Dysart Governing Board Meeting - April 11, 2024

001e 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 rise for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repu for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and Justice thank you uh next up we have item B1 audience with individuals we do have a couple this evening I'll go ahead and read the statement this is a time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to 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

002for further consideration decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three 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 first we have Rebecca Howell I feel like I need a step stool thank you very much good afternoon thank you for hearing me um my name is Rebecca Howell I can spell it if you need me to um I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you guys this afternoon I'm originally from Louisiana uh I was a parent advocate in um Louisiana I'm certified uh worked many years with children with disabilities and developmental delays um I'm currently working with parents here in Surprise um we

003have two a set of twins in Western Peaks um the reason I I was not prepared to speak tonight I didn't know until 5 minutes ago I was going to come and say anything so bear with me I know I've got 3 minutes and I tend to pontificate um I am from south Louisiana so we talk a lot um but I did write down a few things if I get off track I will try my best to to course correct and come back so we do have um we just recently this week had an issue with our twins um a and I believe that it was handled very well let me say first and foremost because I believe that there there is a balance should be we as adults should try to maintain a balance

004between um saying what we we think could have been done better and also acknowledging what we think was done well so we did meet with the principal and the assistant principal uh the parents myself um I am very um pleased with with how it went at at Western Peaks I will say that um I will give anybody um what the due that they have coming and they worked very well with us it was handled quickly um I am not as much um I'm a little concerned with with resolution um but without violating anybody's privacy I will say this that um my concern is directly related to the disciplinary process and proed procedures that we have in place I did read the parent handbook um I've been in in Phoenix for two years now so I'm

005there are differences between the educational system in Louisiana and the educational system here and I get it uh I may be unaware of the completion of all of that because I I'm just now currently getting into it but I did read the handbook um before we met with the principal on this issue this issue particularly had to do with um first graders we're talking six-year-olds um wonderful that we have youth coming up wonderful that we have an opportunity to to help these children become better than than we are um also very Cheng in day ande and knowbody that child I'm very sorry but time has passed Dr cardo can you follow up with the speaker Madam president that's great I'll have Mr M's Department follow up perfect thank you thank you thank you and then

006next we have Dominique weeks okay my name is Dominic weeks I am the parent of what happened at uh to my child at Western Peaks Elementary School there was first graders involved my son was had a death threat on him saying that the kid before he even got his butt beat that the kid was going to kill him when he got older said that to his twin sister the resolution is not good enough and I'm sorry missing recess and where my son is having he had night tears that night and we my son has already been through enough I just came from Ohio I'm out here to work and this is actually my children are doing so good in this school it's not even funny um after the fight excuse my language uh this kid

007decided to beat up not only my son punch him in the stomach throw him on the ground and kick him in the stomach another first grader but he also at that time hurt another hurt another student and my daughter got in the middle of it because she was scared for her brother this kid before he beat my son did the death threat saying I'm going to kill your brother when he when he when I get older then after he was done beating the crap out of my son he told him that he was a [ __ ] [ __ ] a first grader we're talking about here do I feel comfortable with my kids in Western Peaks Elementary School right now do I feel safe with them right right in right now with them there no because this kid

008is in my daughter's class my daughter has to be next to him all the time sees him in class this is not okay and I'm not okay with it taking recess away from a child until Monday is not okay me not able to grab get the incident report because of HIPPA and everything else is not okay I have a problem with the disciplinary actions that were taken and to be honest I was actually very nice at the school because if it was anything else I have three children to take care of if I was in Ohio this wouldn't have happened stuff is different out here and I understand that I get it we're out of Towners and understand that too but something needs to be done no TMT you know the threat management stuff this

009is a first grader saying this to a first grader doesn't get suspended doesn't get expelled nothing nothing was done and I'm not happy about it and something needs to be done because of my son is having night terrs because of everything he's been through and now my son is getting a death threat there's an issue and something recessed getting taken recessed away is not okay and that's all I have you thank you very much Dr Crono um can you also follow up with this parent Mrs weeks yes ma'am we will okay thank you that's all we have all right next uh up is item C1 student update thank you madam president uh Mr muy will introduce our student yes Madam president members of the board Dr Coto uh rayy rff is ready to go and

010she's got our student update from student councils um good evening everyone so um the main thing that all the student councils have been working on is prom coming up um this um Willow and Shadow are hosting their prom this Saturday and daar is going to host their prom April 27th and um Valley Vista our prom is May 4th um next Tuesday um we're having our dslc conference hosted by Willow Canyon and we're really excited we have a lot of breakout rooms um planned and a guest speaker to come and talk to all of our councils together um one of the bigger things that is coming up next weekend all the district choirs are attending the Oceanside choir competition so we're all wishing them luck and um Valley and Shadow are planning a color Wars and

011spring um spring activities for the school to close out the school year and like all the senior festivities with our graduation practices and senior breakfast and Senior sunsets and that is all thank you thank you next we have superintendent update thank you madam president uh tonight I'd like to recognize some of our uh essay winners each year the city of surprise and the city of El Mirage hold a dice art essay contest and we have some winners so I'd like to just briefly read their names and recognize them so in the grade three4 category for City of Surprise we have Kaylee Garcia um who I just said is in grade four at Surprise Elementary our 58 category is Connor kimnet grade five at Assante and Grade 9 through 12 category is Mo Morgan goats grade

01211 at Shadow Ridge High School so those are our honores from the city of surprise in the city of El Mirage um we have a first second and third place in the grade third three through four category first place was Caleb uh Figaroa at Surprise Elementary second place Carly schol from El Mirage Elementary and our third place in our grade three4 category is uh Noel Cervantes Landy also from El Mirage Elementary so congratulate to those um winners and the 58 category um in the city of Al Mirage first place was Alexa Cervantes Rea from dier Middle School uh Second Place Adam Campbell from diar middle school and third place was DEA Jones from diar middle school so a clean sweep for dier Middle School in the 5'8 category and then the 912 category um we

013had a first place winner Oscar Delgado from valy Vista High School uh second place was Kaden Brun schreuer from Valley Vista High School and third place was Landon Navaro heaps from Dice art high school so congratulations to all those winners uh for doing a great job with that and then my last piece um just like to remind you invite you to our dice art hero dinner it is one week away on the 18th at 5:30 so we are looking forward to celebrating our dice Our Heroes and our PR department has been hard at work getting that event ready so we are going back to uh the formal event this year so we're looking forward to so one week away and that is all I have next we have governing board update I was just going

014to um add that last was it last week already um attended the state of the city um at the at City Hall it was just great to um hear about all the accomplishments that uh the City Surprise has made um as well as all the growth that's occurring um so it's just a great night and um just appreciated the opportunity to attend okay um I attended um on March 26 the mom and Sun bowling at Freedom um Freedom PTA put it on we had a blast I just this is the second year I've done it and I've I just love it um of course I didn't win my son beat me but that's okay um I also attended the state of the city um it was it was a neat experience that was my first

015one I've ever attended and it was nice to see all the growth um that surprise has experienced so far and what is to come um and then on April 1st and April 2nd I attended a safety Summit in Glendale um we had um a lot of great speakers um including our attorney general Chris Mays uh County attorney Rachel Mitchell and the Maricopa County Sheriff uh Russ Skinner did a couple breakout sessions um did one for the SRO SSO duties and best practices and then also did a breakout session um for active shooter protocol um that the FBI put on so that was that was very interesting a lot of good information so I just want to thank the district for um allowing us to attend so thank you I also attended the uh state of

016the city address and as everyone else has mentioned is just it's um it's nice to see all the growth and surprise um but it also kind of just makes you think how can we uh support those uh new incoming residents um without a school you know out there in those new developments um so lots to think about I also attended the school safety conference uh in Glendale and um just always a lot of great information to bring back uh as far as keeping our uh students and staff safe uh and that's all I have did you have anything Miss Grant no okay I would just in my quick update I would just like to express my continued gratitude to our SRO and our ssos for showing up to our schools and making the choice to

017be there to keep our kids safe so thank you to our law enforcement thank you for adding that okay uh next we have item D1 I'll entertain a motion I move the board approve consent agenda items as presented was there a second sorry motion carries okay next we have item F1 Dr croo thank you madam president tonight we have some information on our core values and Dr saai will introduce this topic good evening Madame President members of the board it is my pleasure to present to you tonight on what we call diert core values we hope to Brand It success starts with you colon diert core values but we are checking to make sure that name is not taken anywhere and it is legal to use so in the meantime we have diert core value

018um the first question you might ask is why do we need to come up with core values we've had programs like character counts through the years and be kind but different schools use different programs and we really can't control how those programs evolve over time I can't guarantee you when I open up be kind's website today that it'll have the same things on it five years from now three years from now so creating our own in-house character program with daer core values really helps to stabilize that through throughout time it also will provide continuity throughout our school districts so one school's not using one thing and another school is using another why schools can retain some individual uh unique things that they value these will provide values overall um their values would fall under that

019most schools have things like be safe be kind which would be embodied here as you'll see as we go throughout we believe that the way the core values were developed will help also to develop successful citizens these are things that we want all kids to leave with as desert graduates and it also really provides a framework for our teachers I think in today's day and age and climate our teachers almost get nervous to teach things because they don't want it to go one way or the other so this will allow us to aligned resources and gives teachers resources to say hey here's how we talk about these things and not only this is how we teach kids to talk about things but this is how we treat each other in our system making our system

020a better place for adults and children children the first value is citizenship and citizenship has four uh has four traits active participation Civic engagement adherence to school values and digital citizenship we would go through in the Summers and uh this would be part of our curriculum mapping if it's a natural overlap with our curriculum we would lay it in some of these we might uh really emphasize more at certain grade levels than we do others with kindergarteners we might not hit as hard on digital citizenship but active participation and adherence to school values would be more strongly emphasized at that grade level as it's appropriate our next value is communication which would include Clarity of expression active listening respectful communication and collaborative communication we know that commun in today's age with communication both written oral

021or even doing it in Fil A film version that we have an a real need for these things so to teach our kids to communicate accurately clearly and in a professional manner cooperation is our third um active participation again flexibility and adaptability accountability and shared responsibility our fourth is creativity uh because we know that the uh when our kids go out they're going to need to be creative uh those are where the jobs lie tomorrow we need to teach them to have their original thoughts what does that look like to go through maybe the engineering design process to create their own their own piece of music to be able to present things in original ways we want them to challenge themselves uh we want them to challenge themselves to take AP and dual enrollment classes

022to take maybe something that's outside their normal uh their normal um things they're comfortable with I'm sorry I lost my thought there uh collaborative we want them to be C collaborative when they create and we also want them to have adaptability to be able to adjust when things go wrong our last value is critical thinking using evidence-based reasoning uh we do this all the time in our classes drill having kids go back to text but really having them be able to support their idea and why do you believe what you believe to be able to problem solve to be open-minded and I don't have to agree with you but I have to respect your opinion and we can disagree respectfully and to be good decision makers um our next steps are to work with staff

023on the success criterias for these core value components to work to weave these into our Curriculum maps to create districtwide recognition programs when kids show exemplify these values and adults do and to be able to measure the success in our schools and I do want to give credit to the team that really worked on this uh uh Kevin kette Dana Noble Katie Q Carlos Pera Andrew griel and Sarah Casey they did a fantastic job really going through and asking stakeholders what do you value and how do we put those into to a program any questions thank you so much I appreciate you doing this and I appreciate all the hard work that everybody put into it um just a quick question are we teaching cursive as a way of communication I believe we teach cursive

024in third grade Dana starting at the end of second thank you I I appreciate focusing on the written as well as the verbal communication that way you know LMK you know let me know so thank you and having emails it start with a greeting yes hello thank you very much I think this is great um I love the idea of having a consistent um tool to be used across the district um I I do think it's really important as you mentioned sometimes we adopt these um tools um but they may change over time and they no longer align with what we initially were looking for so I I just really appreciate the all of the effort that put that was put into this and I'm looking forward to seeing um hopefully some good results with

025it we are too and the committee especially I I don't think Katie Q is here but I mean she just really embraced it and owned a lot of that along with the rest of the committee thank you she done a great job can I ask follow-up question so we teach the students cursive right do we give them plenty of opportunities to practice that in later grades so where it's not just like I learn it and then forget it they can still sign their name in high school I can't guarantee you that that's emphasized equally across schools it's something that we can have a conversation about okay and emphas and work with our teachers to emphasize more okay thank you um wouldn't it be maybe um with the with where we're piloting like the Spalding and

026things like that that would probably be more emphasized at those schools I do believe it's emphasized more at our traditional schools um like I said I don't want to give you a firm answer I can't tell you that it's across the board right I I do we do teach it across the board but that accountability we haven't focused on a lot so okay it's something that we can probably do better on to be honest okay thank you and just a a quick notion on the communication part um is that where your student Le conferences would come into too I think definitely we could talk about that under communication um it could be creativity too because it's a different it's a creative method by which to assess my learning and communicate it to my parents right

027okay thank you anyone else okay thank you again all right thank you all right moving on to item F2 Dr croo thank you madam president uh tonight we're going to do a little presentation to for you on Title One funding as you may have seen in the news and and with emails there's a lot of information floating around about Title One and what's happening to our Title One funding so we want to bring you some information we have nice new up-to-date information and Dr saai will introduce our speaker Madame President members of the board it's my pleasure to introduce our director of federal projects Dr Ashley Loria good evening Madame President members of the board and cabinet I have a voice this evening so I'm excited to be able to use it um tonight I'll

028be providing those Title One updates so just really quick a recap on Title One um we are funding is all based on the poverty data and the whole purpose is for student achievement that has not changed uh most of our fun is in Staffing and positions and each year when planning the budget for the following year we usually plan for about a 5% decrease so we did the same thing initially planned for a 5% decrease for next school year we had a budget ready to go and then we received a memo from ad Arizona Department of Education stating that our allocation would actually be reduced by 20% um but I'll go through that plan as if we were reduced by 20% but I'm excited to say that we just found out today that um we

029actually are only going to see about a 7% reduction so this plan was in place but we no longer need it so I'll just run through it and then if you have questions let me know so this school year our initial allocation was a little over $5 million and as you can see a majority of that funding is all in positions like interventionists and instructional assistance for next year if we had been reduced 20% our allocation was set to be a little bit over 4 million so as you can see even with that reduction a majority of our funding was still going to be all at to people and I can talk about how in a minute um but our most recent update with only that 7% reduction we actually our allocation will be actually

030about 4.8 million instead of the 4.1 that you see here so what would we have done if we were were reduced 20% um our main goal was to make sure we were not reducing positions or Staffing those people are important they were already in place um so our plan was to reduce the amount of money um at tital one set set asides for schools to start and then we were going to shift positions from One Federal fund to another um so title two with that shift that could have impacted summer workshop funding for next school year not this June uh but luckily we do not need that plan anymore and so we are actually going to shift positions back and and move forward as originally planned so that's all I have for you any questions

031I do have a question yep are we continuing to hire is it math coaches right are we going to still have those math coaches at our Title One schools yep that's correct we've actually already hired them all for next year so that is um still in the the budget for next year yep thank you so much absolutely I have a quick question just hypothetically understanding how this funding can be used hypothetically if ever um there are ever discussions about would we be able to use this funding for perhaps providing incentive for teachers to go and ATT title school there there is salary wise yep there's an allowability for that um I don't know the specific details but that is an option and allowable cost yeah okay thank you and just to confirm I know that

032the communication came from ad but this is a federal funded correct that's correct yep Federal um releases their budget and then the States from there do their calculation to then fund the school districts with the funding that they have and when you say the the poverty levels is that based on free and reduc Lodge or is that based on else for combination good question um for district school districts with boundaries it's all based on census poverty data okay okay and so census poverty data I mean the the levels like the they haven't been updated correct correct with the inflation and that's correct yep it's as 2022 census okay MH great thank you very much you're welcome thank you can call her back Dr Loria sorry we still have one more question Sor no that's okay

033I just had a question um on Family Outreach what are we using the title funds for for that great question it's for a position so we employ four Family Outreach specialists at our title sites okay yep okay thank you you're welcome can you explain a little bit can you explain a little bit about what those positions what that entails yep a great example is at dier high school um they have Gina ayal and she has a whole classroom dedicated for families to be able to come in they learn how to do fastf applications they learn all about school credits so they can come in during the school day but then in addition to that they run events after school so um the whole purpose is to build the bridge between schools and community and family

034and get families into the schools great I think we're done okay thank you next we have item F3 Dr CTO thank you Madame President uh Dr saai will also introduce this item good evening again Madame President members of the board uh it is my pleasure this time to introduce Dr Corey monano our director of exceptional student services good evening uh president denmore members of the cabinet and sorry the board and guests it's my pleasure to present to you tonight kind of two uh opportunities here one to update you on exceptional student services department and then another one just to let you know about some of the transfer process when students transfer into the district or from one school to another when they have an IEP so to start I thought it would be a good

035idea to give you a little bit of an overview of just our numbers so you can understand just kind of the volume of students that we're working with so overall we do have um approximately 16 18.96% that's based on an October 1 count of uh the percentage of students who receive special education services uh that is about average for the State of Arizona Across the Nation it fluctuates a little bit but you can see between 12 and 19% as a range and it really does vary from state to state um so one of the things that we do see here in daart is that we do have a decrease in our general education population numbers and then a slight increase in our special education numbers so that can attribute for some of that percentage change

036um we do serve preschool through 12th grade and so we have um a number of programs that provide what our students need at all ages and so preschool is a very inclusive setting where students are able to be early Learners and get what they need uh for their services as well as some uh curriculum instruction to have them ready for kindergarten we provide services to students in a resource setting in a several different ways so we have students who receive services within the general education curriculum from a special ed teacher who either co- tees with um sorry a special education teacher who co- tees with a general education teacher and that could be for the duration of the period it could also be a pushin model where the special education teacher goes into the general

037education classroom and only provides the specially designed instruction that's that instruction that the student needs in order to um have access to the general education curriculum and meet their goals and I'm so sorry my medical device is just buzzing at me so I apologize um and then the other res the way a student might receive services from a special education teacher in a resource way would be a pull out model so maybe we're working on something that is not quite um aligned with what's happening in the classroom in that moment but it's a a a standard aligned that we need to pull the student out of the classroom in order to provide them some specially designed instruction that will help um make that skills Gap smaller so that they're able to access all of what's

038happening in the general education classroom then we have specialized programs our specialized programs um more traditionally in other districts I think they might call them self-contained environments but for us we're really focusing on some students might need to be self-contained and be in these programs for the duration of the day but other students might have parts of the day that they're able to participate in a less restrictive environment or with their non-disabled peers so these specialized programs serve the needs of our students with more significant needs our structured teaching classroom or STC uh provides support for students who have more significant communication needs as well as um cognitive needs and so these are our students who meet the criteria for our alternate alternate assessment um most typically we see that these are students with um

039mild or moderate intellectual disabilities and maybe also autism where it's really sign significantly impacting their learning we are very excited to introduce a new program next year that we will be piloting at Rancho Gabrielle elementary school as well as sonor and Heights um Middle School where we will be doing much of what we're doing for the structured teaching classroom but it's going to be kind of one step above that where the students do not meet the criteria for the alternate assessment so they don't have that signitive cognitive um impact but they do have the sign significant um communication impact that is uh making it so that it's very difficult for them to be able to access the general education curriculum in a large setting and they also require a very highly structured environment with lots

040of visual um prompts and routines and so this will meet the needs of some of our service our students who are currently out of the classroom a lot of the day in the resource room but they don't have that sense of community and classroom because there's so much coming and going and they don't have a routine and also some of our students that we privately placed only because we didn't have this level of service for them so not our students with more significant behaviors but really they re needed that routine and structure so we're very excited and we're piloting to get it right before we grow it and make sure that we um are able to meet their needs in the right way our Aspire program meets the needs of our students with more significant

041medical needs we have that on Kingswood campus as well as Shadow Ridge High School and it's pretty amazing what our kids are doing in there but um they do require a lot more more support and there is even a program nurse to make sure that their medical needs are being met these are students who have um tube feeding might have a tra Etc so and then our phase program meets the needs of our students with more significant behavioral disabilities going to go over uh just a little bit of the way that we're organized I'm not going to go over every single role but I thought it would be more important to go over some roles that are a little less um uh typical in terms of it can look different in every District so if

042you were to start on the left hand side in green we have the leads um we do have five leads that oversee the different departments that are underneath them so school psychologist speech um motor a motor includes occupational therapists and physical therapists um and then below that group of folks we also have um licensed uh classic ified staff members so speech language pathologist assistant um certified occupational therapist assistant physical therapy assistant we do have an audiologist we do have several um adapted PE teachers a teacher of the visually impaired and two teachers of the hearing impaired and so those leads um are quite critical because they are experts in their area in the licensed or credential area and they're able to provide oversight to the um members in their respective groups as well as uh

043profession development ensure for compliance that we are meeting the federal and state legal um aspects they also are monitoring for um just to ensure all of that as well as um doing a at least a day of full-time working with students and services if you move to the second column um right next to that under behavior analyst so in the gray we have uh Behavior coaches so one thing that we were really hearing from our Administration um our administrators rather was that we were seeing students with more and more behaviors and more significant behaviors and so in the 2223 school year we really changed the role of the behavior coach and also added the role underneath that which is a classified position the student support technician and so we do have um 23 approximately 23

044Behavior coaches across the district we have one at each um prek through fourth grade campus one at every p prek through 8th Grade Campus one at every middle school and then we split them at the high school level so if I'm at a high school I going to be serving two high schools as a coach um and what we did is rather than just having them support students who are on IEPs which was what was previously in place we expanded that role and so they are now also providing um support to staff and students who are not on IEPs so the way in which we do that is they participate in response to intervention meetings where we are focusing on more of the behavioral aspect we help um they help write the Behavior Support plan

045so bsps it's new to dier versus a bip a be a behavior intervention plan would mean that a student is on an IEP it just helps us differentiate the students um and also who's helping to support um those plans pardon me um they are also there to help coach on what those behavior intervention plans look like when we're implementing so they might help a teacher they might help um a pair of professional who's helping to carry that plan forward in the classroom room uh this they are the creators of the skills-based intervention that we've introduced in daart so skills based intervention is an intervention where when we have a student who has um violated some school Rule and the administrator has decided a resolution they can do um a resolution that includes teaching the skill

046to that student that they were lacking in the classroom and it could be combined with an oncampus reassignment or any other um disciplinary disposition that they would um that they would like but this we do see that we are some of our students just don't have the skills so we do a short um opportunity for them to learn so for example if they were um they were using their words in an inappropriate way to express their frustration we would help remind them of the ways in which they could express it so that they're um not going to be removed from classro and can remain in the instructional setting um let's see so the student support technicians are on our our um only through the preschool through 8th grade campuses and middle schools we do not

047have the SS at the high school level um and they do help model interventions for the staff they help complete that those um interventions that the behavior coach is trained they help model um and train on Fading supports so when we have PA of professionals who are providing supports to students ultimately the goal is that those students become more independent in the skill that we're supporting and so they could help the fading of that they also might be mapped in for a short amount of time when um we have new students who come with a pair of professional but they're not yet um but we don't have that staff member yet if you'll move to the right hand side of our chart we have our coordinators we have four ESS district office coordinators if you

048think of principles um having assistant uh principles coordinators are kind of the assistant um principles if you will to the director role um so they are they support um typically five or six well actually six or seven campuses really at this point um and they develop and oversee the programming that I talked about earlier um the specialized program the resource programs um and they also uh are supporting our campuses when we have more difficult or litigious situations um I do think we ask a lot of our site administrators they have to know a lot about a lot of things uh the coordinators need to know a lot about one thing so they need to know special education law and um compliance and our procedures very well and so they know them very deeply and they're

049able to provide that support to the teams on the campus the administrators um and they also provide professional development for those programs and they ensure Fidelity and compliance to all those State um and federal items with the IEP and evaluations um under them is um ESS Specialists ESS Specialists there are 12 they've been compared to TLS the teaching and learning specialists in some ways um and it is similar except there's an added component so our ESS Specialists are are both instructional coaches but then also IEP compliance coaches and so at this time they're helping support teachers um we have a lot of young teachers or I say young career um special Educators who may not have come to us even in a traditional pathway and so what they're able to do is provide a lot

050of support in for the teachers in what it looks like to create specially designed instruction for a student and then what strategies would you use given a certain profile of a student with these strengths and these areas of need they also are able to um provide professional development to the par professionals and then working with their site administrators they do serve at least two campuses but able to work with them on any site level things um we do have some um oversight with them both through the site Administration as well as our coordinators to ensure that they are um where they need to be and in terms of if we have a a campus that might need more support or younger less experienced teachers on one campus we can kind of e and flow a

051little to provide that support and when needed if we have a vacancy they're also able to step in and help with either giving the the instruction Andor creating the IEPs or the specially design designed instruction for any substitutes that might be in those classrooms so that ensures that we have high quality instruction U materials and lessons for those students and then of course we have our PA of professionals who are really a big just a part of our um everyday way in which our students are able to access their learning um so we do have PA of professionals that support for in a resource setting so it could be in a general education classroom it could be when they're receiving their instruction um in in with their special a teacher and then of course in

052all of our specialized programs they are just the life of our programming um I'm going to skip over this a little bit because I did just review it but before I move over from here and move into um I think it's our goals do you have any questions about the organizational structure I have a couple of questions in general but it's not necessarily um so I don't know if you want to answer them now or we can do it after but my question are generally um number one can you elaborate on the phase program yes and then the discipline skills you're talking about how if a student wasn't using the proper language you would give them the opportunity to practice is that with our ESS population or is that with General ed students yep that

053great question so thank you so the phase program and I apologize I didn't go into that um deeply I think I got too excited to move on um the phase program meets the needs of our students who have more significant behaviors and so um when we have done a lot of prevention and intervention and teaching of skills at a site and we are not seeing the progress and they're um truly impeding their own learning or the learning of others and we have kind of exhausted what we think we might be able to do for this student a team might determine that they need a more restrictive environment and the phase program allows it's about no more than 12 students per classroom there's the special education teacher we do have a behavior technician that is um

054trained higher on behaviors and then a pair of professional in the classroom that are able to support their learning and this is really trying again to make sure that we're kind of embedding the skills that the student needs to be able to be successful in school because if we don't have behaviors under control they can't learn and so we're really putting that through everything that we're doing in that program as well as the instruction and it is um the if their students aren't successful there typically they will um go to a private placement which is as we know not always ideal but sometimes needed but it is um you know further from our neighborhood schools and it is also more costly so and thank you and what is the process sorry what is the process

055for a student to get into the phase program is that just again is that just the ESS population or is that general led to yep so all of these programs that we're discussing are for students who are on IEP so students who um are in special education and with any um special education student their least restrictive environment so where they'll be learning is always determined by an IEP team so that individual education program really determines it and the lot there are things in place from the law that just ensures that we've gone through everything we can do starting with general education first adding supports adding all of the instruction that we can and then we can move down that Continuum I apologize the Continuum of more and more restrictive environment so if a student's going

056to be in the phase program they will probably have had a series of supports and IEP meetings and interventions that have been added and layered goals that we've worked on behavior intervention plans and ultimately the team has said gosh you know we've done everything we can we've done it well we've done it with idity the student requires more than we're able to give unless um in this campus or in this setting and they require the phase program and that was true of all of the programs thank you and you had one more question did I answer it actually had a couple more questions okay so yes you did answer that with this everything that you're talking about is specific to the ESS population students with IEPs thank you for reminding me yes and no so

057the programs yes however the behavior coaches are able to support um the uh teachers and the RTI team in developing good interventions and Behavior Support plans and then um going in the classroom and giving feedback or or helping model what that can look like and then the skills-based intervention the SST also can provide help and services and support to general education students so that skills-based intervention that an administrator is able to assign as a resolution could be for a general education student as well so I guess one of my concerns is is as a high schooler mhm or a middle schooler MH you're thinking oh well if I act out all they're going to do is send me to skills-based intervention and there's no consequence that's a concern for me I understand and so I

058can defer but what I will let you know is that it is not the only thing so often times it's paired so what we find is a student might have a removal a suspension it could be a on campus off- campus the administrator has that ability to do that and add this so that we have that removal what you did was big enough it's not okay it's not accept you can't be here but then also when you come back we're going to let remind you of the expectation everyone gets to learn here everyone gets to be in a safe and respectful environment here's what we're going to teach you for the expectations so typically we do see it paired for the youngers there might be more of an opportunity to have the teaching and then

059they layer on the other components but there's a lot of flexibility for administrators and they don't have to go that route they're able to look at what the student needs and what's appropriate on the discipline Matrix and Dr mono if I can interject too I think we have historically had some J of Justice gone bad um with a school that might have tried that and failed with oh we're going to talk about it every time uh we we don't do that uh we haven't done it for a few years and this is the idea of okay well you messed up you're going to take your days but then we're going to work with you on skills to overcome that when you get back I understand that and and that makes more sense it's fine to

060use that as a teaching moment but kids are smart yep AG agreed and that's why we've been we are trying to be very consistent that's why all the discipline throw flows through the principal Mr kette and Mr mcy too and then are we also holding our behaviorally challenged students when I was growing up we had two different types of special ed you had BD behavior disorder and Ed educational disorder which was the cognitive so for our students who are struggling behaviorally are we still G are we still holding them accountable or are we just saying they're just self-contained we're just going to let them destroy things so that's a great question so it's never okay to do that however sometimes it is we there are protection in place and so we have to ensure that

061we're doing the right thing for the individual student as well as the classroom and the school so it just means that we have to ensure that we're respecting um their disability that we're providing what they need and that's where we talk about adding layers of um uh I apologize of supports and services but it can also be paired with discipline so students with disabilities and even if they are emotional um disabilities are able to be suspended there's just a pathway after 10 days where there's some checks and balances to stop and have certain meetings to make sure that we're meeting the legalities of um it's called a manifestation determination meeting where we're just stopping and checking and pressing that pause button to say is it because the disability and if it is there's certain things

062we have to do like um a functional behavioral analysis and then it would usually lead to increas in Services goals Andor um placement elsewhere thank you and then are we differentiating within our self-contained classrooms because in the past I've seen the self-contained classrooms both the cognitive disabilities and the behavior disabilities are all lumped together and that's not a good recipe because then as a teacher you're trying to do both and you can't focus like if you have behavior disorders you teach one way if you have cognitive disorders you teach another way and it just it's difficult yes thank you for the question I would agree as a teacher who had a self-contained environment that was very difficult to have it and that is something we're really strongly against it's we don't have what what you're

063referring to is often called like a cross-categorical behavioral classroom where it's kind of like a catchall and we've been very careful not to do that and keep it very separate and so they are separated we do not have a lot of overlap and with that and um I do think it makes it so that we're able to differentiate the instruction within the classroom of what the student needs but they don't have those competing needs thank you it's it's very important to make sure that especially with our behavior disorders kids know and they know what they can get away with and so it's very important to me to by all means adhere to their disability but also set those boundaries and say no you you destroyed our classroom yesterday you're not doing it again and we

064need to figure out how this does not happen agreed well and just to kind of piggyback off that I'm glad I thought of another question I'll ask in a bit based on what you just asked but that is really true because I when I referenced the conference I went to they had talked actually it was a special education a former special education student who who had behavior issues and he talked about how it was handled and that was one of the things that they mentioned and I remember a previous special ed director that we had would say for us to not address those behaviors because of their disability just in general I know we have to be careful because of the manifestation hearings and things but you're you're almost failing them because then they go

065out into the real world and if they punch somebody in the face they're going to jail so if we let them do it in the schools because it's like well it's part of their disability and just that's just how they are we're really doing them at a service so I 100% appreciate your point um side note can I ask you a couple questions before and I appreciate you taking the time to split it up so um the questions are more relevant at the beginning and I was scribbling down questions when you were talking so give me one second to make sure I can read my own handwriting okay um so let's see the student support textt I remember when we added a lot of those in are we seeing a difference because one of the

066concerns was we are having so many staff members go to the ER or get hurt um or CH other children getting hurt in the classrooms because we just needed a higher level or a higher more specially trained individuals for behavior um have you no noticed a difference in injuries and er visits for staff since we've made that change yes thank you for the question I can't tell you that I've done an analysis side by side of that I can say that I do believe that when we're using it um well that we are seeing a difference I think when we're not using it well and we we've made some mistakes along the way where that we can assign it too much and so after once or twice of assigning it to the about the same

067skill that's not an effective intervention and we need to move on to something different and so I think that's where we just need to be careful to not over assign it and we've learned that lesson pretty early we have I am pretty fortunate to say that we have not had a lot of um concerns about staff injuries we are very focused on providing our staff the training that they need to be successful so we have NCI training that which helps deescalation that's the biggest thing that we want to do but then they are also trained to physically manage a student if we do get in an unsafe position and that is also something administrators participate in as well to ensure that they have um the right skills and the safety should we get there and

068never want to get there but it's better to have that training and know how to do it safely do you are are there more um staff members on campus other than like your behavior team that have NCI training so is there an administr like on every campus yes so we do have the administrators both administrators on the campus take it annually we actually are a little bit ahead of the curve so we make sure we offer Refreshers multiple times for administrators in the summer as well as throughout the year pair of professionals teachers um Behavior coaches and there's usually a couple other folks who will also take it so there is multiple people and not just Behavior team okay and then did you mention that we don't have student support texts on at the high

069school level or did I mishar that that is correct we don't have it at the high school level the behavior coach the case manager and the administrators have been working with the high school students we have not assigned um student support technicians to high schools at this time is there not a need or CU I don't think that we're seeing the need or that it's a um we are able to also fulfill it with the other staff that exists and we want to be fiscally conservative and if it's need then that can be something we can discuss but I think we've been managing that better I think we see a lot more of these behaviors that that intervention is effective for at our younger students okay thank you and then in regard to the coordinators

070um how you say that they they have about six to seven campuses each how often do they go to each campus how present are they so pretty present and some more than others but so at least monthly they have a a meeting with their campus leadership team and they're meeting with them they do walkthroughs on campus as well for the classrooms and they can focus um on classrooms that the administration wants them to or otherwise we also do more visits when we are looking at specific students if we have more concerns about a specific student and need some supports so what we would like to do is have more of that opportunity to do I call that more of our construction hat um unfor a lot of the time however unfortunately we're kind of living

071in our firefighting helmet and helping with some of the issues so that is something that each year we are focusing on getting more and more on campuses and moving from that firefighting and we do think if we are more active involved in the beginning of things instead of maybe being informed later so we're working really hard with our administrators to be more involved earlier so we don't have to be informed later and we can be more present on campus okay and then the ESS Specialists um it I'm glad to hear it sounds like there's a lot more built into that role now and um a lot more coaching like directly but let me ask you um does that particular position have does it have teeth to it I know I know in the past with

072coaching positions you could go in you could have your people in there they would coach the teacher model things but they weren't the supervisor they didn't what they said or they could leave and draft up perfectly and then they leave and there's no follow through so how do we ensure that all the work those Specialists are doing in the classroom is is like incorporated into what happens in the classroom yeah thank you for bringing that up I think it's really important and valuing their role um so we are going to do a little bit of a shift next year so what we are finding is I described to you how there's two kind of roles that that instructional coaching and then that IEP and compliance coaching and what we're finding is that we're um it's

073more and more difficult to find real true experts in both those areas in the same person and so what we want to do is we want to concentrate on their strengths and so we are going to separate those two roles we're going to have half of the specialist so we're not changing the numbers of Specialists we're just going to divide that out so we're going to have our folks through their strength really lies in instructional coaching do that and the ones who um rely more on the um IEP and compliance side do that which is going to have them have twice the number of schools because each school will have two Specialists and they'll know exactly who to go to for what it will be in alignment with their coordinator so everybody has the same

074people good sense of team but we will be able to work more closely with the site about here's what your teachers were coached on we're going to be sharing that Weekly with the site Administration so that they can do walkthroughs check out here are the next steps here's what your look fors are um so I do think we have some high levels of it but that is really frustrating and it is something that we are working on and I think we can do better um but we are partnering with the administrators to help us at that site level to then follow through with the procedures the coaching and things that we've done from the coordinator or the specialist level okay so right now as far as um and do you guys even do like IEP

075Fidelity checks in general we sure do okay are and is are the Specialists responsible for that or the coordinators responsible for that so it's a little bit of both so the Specialists have the primary responsibility but then we also do spot checks and then also when we have cases that we know are more complex or our um maybe just we're not in agreement the whole team isn't in agreement we we are looking at that more deeply when I go over the goals in just a little bit you'll see how our checks went when the state took a look at us as well okay so should I save my compliance question for then you could okay and then so this this might fit into here otherwise apply it later but just in general with that what

076happens when um well I'll wait never mind it'll probably apply better when you're going through the goals so I'll just wa so thank you no problem any further questions before I move on to the goals I have a few I haven't had a chance to get in um absolutely sorry so when when you mentioned you mentioned the phase and thank you for explaining that I know so but this is a follow-up to that um at what what is the process of doing the referral I guess um I guess my broader question is does it require parental approval to go into that program or can a parent require Quest it um so there's not a yes or no answer I'm just going to describe so okay um parents are part of the IEP team and it

077is an IEP team decision and so typically if we think we're getting close to needing phase it's something that we have conversations with the parent about along the way we are trying all of the things that we can we're going to continue if we're unable to meet the students needs we might require more which could look like and then when it's time if we're there if we think we're there we speak as a team we look at the data and we make that decision together now I would love to be able to say that we're always at consensus um that's not always the case so if the data at the table and the conversation of the table is supporting the need for the phase even if the parent is not in agreement their the district

078has the right to move forward with our offer of fape or free appropriate public education and that means that we say we hear you we hear your concerns however this is what we feel we need to do based on our data and we have an obligation to provide your student with this um fre a free appropriate public education anday they have of and if they want their so to speak to the data leading up to that so if we have a teacher whether it's you know the the the small classroom you know ESS teacher or mainstream if we have a teacher that is struggling and other students that are struggling because of a behavior issue with one of our ESS students um at at what point does that get documented is it with an office

079referral is it with the all of it so when we look at data we look at multiple points so it can be classroom level data it can be office discipline referral data it can be data toward growth on their goals and so we really are encompassing all of that data in it all as part pieces of the information the classroom teacher is part of that data as well the conversation of the amount of time and effort that it's required the intervention um if they've been in place all of those things are pieces at the table that we talk about if I can interrupt for just a minute one of the things that we' found that hap that's happened at our schools sometimes is the teacher will just send the kid down to the office and

080there won't be a referral written there won't be things documented and then we'll have a a principal calling going this kid needs to be placed it it definitely doesn't work like that there has to be because we have to show over time that we've inrease the interventions so that's one of the things I think Cory's coordinators really work with is working with school administrators to maybe better understand the process and to move that forward in an expedited timeline because nothing's worse than thinking you're going along and then finding out nobody collected the data right and could I ask what is that what is that timeline because I'm thinking if you're a classroom teacher and you've got this kid who is interrupting on Monday interrupting on Tuesday interrupting on Wednesday interrupting on Thursday you got an

081entire week you making the phone calls home you document it in PLP you give lunch detention to document in PLP you do this you do that you do this and yet this kid is still showing up in your classroom being very disruptive and nobody else can learn and this process goes on for weeks I would hope I think that the administration had issued consequences and you know it's that fine line between the school has a responsibility as as essess so I I concur that if nothing's done it's very frustrating but we have really worked with our administrators Corey Holts meetings with uh Kevin kette for our discipline APS to really talk about what does that discipline with special education look like because uh if nothing's more frustrated as a teacher than sitting a kid out

082just to have them come back and that shouldn't be happening and if it is Teachers can raise that concern in different Avenues thank you sorry and it's not just the it's sorry but this play right in it's not just the academic piece though it's the and that's sad that you lose all that time but I'm thinking about all the behavior pieces there's kids in classrooms that are hurting other children throwing Ducks things like that it's like okay you have to collect six weeks worth of data be and okay that's a long now I'm not talking about you know irritating annoying behaviors I'm talking about full out people getting hit and dust being thrown and things like that is that still the case where in those extreme circumstances teams and teachers and children are expected to

083endure that for six weeks before the district will step in so I think thank you for the question I think what you're referring to is most typically when we're collecting data we typically look to four to six weeks of data to really see if it's a pattern when we're talking about safety though that's a that can really change and so it just depends on what the I don't I wish I could give you one answer but we're not going to make extreme behaviors to that extent with things in place where people are multiple times getting hurt well sit and collect six weeks of data we're going to step in we're going to add people higher trained we're going to remove we're going to do the interventions along the way and it could be a much

084shorter timeline we are doing a balancing a Act of keeping the students in the classroom safe keeping everybody learning and keeping the rights of that individual and so it's a little bit of a gray area where I where we have to teach each we have to take each circumstance at a time but it is not a where I'm going to sit and mark my calendar for six weeks when we have students and and um being hurt or teachers being hurt and no learning happening okay okay I'm going to finish my questions um so back to the referral process I I guess um we I know we just went off on a little bit of a tangent but where I was going with that is are any of our teachers or Educators at anytime ever discouraged

085from doing an office referral or making a phone call home I'm not sure that I could answer that not to my knowledge I think that that is something that we are pretty clear about is clear communication with parents clear communication with the office okay I I would concur with that in fact we have told Administration we need to write more referrals because that's how we track them in the system how we get the data if you don't have the referral we don't have the data right okay all right so if that is happening um it and if I were to give someone your your contact information you could help them with that absolutely it's the expectation that it's written up if it's warrant set thank you okay um the other question I had and this

086is my last one I promis on this piece um the pair of professionals you mentioned how important they are and I can attest to that um I know that some of our PA professionals especially with the ESS population they may um be third- party yeah so they are contracted with different companies um agencies to your knowledge do we ever discourage um communication between like a one-on-one Aid par professional of an ESS student and their parent so typically we ask for a communication to go through the classroom teacher because they are the supervisor and should know what's going on with the student the information could be coming from a par professional but we have with all classified staff members that is kind of a district practice is that we really want the classroom teacher to have

087all of the information and being the primary Communicator with parents we wouldn't want to say oh I can't talk to you however I do think we could say let me get your questions I will work with the teacher and we'll get back to you so we do want to make sure that we're being very careful to ensure that somebody who knows the whole picture is able to communicate with the parent but also that there's not a shutdown in communication between a par professional and a parent but we have asked and guided that they are allowing for their classroom teacher to be able to be the primary Communicator okay but if it's not something about primary you know communication with a teacher um I guess what I'm I'm asking is can a parent you know include

088in addition to communicating with the with a teacher they could also communicate with the par professional um if you're I just want to make sure I understand the question so for example if you if me as a parent wanted to write to uh an email I could include the par professional in that communication and as a teacher I would do the same because my goal would be to have clear and open communication so there's no discouraging of including a par professional on Comm that's going back and forth perfect thank you very much all I had on that piece anyone else on this I just have a quick question how many par uh professionals do we have oh I wish I brought the numbers with me I'm going to look over to Dr I can tell

089you how many we have vacant for next year because I just did that number today but I don't want to give you the wrong number are you okay if we get that exact number and get back to you on it this way okay thanks and before we go forward are you okay yes I'm fine to keep going yes I am thank you very much it'll yell at me again if I need something okay thank you all right so I'm going to move forward um like all schools HOH I might need next slide help thank you um like all schools and departments we also have a Continuum continuous Improvement plan this year we focused um one more on the compliance side and one more on the instructional side so our first goal was focused on um

090providing com comprehensive support to all of our ESS teachers are related service providers and evaluators to really meet those Federal compliance um and in order to increase our student outcomes and we did this with purpose it is it was actually a monitoring year for us last year into this year from Arizona Department of Education and so that was one of our goals the other goal is more focused on instruction and we were really looking at four of our Focus schools so El Mirage elementary school daart middle school and Tom uh Thompson Ranch and um Riverview and really working with them on their systems and instructions for students um in ESS in order to increase the percentage of students that move from one um proficiency to another in the A aasa and we wanted to see

091that Movement by at least 10% for those students in ESS so as we do a check-in on our progress right now we did meet our first goal we were um monitored through last year through October we did have a couple just individual student level errors that were able to be rectified but we were and um then they found us fully in compliance so all of our procedures processes and compliance with with regard to systems were um as they should be and found to be compliant and then like I said there was three small areas of and errors that were at the student level that we were able to self-correct and move forward for our second goal we um are we utilized um a checkin with from our benchmarks uh as just a kind of a

092dipstick to see where we are and we have found that we're on on track at three out of out of our four schools for that growth um and you know with Thompson we have identified some barriers to that and so we have provided more support for the administration and the classroom teachers to ensure that our students are following the schedules getting the services that they need and then providing additional um ESS specialist support so I do anticipate to see all of these meet our goals by the end of the year um based on the additional support and these preliminary numbers have you identified what was the cause for the two that did not meet well so I would be hesitant to say they didn't meet because this is just the check-in right now we're not

093there yet but um daart actually is moving towards the right direction there was some both of them actually schedules was one of the biggest um issues that we needed to provide support on so with daart middle school we worked very closely with uh the administration in redoing their schedule so that the students minutes were being um optimized and that they were in the education the general education setting to the greatest extent possible where we know that their um exposure to their content it will make the biggest uh difference in combination with the services that they're prescribed so last year into this year we focused really heavily on um creating a schedule for all of the students at daart middle school that was just that that balance of being in their content with their teachers who

094are their content experts but also receiving their specially design instruction and then at Thompson Ranch it was similar I think there was a lot um we had a lot of students m in all of a sudden at one time and I think there was a lot of support and movement to support those students and get things in place and there wasn't necessarily the adherence to the schedule for the students as there should have been so I think that there was um some support that was needed in order to do really take a look and see where are we falling short with our schedule what can be done and so we did sit and go side by side with the administration and provide some additional supports and then some accountability for all of the teachers to

095ensure that what needs to be happening is happening and when you say adherence to a schedule maybe that's what I'm not understanding like is it just students aren't going to class or what do you mean or to their special education services so perhaps um I'm supporting a student and I'm working on something and I did not pull my my other group in that moment and so I did not follow my schedule of those four students I was meant to pull and receive services and provide services to so they may not be getting their IEP minutes so there are some students that we are going through and we will be working with parents to offer compensatory Services because there were some minutes missed okay thank you and you you're involved in this we're all involved thank

096you so as all of us have we we have our challenges and I'd like to talk a little bit about the challenges but then also how we're addressing them um so recruiting and retaining of appropriately certified esss staff is not just a dice art challenge it is definitely an Arizona and even a Statewide challenge um we have identified some areas that um are helping us with that and so we have created our EP our educational preparation program that ad the Arizona Department of Education has approved so essentially we are able to work with our currently it's mostly our par professionals former par professionals who already had a bachelor's degree that are in a program with us now to become um certified special education teachers so that we have 11 in our first cohorts and that

097is preschool through third grade so it's Early Education special education and next year we'll introduce our second cohort and that program will be for kindergarten through 12th grade special education we also are finding when we were um surveying our stakeholders that many of our teachers stay because of the support that they get from The Specialist because they know um that they that they have that person to go to for the additional help because the administrators are not always um as they're not able to answer all the questions with such dep depth as um our Specialists are able a to we've also had some challenges with creating programming so that we can keep the students um all of our students uh on our home campuses or in one of our public school campuses as much as

098possible we know and we want our students in our neighborhood schools we also know that it um is very costly to have our students in private placements so that can cost for one student $40 to $75,000 for One Singular placement in a private school and so um one of the things that we're doing it for example is that stc2 program where piling it on two campuses that will help to bring some of our kiddos back from um campus from programs where we really think we can meet their needs we just didn't have a classroom that was unique enough for them as discussed earlier about ensuring that all staff are actually implementing the best practices in ESS um and that can be general education um special education par professionals and other service providers everyone needs to

099be doing what we need to be doing so general education teachers need to be providing the accommodations that have been agreed upon in the IEP special Educators need to be meeting the service minutes as do related service providers so we are a large district and even when we have procedures and processes in place um there are some times when it's difficult to maintain that and so that is where we are increasing that partnership with administrators so that they know the look force and how to help support on a day-to-day um at a higher level we are also as discussed uh struggling like many districts with just managing more student behaviors in general and working for um our teachers and the students to overcome those challenges alling behaviors and I did describe to you a lot

100of what we are doing to address them more at a site level and then um again just working to ensure that we're following all of the processes and procedures that are in place for um working with students with disabilities with challenges can also come celebrations um so we are seeing that we are moving our students from one proficiency to another um we are seeing good growth ratees so our students uh in a four-year Trend I think it was we looked at they are growing at the same rate or closing that Gap as um as compared to our general education peers um we do have a lower than average vacancy rate so per hr I was looking into that um oh I apologize I wanted to give you the percentage but I think in approximately 20%

101is the state average and we're at approximately 11% for vacancy rates for special Educators so that's something I think we should be very proud of um because our students need need the teachers um and the related service providers and then they the staff that are here need um their peers otherwise they become overworked um we do have some great post uh sorry we do we did see a decrease in due processes and state complaints over um the past four years I will say there was an increase during the year of covid I think it was very difficult for some families to have in person offered as um the main method for which their students needed to be um educated but um we have seen a significant decrease in due process and state complaints over the

10210 years uh the past 10 years except for that one year our post School outcome data is measured um every year we basically um get to survey our seniors after they have um left us for a year and we have a high rate higher than the state um requirement and average for them being actively engaged actively engaged can be in a post-secondary program College um vocational um uh activities or other things that are making them engaged individuals um we have we are very good at having a stakeholder participation in our change process so for example um the ESS specialist change that I talked about the stc2 program we had stakeholders from all different levels be part of that um conversation and we included research um as well um we are we added additional resource uh

103curricular resources this year such as touchmath um and the SR um uh it is a the reading program so it's a it's a reading Mastery corrective reading and read to achieve from Agra Hill which is a supplementary curriculum to help where our students are more significantly behind so for example when we have a sth grader who's reading at a third grade level we need uh a special program in order to help close that Gap it's not just strategies and so we were able to introduce both of those over the past two years um and then we do have a program that is um we're pretty proud of it's Unique to diart we have a partnership with westch and essentially um we have a tops program so um students in their last last year of school

104so typically their senior year they can attend um as a transition opportunities and postsecondary skills student and so half their day they are on their home campus and half the day they get to go to West Mech and participate in um activities where they are aligned with the career that they are interested in so students who qualify for this program are typically able to be employed but maybe not meet the the strict criteria for that certification and that CTE area so it increases their um ability to be employable afterwards and they do get um credit for that as a CTE student would so that is another celebration do you have any more questions that I didn't answer before I just go over the transitions for students who or transfers I should say for students have

105question um yeah in regard to the compliance again um in the event the IEP compliance is really big for me I just because I feel like um that's where kid will lose kids they're not getting their minutes and then they can't learn and and we just have a short period of time to get them where they need to be so they can interact with their world after graduation and have opportunities available to them so um you know I'm concerned I I appreciate you being transparent about um the challenges that exist with a couple of our schools in particular um but it's concerning obviously that we've those students aren't getting their minutes when it comes so how often are how often do we do do Fidelity checks again as far as IEP compliance I know you

106kind of touched on that but just to clarify in my head so um so Fidel we're checking for compliance and IEPs um there's doing we do a minimum compliance of making sure that things are there on every single IEP however we're deep diving into about 20% of them next year I'm looking at introducing um it's actually within our our internal program that we utilize for our IEPs there's an internal audit system where we're able to message back and forth so we can be a little bit more efficient at providing more feedback to a G number and having those coaching sessions in person or if it's a small fix being able to send that message back and forth to the um teacher and have a due date and have it sent back and we can track

107all of that so if we see a pattern with any individual area of compliance or any particular person or school that we're able to give targeted support and instruction and coaching for it so that's one of the ways that we're looking at increasing our ability and our accountability with uh compliance so as far as bigger samplings I understand that but as far in regard to each each child or each student I mean is there someone on each student's IEP team that's responsible for ensuring that that child is getting their minutes and everyone's being compliant with the IEP thank you for your question so I think you're asking more about and just help me if I'm I think you're more interested in answering the question about whether the students are receiving the services that are in

108their IP that side of the compliance yes so we do rely a lot on the site Administration to hold to the schedules that are there and going and check but Specialists are the secondary check on that and we do that with walkthroughs as well so it's a shared responsibility we really have to count on the sites to follow it the sites have the knowledge and the um schedules and they have the access to the IEPs to be able to do that with the support of Specialists and then the next layer would be coordinators so but so every student's IEP someone between the principal or the coordinator or the specialist would you say every student that's on an IEP because they're going to have someone assigned to their building it's everyone's being reviewed it's not like

109anyone's going to fall through the cocs I would love to guarantee that but I again I I cannot solely speak for exactly what's going to happen because while we put procedures and expectations in place I don't know if it's going to be carried out at the site level so what we are doing is trying to add more and more layers to where they are required to do it I'm going to look to Dr asai a little bit so for example right now we have a campus that we're providing that support to where we are going we're walking through and with every single student and looking at the schedule and going and checking a student schedule walking to see if they're where they're supposed to be and getting what they're supposed to so that would be

110an example of what it should be looking like on every campus I guess I would I would ask ask Administration to to come up with a process to where we can ensure that someone on I mean I understand there's a difference between what ESS does and then you've got the principal of the school and you know who has the authority to kind of Ensure whose responsibility is to make sure that that that student is getting what they need so if that's a gap I guess I'm just asking maybe that Administration to come up with a way to ensure that every student's I there's someone responsible because you have several people on IEP team that's making sure that that student is getting all the minutes and all the services that their IEP says they should be

111getting and I think we could probably come up with a better procedure for that I would say the majority of our schools are doing a a really good job of that it is I mean as a principal at canion it was my responsibility to make sure my kids were getting their minutes that being said we have had instances this year where that wasn't happening you know and then we've tightened that we've had the coordinators go over Cara's spent extensive time at one school mapping all the kids and from there we have been doing walks surprise walks or hey we're coming over to follow that schedule um to be more proactive with that you know we can't we can't establish that and add an extra layer in I'd appreciate that because again we're talking about students

112and we have them for such a short period of time and so then ultimately if it's the principal then maybe that goes into the assistant superintendant is responsible for evaluating that principle to make a point to check on those because lots of times too our special class are far in the back of a school and I just feel like so many times these students are forgotten you know or they're not the attention to what they need you know this is my next question and I'm hoping this has changed there's been times when I've I've heard from parents and I've I've seen grinded years ago but still seen when it comes to um making changes to a student's IEP it's like well but do we have the Staffing for oneon-one and then that'll drive whether or

113not it goes in the IEP and to me diser issue shouldn't be a child's issue and if they need an oneon-one then we put it into the IEP or whatever it is whatever resource it's not their fault if we don't have the resources they get it and then we all as adults have to figure out how to make it happen has that been refined over the years I mean are we making sure that students first and we figure the rest out thank you for the question it's part of what I love about my job I get to ensure that we are able to say yes when we have something that a student needs and so it might be more difficult but that should never be a conversation at the table if we were talking about

114what does the student need how can that be provided and if there's an issue in the background that is a background fix that we get to work on and so that is why we do work so closely with some of our agencies is because we do need to have an ability to if we can't find some if we do not have a high level of for example pair of professional applicants I'm able to reach out to an agency and say I have a fourth grade student who has needs in these areas can you send me resumés in addition to that I do want to let you know that we do have a small group of um Behavior technicians it was a older position that we save at the district level for there's five right now

115and so that if there is that immediate need if it's in anep and we haven't hired somebody yet we are able to or if a student moves in with a one-on-one we are able to for a short time have them go four to six weeks provide that support while we're finding it but we are not making decisions based on do we already have that here we're making decisions based on what does the student need and what does that look like and then we figure it out in the background so we've done things where we've mapped multiple people throughout the day but it's consistent for that student and that they have what they need when they need it but it might look like a couple people fulfilling that role to ensure that we have it while

116we're seeking that so that is one of the things I really love about my job is that I get to do what we need to do for students and that is you know rewarding for me okay thank you any more questions before I go over just last two slides you're almost done with me I promise or maybe um so we are a large district and some of our populations are a little bit more transient than others and so we have students that move from one campus to another or we have campuses that move in or sorry we have students that move in from um non-district schools um we have a very very thorough process that is quite long and we I would be happy to sit down with you and go over everything but I

117thought I would pull out some of just the main points that we do when a student is new to a campus so when a student transfers from one school to another the parent does um typically will register we now have that online uh registration and or they could come in person but there is actually a box that they check to indicate if they have an IEP or if they're um if they are on a 504 as well and then um if they're already within our district their records are actually in our system and it's quite easily um um moved over and we're the campus is immediately able to access those and typically we're able to implement right away we review we can call the previous case manager school psychologist whoever we need to if we

118know about it um sometimes we know sometimes we don't so if parents inform us um sites will often talk to each other and let them know and do a nice handoff and I really like that um we would prefer if families were able to communicate with us so we can do that nice kind of Baton Pass um but then all of the re when a student is there all of the relevant information is shared with any of the um teachers administrators and staff that um will need to have access to that who have access to that student to ensure that they are if there's a training that needs to be had or they have knowledge of the student's needs and then if they are on anybody's roster they have full access to that student um

119general information page of the IEP right through infin campus so it was great enough to make it so it's a very easy link that um all of our teachers are able to access well and staff um right through the infinite campus um system and um if the student is coming from out of District it's a little bit more intensive in that same thing happens the parent is able to uh indicate if there's an IEP or not I would love to tell you that parents are always know that answer and so sometimes we get yes but it was no and sometimes we get no but it was yes um and so if we know about it we're able to immediately reach out and get official copies from previous districts we do rely on them getting back

120to us so I will tell you sometimes at the start of the school year it's more difficult because we open so early and sometimes we're waiting for um uh another District to get back to us that's maybe in the east coast so we often have to go to the district level and get it from the district instead of from the site but if a parent brings a copy with us that's an unofficial copy and we're going to act on that we are going to presume that this is where we're starting from and we offer a fape upon enrollment meaning that right away we're going to implement what is in the IP to the best of our ability in with commen Services if there is anything in the IEP that is not as oh and sorry

121and we do the same thing so just as we reviewed and let all of the um people who need to know about the student and any of thing that's in place like a bip accommodations Etc we share that with everybody and again it's accessible um when we do not have um what we need sometimes we get IPS that are not up to diart standards or not um compliant then we would meet within 10 school days to get that into compliance if they are in compliance but there's something that's not as it needs to be but we need more time and opportunity to have data in order to meet than we meet 30 days um so that we have the opportunity to get that information um I will tell you that we have some great systems

122in place but we also are human and have some errors so for example recently there was a site who missed some steps and uh Dr asai and I spent a day and a half investigating what happened why where did this go wrong how could we do better um and we did Identify some several small errors that led to um an issue where we have now gone over it we've reviewed the process we put some um more structures in place some additional training to um prevent that from happening again so um even when it's in place we're constantly looking at it and saying what more training do we need to do or how do we need to adjust it um but we uh generally have a good communication and generally we the students that we're receiving

123from out of seate or other districts are very communicative with us and are willing to have those conversations and parent parents of course want their students to be successful so we get a lot of information from parents about what the needs and what they might be what questions might you have about the transfer process um did you say that the teachers are involved too when there's a transfer so again since it's going to be in their classroom if there are any behavior issues or things like that they're well aware um and then can prepare in all ways yes thank you for the question so um the case manager is made fully aware and then the case manager is um part of that um team that helps um inform the general education teachers and then we

124actually have the general education teachers sign off on the that they've received the accommodations that they understand the needs of the students so that we kind of have those checks and balances to ensure that they're aware and then again they have the access afterwards as well if there's any training that needs to go into it we also plan that and we do that quickly as well and if the if you've requested the IEP from the other school and is there somebody that's keeping track of hey we haven't received it yet so and then what happens I mean we don't want to just wait and then never comes and then the child never gets their services so what's that process correct so typically it's the um primary evaluator so in this case most typically it's the

125school psychologist that's requesting the records They will request they will record they will request again and then I often ask them to elevate it to us um at the district level so coordinator or myself because sometimes unfortunately it takes us picking up the phone and calling to get it but they are meant to follow through if we haven't received it in a reasonable amount of time so typically um I'd say if we have a unofficial copy we can wait a little bit longer if we don't have anything we're going to expedite that 10 days or so is too long to wait to not then schedule a meeting to do our own action so it could look like having to start from an evaluation process or we take whatever we have and start from there okay

126thank you any other questions this was clearly a very long presentation you put a lot of time and work into it and I really appreciate it because I think it was valuable well I appreciate it and I appreciate a lot of the um the that you have because I think it's valuable and I appreciate that we are thinking about all of our students so thank you thank you very much thank you next we have item G1 Dr croo thank you madam president uh tonight we are going to recommend one of our new members to our administrative family so Dr polling will do the recommendation yes Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community Administration is proud to present Miss car Miller as the Kingswood Elementary School principal for the 2425 school year Miss Miller

127is currently the assistant principal at Luke elementary school and has extensive educational experience she will receive salary and benefits for the position her education and experience her resume is attached for Board review a comprehensive selection process we used to identify Miss Miller for this position uh with that I will take any questions and and Miss Miller is also here with her family tonight I moov to appoint to approve the appointment of caram Miller as the elementary school principal second motion carries congratulations next we have item G2 thank you madam president uh tonight we bring to you a recommendation for the adoption of school calendars for the 25 26 school year and the 26 27 school year um this year was a little different in the 2526 calendar uh since the rotation of the weeks the

128school will start a little bit earlier on the 2526 calendar so we're looking at July 31st in the following year the 20 uh 627 school year does go back to August 6 since the calendar rotated and started a little bit earlier uh we besides having the calendar committee we went out and did some surveys with our staff so 1453 staff members uh responded to our survey um we gave them the option of eliminating fall break eliminating 2 days from fall break um start school in August 1st or eliminating Thanksgiving or keep it the same uh 61.79 of our faculty and staff said they wanted to keep it the same uh we also then went to our community our parents and 1513 parents participated in the survey given them the same options uh for that and

129a 39.1 n% of our which was the highest um with the same options said to stick with the calendar with the start on July 31st um so uh it does uh start a little earlier but it does um keep the options of having the full fulltime at Thanksgiving the full fall break and as we build the calendars uh a we Tred to balance them and we need to uh end the school year before Memorial Day so there are some it's not just throwing a calendar together and doing all that there are some parameters that we have to work within um and that's how the calendar falls for the 25 26 school year so with that um I will present you the item for approval or discussion just as a point of discussion I I well

130just to make a statement on this I think it's absolutely absurb starting in July but uh I appreciate all of the work that that everyone has put into this I and I value the opinion um given in the survey but I think from a cost perspective and just just you know running our running our schools in the you know in July it's it's I think it's absurd but I want to honor the results of the survey I will say I agree I not I'm I'm not a fan of starting in July I think it's a disruptive to family vacations potentially um I understand staff uh really wanted the July start time but I that I asked Dr cro to put together an a survey for our families and community members um since it highly impacts

131them as well which um thankfully uh he did and I appreciate that so we tried to um to get feedback from our community obviously before any vote there's always opportunity for call to the public nobody is here opposing um presenting any opposition so I felt like I did my due diligence and trying to get um give parents Community opportunity to come forward if if it was um disruptive like I would think it would be for my family personally um but kind of as Miss denmore said I mean if it's if I wasn't on this board I'd be down at that Podium I would too I would not I would not like that I have a question and a possible solution but I don't think you're going to like it what if we reduce the early

132release Mondays have longer school days then we get our instructional minutes in and then we don't have to start in July amen amen you know I just you know I I I'm always the anomaly here but teachers in general do not like Mondays nobody wants to sit in their PDS and we had an entire study session on it and I I I nobody likes when school's out at 3:15 staying till 4:30 and it nobody likes that nobody likes it nobody likes it and honestly if we reduce Bo the early releasee Mondays that would give us more instructional time and that would push back our start date Madam president if I may um member chaff and I I do remember the study session and do that we also did a survey um as requested by the

133board and it was overwhelming by our support by our staff that they do want Monday early release so that is why we stayed at it we're looking at that um but again we listen to The Voice of our our staff and they did value the Mondays so I am going to ask for a point of clarification if I remember correctly the majority of the people who took that survey were not classroom teachers and I could be wrong I could be incorrect but if I remember right the majority of the people who wanted their Mondays were not classroom teachers but I could be wrong cuz I haven't seen the survey we can go back and double check that so anyways that's just a that was just a a solution I don't know if anybody else I

134don't remember so that's okay you know me I speak my thoughts and in order to do that we'd have to delay this process once again um and go back to the committee and we'd have to calculate um what those are so um it's not something we just can do it's this is a committee recommendation from a calendar committee um so obviously can be done but um I I do think we have commity members and all that they're wanting to know the schedules um and make plans so we're late as it is right now but uh we sit for direction from the board so yeah like I said I I want to honor the the results of the survey um and I think that that feedback is incredibly important just personally I don't necessarily agree with

135it um with that said I will make a motion to approve the adoption of the school calendars for the 2526 and 2627 school years as presented motion carries thank you next we have item G3 Dr Coto thank you madam president Our Last Action and discuss and discussion item this evening um is a report on our financial audit so miss badel the floor is yours good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Coto cabinet and Community um it is my pleasure tonight to introduce this agenda item um as you know there's much preparation and time involved in gathering the information requested throughout Audits and so it takes sometimes months throughout the process and so I do want to thank all the staff that's involved who places an importance in gathering this information um as well

136as our Director of Finance Miss Francy wolf Balman um as she leads this process so she's here tonight along with Miss Jennifer Shields who is an audit partner at heinfeld meech and they will be presenting tonight's information uh good evening uh Madame President governing board members Dr Coto cabinet and members of the community we're here this evening to share with you the financial information and audit results for fiscal year 23 I know we're over halfway through like almost looking you know partway through 24 but here we are I'm going to turn over the first part of this presentation to Jennifer Shields and then I will provide the overview of our findings once she's completed with her presentation good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Coto thank you for allowing me a little bit

137of time to spend um doing what we like to call our um audit communication to governance and um as has been noted the audit does take quite a long time so you can see before you the audit timeline um the 20 we're here presenting the the results for fiscal year 23 um which that fiscal year of course ended last June 30th um and you can see from the timeline that we actually started the process back in April of 2023 when we first issued the engagement letter and then we conducted some preliminary fieldwork um a time in May when we um our audit team comes out on site we do some work on site we do some work remotely depending upon um the procedures that are being performed but we're on site in May and then

138we are also on site again in October and that's when we do um kind of the bulk of all of our um analytical and you know really intense um financial statement work and then after the field work concludes we then um go back to our office and we assist with the preparation of the financial reports so we do that back at our office and then those reports were submitted to management for review and approval in November and ultimately the audit report was issued in December of 2023 that um audit report for the um for the financial statements has a due date of December 31 in order to be submitted for um a couple of uh Awards in for excellence in financial reporting and so I'm happy to report that both um or that deadline was

139in fact met um in terms of the scope of the services that we are hired to provide we perform the audit in accordance with three different set of Standards we um we comply with us generally accepted auditing standards also with government auditing standards and then last but certainly not least the uniform guidance standards so I'll talk a little bit about each one of those we are also hired um to complete the uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire um which we'll talk about um at length later um in terms of responsibilities there are various responsibilities that we as your external Auditors are required to fulfill and there are um additional responsibilities that are the um responsibility responsibility of management so so with respect to fraud Communications um we our responsibilities are to make inquiries regarding

140fraud non-compliance and we interview various Personnel throughout the district during our audit procedures as well as conduct various tests um you know to kind of test what management has reported to to us um responsibility for fraud prevention and setting good internal controls of course rests with both the board and management and um our audit is of course designed to provide reasonable but not absolute Assurance um if we were to provide try to provide absolute Assurance I don't think it could be done but we would never leave here and even then we probably still would not be able to provide absolute Assurance um so ultimately with respect to the financial statements these are your financial statements they are created from your books and records and so our job is to um compile that information um and

141put it into the um the um format required by um by us Gap so um this year we there was a new accounting standard that was required to be implemented and I'd like to just commend um all of the finance staff that worked on this project it was quite an involved project to gather information related to subscription-based Information Technology Arrangements which is quite a mouthful um basically a lot of um longer term subscriptions for software and things like that had to be evaluated for determination on how they would affect the financial report so it sounds really easy but it was actually a really complicated and very lengthy process so the policy or the new um accounting principle was in fact implemented this year as required um in any audit there is a um there are

142estimates that are included in the financial statements so in the case of diart schools um the two most significant estim estimates that were included include the useful lives of depreciable assets so management makes um estimates on how long a an an asset will last so for example a bus how long do we think we normally keep our buses for and then we expense those over a period of time and then um the estimate for insurance claims related to Employee Health and Welfare so as we um go through and we have employees that we provide health insurance for there are claims and um such that you know those are estimates based on when events happen and when those expenses will be paid and ultimately um you know the like say for example you go to the

143doctor and how much that cost will be so those are the two largest estimates that you have um we required as Auditors to report whether or not there were any audit adjustments there was one um adjustment that was required to be made which was related to expense cut off and that was in fact corrected by management so I'll um so that um that adjustment was made in order to make sure that the financial statements were accurately and fairly presented as your external Auditors we are also hired to do some non- audit services and those non- audit Services include the preparation of the financial statements as I mentioned in accordance with the framework that's required by us generally accepted accounting principles so we do that and then we also assist with the preparation of what's called

144the ca or the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards which is part of the single audit under um uniform guidance and we also um assist with the related data collection form that's related to that um that Federal piece of the audit so other required Communications there were no disagreements with management over Financial Accounting reporting or other matters so I would like to um thank again thank management for always being um just so helpful and agreeable um management is required to pres um to uh to provide for us various representations basically it's um it indicates that everything that we asked for management provided so that we could do our audit procedures and then lastly um as your independent Auditors we are required of course to be independent and to follow our own um profession standards of

145Independence and ethics and we con um are continually making sure that we don't have any violations on our end and so I'm happy to report to you tonight that we had no violations with respect to our ethical requirements or Independence so in terms of the actual audit reports that we issued there are three different reports the largest being your annual comprehensive financial report there's a single audit reporting package and then that usfr compliance questionnaire that we talked about um and we'll continue to talk about a little bit more um so I'll just kind of give you some highlights the annual comprehensive financial report it's the largest document that you were provided that contains your actual audited financial statements it's over a 100 pages long but I've highlighted for you um um some of the PDF

146page numbers that you might want to refer to for additional information I'll point out page 20 is the independent Auditor's report so those those three pages are the three pages I'm responsible for all the rest is Management's responsibility um but I'll report that there were um again no material misstatements that were noted within the audited financial statements and that then makes the district eligible for a clean opinion which is called an unmodified opinion and then those other items up there like managements discussion and Analysis it sort of does a a two-year comparison of kind of um the financial activity of the district to give readers of the financial statements some perspective on what happened last year versus what happened this year and then if you drop right down to the end there's also a statistical

147section which does a lot of the information um in a in more of a tabular format or numerical format that the the managements discussion and Analysis does but it's over a 10-year period so you can see a longer term Trend in terms of like what what the revenues look like at the district what the expenditures look like and that type of thing uh moving on to the single audit reporting package that's the um the report that gets get issued because of uniform guidance and because of government auditing standards and so it's a much shorter report but there are two letters within that report one of them reports um whether or not there were any internal control deficiencies or non-compliance items with respect to the internal control environment here at the district and the other is

148related to the federal um Federal portion of the audit so you'll note on page 10 there's What's called the schedule of findings and question costs and that's where we did note there was one deficiency internal controls and it related to that audit adjustment that I spoke about a couple minutes ago and um to my knowledge that has been resolved and corrected by management so there's there should be no further action that needs to be taken um and then in the federal realm um the the reason for the single audit is because your District expends more than $750,000 of federal assistance and that is um that's just what the federal rule is any agency spending more than 750,000 in federal dollars is required to have a single audit daart last year I believe spent over $42

149million if I'm not mistaken so that's well in excess of that $750,000 excuse me and with um with that single audit we are required to look at um specific program compliance requirements a and last year for 23 we looked at two Federal programs so those were um the Child Nutrition cluster you spent about $10 million feeding students through the free in reduced um school lunch program and also the universal summer feeding program that was kind of a carryover from covid and then also we audited the um what's called the education stabilization fund or as you know it the SR programs and I think with so with um Child Nutrition being about 10 million in expenditures and then Esser being about I think it was either 12 or 14 million I can't remember now um you

150know we looked at probably almost half of the total federal expenditures that were made by The District in last um fiscal year so um just real quickly um I know Miss wolf Bowman here will talk a little bit more about this but the the usfr um compliance questionnaire this is the document we talk about it annually it's put out by the office of the auditor general and it's got 36 pages of well over 400 questions that the Auditors have to design audit tests for to um answer yes no or not applicable to and it's very Broad and you know i' I've noted that there are 18 different areas that we have to look at and I've just given you up there on the screen a few of the areas that we look at it is

151definitely not um everything um but it it covers a lot of different areas um my last comment before I'll step aside and I'll stand up here with Francy for questions if there are any um after she's done but I just want to um give a very big thanks to miss Miss Vel Miss wolf Balman and the entire Finance staff um everybody that we work with here at the district um has been great at you know just being incredibly timely with information that's requested that enables us to do our work in and complete all the reports in a timely manner so that you can meet your filing deadlines so I'll step aside thank you Jennifer um so I'm going to kind of summarize a little bit so while there are um 400 uh questions in the

152uniform system of financial records that is provided to us by the Arizona auditor General's office and they kind of condense them down so like one area so we show 171 items that one area will have multiple questions in it so there's multiple opportunities for a no in one question and so um you will see that uh this year uh with that 171 we did have eight total usfr um compliance questionnaire findings and uh we had one related to conflict of interest one related to Capital assets one related to human relations and payroll and five related to student attendance um I would like to speak a little bit to student attendance in that statistically uh we would anticipate student attendance to be more of a high-risk area for audit findings uh given the number of transactions

153that occur on a daily basis for each individual student in the district during the school year and while stating this it's still impressive that um our percentage of yes or incompliance areas is still maintains above a 95% um the one there is one finding um that um Miss Shields has uh had did refer to that was not related to the uniform system of financial records and that is the single audit finding uh the audit process um is conducted because of those Federal monies that we received and it was related to a transition in June and July uh related to payments for our employee benefits program uh this is not something that uh would regular occur and the financial statements were accurately uh stated for the fiscal year you have been provided in advance uh the

154detailed information of each finding it does continue to follow the same format as previous years indicating the compliance question the auditor notes that detail the finding District action taken that represents the responses from the areas that oversee the those areas within the district and the history of the audit finding for previous years I'd just like to take a quick moment to thank the finance team for their continued focus on maintaining compliance school and Department staff uh that are responsible for doing that Frontline compliance every single day and uh the support that we receive from our administrators cabinet and governing board as a pertains to audit compliance we are fortunate to have this in this District not every District um does receive that kind of support and it is what allows derer to have successful audit

155I will be happy to stand for any questions thank you so much for all that you do um and just you know I think every year we it seems like we maybe have to suck a few little issues with the attendance but I mean overall I think we have done a fabulous job with finance and um and with these audit findings I mean they're usually very small um in comparison to the amount of transactions that we're doing so just appreciate all of your work thank you I will also Echo that and say thank you I know Miss fedel and Miss wolf Bowman is that how you say it absolutely I know you guys are recent to your positions and I thank you and your team for doing an exceptional job thank you definitely appreciate you

156thank you very much okay thank you thank you all right um next we'll move to H1 request for you got oh sorry oh my gosh I didn't want to vote on it I just want it to be [Laughter] over why do I not see the oh there it is okay that's why I was I moved ahead too fast I'm so sorry at this time I will motion to accept the financial audit and compliance questionnaire from hinfi meech and Co PC uh certified public accountants for fiscal year ending June 3 30th 2023 second Madam president uh this will be a roll call vote and Jenna will do that by law we have to do roll call okay I yes M Dr I and okay perfect thank you do we have any requests for future agenda items

157okay motion to adjourn motion carries meeting is adjourned thank you