Dysart Governing Board Meeting - March 30, 2023

001at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance thank you let the record reflect that all board members are present we will go to item B1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we have a theater performance and we will turn this over to Dr kroto Who will introduce our theater group thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board we are excited tonight to be joined by the William Canyon High School theater troupe under the direction of Mr Steve Walden so we are excited and the floor is yours [Music] there's only a zombies [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] everybody watching me [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music] thank you for our upcoming production

002Anastasia [Applause] thank you all and outstanding job great job great job that was very well done all right we will move on to B2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening we are absolutely thrilled uh to ask the board to come forward uh to the steps of the Deus so that we can recognize our three newest A-Plus Schools of Excellence and so if you would make your way up there and I'm going to talk for just a couple minutes and we'll have folks come up so we're going to start this evening with Willow Canyon High School Willow Canyon High School received the A-Plus School of Excellence from the Arizona Education Foundation and with Willow Canyon High School becoming an A plus School of Excellence this

003marks the fact that all four District high schools are a plus Schools of Excellence so congratulations Willow Canyon Way To Go [Applause] all right congrats [Applause] our next recipient of the A-Plus Award with their second go around of being an A plus School the A Plus Award is valid for I believe it's four years is that correct I'm getting some nods so this is the second go around for this school congratulations to a plus School Canyon Ridge come on down [Applause] thank you all right congratulations and our final a plus School recognition this evening they brought just a couple people with them to celebrate we want to say congratulations to El Mirage Elementary School not only for being hold on a second not only for being named in a plus school but they were also

004recently named a national model School congratulations come on now [Applause] bring them all we got all night congrats congratulations awesome way to go good job guys congratulations congratulations [Music] congratulations congratulations congrats congratulations congratulations congratulations way to go okay no no no um [Music] assistant [Applause] pretty big deal yeah that's wonderful and Madam president that concludes our recognitions this evening thank you Dr Dean congratulations to our schools that's such a an incredible accomplishment great job to every single one of you all right next we will move on to C1 audience with individuals Ms Densmore 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 the agenda pursuant to ARS 38431-01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited

005to 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 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 the first we have is Dion Waddell my name is Dionne Waddell um first I want to thank you guys for giving us this time I'm up here on behalf of my daughter who was on The Willow Canyon varsity cheer team um just wanted a voice concern over the coaching practices of the varsity team we have gone through my wife and I and have gone through other avenues with this

006concern and it has been looked at as hurt feelings but I assure you it's nothing to that extent just to kind of give you a little history my daughter was made the varsity cheer team last year in her freshman year and she's been a part of cheer and dance throughout her whole life since she was about two years old so it was it was very uh exciting for us to when she didn't make the varsity cheer teams especially when we've seen the hard work and the dedication that she put into it and at the time we did see that we we knew that it was going to be a difficult Journey for her and we were excited on our end as parents for her to have that um higher expectation put honor as far as

007accountability and what she's expected to do unfortunately throughout the throughout the year we did see a change in her um willingness to want to be part of the team not because of her teammates and not because of all of her coaches but because of the head coach um and and and believe me when I say this my wife and I will we were very uh we've always been supportive she didn't want us to say nothing because she out of fear of not making her position but there's multiple times where there was um I wouldn't verbal abuse and and that's fine coaching if you're going to coach I get that being a part of high school sports that's fine but also my coach was the first one there to be concerned if there was a possible

008injury be concerned if there was grades weren't met and he was always there the first one to help to get us back to where he needed to be so there's life lessons that we learned in this case it's a I'm all we're asking is for you guys to look in and um check into the practices of injuries of allowing the athletes to return before their injury is completely healed water breaks and and just holding the coach's account accountable for our children as far as teaching them by example many times when they're asked to be at practices early on weekends coach wasn't there on time and you know all we're asking for is just to look into it and talk to the athletes talk to the parents so we can and Madam president Dr Cotto will

009contact Mr Waddell I will let the board know that there's been a thorough investigation into parent concerns next we have Trent Polk rebeck hello um I'm here under the same premise my daughter too is had a lot of challenges with uh the Willow Canyon varsity cheer coach I know we just heard about we were talking about injuries just a moment ago it can also work both ways on a cheer team like that if there are athletes that if they feel like they disclose an injury that could also mean not be into returning to the competing portion of the team so you have to weigh how serious that injury is going to be whether that's something you really want to risk reporting or not so I mean it just wanted to throw that out there that

010it can go both ways I know that it has um in addition to that just where instances where there is other authority getting in a student's face until I am and tell him to shut up that when you have a athletic director and even the principal there but neither one of them recall the incident um it's really disappointing is I had to be honest with you I I went to a district school growing up in another state my kids grew up going to Charter Schools and when this opportunity was presented to us to come to Willow Canyon um it was very apprehensive that I allowed my daughter to go there but I knew that she had a gift and I wanted her to be able to pursue her gift and she wasn't going to be

011able to get as much out of it at the school that she would have been attending to in fact it was really difficult in our house to even make the decision to allow her to go to a district school when I allowed her to go to pursue her abilities and and grow in the sport of cheer I told her that if she has any mess-ups anything being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people doing the wrong thing anything that could get in trouble this brand of baseball I'm going to give you in shoe strikes not even giving you three I can put you back in the school that we were intending you to go to in one day the door was left open her sister still attends the school

012anyhow I thought it was this my student that I I was going to be more worried about in the end right now I'm not happy with the situation with the leadership of the school thank you and we'll have Dr Crow to follow up with Mr Polk Rebecca as well thank you we will move on to D1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community Dr crota will introduce our student speaker this evening thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board tonight we have Braley Braley Ratliff a junior from Valley Vista High School here to talk to us Braley it's all yours so um recently at Valley we hosted our Mr Monsoon contest and we didn't have that Hive attendance but we made up for it last

013Saturday our prom with over 800 attendees and then dysar also held their Mr Dysart this past weekend and their promise coming up on April 15th and this coming Saturday Willow Canyon has their prom at the Sheridan Hotel downtown and Shadow Ridge is hosting their prom as well at um Hidden Lake over in Buckeye and um in our dslc meetings we've been finishing up last minute details of our end of the year conference and that's pretty much it thank you very much thank you thank you we will move on to item D2 superintendent update Dr Dean thank you madam president member of the governing board a cabinet in our community this evening just a couple of things to provide in the superintendent update the first is to let the board know that at the last meeting

014we talked about initiating a web a page on our website where there would be committee information that would be displayed and in a very easy way for people to click a button if they were interested in that that website went live today I want to thank our PR folks for not only designing the page but also getting that up and rolling and that can be found in two places it can be found under the parent link and under the Community Link as well so thank you so very much for that I want to let the board know that State Testing is underway hard to believe because we're still in March but State Testing is underway in some of our schools and over the course of the next Amy three weeks over the course of the

015next three weeks almost a month our students will be participating in State Testing we are looking forward to them performing quite well and really displaying all the great things that they have learned this year also going to let the board know that uh that uh Dr crota reached out to Arizona Christian University to inquire about expanding a partnership with them and Gathering more of their student teachers and so he contacted the president at Arizona Christian University and heard back yesterday from the dean of the College of Education and we will be signing an agreement with Arizona Christian University to expand our partnership with them with student teachers so we're very excited about that opportunity one District's loss is certainly our gain and finally this evening I want to say a huge thank you to Danae

016Marinelli who's not supposed to be here she's supposed to be off today but we want to thank Danae Marinelli and it is all Denise planning that makes the dice pets over the Arts go every single year first of all the event was spectacular um and they're I think that's the right word it was tremendous to see all of our students just perform and display their artistic talent what a great day and that day went from 10 till three there were lines to watch kids there were lines watching kids perform watching kids paint people participating to make the banner that you see the community Banner hanging on the wall there were lines at the food trucks there were lines at the vendor booths it was just a tremendous event and Danae has really taken the ball

017here and run with this we estimated between seven and eight thousand people attended and the police officers that were there said no you're wrong it was very close to ten thousand and so we want to say not only thank you to our kids and just celebrate their Artistic Endeavors but we want to say a huge thank you today because it's all her work and it was a great Dysart Festival of the Arts for 2023. so Danae thank you very very much and Madam president that concludes my superintendent update thank you Dr Dean we will move to the governing board update well I did attend the Festival of the Arts I'm sure everybody did um and Janae thank you I mean just for showcasing the amazing and talented students that are here in this District um

018it was it was phenomenal it was a great experience and the weather was perfect so uh thank you so much for doing all you do yesterday you did a great job absolutely fantastic I also attended um I actually got to watch band Orchestra dance and choir we have great talent in this District wonderful the kids were outstanding so thank you for everything that you have done to put this together thank you I also attended um Freedom traditionals mom and son bowling night and of course I did not win my son beat me but we had a great time we played laser tag we bowled ate some pizza and went home and went to sleep so thank you freedom foreign Festival of the Arts and just want to thank you as well Danae um every year

019it just gets better and better and I know we've talked a lot about the the talent that was showcased there but I mean everything every little detail was just so perfect I mean the increased presence of officers the parking the signage everything is better every single year so thank you for all you do I'm going to apologize in advance that my update is going to be a little bit longer than normal I am sorry I um in February I was at a conference during that board meeting and then this last board meeting my daughter had something at her school that I I wanted to support her on so I was there but I will try to move quickly but I wanted to definitely um thank some schools and just some experiences that I attended and

020just wanted to touch on but starting with so February 23rd through the 25th I attended the Innovative School Summit and I'm just very thankful to attend some of the very meaningful conference sessions that bring value and relevancy to our district I won't go through all of them but I mean some of them just give you an idea there's a breakout session on a school regarding how to bring your campus from an F to a c academically in the midst of a pandemic another one which was great in regard to is parent University it's calls on leaders to bridge the gap between home and school and actively engaging parents seeing parents as our biggest stakeholder also so wedding conditions for positive School culture and just engaging your communities and how we as Leaders can do that

021at risk students increasing graduation rates so it was very very informative I felt very fortunate to be able to attend and just want to thank the district for providing that opportunity for professional development March 3rd I received multiple invitations to reach various schools during the read Across America week unfortunately due to my work schedule I was only able to attend one and that was at our amazing El Mirage Elementary School which we got to feel their fantastic energy earlier this evening and that was on March 3rd have the pleasure of reading the two amazing first grade classes my favorite part is always the questions at the end because you never know what you're going to be asked and it's just makes the day all the more special so thank you to El Mirage Elementary Administration

022for the invitation as well as to the teachers and students who welcomed me into their classroom it was really a wonderful morning March 9th I was able to go along with the Dysart hero prize Patrol that's what I like to call it when we it's always great seeing the surprises on the faces of our well-deserved recipients and look forward to celebrating you all next month at our annual Dysart Heroes awards ceremony so that was great to attend that and congratulations to all of our hero all of our hero winners um March 9th also so later that afternoon I had the opportunity to conduct classroom observations with District administration to observe our math curriculum in action so I want to thank Marley Park Administration and the wonderful staff there for being so welcoming it was impactful

023to be able to witness our curriculum what it looks like in action with so many engaged students that was just fascinating to see um and then on March 25th attended the Fine Arts Festival and huge thanks as we've all said to Danae um and our amazing Fine Arts teachers and staff as well as the other amazing members of our desert team that put countless hours into planning such a successful event I always say it's more than just a school function it's like a community staple it's just amazing and thank you so much for all the hard work you put into it it really does show and it was just an enjoyable day and yes the weather was amazing and then I just wanted to end again um because of a family commitment I missed the

024March 9th meeting but as always I watched it online later that night and I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate all of our athletes and coaches that were honored that evening but I would be remiss if I did not take a moment to share a few comments regarding the head coach for Valley Vista High School girls basketball coach Rachel matakis who was not present when the team was honored by our district with assistant coach Brooke Hankins as many know coach matakis has been with our district for the past 17 years she has a 2022 inductee of the Arizona High School coaches Hall of Fame with over 30 years total coaching experience that resulted in at least 31 student athletes receiving athletic scholarships not to mention the six state championship titles that she and her

025team have brought to Dysart under her leadership aside from her Stellar coaching ability Rachel matakis continues to make an impact in the classroom academically but she has also taught some valuable life lessons to her students and athletes as well she teaches our students about the value of integrity and respect which are most often taught through how she modeled those character traits herself one of those lessons about was being about resiliency and how to navigate through adversity while maintaining integrity and professionalism and what it means to model something called unconditional positive regard and I won't go into a psychology session or lesson regarding what that is people can look it up if you're so inclined but a simple definition of unconditional positive regard speaks to the attitude of complete acceptance whether for yourself or someone else

026when you have unconditional positive regard for someone nothing they can do nothing they can do could give anyone a reason to stop seeing them as inherently human and inherently likable it does not mean you have to accept every decision and action that that person makes but it's about accepting and respecting them as a human being with the assumption that they are doing the very best they can it's about Not Just Praise honor and respect when you're on top but showing respect to others always because that's how you treat people who are all human and will all have their day when they face adversity and need to continue to feel valued and respected and honored that is just one of the many values coach matakis has instilled in her athletes and will make those girls better

027humans than many adults that walk among us today so while I am deeply saddened that Rachel matakis won't be the head coach of Valley Vista High School basketball next year she leaves behind a legacy that will forever live on the court as well as throughout the halls of Valley Vista High School coach matakis is truly one of the most selfless people I know always living by the words it's all about the kids which I suspect is a driving force behind most if not all of her decisions while I apologize for not being present to share these words during our last meeting when the team was recognized by the governing board I would like to formally express my words of sincere gratitude and appreciation to coach Rachel matakis for all she has contributed to this district

028and her athletes as head coach of Valley Vista girls basketball and wish her nothing but the best as she continues to be one of our most valued teacher leaders who will no doubt continue to enrich the lives of our Dysart students each and every day and that concludes my update thank you very much I also attended the Arts Festival and I can tell you that there is so much hard work so much planning so much into planning any one performance much less an entire day of multiple performances and I've witnessed Miss Marinelli taking personal days when she was still in the classroom to set up for events like this she'd be like um I took the day off I'll be setting it up and not only does that speak to her work ethic and how

029much she cares about our district it also speaks to her leadership now that she is in a leadership role that all of the teachers are on board to support her willingly and enthusiastically and have their kids turn out such wonderful performances so as our district continues to be very supportive of the Arts I feel like this Festival is like this with Miss marinelli's hard work just reinforce our commitment to Arts education and Excellence so thank you and that's my update next we will move on to item E1 I will move to approved consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don Densmore thank you give us Justice I don't want to spoil it with emotion Joe did you Swatch computers with her yeah I think that this is what people

030are concerned about with AI yes well normally it's Joe's computer that is always on the front this happened before too it has happened before I'm just giving Jen a hard time oh no it's just her yeah who's your hazing just give us a second talk about yourself if we can get you to vote again that would be fantastic success all right motion carries now we're good next we will move on to thank you very much thank you for your help next we will move on to G1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of governing board cabinet and our community this evening we begin with our information items with information on Title 1 review and supports at the request of one of our governing board members and Dr assai will introduce this item Dr assai

031good evening Madam president members of the board it is my pleasure to introduce our director Amy hartchen who will present Untitled supports good evening oh there we go good evening Madam president governing board and cabinet um this evening I'll be sharing with you information about intervention programs we've used in our Title 1 schools this year as well as how we are measuring Effectiveness and information about the Department's next steps for the rest of this year and moving into next year um when we look at the list of interventions we've used this year um know that when we're making decisions and considering um programs to be implemented in our title schools there is a Essa based list of evidence-based programs that we select from that we have to show from the grants um they either have

032to have strong promising or moderate success rates that have been done by outside research so when we select programs we have to select things that we can show have re have previously had success um so that kind of drives some of the decision making when we make those um decisions so the first one um although is not new to Dysart this year we have added some additional components that have really helped improve the effectiveness of the program and that is achieved 3000 literacy we use that in grades 3 through 12 at our Title 1 schools and we are also piloting it in our fourth grades um non-title schools had the option that if they wanted to participate in the pilot this year they could do that we do have some schools choosing to do that

033um Achieve3000 literacy is an intervention program that has both a direct instruction meaning teacher-led component as well as an individual student practice component um it is a program that adjusts based on students reading levels so at the very beginning of the year students take a level set and it determines their Lexile level and then when they are doing um the teacher may use what they call the anchor text which is the on-grade level piece and they'll use that when they're doing their direct instruction and then when the students get in and read the article it is based on their Lexile level um and then students do what they call an activity at the end and um monthly as long as students have four activities it will adjust up their Lexile if they've been successful on

034those activities so the idea is that it's incrementally continuing to increase that student's like so and as their level reading levels are improving we measure Effectiveness with this by those beginning of the year measures and then our monthly meetings with the pro project manager and that is the new piece that we have with this program this year we have a full-time dedicated person from um Achieve3000 who is out on our campuses every day so she goes in and at the start of the year she trains teachers on how to use it correctly um sometimes historically we may have had it be more of a plug-and-play where the teachers just said to achieve today versus doing those good pre-reading strategies and things with the students she goes in and does data meetings she does whisper coaching

035she leads a lesson and then the next hour the teacher does the lesson themselves so it's been really nice because we have one dedicated person who goes out um and is actually supporting her schools on a daily basis um and then like I said she comes and meets with um Dana Noble and I each month and we go through the data and we watch um where we're seeing successes and where we maybe need to dedicate her time next to the following month um so we are recommending the continuation of this program and we're going to show you an example of data from our first semester to kind of demonstrate why this is such a successful program so it's sorry I apologize the um far ones a little hard to read but what that left one

036at 49l and the L stands for Lexile means is that was the expected growth of the students in our district and how many lexiles a kid a student would grow in the year really depends on grade levels the younger kids May grow more because it's all brand new versus a high school student who may not grow as much because their levels are they they have the foundational reading piece and we're just trying to increase comprehension links so lexiles tend to grow a little bit higher in the lower rights the left is just our District's expected growth I'm going to draw your attention to the one that has a 134 L on it that is students who are doing at least one activity a week which is the expected amount so that they meet that four

037in a month and they're getting at least 75 on that activity on the first try so if they're doing one a week and they're getting that 75 percent our District's average growth is 134 luck sell for students who are meeting those two criteria so it's almost triple the expected growth of the students when they from what their preset level set scores were at the beginning of the year so um you can see it actually the next one is two activities and 75 so it starts to dip a little and we call that achieve fatigue because if you're doing two a week and that kind of gets to be a lot of doing the exact same thing every day so really we stress do one a week and have the kids be really familiar with their

038they've done good reading strategies and so that when they take that test the first time they get 75 so um you can see actually as a district 89 of our students are earning 75 the first time so achieve math they also have a math program we don't love as much as we enjoy their um their literacy program so it is a tier two online resource students take a diagnostic test at the beginning of the year and then it creates a program of study for students we do receive monthly data from that during our data meeting however we are not recommending continuation and we have not asked for that to be part of our quote for next year because we're not seeing it implemented and it's not having the positive impacts on math achievement that we

039would like and it's largely because it's being used as an independent practice during tier two so the teacher might be in small group and kids are working independently so they're not getting that feedback from a teacher or direct instruction and it's because it's created an independent program for every single kid so it's hard to group them based on what they need from that computer program so we are not recommending the continuation with this one then there is corrective reading and read to achieve it actually has a program before that called reading Mastery and then corrective reading is fourth through 12th grade and then the corrective reading focuses on decoding and then read to achieve is 5th through 12th grade and that focuses on reading comprehension um so it is done during tier three instruction time

040um it is very small group very intensive um very scripted based on the decoding skills students take a pre-test it determines what decoding skills they still need for the ones that are in corrective reading and then the read to achieve is similar what comprehension skills do they need to work on um and then teachers use Mastery assessments every 10 lessons to monitor progress and then move students forward if they've made growth or they may repeat a lesson if they um need to go back and do it again so they have a Continuum so they have like level a level B level C Level DNS students move through they continue to move across that Continuum and we are measuring um success and Effectiveness with this one by using benchmark scores we have not been able to

041do that um to the level we would like yet this year we didn't get materials until mid first semester so the the teachers get a training at the start of school we got mid first semesters when we got all the materials so then we did a second training in January so they really implemented with follow-up in January so um we will continue to measure using benchmarks next year and um do follow-up and continued implementation effectiveness and then in that same company's um programs they have connecting math concepts and this was being piloted this year at El Mirage and um it is a K-5 math Intervention Program it is being used during tier three time and it builds on Concepts and basic skills by showing how they're linked together and so then those skills spiral back

042around similar to Saxon Math you keep reseeing the skills and so you continue to get to practice your deficit skills while building understanding about how one math concept connects to another um so they will then apply multiple Concepts and skills within each lesson um we measured the implementation of this one at El Mirage using their Benchmark data and the students who received um implementation of this program exceeded the district's average growth for Benchmark um one to three so we were pleased with that and um I sent the recommendation to Dr aside for us to move this one from a pilot to District adoption um for next year for our title schools the next one is corrective math um and that is a pilot at Ashton Ranch um it is in the same Suite as the

043connecting math concepts and it is for grades three through High School however this one um unlike connecting math concepts where it's spiraling and having kids um make those connected Concepts this one does seven key skills that are just direct instruction type piece um we did not see the same growth at um Ashen Ranch for those students they actually showed less average less than average District growth from Benchmark one to Benchmark three um and because we didn't like the way that this one was done by skills and not doing that spiraled approach we are not recommending the for this one for approval for continuation next year another program we have that supports our Title One students is Kinder experience and this allows our Kinder students in Title One to transition to full day Kinder so they

044come in um a week before school starts sometimes two weeks depending on when we're doing PD for our staff as a district um it's four days three hours a day and lets them just start learning the routines and procedures of school um how to transition the introduction to math and English or math and reading um and it has led by our Title One kindergarten teachers so this just helps students who maybe didn't have the opportunity to go to preschool we're coming out of covet lots of kids didn't maybe have structured activities with other peers so they learn those cooperation skills and those types of things that gives them that introduction so that those first couple days that kindergarten are a little bit easier and then parental involvement um as part of Title One all Title

0451 schools are required to have a parent engagement goal or action steps related to a goal and so 90 of our Title One schools increased the number of academic related family engagement activities this year compared to last year um some examples include family literacy and reading nights um if you saw Twitter uh surprise that a science night just the other night they had um the Arizona Science Center out doing activities with the families and the kids um they do stem nights um other nights such as navigating the parent portal how to use schoology with your students so some of those academic programs that our kids are using in school that are on their Chromebooks that when they get home parents have that opportunity to support um and then of course at our high schools um

046title the course selection so having the parent support person at Dysart high school has them come in and they'll sit down with the parents and help them navigate that course selection guide and all of those pieces um phosphonites and then our 21st century schools which is the 21st century activity Grant um they actually do activities where parents can engage with them at home so maybe I can't come to a parent night but they'll send something home and the parents can then do and replicate that activity with their student at home and then they're still getting those learning opportunities without necessarily um not being able to attend an event at the school and then we're going to transition to next steps so one of the next steps for next year you can see um the data

047there is 71 of our District's English language Learners are in our Title One schools and so with that recently the board approved the El instructional specialist position which will allow us to further our supports for these students um so they will specifically focus on the targeted instructional time for our El students and then they'll also be providing support to teachers in designing lessons that best meet the needs of English language Learners and measuring the effectiveness will be our Zello results increasing the number of students who move proficiency levels on azella which is that English language learner proficiency exam or the overall number of students who score proficient and then next steps is Kinder intervention as the board knows we've added a Kinder position for next year and so this will focus on early intervention we

048replaced the data specialist positions with that Kinder interventionist and this will allow for the reduced class sizes during small group instruction and a dedicated person to work with Kinder interventions um the Kinder teams will be able to meet um and really build those foundational skills in literacy and math and then that measure of Effectiveness will be our Dibbles data and reducing the number of intensive students leaving kindergarten compared to previous years so that we can say we have less kids in that strategic and intensive category than we have previously and then overall next steps we will continue with our in-depth analysis of our title programs and their effectiveness we will have intentional collaboration between the curriculum instruction Department research and achievement and the new director of federal projects creating an embedded approach to support our

049Title 1 school so we have some Focus schools this year next year we will be intentionally focusing on our lowest performing Title One school so we're going to reduce the number that we're focusing on and really spend time focusing on those the lower performing ones um building a title one principle PLC to build capacity and impact student learning so they've really appreciated this spring as Dr Longoria was working with them on their IEPs and their needs assessments we gave them opportunities just for work time so they could come together and collaborate and compare ideas and do those types of things and they've really appreciated that time um they get personalized support from the federal project Specialists so we have two who specifically go and walk during tier three instruction and give feedback and walk during

050El instruction and give feedback and then measuring Effectiveness we'll be using the department data to do um measure whether or not our implemented programs are working through the review of that data and then reflection of our processes in the department so we've been working a lot on creating really well-defined processes so that things are very clear and that we have strong collaboration among our different academic Services departments and with that I will stand for questions thank you very much do we have questions I do yeah um for the Intervention Program the achieve math since you're not going to recommend it going forward do you guys have something else in place um so I excel is a math program that's actually in line with our um I am math program and that schools have the option

051to buy that um with their Capital funds to support um it's used as a tier three intervention or I'm sorry tier two intervention that they can use to go along with it and it actually is in alignment with our math curriculum and also with the um the corrective math are they going to utilize that same procedure since you're not going to correct yes they can also use IXL okay thank you the was it the corrective map that you said um or was it the connecting math no it was connecting math sorry connecting map that you said they were going to roll out to the title one schools we're going to make a recommendation for the board to Move It from a pilot to an opportunity yes and then we have um placed it in our

052one of our budgets for next year as a purchase um so with that said I mean with the with the thought um in a sense are we thinking like this is going to be a pilot for all of our Title One schools in a sense or are we hesitant to roll it out district-wide maybe due to cost or so yes so it is not cheap and so we have the advantage when it is in those title grants it can only be used at Title One schools so when we when we purchased it with um those federal funds designated for low income it is only eligible at those schools okay but purchasing outside of those funds would be pretty costly correct okay yes thank you I think it was my only question but I I just

053wanted to thank you though for your presentation and this is a lot of really good information and I just appreciate you not providing a lot of anecdotal evidence I I am just very appreciative of your approach thank you yes thank you thank you for the presentation thank you for taking the time to outline very specific programming and interventions um I really think this is probably the first time that I've asked for a presentation or an update regarding our title schools that I've heard something other than walk to read march to math tiered intervention RTI all the same vanilla things so I appreciate you taking the time to actually give us specific information speak to those interventions and programmings um can you tell us though like what at what frequency are you monitoring the outcomes as

054far as just making sure they're still effective and um obviously I know you had mentioned like you're doing that obviously because you you've weeded some of them out but how often are you going in there just to always monitor for Effectiveness so the ones that um like I said the to achieve we have monthly meetings with them um the connecting math concepts corrective reading reading read to achieve and corrective math we're all brand new this year so our data and information we have is just what from what we've implemented this year so um we'll continue to monitor those we largely use Benchmark data um tier three interventionists have actual data sheets that they have to keep and those are shared with Federal projects and it's a list that includes the daily attendance of the students

055they're um it's state test scores from the year before their benchmark scores and then all those ones where I mentioned they have those Mastery tests along the way the scores on that and they keep records almost like a running record of what level that student's working at so that they can continue to monitor the progress of those students but that's you mentioned the Benchmark testing is kind of like so just every time we're doing The Benchmark testing that's when we're evaluating the effectiveness of these newer programs or how often actually so we're doing Walks Like the federal project Specialists will go in and watch and make sure we're actually getting Fidelity of implementation um but then in terms of actual raw data our Benchmark is our best one to see large-scale programic data and then

056we said that we have the individual teachers ones for their programs that they're doing with the kids in class those little assessments the kids take every in the corrective reading it's every 10 and I think in the math it's every eight and for the ones I know obviously were we don't have any information in regard to the newer programs that we're using but for some of the ones that we've been using for a while why do you think despite all these other interventions and these intents interventions I guess that we're implementing for our title schools why do you feel like there's still a lag between our title versus non-title how can we bridge that Gap so that is a complex there's multiple pieces that go along with that um so I think part of it

057has to do with um Fidelity to programs we know when we are doing programs with Fidelity um they are much better implemented so we talked about having that dedicated person for read um Achieve 3000 this year makes the difference because we can constantly monitor Fidelity um I think now is a unique we're in a totally different age in terms of teaching openings and all of those types of things that just continues to add to the challenges that go to hiring and Staffing and those types of things so you have openings in places that make it more difficult um and the variable for me as a former Title One principal is always time it just sometimes takes longer for students to catch up and close those gaps um and you've heard me say before by the

058time I got him out of my school when they left me I was pretty close to all of our district schools and how my students were performing but it takes time and time is a variable when you're in third grade you have third grade and we measure you against all the other third graders and maybe by fourth or fifth grade I'm doing better but it's a variable that we constantly measure kids and expect them all to be at the exact same place at the same time and they're not cogs on a wheel they are all going to have their own individual learning paces and we continue to measure them against a set time well in regard to Fidelity to programs to me that is a huge just accountability piece like no excuse for that if

059the expectation is to implement the program it needs to be done for the Fidelity and if it's not that's that's a concern that needs to be addressed um hiring and staffing issues that's in all schools like all of our schools have vacancies um and the time as far as I understand every student learns at their own pace but my frustration this isn't to you but my frustration in general sometimes is the approach of you know things aren't going to change overnight and I understand that but I've been hearing that forever and so I appreciate the fact that it's going to take time especially I can tell you put a lot or your team put a lot of work into finding the right programs we're going to be getting in there making sure that these kids

060are getting what they need but we have we we always have to make sure we're not too complacent with the fact that every year it might take us to get a program up and running that's like this kid is still moving through our system and they're just hoping we get it together for them you know what I mean and so I just want to make sure that the Fidelity piece again no excuses it's an accountability thing because these kids uh you know and I also want to say too I appreciate the fact that you didn't once mention socioeconomic status um and that conference that I went to one of the one of the quotes that stuck with me is this the keynote had said when students come from higher socionemic socioeconomic status it makes our

061jobs easier when children come from lower economic status it makes our jobs more important so it's not that it's an excuse ever and you know I can appreciate the fact that yes I know that clearly if you have two parents in the home that dedicate you know homework time for two hours after they both work their jobs whatever it's going to help that child more than the child that comes home to no electricity both parents out or maybe single fam I get that that there's they face different challenges that impact learning but when they're in our system and we have I know we have like the best of the best teachers in this District I just I know it I've seen it and nobody can convince me otherwise to where once we have them and

062if we spend money on these programs and things there's no especially for a Fidelity issue there's no reason why why we can't while we have them here giving them what they need and finding out what how each individual child learns differently and whatever that child needs meeting them where they're at and getting them there you know what I mean so um I'd like to have more uh like more regular updates on our title schools just so we can see especially with these newer programs how they're doing because if they're not working let's find something else let's not sit with programs that we use because we always use them but they're not moving certain kids I would add to the conversation first I want to just state that the presentation this evening given by Miss hartchen

063is reflective of our commitment to a thorough analysis of our title programs and and really the piece that we continue to talk about is stripping away things that are impeding us from teaching and and having students learn and this presentation this evening is reflective of that direction and where we're headed the Fidelity conversation is critically important and has been a focus for us this year which has allowed us to get to these decisions that we've made because we've expected Fidelity in our principals are doing a very good job of holding a line and it is showing us where programs are effective and where they're not and then we're able to make better decisions in terms of where we allocate our resources so those are very very important components I also want to I would be

064remiss if I didn't state that you know Miss hartchen has been assisting with uh the the federal projects programs this school year and she has a team that works with her it's a small team but they're very Mighty and they are doing tremendous work in our schools through program evaluation and working with our teachers to really assure that our Focus remains in One Direction and that we don't Veer off from that because everything that you stated is a hundred percent accurate every student in this District deserves the best opportunity for education to move forward in their lives and that is the is the charge that we have in the charge that we take and the charge that will continue to be the focus of this school district thank you so much for the work you

065put in the present PAD as far as I'm concerned with title updates so I really appreciate you've done thank you thank you so much I especially like sorry sorry I apologize that's okay you know I just all right I'm gonna go take a coffee break I'll be back no I really appreciate the Kinder experience because anybody who's been anywhere near a Kinder classroom I'm it's like the first two months of school these kids just don't know how to be at school they don't know and it's not because they're not competent it's not because they're teachers are about it just takes time for them to understand Walking In A Line This is How we walk so I really appreciate that Kinder experience I really appreciate our Kinder teachers being willing to do that and our Kinder

066interventionist is I think that's also going to help that timepiece because when we can get them at the kindergarten level and we can get them going where they need to be we can get them that great start and that Foundation because they come from all different areas they come from all different levels some have preschool some don't some can write their name some can't some kids come to us they don't know their colors so having that Kinder interventionist is going to help so much and I think that will help with the timepiece as long as it's used properly with fidelity as it should be so I just want to say that I I appreciate those two elements in particular and it will also help with smaller class sizes so thank you thank you for your

067presentation sorry for walking I apologize that's okay all right next we will move on to G2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community I would like to begin this item this I I want to let the board know that this item has been scheduled to be part of this agenda for a number of weeks however I want to to start just by indicating that our prayers are with those in the community of Nashville and at Covenant School and and the difficulty and incredible tragedy that they um experience this week that being said the board and our community is consistently reminded that safety is our top priority in the school district and so with that I'll turn this over to Dr crota to introduce this presentation thank you

068Dr Dean Madam president members of the board tonight we have Jason Yeager here to give us a safety update on the state of safety and also Craig musie is with him and they'll be sharing some safety updates to things that are going on in the district so Mr Yeager it's all yours thank you sir Madam president board cabinet Community that's Dr Dean stated so um approximately three or four weeks ago when this presentation was requested there's three or four specific questions that we're looking to answer certainly we do want to acknowledge the fact that some incidents have occurred which may have changed the amount of questions or the types of questions that would occur after this and I'm fully prepared to answer those if necessary but I will get into our slides to get through

069the information that you did request and we'll go from there um I'm happy to say that there's a lot of things that we've accomplished over these last several months and you'll notice that on the first few slides I'm not going to read everything verbatim at uh just to respect your time but I do want to hit a few things certainly the most important things the training that we conducted at the beginning of the year setting the tone making sure that all the students staff teachers everybody involved knew what the expectations of Dysart were how they could manage to be safe throughout the uh the school year and then continue to build on that as we went along we didn't have specific training not only for those members but for the board members themselves and I

070know that we've uh I'm not I'm sorry not board members cabinet members themselves and um I think that's done a lot towards making sure that our culture remains steady throughout that process again skipping through some of the things you can see that there's a lot of safety checks that myself and Craig have conducted on campuses throughout the year those numbers have actually increased I had four or five more just this week since this presentation was put together risk management audits at every single site continual safety drills at every single site indigenous sporadic checks throughout the uh the weeks the months as well our cert teams have seen a lot of improvement over this last few months as well we have some more surprises for them leading into next year on some expectations that we're going

071to continue to build on but those will really strengthen the quick responses that can occur before the rest of us need to get involved by making sure that those teams have all the resources they need and are continually practicing and modern the types of situations that they specifically have on their campuses again some more operators as you can see just a lot of things that we've done we have started to uh Institute some scenario-based exercises we do have some much larger scale in the works that hopefully will happen sometime before the next school year and then we'll continue to always present those smaller ones at every opportunity we have a couple other things up there again a lot of great things that we have already gotten completed several other things that we are working on

072so that means they're in different phases of completion but hopefully you've been around to some of our sites and noticed some of the new window coverings I think they look fantastic I think they do a lot to help alleviate some of that stress and pressure as teachers and staff are getting into a particular lockdown mode that's one less thing they have to worry about that's one more area where they can feel safe in their particular classrooms and spaces and again I think they look great as well so I definitely uh kind of increased multiple areas myself and Craig both completed some training this year for me it was a refresher and we're also both actively in our Advanced course as well but you see up there it says subtag crime prevention through environmental design basically

073what that allows us to do is to look at the different aspects of our campuses from you know parking lots to Windows to lighting to everything to make sure if there's anything that we can do to enhance our security not just by purchasing new things but by making changes and upgrades to our existing features and also to help us if we ever do have the opportunity to build a new school there's just just a wealth of knowledge that comes from that training and I encourage you to look at some of the stuff that's available online but it really helps us get a a new look at our existing buildings and things that we can continue to do we did have a purchase of a new video video management software which is really going to help

074the functioning of our camera systems that it's already in place and I was just working with some vendors again today and you can see on that next bullet point there that there's a we should have several hundred cameras uh showing up before the end of the fiscal year and then we will continue to install those as we go forward there are some a lot of Replacements that need to occur as well and we'll kind of monitor that and how that plan goes forward but some very good results in the amount of cameras that we're able to get from the existing funding for that um again a few more things here we we've had a lot of success with our sros as you know we have applied for several grants to hopefully increase the footprint of

075the sros I won't get too much into that because we're still waiting if here if we've received those grants but certainly we have some positive outlook on that but we've enhanced what we are we currently have we have increased the amount of time that we meet with them amount of training we've been able to increase that also with the existence of the citizens patrols City of Surprise actually kind of did that on their own and brought it to us ask us if we supported and said absolutely you know the more law enforcement type-minded individuals we have available to be on and around our campuses the better and you should start to see them a lot more around our campuses as well you can see we also mentioned security guard so you know we've had a

076hard time uh hiring security guards so if you want to put the word out I definitely need some more but we've seen some some progress in that as well providing them with a consistent ongoing training and an opportunity to meet with them on a regular basis as well to make sure that that they're meeting our standards these are a few things that we're either working on or we're just not quite there yet for a variety of reasons but certainly we'll be continuing to work for over the next couple years and again you can see that you know a lot of the stuff is just trying to look at our systems that are maybe older need to be placed if there's new technology out there that can replace anything that we have and again getting standardization

077I was on a campus this morning that was built in 1988 and they had some fantastic features but obviously you know some things have changed but honestly there's a few things that they have that I wish some of the newer builds were built that way but they were built differently for different cost purposes and so forth but getting some standardization is definitely key we'll continue to work on some of these other things here again you can look at it on your your versions but some things that we you know may or may not need assistance with one of my uh biggest things that I'm trying to do is regardless of funding finding ways that we can continue to make our campuses safer we can't rely on the fact that funding may just find its way

078to us but there are a lot of grants that we're continuing to to look into and then obviously as we get funding we allocate that to where it's best suited we are making some changes to um some of our safe reports and threat assessments you'll see some some training going forward I think is is successful as those programs have been over the last year or two there are some uh some some tweaks we can make to make those a little bit more effective and streamline those processes so you'll see those and then he like I said uh talked about zip Ted you know one of the things in that crime prevention thing is a lot about uh landscape simple things like Truman trees so you can actually have a functioning camera or a window that

079can be seen out of there's a lot of things like that that I think that that course really brought to light that are going to be easy fixes for us that are really going to increase our safety throughout the district um one of the questions that was asked was you know how are lockdowns working celebrations any eating challenges and so forth and uh member Pritchett I know that you were out with a couple and you experienced some of those firsthand and um I'm happy to say that over the course of the year we've really seen staff and students and everybody for that matter really uh take them seriously understand kind of how we're getting to one of the things that we always trust about right there these aren't a check box we want you to

080have purpose behind them we want you to spend some time you know before and after talking about what was effective was it what wasn't why do we do this not just go do it because we told you to and a lot of Staff engaging in thinking through how those different things work on our campuses again going back to the fact that we have campuses that span a large time frame of when they're built sometimes the responses are different per campus and so as much as we like to have a consistent uh response there's just certain things that have to be done differently because your campus doesn't function that way and so a lot of positives coming off the got a lot of good conversations and some some thoughtfulness coming from the administrators out there whether

081Craig and I visited or not and so that's good to see that that has continued to Trend in the right direction um and then again just giving them options not every solution fits nicely in a box and we want to make sure that as things continue to happen throughout the world that we always have a solution to whatever those things might be I know that you had a special interest in Surprise Audits and we'll continue to do those as we can but we also are just trying to be cognizant of minimizing the interruptions to learn and so what we've found is that we'll get to on the next couple slides here is that there's multiple phases that I instruct people on on on their lockdowns and there's the the first couple phases is what we

082really want the students to focus on and then the administrative portion of that in some of the later phases maybe don't need to be done that day but they can do them at a cert meeting later that day or on the next day they certainly need to be done because we want to make sure that all of them understand how those processes work but it allows us to get them back to learning and you know separate those functions so they can be done effectively and here they are so again when I when I teach this or I talk about this I try to get everybody to understand that when when we come and we we observe you in any type of drill whether it's an evacuation or in this case a lockdown um there's you

083need to do things in order the first thing is to get everybody somewhere safe as quickly as possible wherever that may be uh and then we need to talk through with students how does that look if you're on a basketball court or a playground or if you're just in a classroom certainly when we do a lockdown in the classroom it's easy you go up you do you want no coverage a lot make sure the doors are locked which they should already be and everybody gets to where they need to get but those transition periods are where we want to spend most of our time after they get to that safe place you'll understand if you're familiar with the Run height fight or the Alice model the new Alice model talks about having that communication piece

084if you are aware of where that threat is on your campus we need that information passed to Administration and or law enforcement so that way we can get to the threat that much easier it's a little bit different from what people are used to but you want to make sure that people are comfortable with what that looks like and how that's done and then there's those phases here the three four and five those are the ones that while it's nice to practice um you know it could take hours sometimes to really get through a accountability reunification and so forth and in other instances days and that's not realistic to put on our staff to get them to try to figure out how that looks in five minutes when really in real life that they would

085have a much longer time to do that and so that's why I try to separate those sometimes if possible when we're out on sites um let me just go up through so again we talked about a little bit of getting the the students involved kind of talking them through that it's really important that we give all students the opportunity afterwards to kind of decompress especially with fire alarms going off and just the fact of the reality of what actually could be happening even though these are drills it brings up emotions and we need to make sure that students feel comfortable to let those emotions out before they get back to learning and expect them to get back to learning but then it also gives us that opportunity to talk them through again why did we

086do that you know you may get different instructions at home or news or Twitter or whatever it is that tell you that maybe that's not the right thing to do but this is why we do what we do and this is why we know it's effective and you know obviously we're willing to take a feedback as well but I think that debriefing thing that we've seen in a couple instances throughout the year is really paid dividends the other question that was asked is what is our health score and well that's a kind of a difficult question to ask I wanted to kind of paint the picture in a few different areas on what that means to us um you'll see there obviously wherever you pay attention to the most is where you're going to get

087the most results there and and that's true with everything not just safety and it's just like driving a car off the lot as soon as you drive it off it starts to depreciate anytime we buy a brand new shiny system this the very next day that you have it it starts to work less and less and less as you go along and so whether it's an object that you buy a system that you pay for or some type of training program you know there's there's a diminished capacity to that as time goes on so we need to make sure that we continually training our people every year keeping them engaged excited about it keeping them understanding why we do this give them a reason to want to do it every year and then again if

088it's some type of system always a maintenance program that goes with that plan of what do we do in five years when you know those cameras are no longer you know a valid option so things like that we got to continue to think about and plan for and those are things that we're doing on a regular basis the other thing is is that no matter how hard we try if we get everybody on board and everybody's doing the right thing if one person goes in to work and just spaces it and leave the door wide open you know that leaves things open so that's what's difficult is we may have been an A-Plus yesterday but tomorrow we're a d-minus because somebody didn't do something that was really simple and they just forgot and so um

089you need to look at when you look at the health of our our safety is do we have the things in place that if everybody followed them would we be in a safe place and the answer to that question is yes if they follow the procedures they have that we have if they follow the the instructions that we're giving them in the in the advice then we have a safe District we certainly need to continue to remind them and to Always Be watchful to make sure that we pick up the slack for anybody who forgets to do those things but our ongoing audits are always going to expose those things our processes allow us to fix those on a quick basis the safe reports where we can get that information you know as timely as

090possible all those things help us continue to do a good job in those areas again respect irrespective of budget Cycles and so one of the things I just mentioned is that we um you know we do the audits we have that robust audit that I believe we mentioned a couple um uh meetings ago the Tactical site surveys uh we do have a completed uh version of that that will be accessible to you here in the near future because we do want your input as well but you're really going to see A to Z on everything involved with our campuses being looked at again every single door every hinge every window everything's going to be addressed in those in those surveys and again we're going to have team members from you know from maintenance from law

091enforcement from admin members from other Schools they're going to be able to put eyes on that in a way that it's never been looked at before and I think that's going to give us a better sense of individually campus my campus what the grade would be and it give us the opportunity to to turn those grades around or whatever we need to do almost immediately after those things are conducted that being said one of the ways that we look at how safe we are is there's there's a lot of different you can go online right now and there's a ton of different places that say if you do these checklists you're safe one of the ones that I look at is through Pass it's a partnership Alliance for safer schools it's a collaboration of of

092vendors and professionals throughout the country to put this checklist together and they've got a district-wide themes they've got you know cyber they've got you know policies procedures they've got they've got all over the things and they've got diff uh four different tiers and they if you can check off those tiers you know they consider you uh in that realm so I'm happy to say that you know our district uh has met all 40 of their tier one um suggestions or recommendations and and many of the uh tier two and three and even some of the fours you're probably automatically asking yourself well you know isn't for the best why wouldn't we have all four and I I'm going to tell you that as you look through that if if you want that provided we can

093do that you'll notice here on that third bullet point that some of the things on Thor's Iris scanners and fingerprints and honestly I just don't think that's realistic and I don't think that's something that we necessarily would be a good use of our our time and resources but that's why we don't need to be a four certainly do we need to do everything to get us is absolutely safe as possible sure but I mean I I know Fortune 500 companies that don't have Iris scanners you know and they've got all kinds of things so um don't don't be misled when I say that you know we've got all all 40 of the the tier ones I think that is a very good Benchmark for our district and I'm happy to say that we had all

094those um before we got to the end of this year and we'll continue to look at those uh checklists and and others we'll match them we'll take the good from what's good and you know obviously we'll leave behind what doesn't make sense uh we're always going to look at these in a manner that we're most responsibly using our funds but not compromising at all when it comes to what can we be doing otherwise for safety and uh I'll leave that there for now and see if you guys have any questions thank you very much for this presentation thank you very much Mr UCM Mr Yeager thank you to our admin for continued focus on safety and for um with Fidelity I guess it's our buzzword for the night implementing these and our staff our principals

095because like you said all it takes is one all it takes is one teacher not following the protocols to put a lot of students at risk and I appreciate the focus on the safety and continued practice because especially during transitions because transitions like you said they're scary you know having a drill during a transition because kids don't know what to do because ideally the doors are locked right where do they go how do they get inside the building if there's a lockdown drill and I think these are excellent things to practice and I think these are excellent things for our students to understand so thank you yes ma'am and one more thing I also appreciate your discussion on the why telling our students this is why we do this we're not just doing this because

096we're little robots and this is this is why this is why we're this is how it's safe this is why we're doing so thank you for that as well for all the work that you put into this and it I look forward to going to schools again because it's truly amazing and reassuring to just watch the process in place you know um well question really quick the cameras that we have um who monitors those so it's a combination um if there's an SRO on site they will monitor them sometimes our what's the the name for the plant manager thank you I apologize uh plant managers have access I also have a plan in place that um as we start to install more that we're going to put viewing stations in the front office as well

097because being able to walk by and see those on a regular basis is going to really give us that opportunity and one of the things too is that the way our schools were built although we're very secure on the front we don't have a big view to people coming in as well and so by having that somewhere in the front office that'll allow that front office to have to see people before they even get into the building and so a combination ma'am there's I mean I have them on my phone and my tablet I'm looking at them all the time no matter where I'm at but um depending on where you are there's different people looking out of them and I'm going to enhance that as well and I don't I was thinking of this

098as you're doing your presentation and I really don't know I I don't know really that there's anything you guys can be doing unless it's just more of a culture shift in regard to getting students to take things seriously I know when we were at one of the schools you know a student finished shooting his basket and he's like is this real and it was just kind of like you know and I understand that if they do them enough they're going to think okay these all can't be real but a way to almost reinforce somehow almost like and I know we're not really saying PBIS anymore but PBIS ish type strategies where it's like you kids know like they they're seen like dropping what they're doing and going it's like here's a praise or here's a

099ticker here's a something and hey you know what when Mr musee and Mr Yeager if they leave our campus and we have you know they have a goal or something if we have less than x y z um topics for feedback then there's some sort of reward at the end of the month or I don't know something to get them really excited and embracing the importance of these things and not being complacent because what we learned about Monday is that that individual had thoughts of going to another location but it was considered too secure so we want to make sure all of our schools are determined like we're not going to mess with Dysart because they're Rock Solid you know I know we can't be a hundred percent sadly all the time but I know

100that's something like I said that's really out of your guys's control it has to be a culture shift to make sure that our students that one second that you finished you know the do you waste shooting that basket or turning to your buddy to say is this a real is this real or not second's matter in situations like that so something to kind of um to kind of think about as far as moving forward too to see just to improve our process possibly and then the only other thing I was going to say or ask um I know after one of the lockdowns I want both of them that I observed you guys were great at giving feedback to the principal and staff and I I think I remember you telling me that you provide

101that information like a kind of a in a email or whatever like a list of of suggestions or what you observed and that they're ideally supposed to go back to their safety teams or their school teams and process okay these are the things that were identified as where we need to focus is there Fidelity in that in them going back to their teams how are we knowing is there an accountability piece built in so you guys know yeah they're taking I don't want your information to be filed in an email folder or put on a shelf I want that I want you to know that yeah they're taking our feedback and we know they're processing it with staff and here's how we know that yeah so when I first started that feedback process that Wellness

102still is at this point it was on paper and so I'm building a situation where next year I'm going to be doing that electronically but over the summer I'm going to upload all of those sheets from every campus that I've done all year long and have those in a in a place where people can go through them they can look at everybody it's like and look at everybody's wins and and struggles uh based on that and then yes uh your question about are they taking it back to the cert teams uh I can't distinctly be able to tell you yes or no that that is occurring everywhere right now but I'm creating a scenario where every 13 meeting they're required to post their their their notes and their um basically what they talked about and

103that should include that as well and I'll audit that and monitor that if if those items aren't being discussed that'll be visible now because they're going to be required to post those well and I would also ask that you guys if you if you see routinely like you know okay the last last time we went to the school you know our feedback was hey not all your doors were locked or whatever um and then you go back to the school again and it's the same issue that you report that to District administration because that's not anything we want to give time to and wait and Coach them through and make sure it gets better like if it's the same for lack of a word citation or piece of feedback that they were cited on for

104not following through then we need to know that because certain things I mean there's they shouldn't happen at all at this point we're all very familiar with lockdown processes there shouldn't really be a lot of repeat issues happening time after time that's why I put them on paper so we can memorialize that and have that available so that yeah next year obviously I'll have the opportunity to go back and say all right last year you had five of these this is what you know exactly like you're saying so yes ma'am and those pieces do get back to us okay and they come to us and then they're followed up with with the principles from our end and do you then maybe if there's a school that has some struggles maybe you go back sooner than

105scheduled just to make sure that they're rather than just waiting for their next rotation of lockdown yeah I will certainly um that's when we'll go out and we'll just do those surprise walks it may not be a surprise drill again but we'll go and check hey you know is that door actually locked today yes absolutely those get done thank you so much for all that you do I appreciate you both as this cabinet I would add okay I'm so grateful for this presentation just how how well you guys are managing our safety here in Dysart um I was happy to see that we're making progress hopefully with these grants for the sros for our schools that don't have them um I think we've talked about this before but I'm sure that you're in talks with

106both the cities of El Mirage and surprise if we are provided or awarded the grant funds for these positions for the sros how much lead time do we need to give the cities because obviously they need to backfill with new recruits through and they need to put them through the academy I'm assuming unless they're getting transferred in somewhere so what does that process look like right so um prior to even being able to submit for the grant we had to get a certification from the cities that indicated that they were willing to do it after God and so they're well aware of our intentions they're supportive of our intentions and they have plans in place to either transfer people over or hire them as you stated um you know certainly things change and we'll we'll

107work with those if they do but they're they're well aware they're looking forward to it as well and it I believe that even they've got names identified if it does happen so I think we're in a good place there cute and those grants close on April 15th I should tell you so coming soon couple weeks we should start hearing some information looking forward to it um and then with the sros that we have now in our high schools and in our middle schools do they do any ad hoc um just testing you know are they checking doors to see if they're locked and are they reporting that data back to you so I know they all have their own kind of systems on how they do it everybody's a little bit different but sure I

108I visit them on a regular basis as well and and yes they'll be like hey you know I do my walk with my principal and we check out and they kind of tell me what what they do and again everybody's got their own kind of order in which they do it as long as they're doing something uh usually that's that is fine at this point for me I try not to dictate too much because they have a certain um Cadence that they're required to do things as well but no I do I do question them I ask them and they're very it doesn't take me asking usually I get there in like uh over at Summer on uh Bob he's like hey just so you know we had an issue with his door and we

109had we had this and I had this student that we had this problem with and they're usually really quick to do that without uh any need there but as mentioned earlier in the presentation we are setting up to time where we're going to meet with them on a monthly basis as a whole so they can share across from campus to campus too what challenges and how they're doing things and maybe create some best practices so a long answer to a short question is yes um can you speak to that a little bit is that just more the presence or are we actually utilizing them for different things right so since they have limitations to what they can and can't get involved in they are mostly just presents and so again it was their idea they

110said hey we're out anyways uh do you guys have any issues with us driving through your parking lots multiple times of the day and to that answer is absolutely not we have no problems with that presence matters I appreciate it exactly and so what they're expected to do is if they see something um they'll alert the SRO or active duty and make sure that those things get handled but yeah it's mostly for just those extra eyes and just to see the cars in the parking lot again um like you said I think it speaks volumes to what they're doing to commit to us thank you and I know that you mentioned I'm sorry I'm kind of monopolizing with the SRO thing but you mentioned a little bit with the sros how they kind of do

111their own thing and they have their own patterns maybe um in at the festival of the Arts we happen to to run into officer Wendy and she was telling us about this amazing character program that she's really developed on her campus I'm just wondering if they ever get together share best practices because it just seems like such an amazing thing that she's doing um I don't know if you're familiar with it so I don't want to put you on the spot but if you're not familiar please reach out to her because I I think you'll be impressed yeah she is definitely one of our best ones she did great things when she was at Shadow she's translating those to the middle school she did share with me that that program that she started and again

112I know they meet as well separate from the meetings that that we have with them um but no I think we'll have a greater collaboration moving into next year as I continue to mold that together you know it was baby steps this year getting them all there and moving the same direction but we'll definitely have some opportunities going forward okay thank you very much thank you for the presentation I just have one question the security guards is there a number on how many we need I'll defer to HR on that but also I'm not sure which positions are funded on I I do know that we have two or three vacancies I can say that with confidence but that is one of those positions where we sometimes see some turnover we do have some very

113solid teams at most of our campuses but we do have a couple of vacancies that keep eluding us at other places um so I guess that's as far as I'll answer unfortunately I don't have the specifics but I know we could use a couple okay and are they weapon certified no they're not they're not okay thank you yes ma'am all right thank you very much I appreciate your time all right next we'll move to item H2 I have my ways I guess it's on the agenda so we can't skip it Madam president I believe you have to stick to the agenda oh my computer is messing up oh no we'll move a year-long recess we will move to item H1 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community

114I would like to preface any remarks I make by just indicating that I will not be at the next board meeting on April 13th that's been planned for more than a year and not in any way related to this item for the last 18 years it has been my honor to serve the Dysart School District in a number of positions I was hired in 2005 to open school number 12 in the Dysart school district and um stayed there for two years and then opened School 18. stayed there for one year and was asked to to move to the district office where I've served as the Director of public relations the assistant superintendent for human resources the assistant superintendent for student services and the last position I've served in is the superintendent hopefully I was hoping

115that at some point in time I would find something that I was good at um in the course of the time in the district my greatest honor in my career of 32 years has been to serve the Dysart school district and to work hand in hand with all of the folks that I know here some of whom I can't look at in the audience or I won't be able to continue to talk and to work hand in hand with this governing board and as as the board has heard this evening it's been a great Testament to our commitment to the board in our goals this year and our commitment to this community to really set the district on a very straight and narrow path to success I'm happy to report that on March 30th of

116this year we've met all of our goals and as I stated earlier we look forward to our students and there's State Testing and there are opportunities to display their tremendous amount of knowledge this year we have thoroughly analyzed our title programs as a matter of fact we've analyzed every program in this school district from top to bottom we've remained committed to building or rebuilding a culture that is built upon success and about high expectation and accountability and that was evidence this year in the fact that we have the highest number of teachers returning their contracts that we've ever had in the school district at 94 percent we have the highest number of Administrators returning that we've ever had in this school district we're going to only lose three next year possibly four depending on how

117this vote goes we have remained committed to our priority of safety that the board heard extensively this evening and working to make sure that our students are as safe as humanly possible and that our parents understand that we take the safety of our kids is our top priority and our most important job every day is to return them to them just the way that they left for the day we have also maintained the importance of financial transparency and understanding that fiscal responsibility is a key pillar of what we believe in as a board and as a team and we fully respect and value the fact that we honor the use of our taxpayer dollars our Arts programs we're on full display on Saturday and the commitment to arts in the citric remains incredibly high and

118our athletic programs over the course of the last several years have exploded in success resulting in 11 individual state or unified state or national championships just in this past winter athletic season this District 's future is incredibly bright and I am proud to say that with the team and the incredible staff of this entire School District the Dysart school district is set to absolutely take off to become the place to be in the West Valley with that the time for me to leave the Dysart school district has come and it is my There's an opportunity for me to explore passions that I have outside of education and I would like to tell you that I'm going to do that as a hair model but that's not correct I've I have opportunities to explore my passion

119in the world of Athletics and um and at this point in time it is time for me to take that opportunity I will um put to rest a couple of rumors and a couple rumors that I've heard is that I'm going to become the backup quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals that is not true I've also heard rumors that I'm going to send it sign a 10-day agreement with the Phoenix Suns also not true but I want to thank the governing board and I want to thank this community and I want to let this community know that it has been absolutely my pleasure and my honor to work with this governing board over the course of this last year specifically as superintendent we have worked with an incredibly strong relationship and a very common Focus for

120what is best for the kids the staff the parents in this entire community and I want to thank each and every one of you for that I look forward to seeing the great successes that will continue in the Dysart School District just from a little bit further away than I have in the past and with that Madam president I would ask that the board accept my resignation this evening effective June 30th 2023 that's important thank you Dr Dean so Athletics huh so you really are going to run a marathon I'm not going to run a marathon but maybe I'll take a couple of running steps every day and just to think of you Miss Jackson that's that's not the reason you resigned right the marathon Clause yes that is correct I can say that in

121my experience working with Dr Dean has been incredible it's been absolutely wonderful to pick up the phone call pick up the phone and say okay hey ask questions and get truthful accurate answers I appreciate the fact that sometimes when I have questions you you say I have an answer might not be a good one but I have an answer and here here it is I appreciate the transparency and the honesty the integrity holding our students accountable not just with behaviors but with academics um the incredible focus on student learning making sure that all our students are safe while they learn I I know that you and your team that you are so quick to celebrate your team of assistant superintendents work so well together it is a well-oiled machine that runs very well and that

122speaks to your leadership so with that I don't know I still might vote no just kidding personally I wish you all the best and I appreciate the fact that you're leaving on a positive note for yourself you're you know I always say the best time for me to leave a position is when my when I feel good about it so I feel like you moving on to do what's best for you is what you need to do and I appreciate that I appreciate that you recognize that and I'm sure Mrs Dean will be happy to have you back thank you I'm happy to make the motion but I don't think that I can crickets I have something to say I just want to again congratulate you Dr Dean um it's an amazing opportunity you know

123the the hair model and all um 18 years serving dicer and many leadership capacities which you mentioned serving these years with Incredible strength steadfast accountability always driving results with Grace in an ever-changing landscape each and every day under your leadership has been a joy and a celebration and today we honor and celebrate you in your exciting new career move and I am looking forward to seeing all the amazing things from you Dr Dean and look forward to collaborating with you in the future as a hair model he gives me his hair that's right he sells it I don't have anything prepared because I figured I wouldn't be able to get through it and I told Dr Dean that I gushed over him when we hired him I'm not going to gush over him leaving um

124because although I don't like it I want what's best for him and uh he's given a lot to this district and I can't not be happy for what to him is going to be you know like his his dream and and following that um we've worked together for a long time my daughter um it's funny you know this is this is a good thing um she's going to be 23 next month and my little little one who's not little who's five ten gonna be 20. they've both been in Dr Dean's schools was Madeline okay but she knows you and they both know I mean they both come to know Mr Dean through Dr Dean sorry um sing and read which was one of the many wonderful things that Mr gosh Dr Dean has brought to

125the school district and I always call him Mr night I said we'll stipulate on Dr Mr Dean because he's always been the Principal to me and I can I can't even think I've ever really called you Jim it's just always Mr Dean um we can't we still sing alligator 23 and 20 we sing alligator and that was you and your um all that you've given the relationships you've built the academic and accountability pieces in such a short time that you made such a priority for the students of this District the staff you came in at a time that was probably the hardest um one of the most challenging hardest challenges that this district has had to endure in you because of you and how you navigated that we came out better than we could have

126ever anticipated and I think this is probably one of the best places this district has ever been in um thanks for having the bike especially during that moment and up until now and I just wish you all the best I hate to see you leave I appreciated working with you I know this isn't the end I know we'll see you in your other opportunity and have opportunity to have our paths cross and I know you'll still keep a close hand and dice art because I I do believe that this was at one time something that you just where you always thought you'd end up probably and um just want to thank you for all that you've done all you've contributed and I despite the fact that when you first told me you were leaving it

127was shock and I remember nodding and thinking okay okay and then you woke up the next morning to I've gone through all the five stages of grief and loss and I haven't been made it to acceptance and I need to talk to you again and we and you being patient with me as I went through a range of emotion with your leaving and it's just because you're so good if you weren't and you didn't bring value it wouldn't hurt as bad but again thank you so much for your dedication and your hard work and you definitely made an impact on this district and for that we'll be most grateful oh mine's not as emotional but that was emotional it got us all going but um I'm just sorry to see you leave like everybody else

128um I don't know you as well as or everybody else either but um just thank you for your service um thank you for your patience with me and good luck in your new adventure it's going to be a fun one um shall we start taking a collection for a gold-plated hairbrush yeah there you go I will move to accept the submitted resignation of the superintendent effective June 30th 2023. motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Joe Grant I guess I could have said June 30th 2030 in the motion motion carries thank you next we will move to H2 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board I'm sorry could we have a quick recess sir you can do whatever you want all right are you sure I'm very sure yes okay all right just

129checking we'll we'll take a a five ten minute recess we'll be back in five okay thank you convene the meeting oh thank you so much teacher voice yeah I didn't yell I spoke loudly thank you very much we will move on to item H2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet in our community this evening we bring back to the board a recommendation for uh approval of a multi-year contract for our assessment and instructional Improvement system and we're asking for this to be approved for the 23-24 school year the reason we're bringing this back is that last year this was approved by the board with a condition that it would be evaluated over the course of the year and brought back for Renewal rather than just granted in a multi-year

130piece and I'm happy to report that the system is showing success from our perspective as part of our our evaluation process this was one of the components that was evaluated and it is uh shown to be beneficial in our aspects as it relates to instructional planning and instructional adjustments as a result of assessment so we would recommend approval for the 23-24 school year Dr assai can answer any further questions so it we would be adopting it approving it exactly how it was this year with the noted exceptions Madam president that is absolutely correct all of the exceptions that were placed last year um will be in place again for next year and any difficult questions that you have I ask that you wait until July 1st we'll say that again later I just had a

131quick question um in regard to the with the exclusion of scl components can you explain that a little bit more um within the components of the system there was there was a component called Fast bridge and fast Bridge would have screened for some things one of them being an SEL screener so that wasn't something we were interested in when the board researched it and looked into it they didn't feel it was consummate with what we were looking for either so we ended up proposing it in the academic sense that we need it for benchmarks for finals for end of unit testing without the SEL component or CRT okay so the SEL like you said is for the screener but since we've had board discussion on how what scl means in dicer versus what it's not

132and acknowledging that sometimes it's helping a child not flip their desk in front of their friends in their classroom that's not what we're talking about we're just talking about the screener yes okay Madam president member Pritchard we did not we still do not believe the screener to be an appropriate use of our resource right I'm good with that any other questions okay I will make the motion to approve multi-year contract renewal for contract number 22-1818-009 assessment and instructional Improvement system for the 23 24 fiscal year as presented motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore motion carries next we will move on to H3 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of governing board cabinet in our community this evening we bring forward an item uh for a request to approve adoption of curriculum

133for fourth through sixth grade English language arts and that adoption would be awarded to Savas our processes have all been followed including the use of committees a 60-day review period for Community we have taken a community input and made appropriate adjustments as needed additionally we've held two study sessions on this topic and presented information therein also as a part of this recommendation we would all we would be approving the use of Spalding as a pilot at a district title school and we would start that next year in kindergarten in one of our title schools we're still having conversations as to exactly which one that is but believe it will be best in kindergarten and again Dr assai will be more than happy to answer any questions thank you Dr Dean and thank you Dr Sai

134thank you to your team for the study sessions that we have discussed at length different aspects of the curriculum different pieces that you take in different pieces that you've left out um I appreciate all of the time that you've spent trying to weed out some of the things that are not in line with our values at Dysart I do appreciate that um I know there was discussion at our last study session on online use versus textbook use have we made any decisions on that we have we believe that we can afford to do fourth grade the new thing is consumables so it's kind of like a workbook with all the readings in it that they take home we believe we can do consumable so they have it to read they have it to work in

135at fourth grade and at fifth grade with the digital copy being in sixth grade and then can you please remind me I know we talked about open court which is another curriculum set used at another school can you can you remind me as to why we decided that wouldn't work for our other schools uh there were a few reasons um one is the the price tag open court but besides that um open court doesn't um what I'm looking at the committee's notes Here open court was not the product that the committee recommended it lacks continuity Publishers each build on each other and the skills open court did not seem to do that it is used at freedom but Freedom does supplement a lot with other resources and you know and talking to administration at Freedom

136if when they go out to bed they would like to adopt something other than open court and Madam president I I would add or I would just piggyback on Dr sai's point in terms of continuity the recommendation for Savas would give us continuity of curriculum in English language arts from fourth grade through 12th grade um is there been discussion on how long that pilot program would be for it would be uh we would follow the kids member Grant I think it's important to follow them we're facing it in kindergarten after talking to Freedom's principal of where Spalding is used she talked about you know starting with Kinder moving it up Kinder one we could rely on Dibble statut first but really we're saying that Spalding increases reading scores and state labels that happens in third

137grade with the test so I believe we would phase it in with grades and then we would look at different indicators to see you know did in fact work I know that in our study session we also had some conversations about writing some of our own curriculum can you speak to that process how what that would look like just for the public I can and it's something that we could I I feel we would be successful with a given time uh we could write a curriculum but when you get published curriculums they come with a lot of differentiated materials as you saw in Amy's title Presentation we have a lot of el Learners in our district we have some of our ESS students are identified in reading and so when you get published materials they're

138able to provide differentiation for gifted Learners so the teachers don't have to go out and find it they can provide ESS and El accommodation so the teachers don't have to do that I don't think in the time span we have between now and the beginning of the year and maybe not even within the year I think we could write the first semester really good tier one within a year and then we would have to continue to write because it's three grade levels but it non-published publisher version it would take my team a while as good as they are and we're pretty good but it would take them a while to do that and really stretch our capacity to monitor other areas and oversee other areas would that would something like that be more feasible with

139a hired position to do something like that or in addition to your team I want to say that in the research that I reviewed uh when the team teams build it together and teachers when you're doing an in-house curriculum it really needs to be a team approach I would be hesitant to have one person write it and that's why it would take a while to alleviate some not not to take it on all just that one person but just and the model I'm talking it would be a team but it would take it would take a while just to write um when we did our own unit test I mean I would pull teachers out for probably a half day to a day three teachers to write a good unit test to talk about what

140are the readings we want on here are they at the right Lexile level do they how many pieces for Reading literature standards do we have how many for uh informational text are the questions hitting at the right level of difficulty are there enough at the dok2 are there enough dok3 it sounds really simple when you say let's write a test maybe it is for math easier cammy's not here so I can pick on her but with English finding the right the right pieces and then they would also have to to be something we either have licensed to already or open source materials you couldn't go in a in somebody else's text or Anthology and lift their piece without having the rights to do that okay so with with the adoption the potential adoption of Savas

141tonight because you know the you and your team and the board Maybe we've kind of dissected and pulled so much out of it that didn't necessarily align with our values are we just going to be in the same position that maybe freedom is with open court having to use so many supplementals and it maybe not adding as much value as it could I think that's a great question I actually discussed that with Danielle you know to the extent we're pulling what we are recommending is that the leveled readers are most of the things that people had issues with we're not doing leveled readers we already have materials in our school that kids can pick novels at their own level and I think novel studies are very important we talked about that I think in our

142first study session that in addition to this we need to get back to more novel studies where kids are doing literature circles you know where they're talking about reading whole novels really dissecting them and going through that so we do have that to supplement we are taking the Savas level readers out we are taking there's a student there's a story paper Sun that we would take out so that's one story in fifth grade and then unit 1 and 6 grade and in talking to Danielle Danielle Todd IB literature at Willow Canyon and she's taught everything 9 through 12. and she really feels that the prime time to really get kids embedded in those novels a little bit more at a higher level so because we're taking out unit 6 we would not be purchasing those

143textbooks correct no that's why sixth grade is online is because we don't want we don't say we're taking out a unit but here it's there right yeah I think that um with the writing writing our own curriculum as far as that option I just feel like in all other programs and um and interventions and things that we use in our schools we make sure that they're like evidence-based as being effective and so as great as we are at what we do as far as instruction and things and in your team we wouldn't really we really wouldn't have any data to show that it's where we need to be I guess you know we're not I mean I know that in the I know that we have people help with like curriculum writing and things like

144that but I mean to just do it all of it ourselves in-house I just think that's a huge Lee I just I think it's going to be very a burden to our teachers on top of everything else that they have to do as well as all of our other staff that still have their their jobs to do and then plus tackle writing curriculum for the entire District I just and then the time frame that you're talking about as well I just feel like that probably wouldn't be the best option at this point I did want to ask you though um in regard to the pilot um is there anything before we consider approving this is there anything in regard to the pilot that is going to be concerning getting it in place or you feel

145like there's not going to be any issues at this point and we just move forward as is or I feel I feel confident getting the pilot in place um you know it is a two-week training that the teachers who commit to doing it the principal the TLs and the AP I do have to commit to and summer is short however I think I found a school that's willing to do that which is exciting okay um so I think you know that that's an essential piece is that training for the Spalding as we talked a lot about tonight is that Fidelity to the program you know we saw El Mirage up here recognized as an A-Plus School Stephanie Davis is so good with knowing each and every one of her programs and making sure it's implemented

146with Fidelity we have to have PD we have to train people on our programs it's not fair to say here's a program have fun uh so I think that is even though it it makes it a hurdle to do the training it's also what's going to give us the best results uh and even you know even with a pilot we always want the best results for our students because we want to see them keep growing especially putting in a title school which I know the board is very concerned about making sure that our kids continue to grow so that's an element of hurdle but it's not insurmountable and definitely something that I think we can do okay thank you is that going to be a problem because yeah that summer program some are learning development

147programs with a summer workshop and the summer school it did make summer a little short and I was having some trouble finding volunteers but like I said I found one so I think that we are good to go on that but okay so you have the workshop and then some of those some teachers some they're teachers that teach summer school and now we're asking them to come in for two more weeks of training is that the hurdle of that's their summer yeah that that is the hurdle and I think that's why everybody I thought everybody would kind of jump when I said hey title principles would anyone be interested in this I was surprised I didn't get eight emails back uh and then I remembered those things member Grant but I did find a school

148that's willing to do that so I'm very optimistic that even though that's a hurdle it's something that we've been able to mitigate would that affect so that school says okay we're going to do it so maybe some of those teachers may not take on summer school um we're running about 40 or nine teachers at each site for summer school one at each grade level um so it's not like all the kindergarten teachers would teach summer school anyway so it would affect it for one teacher for sawvis did we ever get any statistics on how well their proficiencies are we have a ratings from Edge report that say they're uh you know that they meet the standards that they're an effective program I think it would be really hard to isolate and say it grows You

149by this much I'm sure they have them somewhere I'm going to be honest when I say I'm very leery of those uh because if I'm a publisher I'm picking where I did a good job um in talking to other districts that have it they're happy with it but it also doesn't mean that it's going to be the same here um you know it's how how do our teachers implement it how do how do we roll it out uh you heard Amy talk tonight about Achieve3000 and it's a really big deal how you roll it out we had it before but we didn't have a good system for our rollout or for our monitoring um so I would be hesitant to take someone else's data um I'm optimistic that it's good it's aligned to the standards

150better than almost anything we've seen uh you know so it's hitting those standards at a higher level in English one of our main problems is is we like to read part of the standards that says describe the characters but then the standard is really describe how the characters interactions Advance the plot and so we like to stop it describe the characters and that's our old standards too that that used to be a standard and so when you go back to looking at a materials published in you know 2010 2014 it doesn't get at that second part and they also don't have the literature to support that sometimes so I would say that we're probably in a pretty good spot to hit the standards and if we hit the standards it yields achievement and then on

151the literature part a lot of the stories we're taking out so we need to replace them with others the other stories right most of the ones we're taking out were the trade books the little books and we we don't need those we're happy without them we there's enough to do in there without the trade books um we are taking out uh two stories in fifth grade uh but two stories in fifth grade don't amount to that much with the with the amount of reading overall we are taking out the unit six so the unit six Danielle's team is really going to have to build around uh but like I said Danielle loves the literature circles so we do have we have a plethora of approved novels in our district uh they can give students some

152choice and voice in Reading we do know with as reading research is emerging when kids match with texts that they like they tend to be more interested I know it's amazing not every kid likes Huck Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird um you know and some things we read all together but when we have choice and we say here are five books you can choose from with you know and they're approved usually at sixth grade I used to have my parents also sign off even though they were approved if it's a novel I think it's it honors our parents and our community to have sign on that too because I know um since we're looking at Spalding I know Spalding has a really good Literature list on their website but something maybe we could substitute

153definitely would be an option and lots of those are open source the ones they have okay okay thank you just want to clarify the way that this motion is written first of all um you know it's stating that it's District y but this is not applying to Freedom correct no it does not apply to Frida and they were they write on their own Freedom World schedule of curriculum thank you and I I realize it's agenda is this way but is it possible to break this into two motions Madam president member Densmore you certainly could break this into two motions okay just a suggestion in case someone maybe feels differently about one versus the other maybe we could have the the Spalding separated absolutely okay any other questions comments and just just hypothetically if we waited

154and wanted to maybe request additional publishers if we utilize the same program that they're on right now could we I guess renew it for a year but they're on right now and then continue to look that's an option that we presented in the study session I will tell you we're using Florida virtual right now and some Journeys and it's a mixed match and our our reading scores is not are not as strong as we want them to be in third fourth and fifth our Benchmark data is not coming in so could we do that yeah do I feel it's the best choice to drive our achievement probably not okay doctors say I know that you and I talked offline but can you just um remind me if if we do decide to go with Savas

155moving forward what is the time commitment to that uh the time commitment I think would be um so we do have a curriculum adoption cycle right that's that's also approved by the board so if the board said in three years in two years three years hey we want to go out for a comprehensive what I heard in the study session is we would like to look at a comprehensive K-12 curriculum uh we could do that we would have to work with Mr Hicks and he would have to raise my budget probably some I see the smile on his face over there because adoption with materials always requires money so it would be it's kind of a combination of you know the funding if you know when the board wants to do that when we're looking

156at you know our our results you know what are what are we seeing are we seeing areas of concern are we seeing areas where we have stagnant growth things like that Madam president miss Densmore you could always direct the the district cabinet to um to open uh to vendors to present for curriculum materials at any time I I guess big picture here because we're using um the Federal grant money is there an expiration on this Federal grant money Madam president member Densmore the expiration on that grant money is next school year the money has to be spent by the end of next school year or it goes away school year yes however I would point out that it does take time to get materials to arrive we've spoken with the publisher um prior to the

157recommendation for adoption to assure that they would be able to meet timelines of getting those in place and I I should clarify that the federal funds the answer funds expire next year and any materials would need to be received within that fiscal year is that fair Mr Hicks I got one right only took 18 years sorry I keep hitting this thing can I ask like is there is there a concern I'm just just reflecting on the study session and then some of the questions now like are there concerns that maybe some board members have about the curriculum now or the committee recommendation or just so we can process them together I feel like something's happening like there's thoughts that are just maybe new or no they're the same thoughts that were brought up in the

158study session um just the principle of it it's it's it's very difficult for for just speaking for myself it's difficult for me to say we're going to you know the approximate cost of the adoption of this is seven hundred thousand dollars that's a lot of money to be only buying a portion of the curriculum that we would normally get because we don't want a lot of it do you know what I mean oh I know but that was that that was talked about at the study session I think that was like a new idea right a new idea that was brought up at the study session the pilot idea oh I'm not talking about the pilot talk about God I'm sorry [Applause] today I'm talk you know I'm not talking about the pilot I'm talking

159about Savas sorry okay I do think with the consumables originally when we priced out it was the hardback text for fourth grade of when we found out they have consumables I think that brings the cost down significantly um so this is not necessarily accurate we we didn't know about the consumables uh we thought we were going to have to purchase hard tags they let us know that they do have the option for consumables recently uh so it would not be quite the same price tag Miss Noble believes it'll come out at about 3 50 for two years 350 000 for two years does that change how anyone feels when how would we I guess um get the results of of the proficiencies how soon would we know that it the the new curriculum's working I

160think that we could use and I'm going to look back to Amy but I think we could use it wouldn't be fair necessarily to use unit tests because the unit test would be different so I would be comparing with apples and oranges the benchmarks will remain relatively the same so I think we can look at Benchmark one how did third fourth and fifth graders do on Benchmark one this year compared to next year how do they do on Benchmark two we can break that down with sub-populations within that how did our title you know did it have an effect on title versus non-title and the part about the title of non-title I'll tell you is important because traditionally sometimes our title schools have been lower because of lower expectations um and that's just historically speaking

161not in Dysart necessarily that's just what the research will tell you um from there we would look at their double or their state testing data which we usually get back in May so I mean we would have results going along the way that we could kind of look at and see uh we could do there's a one-year option for the consumables as well uh you know so maybe it is something that we look at and say you know you know do we want to bring back and look at results in a year that's also an option I kind of like that option and then see because I know we also talked about a k through six two at the study session which would be good too we could always look into that I don't know

162how long that process takes but that's something to I feel like just my opinion as born board member obviously just to kind of have some more conversation around it or just my view of it is that we've had a couple study sessions on it and then we're talking about it now um we had the community the Community Committee get together they recommended Savas we asked Administration what they thought they recommend Savas sounds like we're getting it for 50 percent from the original cost so 350 000 with the option of maybe just doing one year so maybe that would be a little bit less hey I do want to say I believe that the numbers Dana gave me to be correct but she is not a mathematician right approximately um that we just move forward with

163what's recommended is my opinion I will make the motion to approve the pilot of Spalding reading at a district title School motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don Densmore so what are we doing with the curriculum adoption I don't know what we're doing with it but I I do have a question if we were to table this until we got maybe a little bit more concrete information about the cost and what that looks like are we putting the district you know in a bad position as far as ordering it because you said it does take some time to get in it's actually my team I I will tell you it's very concerned because we are planning for summer workshop already uh during summer workshop we look at the standards the materials are really important

164I know that Danielle already feels really behind and third from six so I do have concerns that if we were to to delay a decision it's going to impact the quality of what the summer workshop experience for third through fifth grade or I'm sorry fourth through sixth grade ELA teachers but also our ability to deliver our best our best resources to give our teachers resources with that said um to kind of go back to what Dr Dean was saying earlier we could always because we do make the decision on the you could call for call the vendors anytime you could you could say Shelly you know we we're not you know this isn't this isn't working our test scores are down or we've had so many parent complaints um you know I I do think

165I will compliment my team and my principals um my least and we really try to adhere to the values our Dysart values you know and making sure our teachers adhere to that and I do trust my team in making sure that those are adhered to occasionally does something pop up I'll tell you something pops up in history and science and English every year we work to mitigate that we work with parents to give them choice and assignments and Madam president and Dr so I apologize for interrupting but we need to stay on this vote at this time because the votes open so if we could stay on the topic of of Spalding and then and then we can continue the conversation once the vote is tallied just want to make sure that we stay in

166compliance with open media law I think they're good no they're good I voted uh motion carries see now I feel bad because I made you split that vote but it was a good learning experience um I'm going to make the motion for the for the second piece of this but I I just want to say I it's not that I dishonor the work of the committee or the community or this board or you know or or Administration and I know that you did a lot of work on this especially dissecting it um I don't think it's the perfect choice but I think it's the right choice for now just based on you know my questions your answers and I really appreciate you having this open dialogue with the board um I don't know however if

167anyone else wants to make any comments before I make the motion what do you mean they split it between it's a different item no I know I'm gonna make that second but we haven't entered that item yet yeah I thought we're on H3 okay we're on H4 are we okay okay anyway anyone wants to say anything no I have to agree with Don I did a lot of you know research with this and it definitely is not going to be my first choice but um if we can if we can um maybe utilize it for a year you know two at the most and see where our proficiencies are um yeah I I don't know I just I was not impressed with what I read and the stuff that I reviewed that just my own

168personal opinion but not interrupt but that stuff you weren't impressed with so it was removed though right the majority okay yeah does the price tag go up if you only do it a year versus two years versus three uh there's some cost savings at two years but it's not I mean it's not huge it's it's just difficult because I'm not quite sure what is out there I know it's hard to find anything really good yeah and Madam president member Densmore member Drake I would indicate that we understand that concern and I think that that's where you've seen the this um this team and our ed services team be willing to agree in that conversation and to make adjustments as needed um because the perfect piece may not exist I understand that and I truly appreciate

169that that it you know they've been wonderful all of our questions yeah everything options other options I mean just been very open so thank you and will you and your team be writing the scope and sequence we will and I was going to say we we're more than happy to bring that to the board before publishing it for you know we would definitely be willing to work with that and say here's what we have um so I move the board make I don't this is written kind of weird sorry oh here we go um I motion to approve the district-wide adoption of instructional materials and English textbook is this the same my view by Savas okay copyright by reading this entire thing my goodness copyright 2020 for grades four through five and then the instructional

170materials and English textbook my perspectives by Savas copyright 2022 for grade six with the modification specified in the board study session and retire the current journeys textbook and materials for grades four through six by hot and Mifflin Harcourt copyright 2014 from the textbook list additionally I'm not going to put the additional on there because that was in the other and suck it in by Joe Grant but you want to say something was this motion for just a year or was it for the actual term for one year and do you still want a second if I amend it motion made by Don Densmore seconded by Joe Grant I just want to make sure Madden president that procedurally were correct the second of the of the motion accepts the addition correct that's what I was asking

171okay thank you all right then we're good to vote motion carries next we will move on to H5 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board cabinet and our community this evening we bring forward a request for approval of the adoption of advanced placement economic textbooks and instructional materials for our high school students this process has followed our curriculum committee process as outlined for the previous item and minutes are posted on our new committee site if anyone wants to to review that but this is the committee's recommendation thank you do we have any questions or comments all right I will move to approve the adoption of instructional materials and textbooks of AP economics 9 through 12 krugman's economics for the AP course by David Anderson Margaret Ray fourth edition copyright 2023 strive

17245 preparing for the AP microeb and economics microeconomics exam Matthew Davis copyright 2019 and teachers Edition with online teacher resources from krugman's economics for the AP course by David Anderson Margaret Ray 4th edition copyright 2023 for all district high schools Madam President we didn't quite get that if you wouldn't mind going once second going twice so emotion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Don Densmore good okay motion carries next we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARS section 38-431 I want to make sure we oh sorry I skipped no problem anybody want future agenda items I would just still uh request uh cips from our schools Madam president miss Pritchard we are working on that very process thank you if only that would have worked for the resignation Quest um maybe getting like

173an analysis on the the 95 percent phonics I would I would like to see that got it thank you thanks okay now we have a call for executive session pursuant to ARS section 38-431.03 A3 and A4 to receive legal advice regarding the topics listed below and to provide direction to The Eternity to the attorney for the public body at this time I will move that we establish executive session to be immediate to be held immediately during a recess in the regular meeting motion made by Crystal jacket chaff Finn seconded by Joe Grant motion carries we will have a short recess and then executive session days at this time we will reconvene the regular meeting are we good okay I will make the motion to authorize Miss McLennan of Gus Rosenfeld to enter into contract negotiations

174with Dr croto for superintendent beginning July 1st 2023. and Madam President we would request a Voice vote so if you could just ask all those in favor and any opposed all in favor yes yes on a post motion carries congratulations congratulations uh don't forget that Marathon Clause Please all right I will motion to adjourn the meeting motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Christine Pritchard all in favor aye aye any opposed motion carries we are