001e more weeks because I just need to at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order of the diart governing board let the record reflect that all members are present and we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all thank you and um first item is B1 audience with individuals Miss Pritchard we have two individuals wishing to speak tonight I'll go ahead and read the statement this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursue it to ARS 38-43 1.01 action taken as a result of public comment will
002be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for future consideration at the decision at the later and 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 have Victoria McBride hello good evening my name is Victoria McBride I have three children who go to Surprise Elementary School when we first arrived at surprise we were homeless lost confused and a little fearful of what was to come but Miss mallerie W Wadley our school social worker eased our fears she is so nice and kind she provided
003my kids with new backpacks new clothes and new shoes to start schooling at school she knows every child by name not only because it's her job but because she cares deeply about each and every one they say anyone can do what she does I strongly disagree she is a special person with a big heart who cares for those who would otherwise slip through the cracks my family and I have moved into a beautiful new home and because of Miss Wadley putting my kid's name on the El Mirage Police Department Christmas list we were able to celebrate a wonderful holiday there I am thankful for Miss Wadley and others like her who dedicate their lives and make it their mission to help the most vulnerable and troubled children work through their challenges and personal issues social
004workers are valuable asset to the daar community and family and many families would be lost without them thank you thank you next we have Scotty Gentry please hi my name is Scotty Gentry and I am a parent I have a child who's been on home balance Services since the fifth grade off and on trying to keep them in school keep them going I have had nothing but issues with dyser high school to get him situated with an IEP which I did go ahead and ask for the IEP nothing was sent back to me and that his education was violated I had to go to the board of uh downtown education Bo of Education we had to deal with superintendent and then again today I get a phone call from the ESS Department because director Montano
005who I've gone round round rounds with her decides that my son and through homebound Services you get four hours that's minimum that is not the maximum the last superintendent and I had eight hours hours we grade on because technically he would have six classes 30 hours a week I get a phone call today from Miss fry in the ESS telling me what they're doing I said no Mrs fry he's in charge to he's he's entitled to eight hours and that's what he's been then I finally get an email back that everything was taken care of I reached out to Don Den more thank you very much for your help I appreciate it that this would got resolved but I sure hope that this doesn't happen to any other homebound service parents who are going through
006multiple complications with children who are sick and Ill they should not have to worry about their education for their child being taken away in any manner shape or form that's the first thing thank you again Don second of all I'm on a applic I'm on an app on Facebook where parents there's one parent who was telling stating on there at Surprise Elementary that their child was being bullied at school nothing was getting done they were following the kid home afterwards we stretched to them that you know called the principal that there's a resource officer but if something can get put out there for all the kids that are being bullied because a lot of times kids don't say nothing and it does affect somebody in the long run it does affect children in the long
007run so those are my two uh things that I would like to discuss thank you again Don and hopefully we can get things resolved for children in our community no matter where they live so they feel safe at school thank you Madame President member Pritchard yes um we can do that I'll have a followup from ESS thank you uh next we have item C1 superintendent update Dr croo thank you Madame President good evening to everybody just a few updates uh today um this past week we had some state champions uh crowned in our district so we're happy to um to recognize them uh Shadow Ridge Spirit line are the AI AIA division one two co-ed cheer state champions also Willow Canyon Spirit line won the AIA Division 1 and two partner stunt Championship uh for
008the second year in a row so congratulations to those uh this is the district's thirdd year in a row winning a state championship as a whole um in in cheer and uh Shadow one in Shadow Ridge 1 and 22 Willow Canyon 1 and 23 and then Shadow Ridge again in 24 so congratulations to all those uh schools for that great accomplish ment um the State student council event convention is being held at Valley Vista as we speak so there's about 200 student councils from all over this state on that campus right next to us actually over there um it's a great chance to showcase our district and and this goes on all the way through Saturday so great big events for all those kids and we're glad we're hosting that so thank you to Valley
009Vista for that and last but not least um I had the privilege of speaking in front of the house education committee on Tuesday uh downtown in favor of our house bill 2246 which is our purple star legis legislation that we're trying to pass through that came and presented and getting the purple star legislation recognized by the state of which we have Luke is a candidate so um just proud to announce that that committee passed it through the education committee unanimously so it will continue through that process so that's all with my update next we have governing board update I'll start uh on January 17th and 18th I attended the Essa conference uh that was sponsored by ad um on January 17th I attended that evening Valley Vista senior night double duel wrestling event that was
010awesome to see all of our seniors being honored there on Saturday January 20th I took part in the bond tour which was um a very unique experience to go around on one of our school buses that was 20 years old we did not break down thank goodness due to our very well-maintained bus fleet um and we got to see um a lot of our lot of opportunities that exist within the district uh on January 23rd I celebrated school choice kickoff at the capital I met with lawmakers on the importance of keeping parental rights at the Forefront when considering new legislation especially regarding school safety and the efforts to convert public schools into healthc care clinics I also joined Dr Coto in the house chamber that day where we where he testified on behalf of um
011House Bill 2246 which impacts Luke Elementary uh families and I'm just so happy that this was passed unanimously out of the house education committee um and then on the 23rd in the evening uh we have the bond meeting as always grateful for their commitment for coming to the table with a diverse set of ideas on how we can um fix some of the gaps that we have in the district so thank you that's it Hills I attended the Sunset Hills Winter band concert and I've also attended several Middle School volleyball games um and the fun part was I attended a rating the schools that received A- rating celebrations so I went to Kingswood West Point simmeron Springs Sonoran Heights Freedom traditional and uh Rancho Gabriella and then I also attended a CIP visit at simmeron
012Springs thank you Joe um I also attended um the simmeron Springs A+ School visit that was a wonderful experience congratulations to sron Springs um I also attended the three-hour Bond Tour on the 20th um I didn't ride in the bus because I had to leave early for my son's uh basketball game but it was it was a very um great experience to meet with the committee to see the concerns um with our district on what needs to be addressed and I just want to thank um Todd blutter for attending our maintenance uh director and then also uh Danielle Mo our transportation um director I just want to say thank you for taking the time out of your day to come and answer any questions so it was nice to to see them um and then
013on the 25th today I went to Mountain viw for their uh School visit um they're also an A+ school so thank you for all your hard work and dedication thank you moving to item D1 motion to approve consent agenda items as presented second seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries okay and then we'll move to item F1 Dr Coto thank you Madame President uh we have a bond override committee update and Mr mcy will introduce this item thank you Madame President members of the board Dr Coto and guests uh do want to uh uh provide some more information on the bond override committee that's been hard at work as you mentioned we did have a tour and a beating uh recently and so uh we have one of our spokes people who's who's here tonight he's
014been taking the taking the reings and we really appreciate it uh Mr Patrick Campbell and he's going to provide us an update on those last two uh very informative and uh and insightful uh pieces that we just finished Mr [Music] Campbell St okay all slouched Madame President board members Dr Gau cabinet and guest uh for the record my name is Patrick Campbell I'm one of the chairs for the uh Bond override committee um so as discussed uh so far earlier uh in the meeting we met uh 20 January um got there around 7:30 uh it officially started at 8:00 for the uh quote unquote three-hour tour um which was excellent uh we met at the daart Support Services uh the goal of this was to go around to see a diversified um areas of daart
015school district that need uh attention if you will for lack of better term so in detail for some of that um we met around 730 um I want to give a a big thank you to Food Services I'm assuming they provided the uh the the continental breakfast for us it's always nice because somebody had to get up and actually put that there I don't I didn't see who it was but whoever it was that was awesome um we were given instruction uh instructions by Dr CAU and uh and Mr musy with the uh how the tour was going to go uh we started in the school bus yard um and there was a comparison samples of different types of buses that were very neatly lined up in the yard which I thought was very thoughtful
016as opposed to making us on foot have to walk throughout the whole property which is large if you've never been there um so that was nice and it was everything from some of the oldest to some of the newest and then it was a Hands-On comparison seeing the differences between them um the uh there was Q&A uh very informative information given to us I do want to give a special um thank you to uh uh Transportation director Danielle uh they call her Danny uh Moyer uh the lead mechanic um and Marine I should point out uh Donald Felipe was there as well very informative and then uh I want to give a special shout out to our bus driver Jake uh Hoffmeister for Trans supporting us safely in that 20-year bus that you were talking
017about and uh he did it with a very uh with a very uh Lively crowd if you will so it was that was awesome uh we moved on from there um they took us to the diart auditorium and um I first thing I did was go check out what uh I was recommended doing which was to go see the restrooms and they just said go see them I walked in and it's been a while um so we got to see those um the age of the facility was um interesting um to see the need I mean we've talked about it at length for the last five months to see the need of the building itself was was um put a different perspective and a spin on it if you will and that goes for just
018about everything that we saw um over that day um the lighting the restroom issues I mean there was uh the ramp issues there there's a lot to be to be done there uh we moved on around 910 or so we went over to Countryside Elementary uh we got a tour of the chillers and the HVAC system in the back which again is unless you're an employee that would be back there you never see um to see it up close and personal even though we have seen pictures on big screens I hadn't seen the the the wear and tear if you will uh things that come do and that was uh fascinating to see it and get more of a better visual that made an impact um special uh thank you again it's been thanked but
019U maintenance director Todd uh blutter is it pronounced blutter blutter okay thank you for him again these are all people that came out on their time on uh on early on on a Saturday morning to uh to give us um information that we needed uh left there we went to Willow Canyon High School and the focus initially on there started out on the fields and I know out being a coach out at Shadow Ridge um there are some issues with distance between um and the irony of it was some of the people on the tour had to use the restroom right about that time and it was like it's over there and so they took off on that so it was nice to see some of that and put again you know things to a
020focus that you could see from there um we went and focused on security issues um I want to give a special thank you to security director Jason Jagger for uh being there for us again someone else who came in on their time um and in no particular order some of the gate issue we talked about key card issues um there was a discussion with the window coverings inside the buildings which I know has been something that was new this year to the the school year that happened key card access um ability to lock and secure buildings and um fast fting to me was some of the lettering and stuff on the outside of the buildings it kind of Blends and if you're an emergenc emergency responder what am I looking for you know it's easy
021if you work there to say building a but if you don't know where building a is and then you're looking up and you're trying to find where that is you could see where that would get lost in the shuffle especially when you know seconds count so again special thank you to uh for Jason for coming out there for us um we left there the rest of the tour was on bus um again our bus driver was uh took care of us um took us out towards Asante property we got to see the uh Asante Preparatory Academy area and I think the the the concept from Dr CAU was to show us okay here's the school that we have at Asante and then everything from there as we drove around was basically everything feeds that one
022school for right now and that was it was it was eye opening to see I hadn't been there in quite a while to the assanti area but it was fascinating to see how how much that's grown and continued to grow as we as we toured the area we were able to see some of the proper properties that diart currently owns and has deed to for lacka better term and then we got to see some of the wish lists I'll just call it a wish list for potential um High School land and things like that that were out there um very well done uh the timing even though it was uh three hours you know it it it it was very well put together and informative as far as the amount of time I was skeptical
023at how how much we can accomplish in three hours but um very well done and very well paced um so uh after that we we came back we debriefed over at the uh the district yard and um and then we left for the day um last Tuesday two days ago we met with our an our annual monthly meeting uh 23 January called to order um ironically this is the first time there's no public comment so thought that was kind of interesting um approval of minutes we debriefed the facility tour and one of the things we did with committee members again the diversity of the group was to talk individually at the tables about what impacted them most because it was the first time that we had gotten to talk together since we had all been
024on the tour and then left came back and then we got to talk and the very similar outcomes as far as the uh what I'm sharing with you now I'm sharing their opinions as well as what they thought um once that was done uh we did a deep dive into um some of the bond effects and potential implications um looking at 20 uh 20 and 15 years that was done by meridel that was excellent um presentation lot of numbers um but things that matter uh we got into some of the tax implications and bond override impact and the bond excuse me and override impacts uh future meeting uh February 6th just to note that next time I we talk um I'll be coming back with the um Paul from High Ground public affairs is going
025to bring back the survey briefing for you which is something that we're all excited about to see um and then just to wrap up I just want to give again a special thank you to Dr Kau in no particular order Craig musy Dr asai um and meridel for their tour with us and showing up and getting on the bus and riding around the town seeing things that we needed to see and with that I will stand for questions I have a question I don't know if you're allowed to comment or not so forgive me if this is like an inappropriate question but just based on your work with the group are you able to share just the overall feel like any concerns that the group has about a bond or any feelings like whether they
026we they're really um seeing the need or they're really thinking uh but this is my concern like has anything has anybody expressed any opinion yet or is that conversation kind of respectfully confidential at this point excellent question ma'am the um the not concern not yet concerns as far as the needs for the district yes um I mean if if something's not done soon the problems don't go away that's just a fact you can cut it any way you want um the February 6th once we get back the survey results I believe that's the final piece that will help put this together that's this person's opinion um and then at that point I think we're going to start looking towards possibly making a recommendation I believe that would be fair to say by anybody that's been
027involved okay thank you yes ma'am and thanks again too for all your work and all the time you've put into all these meetings I really appreciate it you every labor of love labor of love yes I will Echo Miss pretard and just say thank you to all of our volunteers who take the time to show up for the tours to meet and to discuss these options thank you thank you ma'am yeah I also want to Echo thank you guys for all your hard work I know it takes you away from your family and other activities but it's it's very important so thank you for all your time thank you ma'am I I actually I'm remiss because I forgot to thank Madame President denmore and and uh and and Miss Drake here for also joining us
028on the tour bus so it matters it it was it was it's appreciated that you showed up I did get some really good feedback from the committee on it I know I'm on broker and record but thank you thank you so much for showing up um and giving us the updates you know at every board meeting and um you and every other volunteer I we just really appreciate all of the time um that you're dedicating to this it's it's a it's a big thing so we appreciate it yes ma'am thank you thank you all right next we have item F2 Dr kredo thank you madam president uh tonight we move on in our monitoring of policy with chapter three so miss padel will lead this item thank you Dr CTO so um just in general
029as the board is reviewing policies U we are up on the schedule to review chapter three which are business operations and so some minor um edits have been made to policy so at this point if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them my my just big concern has always been so just to um confirm as far as facility use students always come first before we open it up to the public or anybody rent choosing to rent I mean I know it's it's revenue for the district but just always remembering our Student Activities need to come first on the calendar right presid member pitard yes that is definitely something that gets the the high priority and then from there after meeting the school's calendar needs then it's discussed what's available for for facility use
030for the public thank you I do have one quick question about the facility use um but I don't know if it necessarily pertains to this particular policy so maybe I will send an email okay thank you Miss spal I just want to thank you for for painstakingly going through this and catching all of the the grammatical errors I appreciate that thank you very welcome okay think we're good all right moving on to item F3 Dr croo thank you madam president tonight we have our excuse me final two schools CP reports and Dr asai will introduce this item good evening Madame President members of the board it is my pleasure to introduce Miss Amy MOS who is the proud principal of West Point Elementary and she has her cheering section with her yes hello president denmore
031board members Dr Coto cabinet and guests and of course my cheering Squad my name is Amy michos proud principal of West Point Elementary School and I'm pleased to speak to you today about the progress on our CIP plan you are seeing the past three years of aasa and a science data as you say see the data is trending in the right direction we are very proud of the growth that our students are making and the hard work put in by our teachers support staff and of course our students this progress has led to us earning an A on last year's State a through F accountability rating and this is something that we are extremely proud of while the data represents students for from third through 8th grade we know that a strong Foundation is necessary
032and that's where our primary teachers come in and they are working hard to have strong readers and mathematicians well we are thrilled of our progress we know that we have a very long way to go to build Proficiency in our students and our goals um reflect this desire and our action plan is continuing to move learning forward next is our aella data and again we're very proud of the progress that we're making in this area um we've provided increased training for targeted and integrated instruction that we believe is helping move students toward proficiency so West Point's three CIP goal areas were selected from survey data and past um student data and we targeted these three areas the first one is to increase our Proficiency in math and Ela on aasa and in aadience and next
033week is our data our Benchmark data will be pulled um when it's available of course so that we'll be able to know how far we've progressed in this goal the second goal is to increase stakeholder involvement and by holding family engagement events that have a focus on academics as the Arts Academy we often have big crowds come for things like our dance concerts or our plays um academic focuses we get a little smaller crowd so we're focusing on getting more families there to support them in the academics of their children and we're having one tomorrow so we're partnering with our PTSA tomorrow they have a paint night so our art teacher is um leading painting with our families but before that we're having Ela and math centers that are Arts enriched so we're excited to
034incorporate and partner with them we did that earlier in the year during our curriculum night where typically we have a small population of parents that come for curriculum night but this year we partnered with PTSA and we had a family game night open in our gym afterwards and it brought in a bigger crowd and so we've seen the benefits in partnering um to increase that stakeholder involvement our third goal that is up there is to reduce our referrals um in the areas of defiance and disrespect and physical aggression we are currently on track to meet that goal for defiance and disrespect we're probably not going to meet it for physical aggression how however when I pulled data today from last year's January referrals to this year's we've had a significant reduction so we saw and
035we felt it when we came back from winter break that students were ready to learn um and it's been a good return back to campus I've highlighted just a few of our action steps um from our original plan um in goal one you'll notice that it's PLC roll out of course you know that's a dice art initiative we've had a lot of new teachers and teams this year and so we needed to start fresh and it was a perfect time to do that with the PLC rollout to build strong teams that have a focus on learning and results we've also created a math and reading committee that have focused on professional learning and growth but also on running and planning those family events that have that academic focus and under goal three you'll notice it
036says zap and Monday School zap is for zeros aren't permitted and so if a student has a missing assignment that would count as a zero they're invited by their teacher with parent permission to stay after school on Mondays to have that time to finish those assignments Monday school is also where teachers can assign students who may have had a behavior concern in the classroom and we're trying to be proactive in making some changes in that behavior so our theme for this year has been moving learning forward and this philosophy has driven our campus to focus on learning and growth in new ways as a staff we frequently share moving learning moments forward in our staff meetings and we are celebrating the winds this is my sixth year at West Point and is wonderful to see
037the progress that we are making daily our students are hardworking they're resilient and it is a pleasure to serve the West Point Community this concludes my portion of the presentation and I would now open it up to any questions that you might have for me thank you very much you mentioned um the PLC role out um and having that opportunity with new teachers do you find that it's that it's maybe a little bit easier with a new teacher versus more like a more tenur one that is resistant to change it can be cuz this is just how we do it they don't know any different right but um we really have had very little resistance honestly our teachers have jumped right in um they've embraced the idea that we're collaborating and that's just part of
038who we are and so it's been a good a good change great thank you very much thank you just um for comparison um just so I'm clear under on aella for State per proficient um for 2223 of 12.75 what is this what is the state profic proficiency rate I believe that 12.75 is the state rate and our proficiency rate is the one above that the 22.22% I see okay I was looking at it wrong all right thank you thank you and congratulations on your a thank you all right thank you and our next sip is presented by Mr Scott Kerr from Thompson Ranch his staff might be a little competitive to be the bigger chairing section okay good evening Madame President um board members cabinet uh my name is Scott km the principal at Thompson
039Ranch Elementary School uh let's see most important data that we'll look at is this screen uh State State Testing um bad news for us is we are under the state average U we're working on that um in various ways and some of those points I'll I'll touch on in our presentation the good news is uh we grew about a quarter point overall in achievement and about two and a half points in growth uh in from the previous year of 2122 so that was helpful and um the Highlight would be our and pretty much most of this comes from our eighth grade teacher uh science teacher but the Four Points growth in a science with azilla um this was I think our toughest uh Road this year we we lost points um in this area we
040lost four points um and that was a tough one uh um we're working our butt off on it this year um but due to lack of growth La last year and lack of students becoming proficient in getting getting out of elll we um we scored less points here and it lowered our overall score um last year just to give you an idea we had 76 eel students um that took took our our zelot test this year we're sitting at about 114 so I'm glad that we over the summer made some adjustments and made some plans to work with our um with our El population and getting those guys to grow our CIP and our goals here one of the things that we wanted to do was um establish a a vision and emission and values
041and and make that fresh and new uh we have we've done that but we still need to work on putting that throughout the school and so that's part of what we're doing here in the in the second semester um we want to increase our as our aasa scores 3% in math 3% reading and reduce our minimally proficient students by 5% across the board um in there I have one comment about three subgroups um ESS elll and African-American students um we were in in TSI which is a federal label not a good one um prior uh last year the good news is we're out of two of those this year we grew in in our ESS um we're still in TSI and ESS with our ESS students but we did grow just not enough so but
042to have two of those out of the way thank god um leadership um we've been working with our kids on leadership that was a huge issue um a big Mark that our community um came out in our in our surveys so we're addressing that um 75% of our students will um work um in leadership roles and given the opportunities of we' we've met that goal but it's something that is continual so we keep working on it and we get more kids involved also with our adults and uh we want them 75% participate in one or more volunteer activity during the school year and that's off- campus that's not on campus so so um we've done one of those already in the first semester we'll do another one second semester our culture and climate um in
043implementing our behavior management plan with Fidelity is a huge goal I don't know that we'll meet that one but we sure are working hard at it and it's paying dividends because when we look at our referrals dropping by 20% they've dropped more than that um we're sitting about 40% drop in our referrals um and I'll give you a stat on that here in a minut minute um and then 75% of our staff and parents responding that they would recommend Thompson Ranch to um to a family looking for a school it's another one of our goals we won't know that one until we give out our surveys those should should be heading out here in about a month and we should have that information um our action plan there's a lot of stuff here I'm going
044to highlight some things um number one we're working hard on uh professional devel development with with uh best practices for for our teachers and working with our PD we'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute uh working on our behavior management system which is a continual um and and working on developing our professional learning communities um what we're doing with that is is integrating more accountability practices like um walking doing our walkthroughs after we do PD to make sure we're seeing the professional development that we want to see in mented um things like giving feedback on lesson plans and giving feedback on plc's when we're in there and and just making sure that our staff understands hey you know what this is good this is where we can improve um one other
045piece that is really important to us and we've really excelled at this year is um doing more activities with our students um outside of school and inside of school recognition um in terms of academics um Athletics and arts and uh with in with our students and with our staff with our community our positives I'll I'll touch on a a couple of these a couple of them I already have attendance rates are better than last year we're we've increased our attendance about 2% that's great we're we're sitting about 91.1% average daily rate our sports activities ptso choir keep track of all this assemblies student awards and njhs um didn't exist except for sports um prior prior year they are this year so we we're integrating all these guys in sports I put those on there because
046I didn't field two boy sports teams last year we fielded both of those teams this year both those teams went to the playoffs too um instruction is improving and if you come on to our campus you'll see it we have a 2hour e block I don't I think we're the only School using that block I think Dr is that right I think we are um it's one of the choices you can do for your e kids and we take our lowest kids and we work two hours with our lowest kids from kinder to fifth grade and they get two hour blocks of um eel time which is basically Ela and um the results are showing that that's working referrals um as I said we're we've dropped about 40 uh% um last year I want to
047give you one stat that that reflects this um we had 198 out of school suspensions first semester this past semester to compare 111 last but not least we've had a a bright bright young lady uh work with Patriots pen and you'll see some some stuff on social media coming out we had two uh first place winners in different posts I'll have to tell that's another story I'll tell you some other time I'm on a time crunch here we had one second place also I know it sounds fishy but it's not um our post winner was also the district winner who was also the state winner and so now we have the state winner who is Malia Russell representing our state in the national competition the last piece of information I want to give you is
048this and it's and it's a positive one and I I like this one last year at the end of the year Benchmark 3 which was the comprehensive bench Benchmark over the whole year averaged over third grade through 8th grade uh Ela was 24% math was 15% not so good this year we took the same comp not the same comprehensive test sorry but very similar but it's a comprehensive test um our first Benchmark the average for our our um Ela was 39 the average for our math was 26 so both double digit gains um I'm looking forward to what our teachers are going to do and um thank you for your time that is the end of my presentation if you have any questions I'd love to answer them number one thank you for the shirts
049you're welc amazing thank you very much um congratulations on your 40% drop in referrals yeah that's amazing um and even that that increase in attendance I mean for sure with the referrals alone we know how much Behavior impacts learning so yes there's some work that needs to be done in scores but getting that behavior under control is a big piece of that so I applaud you for all that hard work um I also appreciate your transparency that you've always brought us you walked into a very challenging position and you knew that and you went in there anyway and you're you're doing your absolute best and we're seeing some gains but with how can how can we help you like what is it that you may still need or support that we can provide and get
050in place for you so you and your staff and your students can Excel and Thrive um great great question I honestly I I will say this and I've said it to my upper Administration I've never felt more supported by upper Administration in the past and I've been around for a while so um I appreciate all their help um they uh Dr asai Dr Coto and previous you know Administration pieces have been very very supportive um Mr mcy has been very supportive I mean down the line Dr polling um everyone um has been really good and some of the ideas that have come through from upper Administration um have been great uh Kinder interventionist I'm just telling you our Kinder numbers you ought to look at them I'm anticip I ating 80 to 90% of our
051kids being blue in Kinder now that's the highest score they can get in dibles it's a cadians now but for our school that's unbelievable unbelievable our scores right now are higher than our scores were at the end of the year last year in a cadan so it's amazing that's a I can't say enough about that um also the just the work we're doing with our e kids we're seeing a lot of growth out of our eel kids and um you know a lot of these guys back here they're responsible they do a great job so got a good team and that's what it takes gr do you have grass I can't believe I brought that word up I'm going to yes of course we do good yes thank you for all you're doing yeah and
052and two um as you go by our school you're going to notice some differences um maintenance has done a great job um Todd has been great I will say that um and he looks at things and things get done and I really appreciate that but he's really helping us with the quality of our curb appeal and helping us with the the Aesthetics of the school and it's looking a lot better so appreciate that we will anytime you want to come over you know you're welcome well I will also EO Miss Pritchard I I do appreciate your honesty with your presentation um I also appreciate that you celebrate your positives because the the 80 90% kindergarten is astronomically phenomenal it's wonderful if we could start our Kinders at 80 or 90% proficient on grade level and
053keep that going we can oh my goodness it's going to be amazing easier a lot easier yes because as a teacher when you have to go go back and R but so you're you're reteaching things from the previous grade but you're also supposed to be teaching grade level it's like a never-ending hamster wheel yeah so it's phenomenal to hear that that's that's incredible so great job to you and to your staff that's and focusing on that behavior I feel like that's been so important because we both know if kids are disrupting the class nobody can learn we can't teach nobody can teach nobody can learn so dealing with that behavior is absolutely top-notch so thank you great job great job anything else I just want to also thank you for your transpar in all of
054your presentations to us uh currently and in the past uh I know that it's not um an easy position to walk into um so I just so I'm very grateful that you're that you're focusing on the behaviors because as everyone has already said um you're you're creating Learners out of that um and I'm just curious uh if you can speak to H does having an officer on your campus have any positive impact on that absolutely okay all right thank you so much yep you're welcome I'm just going to Echo everything that they've said because you have taken this bowl by the horns and you are turning it around and and doing fabulous work you and your staff so I just want to say thank you for all your hard work it is a team effort
055it is yeah it's te effort and it's showing this is wonderful this is great thank you absolutely thank you appreciate it all right moving to item F4 Dr Coto thank you madam president um let's come to the point tonight where uh I need to give you a midyear report on the progress of the goals of the superintendent goals which are aligned to the board goals so um we will start in on that just like a school CIP so at the beginning of the year obviously your board goals um are set every year every student in all schools be prepared with the Knowledge and Skills to achieve College and Career Success uh the goal that you have uh set for me is to raise academic achievement across the district through the implementation of professional learning communities
056which we're working hard on and increase cability of student learning so so success measures we're going to grow by a 3% average on K um testing and and 0.25 on our act composite 100% of principles participate in a series of four data chats with cabinet um and then 100% of focus schools um and those were identified by having less than 40% uh proficient reading and less than 30% um in students proficient in math um or being a new administrative team we've taken that on and lastly the goal four there was 100% of schools that will implement the PLC process with Fidel so looking at goal a um in that uh goal ones we don't know until the final scores come out but all obviously the actions of two three and four are going to contribute
057to the success of goal one so goal one will be something that we figure out uh after this year is all over uh principal data chats with the cabinet have been held with 100% of principles um with the start of school year and and doing through the benchmarks we have another round coming up um and we have been doing that um as scheduled on time uh educational ed services has provided a variety of services to focus uh on the school campus we've been co-planning lessons with observations feedback of lessons content specific strategies modeling of lessons so that has happened for goal three uh goal four we had every school create a PLC rollout plan based on our uh Summer Conference and continue to provide PD to their staff uh through the implementation of the LC
058process so uh two side notes on that through the governor's Grant we've been able to uh have solution tree provide on um on-site support with 12 campuses to assist them in their implementation and on-site uh solution tree training for campus leadership occurred on January 18th so we had some people from uh solution tree here to to uh work with our administrators uh goal B moving on um that we will recruit train and retain highly qualified staff to cultivate a culture of Student Success uh the goal you had for me is enhance systems and and procedures relating to recruiting hiring and retaining qualified staff so the measures there is by the end of this school year we'll increase in communication Avenues uh consistency and CommunityWide Outreach for employment opportunities and benefits with the district and the
059second uh success measure for that one is by the end of this year we're going to have a comprehensive customer service plan that's going to be developed and implemented uh to uh increase satisfaction of all stakeholders so the progress on this um obviously uh is in goal one uh we've had enhanced marketing programs targeting our advertising to perspective candidates uh we've had marked increases in add Impressions so on the on the uh web uh website traffic has increased interviews and recommendations for hire at the December job fair have increased compared to uh the previous year goal two uh we did do customer service training so we created a customer service training using the dice art cares approach uh and that was provided to all administrators on campus uh their office staff district office staff all
060the way through so that continues to be something that we will focus on uh throughout this semester goal c um in safety um the daer Unified School District culture will consistently be reflective a safe and secure environment for all stakeholders uh that is our number one Focus uh we live in a society that has forced us to make this our number one focus and we take it very serious uh the goal you had for me was to continue provide an increased focus on Safety and Security at each daar facility through enhanced safety protocols uh the measures of success for that uh by the end of this year uh all campuses will have conducted regular safety checks and inspections in addition um if you remember we will have eight campuses that have a full safety audit
061which is a huge comprehensive safety audit um as part of the three threeyear implementation cycle for all campuses and Facilities uh our second measure of success was that we would talk about 100% of any items found in these um safety checks that are non-compliant um that and that require immediate attention that they be uh reinspect and resolved within 30 days and then the last measure is by the end of this year we have a training on safety operations and practices related to each position um will have been completed with all the SRO 13 sros uh all security guards for high school campuses and administrators throughout the district so our areas here are progress towards this so every District site has had a minimum of five visits this year so far basic site audits have been
062completed districtwide the full safety audits have been completed on four campuses um by the end of thisth month so in the next few days we'll have four completed um 16 immediate deficiencies were addressed um those were the deficiencies that were found and 16 of them were addressed immediately and were addressed within uh 30 days um multiple trainings have been completed with our SRO our high school security guards and administrators so that is in the progress on goal C and our last goal goal D um is the diart Unified School District will identify and maximize available res resources to support Student Success uh your goal for me on that is to continue to identify and maximize available resources both internally and externally uh to support our Student Success so the first success measure was to increase
063Capital reserves and to maintain or increase the applications to school facilities of vision for building funding uh and the second measure is to reduce the number of late arriving buses by 25% by the end of this year uh the progress on this goal um there have been over 99 million projects awarded so far this year um I need to tell you that uh the funding for school facilities boards uh this year they have um they have given the state 30 million do um total for the entire state every school in the state so even though they award some of these they don't necessarily fund them right away um we continue to have successful applications um Mr Mr blutter um has done a great job in putting those in and his staff that do that um
064so we continue to be awarded they're just not all funded yet and we are hoping that they are funded soon um and then last year um just march to May last spring is when we started counting the late buses there were 3,168 late buses for different reasons in our district that's why we made this a goal um and compared to all this semester we only had 1,4 so it is decreased drastically uh we will continue to do that we do have some challenges out in the Asante area for those of you that are on the bus the traffic and all that um so we we work with that daily and do the best we can we have some um we have some ideas on how to reduce some of that so we continue working on
065all that so with that that's a brief overview of the goals and our progress and where we're at and I'll stand for any questions you may have thank thank you Dr croto one of the things that stuck out to me when I was going over this with my board packet was the late bus count that's phenomenal yeah that's phenomenal because when a bus is late it just throws everybody off it throws the learning off it throws every everything so that's great job to you and our transportation for reducing those that is all of our transportation department and a great job to them so we owe them a lot a lot of gratitude for getting that done and they will continue to do what they can to do that them with some pretty severe challenges at
066times so thank you I know we're going to be going into executive session and talk further but I I wanted to at least um thank you for all that you've done you came in unexpectedly um and you know just took the ball and ran with it um your goals I mean are very specific uh very easily measured which I appreciate that very transparent the way you communicate with the board well speaking for myself I I mean I get the board updates like everyone does but I know um the way you communicate with me and I know is the same with everyone else as far as um every Monday always being available no matter what I mean there's times when I'll be on my couch reading through something and oblivious to what day or time it
067is and it'd be like I text you a question and it's like it's Saturday at 8 at night why did I just do that and right away I get a response you know you're just very very readily available I appreciate that um so again we'll talk more in executive session but I just really appreciate your non-nonsense approach to doing what's best for kids and all the progress you've made so far I'm just very impressed and pleased and it's a pleasure to work with you so thank you thank you didto on the communication piece I think um that Dr Coto and I speak at least two three times every day he's probably sick of me by now um but he's always very responsive um always very attentive always follows back up if he doesn't know the
068answer right away um offered me um quite a bit of help today so thank you um I just want to talk about I mean it's every every goal I think that you have hit um or exceeded um your your partnership your communication even um with the city with with ad um getting the grants to secure um Beyond those original 13 SRO that are in the these goals um I just appreciate everything that you do to uh see the visions of this board um through and um just your support not only for for the board but to hear your Administration say that they feel supported um it's one thing to have these expectations of your of your principles and other administrators but to actually offer them support and solutions and help them along the way that
069speaks volumes to your leadership so thank you thank you they're a wonderful team so we're only as good as all of us together so I appreciate everybody I also want to say thank you for for everything that you've done for the district and um working with the board it has been an honor um to work with you just going to the different School visits and um and talking to everybody and learning about all all of our schools and the staff and the students and the teachers it is it has been great A great experience and I'm I'm glad that even though that's not part of your goals we're still doing it you know I think it's wonderful um I'm glad that you um have worked very hard on working with the city um for our
070SRO and our ssos um I know that's a lot of work you're you're going down to the capital and speaking on behalf of our our purple star program that is wonderful so I just want to thank you for everything um I have learned a lot um being on the board and under your supervision and your staff is wonderful I love working with your admin so I just just want to say thank you thank you for everything thank you maybe we can just skip executive session now did anyone else have anything to add okay moving on to um item G1 Dr Coto thank you Madame President um we are going to move on to our action discussion items and Dr polling um this becomes the Dr polling show so Dr polling good evening G Madam president
071members of the board Dr Coto cabinet these are annual items um attached to the first item are all the contracts um for the various staff for the 24 25 school year there are no substantive changes and a recommendation is to move forward approving contracts okay I move to approve administrative certificated and licensed employee contract language and benefit packages for the 2024 2025 school year second seconded by Miss Pritchard motion carries moving to item G2 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh item two is uh simply to now approve the uh authorization to issue the employment contracts that you just approved and so with that Dr polling will stand for any questions I move to approve eligible certificated and licensed staff for re-employment and authorize the issuance of employment contracts for the 2024 2025 school year
072second Jo Grant motion carries moving to item G3 Dr CTO thank you madam president Dr polling will have this item Madam president members of the board Dr CTO cabinet this item is to um as you just have done with certified staff this item is for classified staff notice of employment language and a recommendation to approve that for the 2425 school year and um and again no major changes on these language I'll stand for any questions thank you okay I motion to approve the notice of employment language and the benefit packages for hourly and exempt classified staff for the 2024 2025 school year second I miss miss drink motion carries moving to item G4 Dr crto thank you madam president uh number four is uh the item and our last item in the action to issue
073the notice of employment uh that for the 2425 school year that you just approved and we'll stand for any questions on that are there any questions okay I move to approve the issuance of notices of employment to eligible classified staff and their current positions of the 2024 2025 salary level with Benefits Comm measure it with the position second second of by Miss Chaffin motion carries next we have item H1 re for future agenda items Dr CTO um would it be possible to have a presentation it doesn't need to be the next meeting but sometime in the next few meetings if we could just have a a presentation on um maybe something along the lines of what parents can do about bullying um what parents can do what students can do what the proper protocol calls
074are absolutely M and what we're doing to help that yes we can do that could we also include like the definition of bullying perfect yes thank you okay thank you we can get that done we will all the definitions anything else okay all right I move to establish executive session to be held immediately during a recess in the regular meeting second seconded by Mrs Chaffin motion carries did I miss okay at this time we'll reconvene the regular meeting and we have action discussion item J1 action regarding a written summary of the superintend midyear performance evaluation for the 2023 2024 school year I move to approve the written summary of the superintendent's midyear performance evaluation reflecting the superintendent is SA satisfactorily progressing toward achievement of the approved goals for the 2023 2024 school year second second
075[Laughter] second motion carries congratulations thank you right at this time I will motion to adjourn the meeting H seconded by Miss Chaffin I need your signature so I you I'm a yes I voted yes remember that one time it was very CL oh I know motion carries we areed thank you