001at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States let the record reflect that all board members are present we will move on to item B1 Dr crota thank you madam president Madam president members of the boards cabinet guests tonight we have an awesome presentation by the Willow Canyon band and Mr musee will introduce them yes thank you Dr croteau Madam president members of the board Dr croto cabinet and guests we are very honored and privileged to have the will Willow Canyon High School band here with us tonight under the direction of Miss Mandy Broderick Miss Broderick please take it away [Music] what's happening [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you sounds great
002guys great job thank you we will move on to B2 Dr crowdo thank you madam president uh moving on in our agenda uh tonight we have a presentation on a certificate of excellence in finance in Miss Mary Dell Speidel is going to present them good evening Madam president members of the board Dr crota cabinet and Community tonight I am proud to share that again been awarded both the association of school business officials International and the government Finance Officers Association certificates of Excellence for financial reporting related to our annual comprehensive Financial reports for fiscal year 22. these reports they're submitted for review to an external panel and so they review them they judge them to ensure that they meet those high standards of the program and so getting those Awards actually represents our commitment to financial
003transparency since they are the highest form of recognition in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting so I'd like to thank the entire finance department obviously they carry the heavy load on this and now under the direction of Miss Francie will foulman and the entire team they do an amazing job with Gathering the required information and so I'm sure they're going to continue to do an excellent job Meeting those high standards so I have the award here so we'll probably be displaying it out in the case out in the lobby for for viewing thank you questions thank you Miss Fidel that's awesome next we will move on to item C1 Ms Densmore this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified
004on this agenda pursuant to ARS 38431.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing the 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 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 up we have Stephen lobert my name is Steven Wilbert I'm a father of a student over at Luke Elementary it came to my attention this school year shortly into the school year that the board decided to terminate the contract with Southwestern Behavioral Health my daughter utilizes those Services every week
005at that school and it has helped her increase her grades and her attitude at the school day in and day out and I'm extremely disappointed that you guys have terminated that contract limiting my daughter's access to these resources I struggle with five kids three different school districts I do not have a lot of time after my day especially with the kids getting out at 4 pm to get them around and get them some of the health they help they need and this greatly helped me and now you guys have put a massive burden on me I know there are other parents there are other kids in this situation that you've now put my daughter in and I ask that you guys reevaluate your decision on that and bring them back to help our kids in
006these schools and help them succeed otherwise take that last line off your wall thank you Dr curta will you follow follow up with Mr lobert yes ma'am thank you that was all we had okay thank you next we will move on to item D1 Dr Cordo foreign thank you madam president uh tonight we do have a student update school is back and I'll have Mr musee introduce our student speaker yes Madam president members of the board Dr crotto and guests tonight we have our student update coming from Braley Ratliff she is a senior from Valley Vista and one of our officers in the in the Dysart student council and fairly has some information to share with us good evening um recently or at our first dslc meeting we discussed that each school was presenting their
007back to school spirit week which was very successful a lot of participation and with the back to school dances from Valley and Willow and we also began planning our end of the year conference splitting up different schools into different committees to make sure everything gets done Valley Vista suko is working to present the 2024 Arizona Association of student council convention coming January 25th to the 27th today we represented at Ironwood High School at the 2023 Spirit conference and this coming week we are sending students from Valley Vista to represent at Cesar Chavez McClintock High School Perry High School and Tucson magnet that is all for tonight thank you very much thank you next we'll move on to day two Dr crowdo thank you madam president members of the board just a couple uh quick updates
008tonight so September coming up is going to be National attendance month uh we are starting a massive attendance Campaign which we've already started but September we're ramping it up so you're going to see a video message from me to community members to to our students about the importance of attendance uh bi-weekly we're going to do social media posts and schools are going to help share those posts and retweet them and all that other stuff what they do monthly we're going to even after past September we're going to do District reminders for Flyers use our Peach jar I encourage our tenant our teachers to highlight the parent attendance and then we're doing something pretty cool with the attendance contest between all schools so kind of like a March Madness so we're going to pair schools up
009against each other and that's coming up our PR department under Renee Ryan has done an amazing job to make pick up this bracket so we will have an attendance Champion towards the end of the year of the best attendance they're going to compete against each other and the winners are going to advance down just like the bracket in March Madness and and we're going to have a prize for that winner at the end so we're doing some awesome things to kind of highlight attendance is important for our students to be in school so they can learn very important so I continue to remind everybody and and those watching attendance matters and we need people to be in school or our students to be in school to teach so with that also you know that our
010fall seasons are upon us you can tell by the marching band they did an awesome job tonight but all our Sports football volleyball cross country swim and dive badmin palm and cheer golf band theater choirs they're all in full force so I urge everybody to check our website for our all the times and locations of all those events come check it out last week we had a great I've been cutting at Dysart high school so a celebration of their new new field it was an amazing night congratulations to Dysart they did a great job and they even got the win on a new field so they opened it up in a great way so I just want to remind everybody to mark your calendars for September 8th that's when Willow Canyon will have their ribbon
011cutting ceremony so we're excited about that and with that that's all I have this evening thank you very much we will move on to item D3 governing board update um I just attended the Countryside School of their coyote code celebration and that was a great way to start off the school year those kids are so excited and they were cheering and they were learning that code pretty darn quick but great way to start off the school year so that's it i i attended the um the Dysart field revealing ribbon um cutting ceremony last Friday that was a great experience my whole family got to attend and the best part is they won the game so end of the night with a with a great celebration and then today I attended the trust policy government summer
012Summit where it went over policies of the different districts it it uh it showed a lot of the districts are now going through the trust and and then there's a lot of other districts that are in the process of going through the trust so that was a good experience and I just want to thank Dysart for allowing us to attend with the with the administration so thank you thank you I attended Spalding night at Freedom Traditional Academy and it was really interesting not only from hearing from some of the students but but hearing from some of our Educators who say that Spalding makes their lives so much easier teaching so I'm excited that we're obviously we have it at Freedom but that we're piling piloting it elsewhere so I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback
013from other schools I also attended the trust policy governance Summit today it was just very informative not only from our own attorneys but also hearing from members of the Attorney General's office and it was just a lot of information sharing and it was really refreshing um just to experience something that was that's really seemed truly nonpartisan and very much appreciated that's it I also would just like to thank Countryside principal Miss McNeese for extending her invitation to allow the board to attend their first coyote Spirit assembly it was great to see the students so excited to be back in school and all that hyped up coyote spirit so thank you again for allowing me to be a part of it um I also want to take a moment to comment on a current issue in
014the media regarding the Arizona School Board Association as many may recall on December 8 2021 by a 3-2 vote this board adopted a resolution severing ties with asba which for me was not an action that I took lightly when I was sworn in as a new board member in December of 2006. asba was an amazing non-partisan organization that supported local control and provided invaluable guidance and support to school board members so they could be successful in their board governance it was led by strong ethical individuals that had a pure vision of supporting School Board leadership over the years the supposed non-partisan organization known as asba transformed into an unrecognizable political machine driven by radical left ideals and created more division than unity in regard to school board leadership in our state I was therefore proud
015that Dysert was a forerunner in severing ties with asba who continued to align with the overarching organization of nsba which referred to our our parents as domestic terrorists I would urge all school board members to read the current article regarding the alleged unethical practices of asba approximately one quarter of the association's revenue comes from Arizona school districts school board members are charged with being good stewards of taxpayer Monies as evidenced by my vote two years ago my conscience would not allow me to continually pay dues to fund the salaries of asba leadership and I furthermore no longer wanted the good name of this District to be associated with what I view as unscrupulous practices I urge all school board members to examine your District's mission and vision statements reflect on the oath that you took
016when you were sworn into office and decide whether asba is an organization that you choose to feed financially and represent who you are as a board member and as a district thank you that's all I have thank you I also attended the ribbon cutting ceremony at Desert High School field so that was always great to be there they have such good spirit very good team spirit it was just a great atmosphere it was wonderful so that was a pleasure to attend and that is all next we will move on to item e one and with that I will move to approve consent agenda items as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant motion carries next we will move on to item G1 Dr Credo thank you madam president members of the board
017tonight we have two presentations to continue our CIP reports and Mr musee will be introducing our schools thank you Madam president members of the board Dr croteau we are going to hear two different continuous Improvement plan reports tonight our first one will be coming from Willow Canyon and the interim proud principle of Willow Canyon and he'll start us off [Music] good evening Madam president members of the governing board Dr crota and cabinet I am Tom ludeman the proud new principal at Willow Canyon High School and I'm excited to be here this evening to share with all of with all of you with the wonderful things that are happening at Willow Canyon High School our school goals and how our work directly aligns with the district governing board goals as you can see last year we
018experienced a decline in ACT scores across the board from the previous year obviously this is an unacceptable outcome and I aim to outline the steps we take to remedy this situation are as Zella scores data from the other hand is very strong you can see that we've improved year over year and the percentage proficient in our ell populations which resulted in full points being awarded by the state in our letter grade assignment Willow Canyon High School at Willow Canyon High School our primary purpose is to prepare students to be successful academically this aligns with the district's broader goal of equipping students with the knowledge and competencies needed to attain success in higher education and future careers we are committed to nurturing our Wildcats and fostering their growth to achieve these aspirations we have developed a
019series of strategic action steps Central to our approach our professional learning community structure and collaborative teams there within which will collaborate closely to ensure harmonization of teaching and learning experiences that harmonization will be guided by a thorough understanding of our students needs rooted in our data driven decision making to facilitate the process our teams will undergo specialized training in utilizing specific protocols tailored to their collaborative groups furthermore they will benefit from targeted professional development that caters to their distinct needs by empowering our Educators growth we ultimately empower the growth of our learners our academic goals for the upcoming year in the ELA Math and Science are as such Ela proficiency increase of three percent from 45.5 percent just Foster stronger language arts skills math proficiency we aim for a three percent growth from 39.02 percent
020in 2223 to enhance our mathematical abilities and in science proficiency we strive to see a five percent Improvement up from 19 in 2223 to strengthen our scientific proficiency our strategic action steps to attain these goals are as such collaborative study groups for ACT boundary math students trailer math classes for credit retrieval and GAP closure comprehensive act preparation and an intensive act boot camp leading up to the exam our ultimate objective encapsulates the interconnection of our student staff and our winning culture at Willow Canyon High School our institution is deeply ingrained in the fabric of our community and it is our aspiration that this identity is consistently mirrored in all of our endeavors are over the preceding years we have witnessed a steady escalation of both parent and teacher satisfaction and our commitment to perpetuate our
021positive influence within the community by maintaining a satisfaction level of 85 percent or above at all times this year we continue the unwavering commitment to Foster the winning Culture by actively seeking input from parents teachers and students concerning various events and activities at our school the solicitation of feedback will remain a Cornerstone as it guides our efforts to involve and enhance the offerings of the betterment of our students our overall ambition is to elevate Willow Canyon's High School's status to become one of the Premier educational institutions in the state we recognize that this aspiration can only be achieved through the collective support of all stakeholders and we remain steadfast in our focus on the students and families that we are privileged to serve our strategic action steps surrounding this goal include comprehensive customer service training
022for all front office staff quarterly surveys and action plans student-centric principal student meetings and weekly community events hosted on our site goal number three our Focus shifts to our third goal which centers around attendance and its crucial role in creating necessary circumstances to provide learning environment the aim is to reduce the number of students who think face chronic absenteeism to tackle the challenge we've designated a teacher to spearhead the attendance compliance initiative with coordination with site Administration regular collaboration and data analysis enable us to devise interventions and support structures tailored to each student's individual needs we will Leverage The expertise of our dedicated Personnel to Foster collaboration between teachers families and students the ultimate objective is to chart a course towards Student Success and this goal is aligned with the overarching pursuit of academic excellence
023and dovetails with the district's commitment to achieve College and Career Success for all recognizing that learning cannot Thrive if a pupil is not present we Endeavor to ensure the presence of our students our strategic action steps aligned with this goal include engaging in chronic absentee students in pre- pre-meetings at the beginning of the year adherence to our attendance protocols strictly as well as semester credit denial and the appeals process to ensure that students are being held accountable this concludes my presentation at this time I will stand for any questions that you may have thank you very much do we have questions could you please talk about that attendance one more time yes ma'am um specific point that you would like me to emphasize there the beginning okay one of the things that we've uh done
024is we went through our data from last year and we identified a um a group of students who are categorized by the state as chronically absent these are students that Miss more than 10 days per semester that are unexcused by a doctor's note suspension or Student Activity we've taken that list of students and we've identified Target students there within who we believe with some intervention we may be able to change that behavior and we've met with those students in the first week to two weeks of school they are placed on an attendance contract notified of the expectations moving forward what needs to happen when you're out sick because one of the things that we have found is that some of these students are legitimately sick but they're not bringing those doctor's notes into us they're
025just not following the protocol so therefore they're finding themselves on that attendance list we are finding in these meetings that we have students with exceptional circumstances and we make the appropriate step to make sure that they're supported where that needs to be but essentially the idea is we're emphasizing the fact that you need to be at school every day and if you can't be here you need to have a good reason why you're not the second step to that is then we mail letters at the fifth absence we mail letters at the eighth absence at the 10th absence they meet with an administrator and their classes are closed until the parent meeting is set up and so we're making sure that we're going through all the appropriate steps as outlined by our student handbook and
026that we're being consistent with that with each student once that happens if they continue to miss then they're placed in a credit denial situation where they have to come into an appeals and we have a board that meets with them at that point at the end of the semester and reviews kind of where they've been through the whole process and the idea here really is initiating conversations with kids sooner rather than later so that we they know the expectation thank bye did I understand you stand directly person that's that's coordinating this whole thing as a teacher yes ma'am we took two sections of our you know a signed teaching assignment and we have assigned that person to work in the office alongside Miss lamazo who works with our attendance folks and so she's overseeing that
027he's meeting with those students along with Administration and he is this kind of the person who's coordinating a lot of those efforts yes ma'am yeah and it's within our allocation so we didn't ask for anything above and beyond we made sure it made it work with what we had okay yes ma'am any other questions I actually have a question and I appreciate the fact that you're you're interim I understand that but um just in regard to the decline in ACT scores have you determined um any information as of yet regarding the cause just so you can develop very specific intentional interventions to help increase those scores again absolutely um there are a couple of pieces we think that led to that primary amongst them this last group of students that we tested had not seen
028a state assessment since they were in seventh grade we don't feel as though our ACT prep or our act boot camp was done well if I'm just being perfectly candid and so these were kids who maybe had some knowledge but didn't display it in the way that we would have expected because they didn't interact with the test in in a regular way so being is that if you look at our strategic plan there and our action steps there's half of our of our piece there is making sure that they are comfortable with the exam we show that our current group of Juniors that have moved up matriculated through our system we know where they're at we know which kids are are boundary sitters we have placed some of those students specifically in mathematics in a
029collaborative study group method for twice a week where they're getting additional support we've got kids taking extra sections of mathematics outside of the school day so that they can catch up in those trailer courses because we do see that they have holes so there's a couple of pieces going on there and the bottom line in all of it if I'm being 100 candid is we are focusing really heavily on good tier one instruction because if we're not teaching them the math that they're learning now it doesn't matter if we've closed the hole that they had prior to that so there's a multi-faceted approach to it we know where each of those kids are with our Benchmark data aligned with the ACT we have multiple steps there and we have some projections to where some of
030those students are are tracking whether they're going to make those thresholds or not and we're providing interventions for those individual groups depending on where they fall in that in that Spectrum so do you feel like willow also struggles with tier one instruction everybody struggles with tier one instruction yeah 100 um you know I think that that we've made a real Focus over the last uh two or three years to identify uh learning intention and success criteria what do I want you to learn how do I know if you learned it I think we're at that point and so the piece that I think where our next step is is it's establishing some common formative assessments where we're then looking at what's been learned and adjusting instruction um you know three or four years ago there
031was a lot of teaching that was focused on activity or on material not on learning not on outcome I feel much better that we are clear about intentional learning and that we are clear about outcome now it's a matter of what adjustment happens so that we're addressing those those areas that didn't get covered and that's our next step at Willow Canyon in my opinion and you feel comfortable letting the district know if there if you need any extra assistance to make sure your tier one gets going Dr crota gets phone calls from me all hours of the night perfect thank you it's like it's paid the big bucks [Laughter] any other questions um just a quick one the the um the survey for the parents yes ma'am what is do you know what the current
032um percentage is we were at 84.6 on the last time and so that was one where we've been predominantly over 85 percent okay we saw a slight decline in parent survey um part of what we believe there was a part of that in in our opinion was that we had a relatively low return on survey this last year um you know anytime you send out a parent survey you get one of two flavors parents that are super happy and parents that are really unhappy and the ones that are kind of doing okay tend to not respond um and so we're doing some things to try and initiate we feel like we're really good at one-way communication we send stuff out we let them know what's happening we invite them onto campus but we haven't done
033a very good job of soliciting feedback back um and so we're working on a couple of pieces there one of which is going to be some personalized emails to parents from me each week especially specifically our freshman parents we want to engage them let them know that we know their kid that we care about their kid ask them how they're doing um and you know what what our feedback has been on that or my feedback has been on that so far I've done it one week is that most of the emails back are like hey thanks for checking in we appreciate it it's been pretty you know they just feel happy that somebody cares I think um and it's not the normal canned email no right it's yeah it's the uh it's specific I see
034there you know in this extracurricular activity or they've got this math teacher how is that going for them that kind of thing um and they've been pretty positive responses um I've gotten one so far that was hey I'm really having a problem now that you've reached out please help me with that that's great because now we can address some of those needs and some of those concerns and my focus this year is on our freshman class I think most of our upperclassmen know me pretty well I've been there four years so our seniors all I know all they know of me is that I've been the athletic director but our freshmen are brand new they don't know anybody and the indict the idea there is by the end of the year I will have connected
035with every parent of every kid on our campus at the ninth grade level that's amazing and impressive thank you yes ma'am thank you any other questions thank you very much thank you Mr musee you can continue thank you our next presentation will be coming from Asante Preparatory Academy miss Emily Dean and she is the proud principal that has some great information to share with us good evening for Madam president board members Dr Grotto I can't sneak up on anybody right now so my big old boot so I'm here today to present on Asante I'm proud to do so I also can't seem to adjust the mic so I'm gonna try one more time I'm just gonna hold it like this okay so as you can see we're going to start out with our AZ um
036PSI and our aasa results last year we did see an increase across the board we're very proud of that we did not see the rates of proficiency that we were hoping to see although we did see an increase across we were very impressed that's not listed up here but we did see an increase in highly proficient in all of those areas as well which we are tracking separately which you'll see in our goal as well because we want to make sure we're not just crossing more kids over to proficiency but also over into that highly proficient category which is a focus for us as well we did which is not totally reflected up here though just to be very honest with you our eighth grade science was not as strong as our fifth grade science
037was so that is an area of focus in our individual planning for this year as well as our overall fourth grade math is a strong area of a focus for us it was not as strong as some of our other areas of math which you don't see in the overall role up here but just to be honest when you're digging down deep into the data arazella to be honest with you looks pretty good when you look at it up here it is a very different picture though when you look 21 to 22 23 our population is changing quite a bit as you may know when you're looking at enrollment numbers and so I was looking this morning because I was kind of like looking at it in our 2021 a Zella number and our 22
03823 is all a number like I think we have the total number in like K4 now was like our total Azalea total of K8 and that number so you can look at that data but I'll be honest it's not maybe as showing really the growth it is we really have to dig down Kid to Kid to really see where we are growing and not growing um with the azola so we are monitoring that heavily we are moving our kids especially in the primary when we look at it at that level so these are our goals for the year we have three goals um as most of the schools do our first one is focused on our growth in aasa so we are looking to gain at least that five percent in proficiency across the board
039in all areas as you'll note we're also looking to increase our highly proficient in each area by five percent as well so we want to look at both of those pieces as we're moving forward we're also looking to continue to grow you this has been a continuous growth goal for us since we opened one of the things that we feel as a community is very important is providing ways for our parents and our students to be involved in our community so one of the things I'm glad to see as a feeder school we have in common is that two-way communication piece going and we think the best way to get parents and kids involved is to have things for them to do at our school that interests them so we're continuing to grow those and
040then our last one is to reduce student referrals so continuing to work on pieces for that so in order to do those these are some of the action steps we want to take so for goal one we're going to continue to work on our teacher Clarity plans so we've been focused for a number of years at Asante on not just objectives for kids but learning intentions and success criteria so kids can accurately see what it is to be successful in the classroom every day and they can self-assess what they can do and what they can't do in every lesson so that's very important for us and for our teachers for them to be able to do that we're going to continue work with that we're going to focus our PLC work on not only tier
0412 PLC which is that Focus work on Intervention planning like what's going on in intervention but also in our tier one plc's where our plcs are talking not only necessarily in grade levels but also cross-grade levels on Common Thread areas to talk about areas we've seen that are things we need to talk about so like informational writing what does that look like fourth grade to fifth grade fifth grade to sixth grade so we can start having those conversations to continue that growth across the board we're also going to be working on getting kids in more real world experiences in their learning it's really important to get kids not only to be able to learn in the classroom but to transfer that to those real world experiences so often we get them to the level yes
042they can complete it on a sheet but will they be able to apply it to a real world problem so that's what we're going to be working toward and then building that culture of growth mindset and student self-efficacy so that focus on them being able to assess where they are in their learning and knowing that it's not about being perfect it's about where I am personally and how I get to that next level so for goal two we're going to be focusing on again that creation of clubs and activities that's something we've been doing you've heard me talk about I think you heard me talk about it may we're continuing to do that we continue to add things every year that our kids are interested in we just had a great meeting right this afternoon
043after school that was just talking about our new readers theater Club expansion that the kids were very started last year in a couple of grade levels that were expanding further this year and then our increase in parent involvement in school programs so our literacy night planning meeting was a part of what we were talking about today so we're talking about in conjunction the clubs and activities but also the things we can do for our parents to help bring them in and make them feel a part of our school um and then for goal three if you'll remember that goal was focused on reducing our referrals we're looking at our implementation of our school-wide behavior management plan so that's that focus on our common expectations at our school we have our Ranger reports so kids are
044focused on their professionals and our unprofessionals and on our primary grades we call them their um their try agains and their good jobs um and then our we're creating a new recess peer mentoring program where older kids can come down to primary recesses and help coach kids on you know those little life lessons when you're learning in kindergarten how to share balls and how to make friends and what you do when you know your friend wants to play with a new friend for the first time and you're trying to figure out how all that works and then last but not least the implementation of differentiated supports through RTI so that's a continual process that we'll be working on through that piece um and with that being said I'll stand for any questions you might have
045[Music] thank you very much do we have any questions okay of course it might be three no um what is your um enrollment right now as of this morning I don't know I have I stopped looking about two weeks ago I was getting a little don't want to look anymore I think we're sitting if you don't count Pre-K around a thousand fifty if anybody's got enrollment comparison up with preschool that's another 70-ish kids AM PM so 11 something and change and with the growth out there of more to come yes sorry um you talked about wanting to get parents more involved with things that interest them yes how are you going to do that could you just talk about how you're going to find out what interests them or so what we find is I
046feel like parents want to be involved in their kids education I think that there's a few blocks that stop them first number one is time so we try to plan things that are in time frames where people can get involved in different ways so we've tried to do some night things that are community events that you know if a family has you know they work they're not going to be able to come to something we have during the school day so we've done things like donuts with the principal and things like that that may work if you work a different set of hours and we do a morning event you might be able to come to that you might not be able to come to that you know some parents can come and they can
047eat lunch with their kids and that's great we try to invite them in for things like that but then we also try to have night events we try to do things where maybe you can't do that but you want to be involved in learning more about how to read with your child or things like that so we do take take away home things that they can do I think that one of the things that's hard for some of the members of my school community and I think I could speak for other school communities that feed into Willow is sometimes parents didn't have a great school experience themselves and so that holds them back from wanting to be involved and so we want to create things that make them feel invited in like maybe you didn't
048have a great experience but just come on in and have fun and do this with your kids and it might be a great time so that's like our literacy night we used to do it like we had parent rooms where you could like it was very parent University like learn about how to read with your child and if you're very intimidated about that that wasn't very fun and so what we've started to do is we do this really fun activity where they can do something fun with their child and then we have like a little thing with that goes with it like this was really fun wasn't it and you could do this at home and it's just a takeaway and it's real fun and we've had a lot of positive feedback from doing things
049like that so then they have a positive experience they remember this fun thing and then it's something fun they can do and this year we're even going to build a website like with a QR code that they can take with them so then they can have that to go home with them so be happy to share that after we get it created that's the vision that came out of today's meeting we'll see if I can pull it off we can pull it off I should say we I'm not tech savvy but yeah somebody said QR code and I'm like somebody on this team can create a QR code and I can create a website I know I can do that I really appreciated your presentation and the time that you put into giving very detailed
050like specifics on what you're doing I know you mentioned that um your scores aren't where you'd like them but as you said you're growing you're showing growth and that's the main thing and I specifically liked your comment regarding um just not just focused on getting the kids to proficient that even moving those highly proficient I mean that's always harder to show the growth once you're already up there so I appreciate your Insight on that as well so thank you for everything you're doing thank you um I just had a maybe a question um around the goal three the strategy two creation of recess peer mentoring program how do you select the mentors so we let kids decide if they wanted to apply okay so they decided we put it on the announcements they decided I'll
051be honest it's a very interesting group that some kids are kids that have had challenges themselves with some of the things that they applied for then they get to go to a training they have to sign a contract so because they won't miss like one 15-minute period of Class A week and they have to their parents have to sign off that they're going to miss that they're going to make up the work it rotates when they'll miss it so they won't always miss the same thing they have to be responsible to do it um and then if they fall and they don't do that they have to keep their teacher recommendation then they won't be able to stay in the program so we're real excited it'll be the first time we've done it so we'll
052see how the bumps go but the kids are really excited about it I will be honest they've just started getting trained and they have their little vests and all of that and we're very excited for them because to be honest with you the littles really look up to the big kids um and it'll be interesting because I really think that some of our big kids will actually learn from working with little kids how to do some of that stuff yeah that was my I guess my where I was going with that I think it's really just as important for the older kids to have that experience especially maybe those that have had the challenges like you said so yeah we had a couple of kids apply and a couple of people came to me and
053they're like do you think they just I said you know what let's let them try because to be honest with you it might be very good because even the training itself is going to be a learning experience for them because the questions they have to go through are very like so tell me about like let's talk it's your turn to talk now it's your turn to talk and then and then they go through a step and then like if hopefully it gives them the tools to change their own behavior especially as they get into the into High School correct just dealing with conflict I think that's really critical so thank you I'll keep you posted okay you can come out and see it in action maybe around December if you want I think they'll be
054rolling by then really well cute so yeah thank you very much thank you I was supposed to pass this to somebody okay next we will move on to item G2 Dr Credo thank you madam president members of the board cabinet guests uh tonight we bring you the update on enrollment and Staffing for the 23-24 school year as requested at the last board meeting from a member Grant and I believe member Dinsmore had some input so we're here to present that to you tonight um and Dr polling will be doing the presentation Dr pulley thank you madam president members of the board Dr crotto cabinet and audience it's my pleasure to talk about enrollment and staffing has everyone's been working very hard in preparation for the school year here's the current enrollment as of 10th day
055and it's a comparison over last year I'll just go down to the total for pre-k 12 a year ago we were at 23 078 students this year we have an increase to 23 304. so we're pleased to see that a lot of the increases in pre-k and that's promising so hopefully uh they're staying our system next year our Kinder numbers will have a nice bump and then we have a slight decrease in K8 and a slight increase in high school overall we're pleased with these numbers and they came in very close to projections so thanks to our planning administrator for his great work he projected these numbers back in January I believe so HR is focused on hiring not only all year round but once January kicks in we're really focused on hiring for a
056new school year put total employees hired since January 31 and I included certified hires and transfers so like certified hires 186 transfers 115. the reason I do that is we're always working very hard to hire new staff but we also make it attractive for people who want to stay in Dysart but maybe they want to look at a new job and we post all jobs those folks can apply for a transfer and they go back through HR through the hiring process they get interviewed recommended and we believe it's a service to our employees to offer those transfers so we look at those as as hires for a new year and you can see we have very good numbers of transfers and again very good numbers of certified classified licensed hires so all in all almost
057600 staff who HR is really working hard with to onboard to bring into our system and and to serve our our students there's our total employee count overall certified classified licensed and again we're working hard just to support those staff foreign requested some specific vacancy information and so here's High School teaching vacancies as of 8 14. um we have two academic interventions at Dysart high but then you can see ESS resource and science are other main needs and um that was definitely a focus throughout the District of hiring those folks Kate teaching vacancies some primary teachers some art but then again math and interventionists are the other ones that um that remain vacant other vacancies besides social workers you know again a big emphasis on ESS and that is an ongoing recruitment effort partnering with
058ESS partnering with PR to recruit and fill those positions just a long list of other vacancies that we have whether classified Community Ed and ESS transportation and so again HR is working with those directors working with PR to recruit and hire for those positions recruiting efforts so what are we doing in terms of trying to hire and fill our positions first HR is a partnership with PR and they're great Partners everything revolving around the digital media and newspaper and print PR is a great partners and they collect lots of data on how our work is going last year we had increased Dysart Career Fairs to three and those are annual every July December and March and work with PR and putting those in the newspaper we'd know that over time most of our staff live
059in our community and so we work hard to Market and recruit to our community and we feel like having somewhere they can walk in get interviewed and get the hiring process started right away is attractive and so we'll continue to do those this year we did Career Fairs around the state whether it's up at NAU Ade across the valley last year we did 12 total and we are working to increase that this year in terms of digital marketing geofence digital ads as well as digital media and they're all listed there lots of ads that are created by PR and and pushed out and to attract people who are looking for jobs whether they Google them or whether they pop up on ads on their digital device tablet or phone and last year we had over
060550 000 clicks so the ads are getting seen and so we're trying to attract people to then go on and apply to our jobs again print media surprise independent we run ads with them particularly on our Career Fairs and then with the connect and the achiever that PR sends out we have Billboards whether sometimes three or three sometimes 101 depending on on the time of the year and what we're doing we had one in Northern recently which was very nice looking down by Luke Elementary School our district website and social media again very active in making it easy to apply for jobs and click and see what's available and uh and apply for those Dr wiefridge worked last year to iron out some Kinks so that when we post jobs on our district website they
061automatically go to LinkedIn School spring indeed and we could tell that's working because when people apply we say how did you hear about us and a lot of times they'll put indeed or LinkedIn and so that's been a positive as well we also apply to other job boards such as Ade and or asbo and again just to try to get an Outreach to hire staff and lastly the board approved employee referral program and this past year we had 52 on the employee referral program but since it was an Inception in 2021 242 staff have received that employee referral so thanks for the board for their um support of that effort sorry for my speech tonight I'm a little under the weather so with that I'll take any questions thank you Dr polling do we have
062any questions go ahead thank you Dr Pauling and thank you for putting this together really do appreciate it am I reading this correctly that we only have 11 teacher openings yes vacancies that are not filled correct and that does not include correct okay correct some of our some of our previous vacancies do have a long-term sub and those are and those are not included there so yeah great job thank you it's a good number so thank you so much of course I'm just curious um what is the employee referral bonus amount uh if someone gets hired and puts their name in then after and they stay three months they get 250 dollars if they stay three more months they the employee gets another 250 dollars okay remember that's been continuing since its Inception we track
063that data in HR because they have to put their name on there right the other thing I know that um at some points we had like hiring other different hiring incentives for different positions I know we had one maybe like for for bus drivers or something is that correct we had something like a hiring incentive it wasn't an employee referral bonus we have been some some incentives we have like the board increased um the stipend for ESS teachers to three thousand dollars so that is a type of hiring incentive that we offer that we offer to recruit people that if you sign up then there's a three thousand dollar hard to fill stipend so we have those types of incentives fifteen hundred dollars for math or science so those types of things uh probably two
064years ago when Dr crotto worked um overseeing you know recruiting and Staffing he brought to the Border proposal to increase bus driver pay to 20 an hour which is now higher and and so that was a main recruiting effort for bus drivers I was thinking prior to that we had like a hiring stipend as well no not that I'm aware of okay maybe that was discussed I can't remember um just looking for I guess maybe for an opinion I know we've struggled with bus drivers for a long time what do you find to be maybe the biggest challenge in in hiring for those positions one of my main goals this year is I'm overseeing Transportation this school year so I'm working with director Doug Curry talked with him about that just the other day it's
065a little bit of a struggle we see drivers come and go so we'll train them and they leave and so we're you know competing with other organizations that need drivers with CDL and so it's just a challenge as we train them sometimes they leave he feels like we're in a better position than we have been in the past we do have 10 openings but we do have a class coming through and so anticipate that closing soon Madam president member Densmore with the bus drivers also you have to remember it's a split shift so it takes a special individual because they do the work in the morning they have to wait a while and then they come back in the afternoon to work so it's not a complete continuous work day so it takes a special
066individual that has that time or is willing to do that time and split that time so like Dr polling said we're doing some focus groups with them this year coming up real soon and going to get some feedback from them as as how we can make things better because we know that our kids cannot get to school if they don't pick them up and do that so you know that's the very as I talked to him this year that's the very very first important thing is they pick the students up and they bring them to us that we can teach and they can learn so we're anxious to talk with them and figure out those those things that can help thank you so in regard to the bus drivers being 10 short how are we
067compensating for that and making sure that our kids get to school on time or are they getting to school on time and we are tracking are they on time and so that's data that I could bring at a future time um he will has needed a hill pole um the driver trainers that are available and um to fill in and plug those caps and so um you know we're working he's working on any staff that can help drive a bus to make sure that kids are on time and so okay so really there's there's people in a lot of those positions it's not bus drivers correct okay and then um the only other comment I have that I guess would still technically hopefully tie into this agenda item in regard to just the vacancy piece
068of it in regard to the parapros being down 19 and ESS I know you know you had mentioned how the board really pushed for that increase in stipend for our special ed teachers but I don't know what we can do to to fill those vacancies we I mean I guess maybe that would also maybe be a budget question too because I'll tell you having been in those classrooms and ESS those those people get beat on and injured and hurt and we don't pay them enough I mean nobody should have to endure that in my opinion in a job but I understand and they go in understanding that it can happen and you know we try to set them up for Success the best we can but um for sure you're not going to find people
069that are going to do it for that wage and I know we try to negate that by having the what the different tiers well and the um the special ed Behavior text right that get paid a little bit more than a regular parapro but I don't know hopefully that's something that maybe I don't know what the budget or creatively somehow we can look at what we can do I think it's going to have to be financially in my opinion but to get that number down because to me that also represents you know concerns for classroom management it means certain children may not be getting serviced the way they need to be per their IEP or behavior plan and so I hope that's a priority absolutely thank you I agree with Miss Pritchard I think it's
070definitely a conversation worth having because I know some of the concern with our Paras is they need work in the summer they they don't get paid enough to where they can split up their paychecks in the summer but they'll end up going to get summer jobs and then those summer jobs will be just as much money if not more and so then they don't return so I don't know if maybe we need to have a conversation about a solution to offer some sort of summer employment I don't know maybe through Community Ed or um you know I'm not sure but I feel like we at least need to have a conversation about that absolutely thank you thank you are these pair of the ESS parapositions are they primarily um high school or K-8 or a
071good mix of both I don't have the information but I can get that for you okay um just I you know I don't I don't know if this is just happens to be at my son's school or not but I know that they were short on a few different positions not just Paras but but others and I know that there was a concerted effort to recruit parents that were maybe already volunteering in the school um I don't know if that's something that we could do at every school and obviously not all parents are going to be eligible or you know for that sort of thing but I wonder if that is a possibility or a different approach we could take and maybe it's already being done but if it's not maybe we can look at
072that thank you absolutely we'll follow up on that thank you any other questions comments thank you Dr polling thank you Dr Credo next we will move on to item H1 Dr Cordo thank you madam president members of the board cabinet guests uh tonight we're proud to present to you a recommendation for the position of uh director of safety operations for the district as you know from OAS board meeting this is a brand new position in our increased focus on safety creating our own Department of Safety and this person is going to run that so tonight we are recommending Mr Jason Yeager for the assignment for the 23-24 school year you're very well familiar with Mr Yeager he currently is our safety coordinator for Dysart Unified School District but I think you know as you hired
073him before but he has a Master's in psychology from the University of Phoenix he has extensive Safety and Security experience as well as 20 years with the Department of Public Safety and and we are very well very lucky to have him and he's doing a fantastic job and we are proud to present him tonight to you for the position of director of safety operations thank you Dr Credo do we have any questions with that I will move to approve the appointment of Jason Yeager as director of safety operations motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries congratulations Mr Yeager congratulations next we will move on to request for future agenda items do we have any Miss Grant um I don't think it's going to be an agenda item but it's a reporting
074request so I know we get the suspension report but I'd like to see the unexcused absent report um because I'm I'm going to be curious now to see how it starts out and through all of these things that you're doing um how it's working that I would just like to see the uh in the weekly or your weekly reports if you could share with that please I will get on that I'm sure we can add that on there thank you any others okay thank you next we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARS section 38-431.03 A3 and 38-431.0388 for the purpose of discussion or consideration of school safety operations and programs to obtain legal advice regarding the same at this time I moved to establish an executive session motion made by Crystal Chapman
075said goodbye Ms Grant Joe Grant yes to be done close it motion carries