Dysart Governing Board Meeting - December 14, 2023

001at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al to the flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible and justice for all thank you let the record show that all board members are present with that we will move to item A2 Dr CTO thank you Madame President uh tonight we have a public hearing that we'd like to open for um for the fiscal year 2324 for an expenditure budget revision and I'll turn this over to our assistant superintendent Mary Dallas spell thank you Dr Cotto good evening Madame President members of the board cabinet and Community tonight uh we bring to you our first budget revision for fiscal year 2324 so as required by Statute

002districts propose and adopt their budgets by July 15th of each year um if we receive notification from ad that we have exceeded our budget limit by at least 1% we are required to revise it in our case we did not exceed it but however we do like to still bring it back to the board periodically throughout the year especially as we've have some ADM adjustments carry forward adjustments just to keep the board aware of just any budget changes throughout the year so that's what we're doing tonight and as always all budget adoptions and revisions require a public hearing which is what we're here for tonight for so here's a summary on what the budget revisions are mainly attributed to the first part is um the we had an increase in our actual enrollment counts in

003comparison to what we initially estimated so we do start in the spring early summer just having an initial estimate on what we think our funded average daily membership will be and so now that we've passed our 40th Day we get updated numbers from the state and so now we are able to go through and update our budget based on what we're getting funding for we also adjust our budget limit as you know we take our annual financial report by October 15 to the board and so that reflects all of our our previous fiscal Year's actual activi and so now that we have known expenditure amounts we are able to um update our December budget revision to account for those carry forward um adjustments and then finally we do uh update our state and federal grants

004based on Final allocations from the state as well as to account for some of those carryover figures so because we are funded as school districts on current year counts we need to adjust our budget based on known and funded ADM so as I mentioned we do initial estimates in the spring um late and so now that we're well into the Year this reflects actual enrollment that we are receiving funding for and so again we do the initial estimates we receive funding and so this now reflects um the students that we have in our schools and so the largest increases were in our a waiting which is our um high school student counts as well as our B weights which reflects our special education categories and so combined that funded ADM increased by 618 from the

00531,900 at our adopted to 3253 now for our revised budget so what that does is then it calculates out to what our base support level and so we did see an increase in our M fund which is our District's largest operating fund it accounts for our the majority of our salary and benefits as well as our operating expenses and so due to the increase in ADM that we uh received um that's different from what we initially projected we received the funding from the state to account for those students and so as we know now that we have the increased students we've had increased costs that we have incurred throughout the year and so we have current year students current year funding and so that is the revision that we're seeing now in m in capital

006funds um we have our unrestricted Capital fund um speak a little louder so our unrestricted Capital fund budget limit it increased $1.5 million primarily due to carryover so the budget had been committed to Capital items that didn't arrive by June 30th deadline and so the those items have now been paid for in the current fiscal year and then finally the largest Capital fund that we're making adjustments for is that emergency building renewal grant program that is the funding that we received from the school facilities board so we initially came to the board estimating 1 million knowing that we were going to have adjustments throughout the year based on approved applications from from that agency and so at this point we have $7.2 million in approved projects primarily due to the Marley Park Roofing and weatherization

007project as well as the Valley Vista roofing project that you see occurring next door classroom site fund excuse me had a slight um revision of 6,293 again just that was a very slight adjustment due to known carry forward and then finally is our special projects allocations fund those are our federal grants and our state grants so uh federal grants just reflects known allocations and carry forward and really the largest change there is our state grants that went up $1.3 million specifically related to the SRO grant that that we are receiving and funding from the state and as always we have our website that provides all of our financial reports our audited reports and our annual uh comprehensive and budget reports available for public viewing at any time so at this time it is a public

008hearing so it is a moments if anyone has questions from the public and or the board um we do have an action item later on in the agenda and so at that time I will not present this again and it would just be for board discussion and action thank you Miss pedel do we have any comments or questions from the public thank you do we have any comments or questions from the board thank you very much and with that we will continue on to a regular meeting we will talk uh we will go to item C1 um I asked to have our organizational meeting in December because it is not is it it is not an election year we have the same board members this way we can um elect a board president and they

009can start over in January they can change the seats if they want they can just start fresh with the agenda reviews and they'll start from day one January 1st and with that I would like to move to elect Don denmore as governing board president effective January 1st 2024 motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries congratulations Miss Densmore thank you very much and with that we will move on to item C2 action to elect a governing board clerk I will entertain a motion I would like to nominate Christine Pritchard second motion made by Don denmore seconded by Jennifer Drake motion carries congratulations congratulations congratulations Miss Pritchard next we will move on to item D1 Dr CTO thank you madam present um tonight we have an awesome band performance and uh we have

010Mr Craig mcy will'll introduce our guests thank you Madame President members of the board Dr croto and guests tonight we are pleased to have the simmeron Springs band here with us performing and under the direction of Mr Christian Torres take it [Applause] [Music] away [Music] all [Music] I [Music] oh [Music] la [Music] [Applause] uh the students just played nebula this was something that we were able to play on our November 30th conf what we're about to play is actually a piece that we picked up last week um we kind of had a short turnaround but we wanted to kind of give a Showcase of what's to come we are preparing for our uh return back to the aboda uh and this is that we were consider wanted to give a sneak peek like what you

011hear please HP over back at Willow Canyon to hear the Cs [Music] the [Music] [Applause] great job Mr Taurus thank you great job students great job on the low brass back there love it thank you so much it sounds wonderful thank [Applause] you all right with that we will move on to item E1 Miss denmore thank you this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on this 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 for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a

012time 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 first we have Grant blasic Madam president members of the board cabinet and Community I'm Grant Blac just a taxpayer and surprise but as such I want this board to tell me why you voted in 24 social workers one in each School in the first place while you approve the curriculum teach ing social emotional learning before turning your back on that why it was done without public knowledge only until last month to move funding for social workers to a source of funds expected to expire Madam president Pritchard had plainly asked in a prior board meeting for all social workers to keep a stable funding source now because last

013month social work in this context was talked about as I think it was the quote it takes what a minute to get a resource I want to make the point that social work is so much more than that I want each member of this board to tell me please about any instance that you've spent any time with your social workers to understand what they do in the schools and tell me how SRO and ssos and school admins and School staff and teachers and school psychologists are to be trained to do social work and I would please like an email response to this question is Grant you've done that work to learn this and I appreciate that thank you I just doubt that most of those parties have a lot of free time to take this

014on things like coordinating crisis teams conducting suicide assessments or the hours of work doing interventions that's just the tip of the iceberg for the sake of our families our school staff and our Vital Community Partnerships tell me about how you informed yourselves of the circumstances and of the buyin that you got for them to take on this work before you announced it last month that they're going to do all of this schools School staff are school resource officers now on multiple occasions I have witnessed this board entertaining and promoting false accusations about the social workers work cut their pay maneuvering now to eliminate them I'm sorry to say that the members of this board many of them have Dishonored themselves by a steady attack on an honorable profession thank you thank you okay next we

015have Julie Kent Partridge and if you could step just a little bit closer to the mic so we can all hear thank you president chaen members of the board Mr Coto my name is Julie Kent Partridge I'm here today to address you and the community regarding your removing social workers from the diart school district before I start is important for all of you to know my level of expertise and why my perspective should be considered ly I'm an ad certified Master's level social worker not employed by daart I'm also an ad surrogate parent for special needs students throughout our state in addition to these things I'm a city and state adviser specializing in things related to disability advocacy my commitment to the city and School District Stands Strong in the sense that between my husband

016and myself we have raised nine children in Surprise and they've all attended the dice Art School District we now have grandchildren in this District I'm committed to being solution fol focused and feel your board should consider hosting a study session where the public and Advocates like myself can come to teach you about the true value of school social workers and counselors until then I want to express my disappointment of the governing board's decision supported by Mr Coto to deprive diart students and schools of social workers questions I have for this board are you not worried about the lawsuits that will now come as a result of unskilled staff to per that are performing necessary self harm and SU side assessments and other social work D Duties are you not worried about the burnout and compassion

017fatigue that untrained and unskilled staff will suffer as a result of doing these things and in addition to their already overloaded roles do you not realize that Master's level social workers have went to school for a dedicated four plus years to learn these skills do you not realize that SRO are not to do social work functions do you not realize that you are incorrectly using SRO and ssos in your District do you not realize is that using an SRO as a crossing guard and to help with personal staff situations is an ad grant funding violation do you not realize that the best practices will always include SRO and ssos working tandemly with school social workers do you not realize that you're making a nonpartisan issue a political issue and this is an embarrassment for our

018district do you not realize that you are primarily focusing on the Quant the quantity and good grades by using your Esser dollars for nine more Math teachers versus using those funds for school social workers do you not realize that ad grant funding was available but Mr Coto did not communicate that with the board and the public at the last meeting as he chose to prioritize funding towards Sr and ssos do you not know that SRO and ssos are not disability and Trauma informed trained in the diart school district and have contributed to mental health harm and dis to disabled students and families throughout the daart school district students deserve to be safe and to feel safe School social workers are that value not only do they support students and families they also care for the

019staff thank you for your time and for your listening thank you next we have Melanie Karen blasik good evening Madam president board members and cabinet my name is Melanie Karen blak I the 2021 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award for from the school Social Work Association of Arizona I stood before this board and received acknowledgement and a certificate from you and I'm quite emotional about this issue of social work during covid I went to the food bank to pick up and deliver food to a parent who was unable to go out into the community because she was undergoing treatment for cancer I brought Aid to a parent who had been physically abused by their partner I sat and held space for parent for children whose parents passed away right in front of them and prepared

020them for their first anniversary of their parents' death I've also sat with kids whose siblings have died by suicide because of a strong relationship I had with a student I uncovered a situation where a child was being sexually groomed and got the police involved and stop the situation I've coordinated with the crisis team when one of our students died I've LED Christmas present drives and on my Facebook page today it is a reminder of the hundreds of gifts I have received for my school for my students and took care of them during Christmas I've discovered and supported a child who experienced a heartbreaking case of bullying that they didn't tell to anyone for about about three months I worked with individual students to get them to school and improve their attendance and I know that's

021a focus of the district this year I've worked with children coming and going from Foster Care at just Disney disan rates as they transitioned to their school and had to stand with them as they said goodbye to us once again and I've done an insane amount of number of suicide and self harm assessments there are ones that still haunt me to this day these examples are just the tip of the iceberg of my work in this for Ashton ranch and for the district I'm repeatedly asked to return to Ashen by my former colleagues just last week a student who had been going through cancer who I spent time with as she went through treatment asked where I was and she how much she missed me being there to support her because she said I'm the

022only one who listened just excuse me I left the district not because of my work because I am passionate about school social work I left because of the school board and it's unethical I don't even know what the words are for this one it's just unethical treatment of us as social workers Because of You hundreds and hundreds of students have missed out on an award-winning social worker now every student in those coming into the district will not have access to these state board licensed professionals who do more than you will ever know about because you don't take the time to listen and learn about students and their fam's needs thank you thank you next we have Elizabeth tii hi um my name is Elizabeth T I'm a mother of five with two children currently in

023the district and three more coming I wanted to address last month's board meeting with how displeased I was during the vote of removing social workers as they bring services to the table that not only benefit our special education department but they the general population of our students as well it breaks my heart to hear each one of you say that we cannot justify the financial cost of them yet the board quickly used the funding that could have been used for both social workers and SRO and only applied it towards SRO everyone is quick to say we're in the business of education but Overlook the part where children are actually bullying each other whether it's verbal physical assault or pure embarrassment I made a post on Facebook to address the fact that funding was only used

024for SRO then I noticed da densmore's liking of a comment left by another parent that states schools are prioritizing physical safety and turning it into a welfare Clinic the fact that Don Denmar believes supporting our children's mental safety is turning into a welfare Clinic makes me question her ability to make decisions for our students as the backgrounds of our children may vary from broken families foster care system grief and even trauma I want to make it clear my family and I are made up of law enforcement and Veterans we love our men and women in blue working with our children we just want to ensure they are equipped to work with our students with IEPs and 504s this District was fast on cutting social workers sorry but did not have the policy or plan in

025place to protect our children's mental health now we're being told School psychologists are capable of handling these matters but then it takes a little over two days just to hear back from our school psychologist I couldn't imagine a c a student crisis having to wait that long because a school psychologist is already busy some form of a licensed professional needs to be on these campuses for prevention and intervention purposes especially when we know students don't get along this support will allow teachers to continue educating without having to stop and entire class to diffuse one student's Crisis crisis lastly I am very disappointed on how this District failed to do a proper investigation on the staff that handled themselves inappropriately during the investigation of my son's assault after we filed a due process and we got

026an email back from your District's attorney stating that she stopped the investigation because we filed a due process complaint because of this halt the principal was then promoted to a district position and now we're seeing that the vice principal is being recommended for promotion as to a principal position not saying they're bad people but an investigation could have shown that there was poor choices made during such a critical time for our student which was all documented by the body camera footage of your school resource officer I wanted to make it clear that these promotions are frustrating to witness especially when we have yet to have any form of resolution to our matter thank you for your time thank you next we have Heather Stone ladies and gentlemen thank you for the opportunity to speak with

027you in front of you today um I my name is Heather Stone I am here as a community member I am also a certified school psychologist who does not work for diart school district and I would like to speak with you today about the essential role that school social workers play in schools so I am very fortunate to have a full-time social worker at my school we work as a team but our roles are also very different so my training as a school psychologist focused heavily on assessment and eligibility criteria for special education so I learned how to administer cognitive assessments how to do academic SC testing and to do rating scales I had a few counseling courses but those even those were geared towards providing very brief support such as a one-time talk with

028an upset student and just kind of getting them to a place where they could go back to class so as a school psychologist my role focuses heavily on special education and I spend the vast majority of my time working with students who have IEPs or students who may are in the evaluation process or may need to be evaluated very soon and due to uh the case volume I have I mainly end up like doing the evaluation and then once we have the determined eligibility then the special education teacher takes over as case manager my school social worker on the other hand is on the front lines when it comes to general education mental health she does crisis management she works with students individually and in small groups she does lunch bunches and she's often present

029at resour recesses just to do informal check-ins with the students she does a lot of Family Outreach and really builds those relationships with parents she coordinates donations for Thanksgiving dinners and Christmas presents for needy families she attends CFT meetings for students who are in DCS custody she oversees mcken Veno Services she connects with families for resources either it's academic such as a family needing help paying a heating bill or outside therapy such as you know High needs case management or behavior coaches I myself do not have the training to perform these services I don't have the expertise I don't have the time and I certainly don't have the expertise and the relationship that my social worker has with our students and families and outside providers are essential and they cannot be replicated by anyone qualified

030as they might be in other areas thank you for your time thank you next we have Christina Rogers my name is sorry good evening my name is Christina Rogers and I'm probably going to disagree with the people back here that have already spoked but I actually want to thank you guys for um making the vote that you did and supporting our kids education my feeling with I'm not saying social workers aren't needed but I feel like if we would focus more on education less of those behavioral things will happen right now if you look at the districts all in Arizona were ranked horribly but also if you look at our math test in dce in diart from 3rd to 8th grade we are below 50% Proficiency in math and Ela these things need to happen

031if our kids are more educated if you guys focus on what you guys are actually went to school for what schools are made for is to educate our children a lot of the behavioral things will go away those things need to be it needs to be addressed we have psychologists we have behavioral interventionists we have school AIDS we have a lot of resources even resources for you guys to send people to social workers all of those things are in place already for schools we need to focus on our education so that our education will be better and our kids will no longer need all of the social workers and all those things schools are here to educate so get back to educating so our scores and our kids will get what they [Applause] deserve thank

032you you next we have Haley Crawford good evening my name is haly Crawford and I'm a student I'm speaking on behalf of Mr and Mrs LeBlanc myself and multiple other parents that are afraid to speak on this topic recently the board voted on a budget in which social workers will no longer be funded I realize that this has become a controversial issue however let's look at the facts one salaries for social work were funded by an essr Grant those funds have been used and the grant has been expired two to clarify we are not getting rid of school counselors our district employs passionate and caring administrators that offer therapy resources to all of our students if therapy is needed it should be acknowledged outside of the educational system three safety has been a major concern

033for everyone therefore bringing our SRO officers makes perfect sense not only does it help repare the relationship between Law Enforcement Officers the kids kids and the community but it expels the lie that have been told about our officers in blue that risk their lives every day to protect your kids the kids and Community will have a firsthand experience realizing that the police are not the bad guys together with the bonus of added safety that everyone has been wanting Bravo to the board and the administrators for having the forethought to use tax dollars so wisely I'm not sure how many citizens have seen the words and actions of some of these social workers and their supporters from various platforms but they portray the kind of behavior that apparently they are helping our children with such as

034anger extreme cussing false accusations threats and outof control screaming to name a few their behavior contradicts everything they say they stand for in fact their behavior at times is worse than the children they're claiming to be helping my warning to parents is to take a good long hard look at the social workers their job their description their behaviors and ask is that really what you want to support is that really what you want to fight for in support of your children in closing if one cannot see what is happening in our school then they are not looking it is our duty to Shield our children from harm I urge the public to research social workers their actions and their speech for yourselves by watching their personal social media post videos and such and then decide

035who you will support I'm an older sister I'm a leader I'm doing this for my siblings for my friends and for the Next Generation to come the daar governing board is on course and you have my full support as well as a mass majority of the communities thank you next we have Karen Devine good evening I'm Karen dine president of the League of Women Voters Northwest Maricopa County the League of Women Voters of Northwest Maricopa County a local League affiliate of the League of Women Voters of Arizona believes that equal access to equality education for all students is crucial crucial to Preparing the voters of the future the League of Women Voters of Arizona's stated position on Public Funding supports a uniform distribution of State funds to include allocations for social services for students and

036their families additionally we believe in funding for Quality education wherein the primary goal of state and local school governing bodies is the achievement of the best quality education for the students in their schools we believe the criteria for school funding should be based on current research thought and best practices regarding teaching and learning as well as other factors impacting academic success such as School Readiness and parental engagement the Arizona Department of education's school safety guidance manual for school counselers social workers States School social workers bring unique knowledge and skills to the school system and the student services team School social workers are trained mental health professionals School social workers are instrumental in furthering the mission of the schools which is to provide a setting for teaching learning and for the attainment of competence and confidence

037School social workers have unique expertise in child and family work because they address school and Community stressors that interfere with educational success school social workers know the services a school system provides and they know the scope of services available within the community their skills in navigating these services are crucial in challenging barriers to school and Community Resources that enable academic and behavioral success therefore the leag of Women Voters Northwest Maricopa County supports funding that includes Social Services for students and their families in our public schools and we ask that the daart Unified School District recognizes the unique value of school workers to a student's academic success and prioritize funding for the social worker program thank you thank you next we have Kathy noga good evening I am Kathy noga and I'm coming here as a

038concerned taxpayer of the diart school district Arizona school students are among the worst in the nation when it comes to unaddressed mental health problems we rank as one of the highest States in adverse childhood experiences with 22% of Arizona children having one experience and 24% having two or more diart students do not have adequate access to counselor scho social worker or psychologist social workers were included in the Arizona Department of Education school safety Grant because they play a vital role in keeping our schools safe they are instrumental in furthering the mission of the schools which is to provide a setting for teaching learning and for the attainment of competence and confidence the Arizona Department of Education grant for SRO which daart received states that SRO are paid to teach Law related education only it specifically

039states that Law related education does not include counseling according to the disart job postings a teachers's essential Duties are instructing students developing lesson plans maintaining behavior these two Sr and teachers do not have the training to be a social worker also how will teachers how will they attend to their own required duties if they are attending to those of social workers the district has guidance counselors not mental health counselors in August daart ended its contract with Southwest Behavioral Services now you are eliminating all 24 social worker positions daart is leaving their students with no mental health support how will daart address these mental health issues without the proper resources will you put the academic success and safety of students at risk the state recently awarded 562 school counselor grants 312 SRO SRO grants why did

040you not apply for this grant if you knew the current funds were ending according to the Arizona Department of Education 10 T of millions of those school safety Grant dollars remain unspent other districts can't find social workers and you daart are letting them go the school safety task force is asking legislators to create more Avenues to spend funds I ask you if these Grants open will you apply for more social workers or will you leave the students of daart without the emotional mental health support they need thank you next we have Tina M good evening my name is Tina Mika and I'm a parent in this District I am very upset that over the past two years the personal opinion of this school board on social emotional learning and their own political agendas have now

041left every family in this District without the mental health support that they will need beginning next year I will be reading two statements from teachers I am reading it for them anonymously because they do fear retaliation from this board the first statement reads teachers cannot wear yet another hat we are overwhelmed by the increasing number of students that come to school angry tired stressed hung hry anxious or sad our school district broke their contract with Southwest Behavioral Services beginning this school year that alone was a huge resource lost to many students needing a caring adult with whom they can trust my own child was one of those students not all students come in similar packages they can range across the board I'm a very involved parent who has always been there for my own kids

042yet sometimes what it actually takes is another caring adult to be able to listen objectively guide and provide Strate strategies and tools that kids can use to have a healthy Outlook and a balanced happy life my child loved her Southwest coun her Southwest counselor and thrived under her care next you decided to eliminate social workers another layer put a place in the purpose of helping students crying out for help the social worker at our our school alone has positively impacted so many of our high-risk students and helped them overcome their unique challenges teachers cannot provide what a social worker can provide we cannot spend the time going in depth and getting to the root of the problem like a social worker can teachers are not trained to do the work of a social worker with

043each of these Cuts how can one rationalize that these are improvements for the district how is this truly best for students we are all here for the good and betterment of our students yet these decisions are doing the exact opposite to date I have never seen a board member walk our hallways or visit classrooms except for that one day in March to read a book how about we observe what a social worker does on a day-to-day basis and then make a decision how about observing a classroom that has multiple behavioral issues and taking notes it's easy to make monetary decisions based on a dollar amount since that's what it boils down to I challenge you the board to make educated decisions based on multiple angles of looking at problems after all this is what we

044teach our students to do the second statement reads as an educator my job would be next to Impossible without the help of a social worker in our building I can do a lot of things but teaching a class of 28 students and meeting the needs of a student in distress is almost impossible I guarantee you social workers have more training experience and knowhow in working with students who desperately need someone to know what they need at that exact moment to make the statement that the front office staff or police officers on campus can do the same job is absurd they are phenomenal at what they do but taking away an entire position and adding that workload on staff that already do thank you thank you next we have Austin Smith good evening members of the

045board my name is Austin Smith I am the state representative I'm humbled and honored to represent derer at the Arizona legislature on behalf of myself Representative Steve Montenegro and Senator Jana champ I'm here today to express our thanks to the governing board for continuing to place academics safety and parental rights at the Forefront of your decisions while being example of what a fiscally responsible board looks like at your last meeting you approved supplemental curriculum from Hillsdale College this is a free resource but most importantly it is free from harmful ideology what is subtly woven into nearly every public textbook in recent years I also want to praise you for taking full advantage of AR ARS 15-15 4 in which you strategically applied for grant funding of school resource officers at every school thank you all

046for prioritizing safety thank you next next we have Mr Buckingham sorry I'm not sure the first name if you could state that when you arrive at the podium know before I begin uh I'll just make a comment uh you folks uh this is not a poor District you should folks should invest in a little bit better audio equipment uh it's really really disappointing I came over here to hear I wasn't sure I wanted to say anything but uh you know I do now but the first comment I'll make uh uh get some decent audio equipment or have people speak a little bit clearer into the into the uh mic here a comment uh I'm a uh 80-year-old veteran retired Federal investigator a team leader and supervisor what have you uh I following my retirement way

047back when 60 years ago I wanted to be a school teacher I went a different career when I after I retired I decided you know I want to spend a little bit of time with my grandkids and I was a volunteer in a school back in Minnesota and when I came out here to Arizona I volunteered about 200 yards north at Park viw for two or three years two years became Parkview or became Freedom Academy and I continued on uh it was the extent of my ability in kindergarten I volunteered at any rate uh I got a little feel for the school and what's going on there the comments uh I guess the specific comments I have is uh what research have you conducted to make this really momentous decision uh have you uh what's

048the impact on the kids uh What uh expertise uh will replace uh these social workers who will have that expertise what have you uh I heard this comment about the last comment frankly I was a little disappointed uh about the sro's and I recall uh of Aldi Texas there were 400 good guys with a gun and they didn't stop that bad guy with a gun so my point being have you know before you just uh drop this this social workers uh do some research has there any other districts in Arizona that has social workers and drop them or around the country and drop them what's uh what has been the ramifications what's the ramifications covid really hit these kids I was kind of bumped out of my volunteer gig back in uh in March as

049a result of covid uh what's been the impact on these kids as a result of covid have you folks studied that in this District uh at any rate that's literally all I want to say other again I'll reemphasize uh make an investment in decent audio equipment thank you Madame President uh that was our last speaker thank you we will move on to item F1 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh tonight we have a student update and Mr muy will introduce our student thank you madam president members of the board Dr Coto uh tonight we have brayy Ratliff from Valley Vista High School who's going to give us an update from the daer student council on what's going on out there in the district um good evening everyone I just wanted to give an update

050on what we discussed at our last um district meeting so uh Shadow Ridge is having their winter formal on Saturday and valy Vesta we're still planning our State Convention that's coming up in about a month Willow has started um planning their hoopcoming and all those festivities daart just finished Mr daer and they had a great turnout so they're very happy about that um old schools collectively just ended a food drive and we donated about 19,000 pounds of canned food to people in need and that's all thank you very much 19,000 that's a lot of food great job students next we will move on to F2 Dr curo thank you Madam president a couple updates tonight uh Felicia joer our head varsity cheer coach at Willow Canyon High School was named the Arizona cheer coach of

051the Year by the national Federation of State High School associations also known as nfhs uh this year's honores were selected based upon their coaching performance in the 22 23 school year their lifetime community involvement their school involvement and their philosophy of coaching uh the nfhs relies on its members and State Association to recognize those who are leading in their sport shaping their athletes and contributing in a positive way to their Community um and uh Miss joerger was nominated by the AIA and she is um nationally recognized so we want to congratulate Felicia Jager on that opportunity and that award great job uh continuing on um we have two students uh Haley Helman from Shadow Ridge High School and Tristan Wright from diart high school they have selected as two of the five Arizona nominees for

052the 2324 US Presidential scholars in Career and Technical education two of the five there's five in Arizona this district has two of those five uh they were selected by a review team consisting of uh CTE stakeholders based on evidence of academic rigor uh technical competence professional employability skills and Ingenuity and creativity so we want to congratulate Haley and Tristan uh we will have them here in January to be recognized by the governing board so congratulations to them a couple more clarification was asked at the last meeting regarding uh billing on mips and currently we do not uh Bill our social workers do not bill in the district so that update and then my last update um is we want I just want to congratulate our newly elected officers miss denmore and miss Pritchard for next

053year uh congratulations and I want to say thank you to miss Chaffin uh for your time and commitment as president and it's been a pleasure working with you so miss denmore thank you for your time as the clerk and I look forward to working with you as president so with that that's all my update all right we will move on to governing board update and I'll just go ahead and say thank you to Dr croo um it has been a very enjoyable experience to serve as a board president you and Miss Bowen have been wonderful to work with in cabinet so I I want to say thank you and thank you for your flexibility in our gender reviews around my little one I appreciate that so much um I I just appreciate it very much

054so um it's been a wonderful experience very educational experience it's been an honor to serve in that capacity and I just want to say thank you guys and I want to say a continued thank you to our Law Enforcement Officers our ssos and our SRO who are choosing to be at our school every day thank you for that and I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holiday season go first um I continued to attend several more uh schools that received an a rating so it's always fun to celebrate that and uh this time let's see I went to Sunset Hills and Canyon Ridge and and um Valley Vista so looking forward to attending some more next year thank you um I was able to attend Freedom traditionals Winter concert last week um

055absolutely fabulous the kids did an outstanding job um I have to give kudos to Mr Swanson and Miss McLoud they do an outstanding job with the band orchest in choire the kids just you could tell that they absolutely love it um and then last night we did The Polar Express at freedom and that was a lot of fun too with all the games and the choir again with Miss McLoud um we had kindergarteners first and second grades it was great so thank you and kudos to them and I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year just want to thank uh Miss Chaffin for her time serving the board as president um and you did it gracefully and um I don't know that I would have done that right out

056of uh having a baby but you did it and you did it very well uh thank everyone on the board for your faith in me uh going into next year um also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas Happy Holidays happy New Year um I did not not uh attend any uh major events uh recently but I did uh make my way into a few hallways thank you I too would like to thank uh Miss schaen for her leadership over the last year and ditto to what Miss Dunmore said as far as I don't know how you did it as a new mom so you did it wonderfully and uh I appreciate your leadership so thank you um thank you also for the um the nomination or being voted for clerk next um year I

057appreciate that as well and look forward to working with Miss denmore and all of you um I did want to um say a few things um wanted to express some words of thanks but then also end with some words of appreciation um or reassurance um several people have reached out via either directly to me to speak to me personally or through email um saw a couple things on social media um but to reach out to share words of support in regard to the elimination of the Esser funds that um saying that they they understand that it's um the funding has ended and just wanted to reach out and say that they got it some of which are employee groups that were also eliminated also um impacted by that those funds ending so um I always

058appreciate it when I'm given the opportunity to speak to decisions that are made or for people that aren't 100% clear on reasons are rationale for why things are done and take the time to reach out and seek facts um so um I did also want to thank them as well for their Grace again there are more than just one employee group that um their positions were ended due to the funding and um appreciate again their Grace I also want to um provide reassurance to our community that our children our students will not be left without they will not be um floundering in schools and and no one paying attention to any mental health needs or crisis that they may be going through um we there part of being a social worker is not providing those

059interventions your on your own sometimes it's assessing it's connecting people with the right resources in the community um evaluating needs networking um and again connecting with community so it is not necessarily being the provider of all intervention and so with that as far as that being a role of a social worker and being that person to connect one with Community Resources we do do have um very qualified staff and our psychologists and our guidance counselors our sro's or whomever teachers that when they see a child that is struggling or in need of extra service that they are able to identify that child and get them connected whether that if they don't know how to connect that child then they will get with someone who can and I'm very confident that our psychologists um if if

060not anyone else guidance counselors are still even of that of that related field will be able to do that so just want to reassure the community that children will not be left in crisis um also want to um provide the clarification I know there's reference to um there being different narratives of this board only speaking for myself I can tell you everyone has a narrative and there are community members with very um distinct agendas and narratives of their own so um what I will say is that I know speaking for myself um it's I'm always coming from the purest of intentions I'm in this for the kids and I would never make a decision to hurt a child in a way of removing a needed service um this is not a matter of not seeing

061value in a profession or not seeing value in a role it's a matter of not having the funding someone came up here and made reference to um the math interventionists so it makes me sad to think that our district would be pointing at don't take my money take theirs should we cut teachers should we cut like who are we supposed to cut again the narrative is very intentional unfortunately so I'm clarifying it is not about this big bad board eliminating a very valued profession or a very valued role it's a matter of not having the money so the money would need to be cut from somewhere and I guess I just want to know where that would have been so again big difference I appre appreciate the people that have reached out to say I

062get it we support there was really no option the money is not there and wanted again to reassure the community that we are very much in tune to what our students will need and have very capable staff to be able to identify a a child in crisis or a need and will hook them up with the proper individual or resources that they will need to get the help that they seek that's it thank you we will move on to item G1 I move to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries next we'll move on to item i1 Dr kle thank you madam president uh tonight we have a bond override committee update as we have stated so we've had two meetings since the last meeting

063and I'll have Mr mcy um introduce our committee chair tonight to give us those updates Mr mcy thank you madam president members of the board superintendent Cotto um yeah it's with pleasure I bring forward one of our spokespeople tonight and you've heard from him before he's going to be updating two meetings November 28th and just recently this past Tuesday um on December 12th uh Patrick Campbell and he's got a great summary for us tonight thank you sir Madam president distinguished board members Dr crto committee members and uh public Community um obviously like I stated we had two meetings since then we've been very busy uh you'll be happy to know that I've cond 16 pages of notes into four for your briefing tonight appreciate that so um but but important stuff so we've had a

064lot going on so uh we held a meeting November 28th as stated uh it was called to order no public comment at the time um I do appreciate um member denmore she has attended U most of these meetings she forgot to mention that but she was there and I think that stuff matters uh minutes were approved uh we started with a briefing by High Ground public affairs consultant um 30 years of experience his name was Paul bence um his job if you will is a public opinion survey and what we're looking for is basically if we send out Bond and or override to the community for a vote if you will we want more information on exactly what that would look like acceptance denian that kind of stuff um their goal is an accurate impartial

065or accurate impartial results um their experience working with school districts they have quite a quite a resume if you will on Bond and overrides and the effects um of that um we had an in-depth briefing on how the survey would work it was fascinating um the margin of error for them this is their stats was a 4.89% plus or minus uh with a 95 95% confidence rate um some facts that were shared with us that I thought were important here were 40% of registered voters in this District um or over the age of 65 um I'm also happy to report I'm not quite in that category yet but I'm getting close um 32% with children under the age of 18 um they discussed the survey strategy in depth I don't have time tonight for all

066of that it was quite a lengthy briefing um and then they agreed to draft an instrument for the survey to bring it back to us at the December 12th meeting which they did and I'll discuss that in just a little bit because I kind of want to keep it in order if you will um one of the things that were shared with us um were the history if you will of bonds and override because we wanted to know the importance of History where we've been um including recent history but some of the highlights were 2013 there was a bond for 8 86.8 million failed uh 2014 the Amo Amo override also failed 2015 it passed by a margin of 51% um and then 2019 the m&o failed again along with the bond that was one

067152.5 million that failed but in 2020 the m&o override passed and the reason I share that with you is the number that I'm going to share with you here in a minute um which I believe will make make that make a little bit more sense um there was some great information um shared by Miss meridel over here about the um spending um and obviously she's always on top of that with us as far as how how that um tied together um the one that we currently are in now we're in year three heading into year four again history matters as far as when that stuff starts falling off and the amounts currently um what it funds is1 130 teachers and that impacts class sizes Etc I think that's kind of a huge number when you

068stop and think about just walking around campus um you guys know I work at Shadow Ridge but just thinking the thought of losing 130 or not having the funding for 130 teachers is is a as a kind of a crazy thought if you will um teacher salaries keeping them competitive all day K I know that's been a huge plus um something that's been a a Hot Topic uh the math reading Arts PE athletic programs um for the fiscal year 223 it's 23.9 million and then going into this school year the estimation was 24 million that's what shared with us um we did Community Committee brainstorming again um all of the current funding things that I just mentioned the teachers the salary the all dayk all that were came from the committee individual members the 28

069members as all being important items and there were others but again it just shows reassurance from the public and the diversity of our group as far as what um what they felt was important to do that and to keep it going um next on that same 28 November we had a briefing by Mr Kevin Shipman again fascinating um he spoke about school enrollment the construction history um I think it's important for folks maybe that haven't been here long that realize when diart sort of blew up and constructed if you will and there was a a very a time frame that was shared with us that that showed that um a lot of construction happened in a very short amount of time fast forward to where we are now in 23 moving into 2024 and you

070realize that some of these things roofs repairs hvacs these things are coming due um the he talked about the typical cycles of neighborhoods enrollment um 23 to 25,000 students High School capacities where we're at with projections moving towards 26,000 um new homes to be built in the next 10 years again these are estimates but it is if you think about where we're already at as a city and as a district moving forward that's kind of a big number um he shared the cost with what it would cost to build a K through 8 versus the cost to build high schools um and again those numbers are staggering when you really think about it um next was a transportation overview um scheduled was Doug Curry but he couldn't make it because of uh family emergency so

071um Karma um was nice enough to come Karma Valente was nice enough to come and fill in for him um she shared basically the history of the bus and how much it cost cost for transportation the 46 buses regular buses and 32 sped buses currently need to be replaced because they're reaching what would be a target of 15 years um for replacement on those um I'm not going to lie I couldn't believe how much it cost for a school bus um so the number that was shared with us was just slightly under two uh um $250,000 and about 175 for a sped bus times that by the numbers I just gave you and you get a number close to 17 million just for that um um so anyway so moving on uh the December 12th

072meeting um that was also called to order no public comment meetings were approved um the gentleman I referred to earlier Paul B he came back and he brought us a very detailed survey of exactly what it would look like so some breakdowns from that um it showed the number of questions um two it's in two parts four sections 42 four 41 total questions it's an average of a 15minute survey um that number that I wanted to share with you one of the questions would be question 18 Again these surveys are done slightly different they mix the orders and whatnot but again they're looking for a very accurate um opinion of the public to give us an idea of moving forward with a recommendation potentially to the board um what it would look like potentially moving

073to a vote um the number that came up with was 127 million for the bond um the breakdown of that was um quickly was the bus Replacements at 17 million the new K to8 Elementary School 35 million High School land alone they said 10 could be upwards of 12 million facility Renovations this is in total and I'll get to that briefing here in a second that was 48 million Safety and Security was 17 million for a total cost of $127 million um so what the agreement was made at the end of the December 12th meeting this last Tuesday was that that number would be used as a number to put towards the survey just to get a sense and and a feedback from the community yes it would be something they support no or hard

074yes or hard no so um so he finished breaking down exactly what it would look to us I mean it looked really good they're expecting to start this survey right after the first of the year um so anyways that's that it's going to be we'll be getting feedback from that once they get the feedback we'll bring it to the board um last we had a maintenance and construction needs um or I'm sorry next to last we had uh Mr Todd Butler um from maintenance and operations he came and gave us a very detailed briefing on mechanical HVAC Plumbing flooring Roofing weatherization uh freezer conditions and things and and these are things that you know even as an employee like I I didn't know uh but it's good as a committee to understand these things and

075now we can put together a more um a better informed opinion of exactly where the district stands and I do appreciate all the very openness um that's been shared with us by the folks that have been helping us out with the committee um Marley Park very specifically there are some AC and unit uh Renovations they shared charts with us um the costs and discussions and basically the breakdown from him as I shared earlier was about 48 million for all of the necessary Renovations and upgrades and things that need to happen um lastly we had a a briefing by Jason jger who's uh the safety director um and he went through reasoning rationale aain programs and a lot of the different needs including things like automatic gate openers and things that if you worked on a

076campus would make a lot more sense as far as Safety and Security um for our staff and our students um and he had a whole list of things he went through including radio Communications internet upgrades um fire panel um upgrades and things like that and with that I'll stand for questions if any all I know it's a lot thank you I I do appreciate you you being the committee chair and I do appreciate every single person on that committee and your time willing to serve and really taking the time to gather information and make sure that information is accurate so I do appreciate you and I do thank you for your time ma'am thank you um I also just want to say thank you but not just to you but to everybody on the committee

077thank you for recognizing my presence at those meetings um you know it's interesting that the meetings are the first um in my time on the board that have been open to a board member coming um not only are they open to board members they are also open to the public yet I'm usually the only one there eating all the brownies there's food people there's food there's snacks there's a whole lot of empty chairs they're in this room you should probably come and find out what you're going to be potentially potentially voting yes or no on um there's a lot of really good information that's shared in these meetings uh information that I have never been presented with before um so I thank the committee I thank uh Dr Coto for the transparency with this committee

078um it's been eye openening um and just an amazing experience and again thank you to every single person that has volunteered for this board that comes um you know and they're usually the Tuesday before the board meeting but they are all publicly posted on our website they I have also asked that they all be live streamed on YouTube so anyone can watch from the comfort of their couch to make your own snacks actually for what it's worth ma'am I've uh several um staff members at Shadow have approached me and said that they actually do watch good so I thought that was I've been looking at the views they they're tick they're up ticking so thank you do we have any other questions all right thank you so much thank you all right next we'll move

079on to I to Dr CTO thank you madam president tonight we continue on um with our adopted uh policy monitoring uh tonight is chapter two there is two um policies in that we are not recommending any changes if you remember we brought we did changes in the last Board of meeting for chapter one um and uh that was in consent With The Changes tonight that you approved so now we're on uh policy chapter two and so I will stand for any questions or revisions that you might have I was just um looking at 2-2001 under evaluation of the superintendent um second actually I guess first full paragraph but um unless otherwise mutually agreed between July 1 and September 30th the board in consultation with the superintendent shall adopt standards or goals with the superintendent it

080shall be evaluated um in the in the past I believe we we usually did it over the summer so then that way we started the school year where the superintendent and the board were clear on what the superintendent schools were um I would recommend the board consider um rather than having the end date be September 30th we do like between July one and and August one something to think about just so again we're superintendent is very clear before the school year starts what the expectations are what the goals are and they can start working on them right away rather than you know meeting September 30th that means they may not be finalized until October and then in a couple months theoretically you'd be ready for your mid year Madam president member Pritchard um we can

081definitely make that I would ask that maybe we go a little bit past August one because that would mean we only have one meeting sometimes in July so that would actually make that the only meeting we could do it so maybe August 30th so you can include the August meetings or are you want it in July um again I'm I'm open to discussion I know in the past we we just met more like we'd have like a steady session sometimes in the summer you know rather than just speing months a month when it comes to superintendent goals we had typically had like a board Workshop or a study session we can do that definitely and I think as long as we have the goals ready for the superintendent before school starts I I feel like

082that's the the essence because that way you know I mean if if we don't approve the goals till September 30th you got October November December like you're you're two three months in a school year already so I feel like the earlier the better so do we how do we feel about do we want July 1st to August 1st do we want July 1st to August 30th I don't even know why really we have to say July one I mean in theory we could always started in um June and just say like prior to maybe August 1 well that was I was thinking about that too don't we normally do the superintendent's evaluation in June the end end year the end year right yeah so if we did the end year at the beginning of June

083um would that give the superintendent enough time to create the goals by the end of June well or but I'm saying as long as they're done before August 1 okay so basically if I hear you right you're saying um before August 1st so in instead of between July 1st and September 30th we just right before August 1 that's what I'm thinking okay does that seem I don't have a preference we got it okay I'll be there either way thank you do we have any other thoughts okay then we will move on to I3 Dr curto thank you madam president uh we have two CIP reports for you this evening Canyon Ridge Elementary and Kingswood and tonight we have Mr muy introducing our principles for those schools thank you madam president members of the board superintendent

084Cotto um first up we're going to get to hear from uh the proud principal of Canyon Bridge Elementary and that's Joe hoppy okay Madam president governing board member superintendent Coto cabinet and guests I am Jill hoppy and I am the proud principal of Canyon thank you I also want to recognize that Andrew griel our assistant principal and Justine Palmer our TLS who are with me today and they got to I got to sit in the middle of them so they're my support too so thank you for allowing me to present our continuous Improvement PR plan and progress we are making so far this school year um I am going to stay on script I promise because everybody who who knows me knows I could talk a lot about Canyon Ridge and so I want to

085honor everybody's time so our AAS data shows that we continue to grow and Achieve higher than the state average we earned a ranking of 54th in the state for traditional K8 schools during the 2022 school year in 2023 re celebrated earning an a label and an overall ranking of 29th in the state of Arizona our goal has been and will continue to be earning a ranking within the top 10 KH traditional schools in the state our El enrollment is slowly increasing in the 2122 school year we had 12 e students last year we had 17 El students and this school year we have 19 El students over the past two years we have taken advantage of el tutoring opportunities our El students meet with our tutor after school for additional instruction including helping them prepare

086for the aella test we closely monitor integrated and targeted e instruction during our weekly walkthrough additionally we have strategically placed um our El students with teachers who have experience supporting El students last year we took advantage of our own staff who have relationships with the students administering the aella test and we will continue to do that again this year this slide represents our CIP testing goal we are striving for 76% or more of our third through eth grade students proficient or highly proficient as measured by the aasa or making a minimum growth of 3% our Benchmark one data shows that we are on track for meeting our 3% growth goal and we are also working diligently to decrease the number of students who are minimally proficient we have Dibbles goals to monitor our K3 students

087literacy growth yesterday and that's why it's not up here um we received our middle of the Year data and we are on track for meeting our goal we use this goal to ensure our students have tier 2 and tier three interventions I'll share our plan for that in just a moment to meet our academic goals our CIP also includes a PLC implementation goal and instructional goals all of our plc's are using an implementation rubric to determine the quality and effectiveness of their PLC each PLC creates an endof thee academic goal and quarterly goals to ensure they monitor student learning progression at our by weekly instructional cabinet meetings there is a standing agenda item to discuss the PLC goals and their progress we know that strong instruction leads to Student Learning you see that we have

088goals aligned to the daart instructional protocol we strive for 100% of teachers to post objectives and success criteria check for understanding within each lesson purposely use engagement strategies and embed academic conversations within lessons the last goal on this slide is to reduce the number of students chronically absent from school because we have had challenges with chronic absenteeism so our action plan really includes these items so this year's theme is a team Canyon learning is a team sport and it really really emphasize that all of us in our community our Learners our students our teachers our families and we want to take every opportunity to learn as we can both students and staff closely track learning data students receive targeted enrichment and intervention Based on data data staff participate in ongoing opportunities to discuss and analyze

089student achievement data and staff teach to the standards that following dart's scope and sequence our staff is receiving ongoing spiraled mini PD aligned to the instructional protocol data and stem our Master Teachers that model best practice instruction and Mrs PA supports of all teachers and students Mr griel and I monitor instructional goals through observations weekly walkthroughs and quarterly data sweeps our second quarter data sweep which we did in the end of November showed that our teachers are implementing elements of the dip with 80% Fidelity our action plan for attendance is to um really truly have our teachers and our staff build relationships with students and we know if there students are excited to come because they have fun and engaging lessons they will be there we recognize students with weekly attendance celebration and for students

090who have chronic absenteeism teachers Mr gasel and I develop support plans with our parents support so that was pretty quick K guys so that's it thank you for the opportunity and I'm ready for any questions thank you so much for this presentation I I appreciate you having everything put together and I also appreciate the opportunity for enrichment not just intervention because sometimes we get so focused on the intervention piece that we've got students who were like hey I'm killing it over here and I love that we're challenging them too yeah thank you so our our sixth grade teacher Mrs beneski we have an intervention block and she used to be our gtia and so she has time with our sixth seventh and eighth graders um in the morning to do Define stem opportunities Project based

091learning and they love her and they love to um work with her on her those gifted things thank you you're welcome I really like your theme um the team Canyon learning is a team sport um and I I also appreciate all the detail put into your data I really appreciate that thank you um but I like the theme and I'll tell you it's I ever since my girls were little in in Canyon I can I mean it's it's always had a very close-knit family type feel or team feel um and I think that's what gets you guys where you're going and I think that's where that this is what's going to get you to these new goals as well but um you guys do a lot of great things there and I like to um

092hear that um just as far as still holding on to that um Team approach family close-knit We're All in This Together type climate that you're building there um really makes a difference for our students and families so I appreciate that thank you and we have a champion program to and we've had it for years and years and that champion program says any student that might have a need for any reason um we have a designated um adult on campus that that is just their check-in their hello their feel so we'll have um Miss Mar first grade teacher working with seventh graders because they we've have such Legacy and longevity of staff that we have these relationships that span generations and I think that that makes it just home there well and and there is research

093behind the fact that if a student is able able to have like one meaningful relationship one meaningful adult in their life that can really make a difference in academics as well so I'm glad to hear that you provide opportunity for students to connect with somebody that they need to process with maybe in the beginning or end of each day that you have that um available to them because that's really going to help them too through their day if they're struggling or what have you so thank you for doing that you're welcome we good okay thank you our next presentation comes from another proud principal from Kingswood Elementary we have Tim Brooks I'm glad she went before me because the mic is at the right level so it's perfect all right okay well good evening president

094Chaffin members of the board Dr Coto members of cabinet and guests my name is marily Lee Tim Brooks and I'm the proud principal at Kingswood and at Kingswood our catchphrase has been last year and is continuing this year that kns level up and this year really proud to say that we did level up um and have received the a rating for our school and that's the first time that Kingswood has received that rating so we're really proud and we're really excited about that and we have a lot of positive momentum going on on our campus um that we're continuing through this year as we focus on our CIP this year so this year we started with a strong clear Focus outlined in our continuous Improvement plan and we maintain the strong Focus throughout the school

095year we are implementing systems to support teachers monitor instructional practices and results student by student standard by standard student by student standard by standard so historically our data shows um growth in the past three years we've continued to make growth in all three areas Ela Math and Science and we are very proud of the fact that we were in the top 10% of schools in the state for overall growth this year um over the past three years you can see the data shows we've increased proficiency levels in ela by 20% in math by 11% and for science in the past two years we've increased by 21% and we are above the state average in all three of those State tested areas our Zella data uh shows that we are making progress we are decreasing the

096number of students that are pre-emergent but we're still continuing to focus and support all of our elll students we have strategically created a master schedule that ensures our elll students receive both integrated and targeted instruction throughout the school day and we know that our El students need those targeted supports and one of the strategies that we've incorporated into all of our class classrooms is the use of sentence frames as es scaffolded support in order to increase those academic conversations among peers student to student as a campus we've created three main goals for our continuous Improvement plan our first goal focuses on strong instructional practices during tier one if we can strengthen our core instruction in our tier one we know that we're going to be reducing the need for those tier 2 and tier three

097interven itions our goal for all of our students and all of our subgroups is to reduce the number of students that are minimally proficient and increase the proficiency levels action steps for our first goal include meeting weekly in our prep connects with each grade level team we examine student learning data we adjust instruction as needed according to that data we plan small group instruction for tier one for students that are not mastering skills and Concepts and we create intervention plans for students based on standards that are not mastered our second CIP goal focuses on increasing parent education and communication and that is focused on student achievement and growth we really feel it's important to be continuing to work with parents as partners and a lot of times they just aren't really sure what to do

098and how they can best help their their child so um we are also focusing on celebrating our students achievements that remains at the Forefront um increasing our social media spotlighting students and teachers and something that we added this year to support this goal is a parent University which focuses on helping parents understand the student assessments that their children are taking um how they're based on standards how to interpret their own child's data and so they can continue to work with them and support them at home our last goal focuses on effective implement mation of multi-tiered systems of support we hold weekly meetings with our intervention team and we review data uh weekly such as unit and module assessments we look at Lexile scores from achieve 3,000 we um look at progress monitoring data and um

099CFA data and in those weekly meetings we um review and create skill groups for tier three um they are put in place for students and are aligned to the standards and students are regrouped as needed we also continue to um talk about the needs of our El and ESS students um they are a focus during our prep connect meetings our RTI meetings our intervention team meetings um and we involve our resource teachers in those meetings and and they've been very very successful and having that open dialogue um our teachers meet weekly as part of a professional Learning Community to review our individual students progress um their lesson plan utilizing scope and sequence um using our curriculum and our standards with Fidelity I have gone very fast because I wanted to give you an overview but

100we are very very very proud of the progress that we have made at Kingswood and our whole Community has really worked together um to stay focused and things don't happen just by chance it happens with a lot of hard work but we have been very very specific with our Focus um and staying consistent with our focus and our priorities and we're starting to see those great results and we're we're really excited about that we are spending next week celebrating um we should hopefully see some of you I think on Tuesday to to receive our a banner uh we'll be storming the halls with all of the kids to celebrate um and just some other just really exciting things because we know um it is important to take a moment and celebrate and then get back

101to work because we we know we we have a lot to still do so it at Kingswood is a great day to be a night and I just want to thank you for your time and any questions that you have i''d be happy to answer at this time thank you so much I appreciate the presentation I I congratulations on the growth that's phenomenal in since 2020 you grew 20% 11% I mean it's that's a lot of hard work and focus thank you so thank you I I look forward to next year I can't you know you keep going you keep growing it's it's wonderful thank you and congratulations on your your a label obviously but also those gains in uh science too that's amazing yes but you uh you've probably seen firsthand when you first

102came to daart and you came to Kingswood um mid year maybe was it right was it mid year that year I was hired in the middle of the year but I actually started in the summer so okay but 17 years ago yes I remember um but look at the difference and I bet it's neat for you to to have started there and then now kind of Full Circle back at Kingswood and just to see the growth of that school I'm sure it has a lot of meaning for you thanks for all the hard I want to recognize some of the um staff that came with me and I as I was looking at um teachers that joined me tonight for the presentation they every single one of them was here when I was there back

10317 years ago so there's a lot of commitment and a lot of pride um and this is something that um everybody has worked really hard for um you work very hard thank you so much for your hard work all of you thank you um and congratulations on everything the um the growth is absolutely outstanding I see Miss Lindsay crying over there she was a baby kindergarten teacher back then yeah thank thank you so so much for everything for just turning around um turning everything around at Kingswood really from what I've heard so much positive you know from that one over there um but thank you to all your staff it's it's I know that it's um that it's hard work to get to where you're you're at um so it's definitely not unnoticed thank you

104I just want to say congratulations and um you mentioned parent universities can you elaborate a little bit more on that I can we are fortunate that we have a family Outreach specialist on our campus and we've really uh focused on that two-way communication with our families and helping them um to we use so many acronyms and so many different things in education and we just take for granted that parents know what is Dibbles and what is what does aasa stand for and and all of those um those terms and so we um invited parents to come in and we've actually sat with them and went through um what is aasa what is how do how do we get points for that and how um are students measured with growth and what kinds of things are

105they assessed on um how do we look at individual students data how do we use benchmarks to U make sure that we know students are making progress and just involved the parents in that conversation so they really felt um equipped when they left to continue working with their kids at home because we know our parents want to help them but a lot of times they just don't know what to do do they don't know where to start and and what their kids need and so that's um that's where we started we have another one scheduled um in January we'll be talking more about benchmarks and as we're kind of gearing up and getting ready for um testing in the spring do you get a good turnout with that with parents we had we had a

106handful I would say um a small group but the word of mouth is is spreading um I do coffee with the principal also we have really traditionally had a good turnout for our coffees so we're promoting it there um and I take advantage of that time also to share schoolwide data and share our school goals and let them know we are that a school and we've really been working to um share that out with the community so it's at the Forefront and it really you can feel that momentum and that energy just across the campus and and with all of our parents too so that is great I love it good job nice job thank you all right next we'll move on to J1 Dr CTO thank you madam president uh earlier tonight we did

107have a public hearing on the revised budget for 23 24 school year uh there were no comments and no questions so we will turn it over to board and asking you to approve the 2324 revised expenditure budget all right I will move to approve the 2023 2024 revised expenditure budget second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don denmore motion carries we will move on to J2 Dr crto thank you madam president uh as you know over the last two months or so uh we have had boundary change committee meetings for the Assante area um and tonight is come to time for the board to vote on that so Dr asai will give a very brief overview of that process and then turn it over to the board for a vote Dr asai good evening

108Madam president members of the board um I just wanted to walk you through our process one more time uh so you would know be aware of what the committee did on 9:22 we called for committee members uh we did end up taking everyone that applied we didn't say no to everyone because we wanted it to be a Community decision we hosted Community meetings uh or committee meetings I'm sorry on both October 17th and October 23 uh to get community input about here's the situation we reviewed numbers why we needed to do the boundary changes uh possible outcomes possible ways to do it um and they ranged all over the place uh before we came to our decision um on 1023 they did make a decision to make a recommendation to the board uh that we'll

109go over in just a few minutes we went over at last board meeting uh we did post for the public meeting we held a public uh meeting on 111 or we I'm sorry we posted the public meeting notice for the governing board on 111 we did add an additional open house to the process on November 8th uh we weren't required in that process to go up to Asante but we know that this is a far way to drive to the district office for our families up there uh so my team went up uh we had about 30 parents attend probably it was a good uh it was a good showing um on 1116 we had the public hearing here in which we presented the committee's recommendation the recommendation to remind the board the committee had

110was to turn a Sante and Western Peaks both in 2K5 schools and to make simmeron a 68 uh with the kids that are in sixth through eighth grade coming down from Asante to sron uh this will alleviate the crowd overcrowd for we hope about four to 5 years uh we know that area is continuing to grow uh so we are helpful hopeful that there'll be other Alternatives as well uh but for now that's probably the best we can do within our budget uh so tonight we're here recommending that the board approve the boundary changes and I'll answer any questions thank you do we have questions all right I will move to approve the proposed boundary changes as presented second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Christine Richard motion carries we'll move on to j3

111Dr CTO thank you madam president uh now we've come to a time where we get to welcome uh a couple people to our daart family and and um and a new position for another person that's already in dard so for these awesome recommendations I'll turn it over to Dr polling thank you Dr CTO Madam president members of the board cabinet and public administration is proud to recommend for the position of director of Transportation Danielle daniiel Moore for the assignment for the 23 24 school year she has extensive experience currently the uh Transportation director for Cave Creek unified and previously the director at AA free Union High School District she'll receive salary and benefits commensurate with the position position her education and experience her resume is attached and below is our um standard hiring process and

112with that I'll stand for any questions and uh she's also with us tonight so thank you do we have any questions all right I move to approve the appointment of Danielle danielak Moore as director of Transportation second motion made by Crystal chaff and seconded by Don denmore motion carries congratulations congratulations welcome to daer glad to have you welcome we'll move on to j4 Dr crto Dr polling you can continue thank you Dr Coto Madam president members of the board cabinet Community with the promotion of Dustin Hammond dir of Community Education we're recommending the addition of an interum Middle School principal in order to provide adequate coverage for the rest of this school year we're recommending appointing of Miss Amber Luna to fill this intern position for the remainder of this school year she's currently the

113assistant principal and as we do every year for intern positions we would run a standard hiring process to have a permanent uh principal starting July 1 so with and Miss Luna is also here welcome and with that I'll take any questions thank you do we have any questions all right I'm move to approve the addition of an interim Middle School principal position and appointment of Miss Amber Luna as interim principal of sonor and Heights Middle School for the remainder of the 2023 2024 school year motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Jennifer Drake motion carries congratulations congratulations congratulations all right J5 Dr crto continuing on with our third recommendation Dr polling thank you Dr CTO Madam president members of the board cabinet Community with with your last vote we are now recommending the addition of

114an inter Middle School assistant principal in order to provide appropriate coverage we're recommending Steven seavoy for the remainder of this school year his extensive ad ministrative experience he's retired from PE Unified School District as Deputy superintendent he'll receive salary uh Comm Comm with the position as education experience his resume is attached and Mr SEO is also here as well thank you do we have any questions all right I move to approve the addition of an interim Middle School assistant principal position and appointment of Steven seavoy as interim assistant principal of Sonoran Heights Middle School for the remainder of the 2023 2024 school year second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don denmore motion carries congratulations welcome to die start Mr seavoy yes thank you for coming out of retirement for a brief time to

115share your expertise we appreciate that all right we'll move on to j6 Dr Coto thank you madam president our last action item tonight is to discuss and set a date for an executive session for the my midterm evaluation so I will turn it over to the board for any discussion thank you very much our meeting for January is set for January 25th are we good with having that midyear evaluation on January 25th we expecting are we expecting a heavy agenda in January I'm Madam present a member denmore um I do not know yet you know of I do not as of right now it is not a heavy agenda okay I'm okay with that then well you'll be board president so okay let's do that January 25th then yeah it will not be a heavy

116agenda then all right so with that I motion to establish an executive session on January 205th 2024 for the superintendent's midyear evaluation second motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore just clarify that is the the very coming next meeting meeting right are you right that is correct we voted to revise our calendar so our only meeting in January is the 25 right okay I just want to make sure yeah I want to make sure I understood too thank you motion carries item K1 do we have a request for future agenda items okay I move we adjourn motion made by Crystal chaffman and seconded by Joe Grant sorry okay oh my gosh motion carries weird