Division and to reduce the number of late buses by 25% um by the end of of this year so how do we do on this goal um as you can see we've
023had over $8 million in projects awarded for this year um and at least five projects completed to date we wish it was more um but as you know um the school facilities board has frozen their funds because they are out of money so we do have a lot of projects that are in the queue to be approved and completed um but they need to get some money first before those happen so we continue to do this um we are kind of at their mercy of of when they pay out and when these projects get done but we have done over 8 million so far so that a great thing uh the goal two were the late buses um from March to May last year alone when we really started to track this and had a
024problem alone from March to May last year we had 3,16 occurrences of late buses from March to May uh this year um we had 1,4 for the first semester August through December and we had 1152 for the entire semester so if you add those two together for an entire year it's about 2356 compared for the entire year compared to 3,16 68 L late bus counts just from March to May last year so that has been reduced significantly so great job to our transportation department everybody involved in there and um figuring out how to um how to make those buses on time especially with our situation out of the Sante so it's not an easy traffic pattern to fight out there so and they're doing a great job so thank you um Danielle and everybody else
025um we really appreciate that and with that I will stand for any questions or comments you may have I'll go ahead and start um I know that it'll be next week when we'll actually be talking more um in executive session regarding performance but I just wanted to publicly thank you for all the hard work that you put into this District every day um what's always been close to my heart and what drove me to run for the first time in 2006 was um accountability to academics and to our students and I want to thank you for bringing a sense of academic accountabil academic accountability back um since you've become our superintendent I'm seeing it I'm hearing more about it um expectations are higher I appreciate your non-nonsense approach to academics um safety as well um
026I'm extremely impressed by how quickly you were able to um increase safety take more safety measures or SRO um getting them in all of our schools um all the all the little things that you do um culminated up to just combined this um tremendous priority you put on safety um so I appreciate that I didn't realize um until reviewing the packet um what you had just mentioned too as far as the late buses that's amazing I don't know exactly how that all came together but when kids are late they're not in class and if they're not in class they're not learning so again that goes back to your um priority to academics and serving our children and I just really appreciate all the hard work you do and I enjoy working with you so thank
027you so much thank you for this comments and it's a team effort so I appreciate that I I just want to um I appreciate everything that you have put into this um and working with you has been an absolute pleasure um I think there's only been one time you've actually told me I was crazy about something um and it and it was true I really was crazy about it after he set me straight um but any other time though I mean he you know you you listen um you just get it and you the goal B has been huge for me about the culture um you're you're leading um by example and I and I see others following in your in your leadership and things are changing and it's some things are slow moving some
028things are very fast um but it's all positive and academics has been a huge focus of yours I know um but you've balanced that really well with with all of the other goals including saf being able to build those relationships um with our law enforcement agencies with ad with the school safety program being able to secure officers for all of our schools that is hugely important to this board but it's hugely important to our parents um our community wants our schools to be safe and I'm just very impressed with how seriously you have taken every single goal that we've we've set in place for you just want to um stress the importance of it and um I I greatly appreciate that all that you have done for daart um and for our students thank you
029moving to item um action discussion item G1 Dr Coto thank you madam president all right moving on um we are going into the Dr polling show for the remainder of the evening so uh Dr polling we we're excited to bring you a recommendation for our high school principal and the new addition to our daer family and Dr polling this is yours absolutely Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community Administration is proud to present anat muy as the Sundown Mountain alternative principal for the 2425 School year she is currently the principal for the Glendale Union High School online learning schools she has extensive educational experience including 12 years as an as an administrator her resume is attached for Board review and a comprehensive selection process was used to identify Mrs mcy for this position
030and I'll stand for any questions she is with us this evening thank you very much Dr polling I move to approve the appointment of anat musi at as high school principal motion passes congratulations moving to item G2 Dr thank you madam president Dr polling will take this item Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community um Administration has recommending the approval of the attached memorandum of understanding with the daar Education Association for the 25 2425 school year um there are a few edits which are redlined for you um we removed academic freedom because it's no longer in our policies and the expectation is the curriculum is being followed and we updated the PD schedule those were the major edits I'll stand for any questions any questions from the board okay I move to approve
031the memorandum of understanding with the diert Education Association as presented for the 2024 2025 school year motion carries okay moving to item G3 Dr Coto thank you madam president Dr polling also has his item Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community Administration is recommending approval of the district extracurricular supplemental assignment contracted denda pay schedules with changes for the 2425 school year we added some supports for the schools uh we removed things that are not needed and those are both red and green lined for you I'll stand for any questions sorry about that all right I move to approve the district extracurricular supplemental assignment contracted denda pay schedules for the 2024 2025 school year as presented second motion carries motion carries okay moving to item four Dr Coto thank you madam president and to
032follow suit to finish theight with our items uh Dr polling will take this item shocker Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community I'm going to present on our certified evaluation model and recommend changes we had a very extensive study session with great discussion with the board previously so I'm going to review our current model our current model is 65% % of the valuation is determined by their classroom evaluation 20% is calculated through the a through F growth components 15 calculated through the use of accelerated measures the Kate schools and the CCRI at high schools so that's what we're currently on now Administration is recommending a change to that and doing 80% determined by the classroom evaluation and um following state law keeping 20% calculated through the a through F growth components that's the
033minimum percentage that we could use for State data or excuse me student data so that's our um recommendation for the model second recommendation is as we talked in study session to change the alternative performance evaluation cycle right now teachers that are on the Apec as we call it get informal evaluations and not a formal evaluation unless uh Administration uh suggests or wants that and they're right now they're on this indefinitely and as we talked in study session we thought there should be a cycle and we're recommending that they're on the Apec for three years in the fourth year they come off for a formal evaluation cycle and if they're highly effective they return to the Apec the following year and so that's noted in the policy attachment 4-13 as well with that I'll stand for
034any questions I think I I mentioned during the study session I know I've talked to Dr Coto as well I I personally struggle um with the whole not being evaluated for three years formally um I understand that there's going to be some informal evaluations two of them right there has to be informal evaluations and yes there's oh sorry go ahead Sor um I haven't I haven't seen the what that informal like rubric or whatever looks like can you explain what's on that uh it's it's using the same rubrics that's in the Danielson and so the expectation is Administration gives feedback and and utilizing that rubric and giving feedback and informal way and they send that feedback to the teacher and so then if there are concerns noted that administration at any time that they're on
035ape can put them on a formal cycle but those informal like maybe explain to me what the informal evaluation looks like because again that's going to even if you're on APAC you're going to be getting two of the informals every year mhm yes so can you just explain what that would look like an informal evaluation yeah it's shorter in duration than a formal evaluation so it could look like the administrator in the room for 10 minutes they are observing and taking notes sending that information back and um and so it's a part of that process you know they still do the professional development plan they review the plan they're held accountable to that and so they follow all those things and that's something that's uploaded into the system it's so it's like tracked that these
036informal evalu are true evaluations that are being logged somewhere correct is there a reason why um like what's the purpose of getting rid of a full evaluation every year I think that was added to state law I'm just speculating just giving some flexibility because if you have um a high performing teacher and that you can do informals with then an a formal valuation might not be necessary formal valuation is very specified in law about the timelines and the process I'm just specula on why they put that into law and and I at some time ago when the evaluation committee met and discussed they thought it'd be a good thing to add and probably gives Administration more time to deal with newer teachers and teachers that need more support okay that's my speculation I was going
037to add to that it actually when you have a vet veteran teacher that you know is very solid in the classroom um instead of focusing your time um and eort on that teacher um you know they're going to be okay that's why there are those spot checks um throughout the year um in those classrooms but it allows it affords you the opportunity and really needed now to focus on those new teachers and as you know some of them coming in um right now do not have um the skills that they used to have coming in and so um and it's our job I believe as professionals to build them up and give them those skills so it gives us that time to focus on those newer teachers um yet I think this process says you
038know what you're not on the hook it's not like a Supreme Court Justice um nomination where you stay for a lifetime that you still have to prove um every three years that you have the skills to be on this Apec so and I think that was our discussion too in in our study session is you know what this time to have a spot check here and there yeah for me that's the part I mean as long as they're very formal and you give that feedback because there's to me there's two sides I mean number one people can always I I always want to make sure that everyone's doing their absolute best for the students in the classroom and three years is a long time to not really get any good feedback because things could happen
039and then it's three years of maybe things being taught or handled a certain way that maybe isn't best practice I don't know so I mean I think it's good to always give feedback to employees but then also thinking of that student side if there with a teacher that maybe over the course of that 3 years isn't hitting every area where they they need to be then those students get the negative impact of that so I mean I guess I tell myself that if they they have to be at a certain level to even be eligible for this model and then as long as we have those two checks in there um and then like you said they can a principal if there was concern or parent concern maybe too they went to the principal they
040could do a full evaluation if they wanted to absolutely and I think Dr Cotto has added a really good support and that now they do those regular data chats they talked about so that teachers data is getting looked at on benchmarks three times a year Shelly correct me if I'm wrong and so there's a lot of accountability to teachers even on Apec because their data is looked at um the team meets they do the data chats that was a big piece the PLC process so there's um still a lot of accountability in place even if you're on the Apec okay all right thank you y Dr ASI I couldn't see all of your hand there was that two or three I'm sorry we've been to Mark twice a year now thank you thank you Dr
041say we do we do however to Dr pin's point we also uh track our unit test now more than just benchmarks you can actually see the data dag so you can see where your teacher ranks in relation to all the fourth grade teachers okay is that an expectation that we have for our principles that if they notice a a decline and some of the data or something for teachers that they know then they probably need to consider what uh it's an ongoing conversation when we talk about our plc's we talked about you can't have a green highly performing PLC without data and when you're going through each cycle the reason we're doing unit test in addition to benchmarks is we don't want it to be a twice a year thing where we're really looking strongly
042at those test scores we want it to be an ongoing thing and if you see a teacher continuing to decline or not performing where their PLC is it's a clear sign that inter intervention needs to occur okay thank you and I may add to you just for clarity too that those informal observations that they need to have there there's three of them we've been saying two there's actually three but they have to occur before November 18th is the date so it's not like you wait till the end of the year to go into that classroom to see we want to know right now is this classroom operating the way it should be so it's done up front not in May it doesn't help to go to May and say oh by the way it's this
043classroom's not good so it needs to be done early okay okay thank you can you describe why the November um date is important is it policy or is it law um what drives that date it it actually is not it's our procedures when we when we did this about four years ago I believe that was what this committee came up with and one of the one of the criteria is that they receive a minimum of three unannounced unannounced informal observations before November 18th okay and that's what the committee and the board approved that would happen Okay so it's unannounced too which is we haven't talked about so we're not telling you we're coming in and we're just popping in and that's not to say that a site administrator couldn't pop in more often and do
044other informals for corre various reason and they often do okay so there's a lot of indicators whether that classroom is operating correctly or not there's a lot of indicators that we look at no anything all right um I move to approve revisions to certified devaluations and and Trust model policy 4-13 as presented motion carries moving to item H1 request for future agenda items I would like to request an item um and it does not need to be on the the very next one if we could have it maybe in the next few months um I would like just an update on the title N9 changes Madam President we will um set that up thank you all right that I move to adjourn the meeting second motion carries we are adjourned