001e e e good evening at this time I'll call the meeting to order let the record reflect that all board members are present and we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you uh next we have item B1 audience with individuals we have we have okay thank you all right moving to item one superintendent update thank you madam president uh just a quick update um tonight I'd like to recognize um some contest winners from the friends of surprise library The Bookmark contest and we have three winners for that so it's Luther Campbell and lordana bord and Eden amerman so congratulations to those three students and that's all I have this evening next we have item C2 governing board update there'll probably be a couple of ditos here tonight I'm sure but uh anyway I participated
002in the second annual Walkin Row for inclusion uh fundraiser and along with the other board members attended the hero dinner and congratulations again to all our guysart heroes and then last week is volunteer appreciation week and then next week is St appreciation you so just thank you to all the staff and volunteers and just everybody in the district for what you do every single day for our the student and Dent we really appreciate it okay on April 15th I was honored to join our national Junior's Honor Society at Freedom um they have been collecting snacks and drinks for our first respond ERS and so we got to um load them all up and take them over to the surprise PD and fire and they were estatic um so I just want to give a shout
003out to miss um Carlovich for putting that together the kids had a blast and surprise py and fire were so excited so thank you to her for all her hard work um I also attended the daart hero dinner Awards and congratulations to all of our award W winners and then last night I went to our daart um student broadcasting Awards and that was amazing all four of our high schools um they put these great videos together on what they've done throughout the year and it was amazing we got we have a lot of uh bright future students um that are going into broadcasting so congratulations to all of them so thank you I will say ditto I also attended the DI Art Heroes award dinner and it was a job well done with our PR
004team who put together an amazing dinner experience and it was an honor to be there to support and to honor our teachers and our staff who worked so hard for us um it was just it was very well done so thank you to our PR team and everyone who worked hard to put that together and thank you to our di Art Heroes for your continued hard work I too attended the DI art hero award dinner um just want to again as everyone has said congratulate Our Heroes um who obviously it's more than one night for them that's um they go above and beyond every day um for our students and and our families and just uh was great to be a part of it was wonderful too to be at a new venue this year
005I thought it was really nice um so thank you to Dr croo and our PR team and everybody that was involved in that it was lovely and uh I think there's even some things I like a little bit better about it so look forward to having that again um and also thank you to the um ptsas or PTA groups that put together the baskets for the silent auction to help the um daer Education Foundation they were wonderfully done and um very much appreciated so thank you uh I also attended the dice art hero dinner it was nice having an actual dinner this year it's the first time we've been able to sit down and have a meal with our heroes uh since the since covid uh so that was just really nice and refreshing um
006big thanks to all of our uh Heroes that that were awarded but also anyone that was nominated and just really all of our staff for all that they do each and every day um last night I also attended the daer um student broadcasting award event and that isn't just an incredible event uh every year seeing all the work that they do and special thanks for our culinary students across the district that put together a really nice uh dessert table and that is it okay um at this time I'll move to D1 I'll entertain a motion River governing board approve consent agenda items as presented motion carries okay moving to item F1 Dr croo thank you madam president uh tonight we have a few appointments of directors in our district and Dr polling will take us
007through this item good evening Madame President School Board cabinet and Community Administration is proud to rep present a recommendation for the position of director of curriculum instruction assessment 9 through2 charity aguiler is being recommended for this assignment for the 24 25 school year she has received a masters in curriculum instruction from Grand Canyon University Miss agular has extensive educational EXP experience as well as 9 years administrative experience with Glendale Union High School District she will will receive salary and benefits for the position her education and experience and a resume is attached for Board review a comprehensive selection process was used to identify charity agular for this position and I will stand for any questions and Miss agular is with us tonight you I move to approve the appointment of charity agilera as director of curriculum
008instruction and assessment for 9 through 12 motion car [Applause] congratulations moving on to item F2 Dr croo thank you madam president Dr polling will take us through this recommendation Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community Administration is proud to present a recommendation for the position of director of federal projects Mrs Sunny Rush has been recommended for the assignment for the 2425 school year she received a masters in educational Administration from Grand Canyon University she has extensive educational experience as well as 15 years administrative experience she will receive salary and benefits for the position her education experience her resume is attached for Board review and she went through the same comprehensive uh selection process and I'll stand for any questions Mr R is here as well thank you Dr polling I move to approve
009the appointment of Sunny Rush as director of federal projects motion carries congratulations congratulations Sunny okay next up we have item three Dr Cotto thank you madam president our last item this evening is an approval of kindergarten early entrance process and Dr asai will present this for us good evening Madame President members of the board it is my pleasure tonight to present on a new process uh that we want to take before the bo board for early entrance into kindergarten um State Statute says that any child born before September 1 of the current school year we can admit however it gives the governing board discretion to create a process for those born between September 1st and really December 31st prior to January 1st uh this be got on our Radar really because we've had increased requests
010in our schools for kids to attend at this age we have some surrounding districts that have started doing this and also last year when we did the in ah the retention enrollment committee several parents brought up that they would like to see this in dier we've outlined a preliminary process there would be a form this is an online form that people could fill out if their children were born during this time spand uh they would set an appointment to be screened at The District in June or July it is a one-on-one screening with a kindergarten teacher we would have to pay to have that primary teacher come in uh students would come in in person for testing and the parents would be notified afterwards how their children did there are several criteria that we are
011going to look at um literacy and math do they know their letters do they know their numbers but more than that are they able young age to have a decent attention span how are their listing skills are they willing to follow directions and also assessing their fine motor skills can they hold a pencil and their verbal skills because this is an optional opin program that we want to make sure kids are ready because we know they're already going to be young and we want to make sure they're going to be successful going forward uh what's involved in the screening so the screening can last up to 30 minutes uh we have consulted with surrounding districts we have a format we are going to create our own screen but we are pulling on resources from our
012sister districts uh the child will work one-on-one with a certified teacher to take a variety of short assessments uh it will be parents won't be in the room it'll be the uh the child and the teacher because that's what it's like when they go to school to really assess that Readiness and the screener um like we said before will be scheduled online we are recommending a $60 non-refundable testing fee because we are going to have to compensate our teachers for coming in uh during the summer to do this our next steps uh in approval would be to assemble a committee of teachers and administrators to bet and create the screening exams and Associated rubrics uh to create a web page and online platform where for request and to make sure our community is aware and
013then to recruit teachers um who want to come in in June and July and administer the assessment I will stand or sit in this case for any questions I just want to confirm that we will have a process in place for families who may not be able to afford the $60 fee that's a great question then Richard we must certainly will you and I do have a question so say we get a very Advanced young four-year-old who turns five December 25th well okay bad bad date December 21st um what if this child is admitted into kindergarten early and presents a behavior problem maybe isn't maybe has the cognitive abilities but isn't emotionally ready to be a classroom setting and we've given we've given it a few months and it's now October and it's clear that
014this child just maybe isn't mature enough so our committee plans to look at that we haven't nailed that down yet because we wanted to get approval first um but other districts have a contract where their are Behavior the child goes out maybe to the preschool program or go uh stops and then starts again when they're of age okay I just want to make sure kindergarten teachers don't get even more overwhelmed admitting cuz I've seen it where kids in our kindergarten early maybe at a charter school that has free kindergarten and then the teacher becomes the free daycare yeah and that was one of our concerns when we looked at some districts just had a um an academic screening more of an academic with the letters and numbers uh but when we looked and really said
015let's look at are we are we following directions are we able to listen to the teacher interact with the peers that's important as well probably more so thank you and then does the kindergarten teacher have of this classroom that a student will be placed in does that require extra work for the kind kindergarten teacher above and beyond their normal duties or they would just be a normal student in class so it would be we would follow our class ratios that student once they get approval to enter kindergarten early they could um they could apply for open enrollment if there's open enrollment Spot somewhere so we don't know really where they're going to land but we would still follow class ratio and they would just become a normal member of that cohort okay as long as
016we have some sort of system in place where if you know come October November the teacher says okay I have tried every intervention in the book this child just it's they're wonderful they're smart they're Advanced but they they just they're not emotionally ready we have a system to where that kindergarten teacher isn't going to suffer for four months we will make sure we have that I wrote it down to for when we have the committeee that that that's a paramont concern of the board all right thank you I was G to I think that's actually a really good idea not thinking of that behavior piece of it um that when we say kindergarten Readiness it is just more than the academic Readiness so that's I appreciate those comments that's a good idea and to touch
017with the the fine motor is that is that going to be including like tying their shoes it could include tying their shoe um we would all like that um picking up a pencil can I hold a pencil can I do basic task okay and what about being potty trained I think the committee would recommend because it's above and beyond that the child should be potty trained yes and then are we looking at our [Music] preschool program to try to get some of those kids ready for kindergarten to are we going to revamp that and look into that to see if we can we most certainly are so we are next year at Countryside we are combining our ESS preschool and our growing Minds preschool and so really looking on how we can ramp up some
018of that curriculum and get kids ready if they want to enter early that's an option but just overall so they're basically ready for kindergarten to have a great start okay thank you okay um I move to approve the early entrance to kindergarten program beginning in the 2024 2025 school year motion carries thank you okay next up we have item G1 request for future agenda items doesn't sound like we have any okay moving to item H1 I move to establish executive session to be held immediate immediately during a recess and the regular meeting second motion carries e