001all the meaning to order will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of Miss Christine Pritchard next we will move to item B1 recognitions and celebrations Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we are very excited to honor several of our students who have had great achievements this winter either through the city of El Mirage and surprise essay contests and we'll recognize them in just a minute or through our state and Regional Champions and national champions athletically this winter and so I would like to ask the board to join me at the front of the stage and we'll turn the first part of this over to Dr assai to
002recognize our essay winners and then Dr crota will go right into introducing and recognizing our state champions thank you so much Dr Dean I didn't know I was announcing um we have our first essay winners for the city of El Mirage first place or was always third place went to Caleb Rodriguez [Applause] second place goes to Layla Djokovic and first place for the city of El Mirage third and fourth grade is Esmeralda Olvera Martinez [Applause] we also have winners in 9th through 12th grade our winners for ninth grade through 12th grade for the city of El Mirage second place goes to Andre Mena Mena [Applause] and first place goes to Nathaniel cosio [Applause] and now our winners for the City of Surprise third and fourth grade we had a tie from Candace bumia and Rose
003Vasquez [Applause] and they're all going to fly away with their balloons first sixth or eighth grade our first place winner was Tatiana Pellegrino [Applause] at our 9th through 12th grade winner from Shadow Ridge High School is Caleb Delgado parents you can move to the front and take pictures if you want make sure you get big smiles to your parents and we would also like to thank the cities of El Mirage in surprise for co-sponsoring our essay contest and a round of applause Final Round of Applause thank you all right Madam president we're going to continue on with our recognition since you're up in front we have some awesome athletes individuals and teams to recognize we are going to start off with our sport teams that were named Regional sectional Champions and so first we have
004when I call your team or call you individually please come up take a picture real quick and then we'll move on the first one is Dysart High girls basketball they are the 4A Black Canyon region champions [Applause] what's up and deck is boys basketball Cowboys basketball lineup so it goes faster dice our boys basketball you're next hey is this is this you think this is Labyrinth yeah hurry I need the list congratulations [Applause] all right next up also from Dysart High School our boys basketball for a Black Canyon region Champions so Dysart High School [Applause] laborious I'm going to jump down to the coach of the year was the coach basketball no it's a nicer Keegan stay there Keegan don't go far Keegan stay right there all right along with these two teams we want
005to recognize we had two region coaches of the year and they're both from Dysart so Keegan cook boys basketball coach and Erica granados girls basketball come on up [Applause] congratulations coaches [Applause] all right on to our state champions and there's a lot of them we're going to start off keeping the pace with Dysart High School our boys wrestling division three heavyweight state champion Julian laborin [Applause] by the way Julian's joined up there by coach Benton Bloom so coach congrats [Applause] we have a region champ in boys soccer that I omitted so I'm going back to the region Champions because I don't want to forget them uh Shadow Ridge Boys soccer Regional Champions Shadow Ridge [Applause] okay on to our Shadow Ridge is Palm national champions come on up national champions [Applause] and yes you heard
006that correctly that's national champions not state champions thank you congratulations Shadow Ridge bomb s Abel Garza thank you [Applause] what do you think Eamon come on Posse foreign all right also from Shadow Ridge uh boys wrestling 150 pound state champion Amman Pacey [Applause] you say that right passy sorry congratulations all right keeping with wrestling from Valley Vista and I don't know if she's joining us tonight but she's here come on up girls wrestling 126 pound state champion Brianna Reyes [Applause] all right from Valley Vista our unified soccer gold division state champion come on up unified soccer thank you you can't have six thousand that's fine the last seven four in a row six out last seven four in a row all right continuing on with Valley Vista is the girls basketball team before you clap
007hold on they were 6A West Valley region Champions and they are also 6A the 6A state champions for six out of the last seven years they've been championships and four in a row so congratulations Valley Vista the game I have to just take us to points up out here on the trip wearing three rings Olivia has been a starter audiologists from the basketball team s inch fourth to get [Music] a chance to have won four state championships as a starter in the highest division in 6A [Applause] as long as she has to graduated because we're going to have fingers to put a rims on Saturday all right and Willow Canyon's up next at Willow Canyon division one and two their co-ed stunt state champions come on up [Applause] relations [Applause] might as well stay there
008and Willow Canyon again for division one and two they are co-ed cheer state champions [Applause] thank you all right and from Willow Canyon High School unified basketball gold division state champions [Applause] so Athletics all right sorry we have three goals so we go by Three A's academics Athletics and the Arts and as you can see we want to excel in all those in this district and what you saw tonight with the state champions and the region champions We Are excelling in one of those A's in in the Athletics so great job congratulations to everybody we are proud of you and way to represent Dysart and your families in the communities and that ends our our ceremony Awards there you go couldn't think of the word thank you [Applause] all right thank you that's your mom's
009number thank you Dr croto and thank you Dr Dean next we'll move to audience with individuals do we have any no do not okay then we will move on to D1 student update do we have one Dutch cuddle we do not have a student this evening all right then we move right on to superintendent update Dr Dean we do have a superintendent here this evening so we'll start with that Madam president members of the of the governing board members of cabinet in our community my update will be fairly brief tonight but we want to say congratulations officially to three of our schools who received a plus status through the Arizona Education Foundation those schools are Canyon Ridge El Mirage and Willow Canyon High School so congratulations to all of them we will have Representatives or
010I believe in uh Miss Davis's case the entire El Mirage staff at our board meeting on March 30th so we look forward to recognizing them then I just want to say congratulations again to our essay contest winners and also to all of our winter state champion and Regional Champions and the national champions at Shadow Ridge as well as the board can tell we had a great winter season athletically with our high schools just want to remind the board that we have a study session scheduled for March 23rd from 4 to 6 p.m and that will be at Freedom Traditional Academy we'll make sure that that information gets sent out to you as well in writing that will be in the library at Freedom Traditional Academy because we'll be having our career fair here in the
011boardrooms also want to let the board know that I will be out of town for the April 9th board meeting um Dr Crowder will sit I think it's April 9th I'll be out of town for the first meeting in April and Dr crota will sit in the seat for that meeting and we will make sure for his sake that it's a very long meeting with about five presentations from Mr Hicks to enjoy um and then I just want to point out a couple of other things looking ahead at our Board calendar we're going to need to look to reschedule our June board meeting as we will all be out of town with all of our principals for the PLC conference so we will talk further about that I want to remind the board and all
012of our staff parents students and our community that we will be on spring break next week the offices will officially be closed on Spring Breaks one of the breaks that we actually closed down and then finally I want to take just a moment and recognize Luisa um some of you may not know Louisa by name but you know her by face she is the right-hand person of anybody that's sitting in this role and Luisa has been with us just about 20 years it'll be are you going to cry all right just checking I haven't made anybody cry for a couple weeks so let's be a first again um Luis has been with us for about 20 years in a couple of different uh roles she had the opportunity to be the opening principal or opening
013principal secretary at Cimarron Springs correct she worked at Cimarron Springs when she uh when they opened the school and then was the opening principal or principal secretary at Marley Park I keep trying to call you a principal just just roll with it I got it and Luisa has been here at the district office serving as an administrative assistant for the director of student services and Athletics at one point in time and in the role as the administrative assistant to the superintendent and so Louis I want to say thank you to you for all the service that you provided to the school district and we wish you well so with that that concludes my update thank you Dr Dean we will move to governing board update um let's see I participate participated in read Across America
014and it was so much fun being in the classroom and I got to read at Countryside in El Mirage Rancho Gabrielle Canyon Ridge Freedom traditional and Sunset Hills and at Sunset Hills I did the whole third grade in one room that was very scary I mean one class is fine but three but it was fun and they were so gracious to me I also attended Sunset Hills musical production of newsy Jr and if you didn't get to go you missed out on a great production and finally just thank you Luisa for your service and your patience with me I appreciate it and good luck in your new position they're very lucky to have you I would also like to say congratulations Luisa we are going to miss you good luck on your new Journey I
015also attended read across America at Canyon Ridge Rancho Gabriella freedom and El Mirage Elementary I had an absolute blast reading to these to the students and then I also attended the National Junior Honor Society induction at Freedom traditional and I just want to give a shout out to miss soljic she did an outstanding job with the ceremony in the students so the students that were inducted were sixth grade through eighth grade and I'm very proud of all of them so it was an honor to be there so thank you I attended the auditor generals training on covid-19 spending report and the school district Financial Risk analysis this is one of many excellent development development opportunities for members of the Arizona Coalition of school board members I just want to thank Mr Hicks for answering all
016of my questions that I had after that I also want to mention that I was invited to several schools for the read Across America just because of my work schedule I wasn't able to attend many of them but I was able to read to a few classes at Freedom traditional and I am very grateful for all of the invitations that I did get I also just want to mention that during a few School visits I did at freedom and another one today that I am just so impressed with our security protocols even for board members so I I'm just very grateful to all of our staff that take that very seriously um this morning I was grateful to attend one of the dice Art Heroes days at a few different schools and just grateful to
017all of our staff that make that happen uh this morning I was also able to attend um a few classes at Marley Park and was able to observe their math curriculum in action also want to wish Louisa a happy retirement from Dysart and best wishes in the future I am going to miss you terribly and just want to wish everyone a Happy Spring Break coming up thank you I would like to start by asking Dr croteau since Dr Dean will be absent will you be training for the marathon instead okay all right thank you I was also able to make several School visits I was able to visit Thompson Ranch a mirage and freedom traditional and I want to say thank you to Mr Kerr Miss Davis and Miss Wilford for hosting me and letting
018me come we have some really great teachers and I saw some wonderful things happening in all three of those schools they're awesome so thank you and I also want to say thank you to Luisa for all of your hard work for organizing and everything that you do to make all the magic happen every week um we just really appreciate everything that you do in your service I wish you all the best all the success everything well in your new adventure and I hope you enjoy your flowers all the board members chipped in because we won we just wanted to bless you so thank you and that concludes the governing board update next we will move on to E1 I will move to approve consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Crystal Chapin seconded
019by Don Densmore motion carries next we'll move on to G1 information on teacher evaluation Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening Dr assai will present I'm sorry Dr assai oh I'm sorry Dr polling too many doctors in the house Dr polling will uh turn this over to present information on our teacher evaluation thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board I'd like to introduce Dr Jane wiefridge our director of HR who will be presenting this evening good evening Madam president governing board Dr Dean and cabinet tonight I'm here to share with you teacher evaluation information Maybe yep are there any questions I think that's me now okay thank you I'm sorry about that so we have the certified evaluation for continuing
020teachers is a minimum of one year formal evaluation and the probationary teachers receive two Formals in a year at any time they can request another evaluation or an administrator can request another evaluation there does need to be 60 calendar days between each evaluation the evaluation process for certified staff consists of six main areas it starts with self-assessment and it ends with a year-end conference the evaluation model contains three domains the domains are planning and preparation classroom environment and instruction in each of these domains does have their own rubric the professional practice rating report has four areas distinguished proficient basic and unsatisfactory we do have an alternative performance evaluation cycle this is put in place by the state of Arizona there are five steps to this cycle after three years of the highest level of evaluation
021scoring an evaluating may be moved to the Apec we call it the Apex cycle in agreement between the evaluator and the evaluat as you can see from the steps the only thing that's missing is the formal evaluation at the conclusion of the evaluation process a certified evaluation score is calculated and it is done with multiple measures and we produce the state level classification system and the state level system is highly effective effective developing and ineffective we have teacher supports in place we do a support plan agreement which we call a spa we do a performance Improvement and plan agreement which is a Pia and then we also have a notice of inadequate adequacy of classroom Performance Based on how the outcome of the Pia there is an appeal process in place to the system you
022can appeal an assigned evaluator at the beginning of the year within 10 days if you feel like there is some bias to the system you are you are welcome to appeal the evaluator also the appeal process for the professional practice rating is in place again that is within 10 days of receiving the rating the grievance procedure can be used for alleged violations in the process or the procedures but can't be used for the opinions of the evaluator in the process so are there any questions that I can answer about any of those areas thank you so much I appreciate it do we have any other questions I do have a couple questions um when a teacher let me pull that back up when a teacher is placed on the Apec what happens if their evaluator
023does an informal and all of a sudden three or four years later sees things are not where they were prior to that teacher being placed on the Apec so if an evaluation is identified as needed by the administrator automatically that happens the teacher does come off the Apex cycle they are evaluated and then they would have to have three years of the highest evaluation again to go back on Apec at any given time if there is any reason and some of them may be their dok levels their data their monitoring of them anything in the teaching document that would trigger that an administrator or the evaluator would want them to receive a new evaluation they would come off Apec and then another question on the review of the professional practice readings it says that grievance
024procedure can be used for alleged violations of the evaluation procedure but not for disagreement with the opinions of the evaluator so what if a teacher what if an evaluator rates a teacher inadequate or approaching in one area and the teacher feels like hey I've got I've got the proof I've got documentation that I'm meeting this then are they am I correct in interpreting that this says that they can't disagree with that they can't file an appeal it says they can't appeal what's written but in the process it's already built in that they bring their documentation their supports and the evaluator is meeting with that person before and reviewing these ratings and look at any look at any extra documentation that they have supplied and they would have that conversation have that in that meeting and
025they would adjust those ratings accordingly according to the the data that they have supplied it's also an end of the year evaluative process when they come together and re-look at their scores in the rubrics and the data that they have supplied okay thank you you're most welcome do we have any other questions okay thank you so much thank you next we will move on to G2 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet and our community I'm going to keep this simple this time because I'll be the only doctor presenting um in this uh in this item and so this item comes to us at the request of a government board member as it relates to governing board committees and superintendent committees and how those intertwine with the open
026meeting law the governing board can call for Committees of various Natures as they see fit in my tenure in the district of 18 years I'd like I believe that I've seen a governing board in our district call for one committee and that was in 2005 late 2005. Ken may remember this when we had a governing board that called for a committee to study a potential Bond and that committee was in place to the end of or towards the end of 2005 beginning of 2006 and then that committee made a recommendation to the board as to determine whether or not they believed that there was a necessity for a bond in the district later that year in 2006 there was a bond election and a bond passed that's the only time that I can recall in
027in my tenure of 18 years that we actually had a board appointed Committee in the district now we have several committees that run but in terms of open meeting law the only committees that are required to follow open meeting Law And when I say open meeting law would be posting of um of the meetings 24 hours ahead of time and then posting of minutes of each piece would be a board appointed committee or the curriculum Review Committee a curriculum Review Committee although it's a superintendent committee is required to follow open meeting law however I do want to specify that when it comes to curriculum review committees or committees that are not board appointed that have to follow open meeting law they are not required to follow the same format as board meetings and so the
028requirement for minutes for example for the curriculum Review Committee is a summary of the meeting and that you can find that on our website currently that's all that is required to be posted for to to be in compliance with open meeting law and so when a curriculum committee meeting is held held they don't follow the same process where someone calls the meeting to order and and follow a script similar to what we do you know with with the governing board meeting yet they um they are required to post a summary of the meeting in terms of meeting minutes the superintendent on the flip side of that conversation the superintendent can run committees throughout the course of a school year based upon the needs within a school a given year there are times that we run
029several committees and there's times that we run very few committees depending on what happens some of the Committees that we run involve parent or Community opportunities as well sometimes they involve students you know in different committees sometimes they are just internal committees and so I'll give you a couple of examples of those we have we run committees each year for professional growth for our teachers we run committees that look at our teacher evaluation process as Dr wiefridge outlined this evening the IBA group is and meet and confer is is a superintendent committee the 301 committee meets Every Spring to look at our 301 plan we have um we don't ever want to use this one but occasionally we have to to call a reduction in force or a rif committee together either if we have
030to eliminate teachers in a given area certified counsel is a committee classified council is a committee that we run I meet regularly with our associations our administrators our teacher associations on working conditions all of those are superintendent working committees that we have throughout the course of the Year none of those committees are required to have minutes or follow open meeting law other committees that pop up on about a two to three year cycle would be like the calendar committee for example and when we have a calendar committee that's when we we always ask for parent involvement we ask you know for student involvement as well as our staff in that as well and so I hope that provides some information to answer some questions in terms of committees what's required with open meeting law and
031what's not and I'm happy to answer any other questions that you may have or ask some I noticed that one of the Committees you it's not considered a committee but um the only other committee that's housed in board docs is for the trust right the the trust the trust risk retention no the the oh I'm sorry thank you and yes I forgot about that one yes the benefits um yeah the in the self-insured benefits Insurance trust yes and that committee um does follow open meeting law um post uh meetings ahead of time post minutes afterwards as well thank you I did for that because the board appoints that that is a board appointed committee yes I'm sorry so now there's two committees I'm aware of yes okay so and and I do understand that and
032I want to thank you for clarifying that but a lot of these committees that you mentioned were staff committees and I I think from some of the previous public comments that we've had in I re I really was hoping that this was going to be more geared towards committees that were open to the public I know you touched on a few of them for parent committees like the calendar um probably like the code of conduct you know that kind of thing um but what I would like to see is even though it's not a board-appointed committee these these these public committees I would like us to have these committees on a public page all together with those minutes whether they're detailed or summarized I think there's a lot of parents out there and community members
033that are concerned about what's going on in public schools whether it's our district or things that they're hearing in a state or national level and they want to be more involved and they want to understand more of what's going on if they're not physically able to come to one of those committee meetings um so is that something that we could look into like a central location for committees Madam president member Densmore yes we certainly can there there are what I believe I hear you saying is for I think the word you used was public committees that involve parents or community members or what have you if we could post even if they're not required by open meeting law just a summary of what happens in those and yeah and I don't think that would be
034a problem whatsoever and I think I'm hearing um that that we could do or the request would be can we post it on a page somewhere that's easily findable for a lack of better terms um I think on a home page yeah a link to it absolutely I think that we certainly can um and and there are other committees that I certainly didn't didn't bring up you mentioned the code of conduct and and that is a committee that we have parents on as well and yes I think that we can certainly go that route there are internal District committees in which we would not provide summary meeting minutes of you know for for obvious reasons and one IBA is an example of that right and so yes but I think that with the public piece
035I think that's something that we could certainly look to do happy to do that and then with that page could we also have notices when we are asking for Community input saying we are looking for X amount of people Madam President we certainly can do that and you know we there have been times in this district and I'm going to use the word unfortunately where we have begged for people to be part of it because we no one had interest and so yes we are more than happy to do that we also typically put advertisements in various places when we're looking for committee members as well but we we will we can do that on that committee page we'll post um summary minutes of the public meetings and then we also will be more than
036happy to place a link that just says if you're interested in being on a committee click here and then we'll collect that information so that we just have a database when we have committees and we can reach out to folks and see if something meets their interest easy peasy very much and as a matter of fact I'm being told by the powers that be way behind us that we actually have a committee interest form already that we have available on our website and we'll just make sure we link that to that page and that way it's in one easy place for people to find great peace cake thank you do we have any other questions all right thank you we'll move on to G3 information on curriculum writing Dr Dean thank you madam president uh
037Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community also at the request of our governing board we have information this evening that Dr assai will share as it relates to those folks that we pay for curriculum writing and during the course of the Year this is usually a um an every agenda item in our personal action report in which we pay folks hourly for a broad term that is just titled curriculum writing and so Dr assai will present information on that Dr assai good evening Madam president members of the board when you see something called curriculum writing what it usually entails is teachers going back and doing work as it relates to standards assessment District approved resources scope and sequence and best practices we get we always start with the state
038standards that we're charged with teaching lots of times when we have a district approved resources they will give us exams and sometimes they're great exams sometimes they could be better an example I like to use is my first my first year teaching there was a question on golf that said Don hit one and one Crystal hit three and three who won and by how much if I was a child who had been exposed to golf I would understand and answer the question correctly but if I hadn't even though my my math would be right my answer would be incorrect so we look at first semester I think last last board meeting there was curriculum writing and it had to do with K3 reading and that's a curriculum and a resource we had adopted and it's
039in its first year of use at K3 so those people were going through and looking at the assessment results from students and saying how did our students do and then they talked about was the assessment item Fair do we think this was a solid assessment item if it wasn't our kids did poorly we go back and look at our scope and sequence and we say did we miss something in the scope and sequence did we did we need to hit long a a little bit harder did we need to hit it in different ways if it's not our assessment usually it's our instruction that we can beef up we also look at mapping in best instructional practices and academic vocabulary so when you see something on there about curriculum writing and you'll see more toward
040the summer when we do the majority of our work this year and summer seminar but it is an ongoing process throughout the year and one piece I would like to add and I I stated um in the introduction to this piece is that the broad category here is called curriculum writing and perhaps that's not the right term because our staff is actually not writing new curriculum what our staff does during that time is they're reviewing and revising things like our pacing of how when we teach lessons how long it takes us to teach a given unit um as Dr assai mentioned we might make tweaks and adjustments to tests test questions test items a better golf example would be Dr Dean and Dr crotto are playing golf at in San Diego next week Dr Dean
041shoots 68 Dr crota shoots 90 who won and to to Dr assai's point if you're not familiar with the game of golf you would think that the high score wins um and and so when we when we find those things in test Banks and test items then we go back and and we re we review and we tweak those I remember once upon a time I was teaching in Middle School and we were giving a a state assessment I think it was the cat nine back then and there was a question in a passage about a Babbling Brook there's not a lot of students in the Phoenix area that are familiar with babbling Brooks right and upon analysis the majority of the students that I taught got that question wrong and so what we found
042is that you know we needed to revise the way that we taught in that school in that District our vocabulary components to add pieces like the word Brooke and those kinds of things that aren't familiar to students here conversely a student on the east coast is not going to have a lot of experience with the choya cactus right or a javelina or what have you so probably a better suited term for the work that our staff does that we pay them for would be curricular review and and it might benefit us and our community to fully understand what's happening in that payment to change that term from curriculum writing to curriculum review because that's really what it is and again our staff is not going through writing new curriculum they're going through and making revisions
043to the way the pace the way we assess and the way that we teach the curriculum that's adopted by the board thank you so to to your point we're not paying thousands and thousands of dollars to buy curriculum and yet still paying our own people to write the curriculum Madam president that is absolutely correct so it's just a matter of of us taking a look at what we're doing which by the way here's a quick free advertisement for summer workshop this is what summer workshop is completely about we look forward to all our staff being there this is um this is the work that's done on a regular basis by our team by our our outstanding teaching professionals to to hone in the curriculum that we purchase that's board adopted to make sure that we
044are best meeting the needs of our students and this is a stipend so this is done outside of the school day Madam president it is done um outside of the school day and it's paid at an hourly rate I want to say 27 an hour is that correct 26 I'm sorry twenty six dollars an hour we pay our staff to do that and that's laid out in the mou okay and that's volunteers Madam president yes and no um summer workshop is 100 volunteer although we would love to have all of our staff at summer workshop um and we're paying you your daily rate for summer workshop this year um but uh there are there are times that we seek people out intentionally um who have been very successful in a given unit a given grade
045level whatever the case may be so we're not paying a first-year teacher to perform these duties Madam president that would be rare and unlikely thank you but but I believe that we could probably provide great clarity um with folks just by changing the second word in that component to review rather than writing so and we will look to do that thank you do we have any other questions um just want to clarify too I know that at times sometimes in our existing curriculum we have things that might not fit into some of our values so would that fall into this as well if they were just maybe some changing some language and some of the prompts for students things like that Madam president member Densmore yes we our curriculum team is Con our curriculum specialist
046I'm sorry is constantly reviewing our materials but through our revision if that were to be found or through um you know our teachers reviewing our lessons yes that could be part of that as well thank you and we we are working very hard to be very aware um of of those types of things and catch them um as quickly as possible and revise as needed it's very appreciated yes very much appreciated thank you all right we will move on to item H1 Dr Dean Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this is always an exciting um item and an exciting time of year when we welcome new folks onto our team for the upcoming year and I'm going to turn this over to Dr polling good evening Madam president
047members of the board cabinet and audience Administration is proud to present the following assistant principal recommendations for the 23-24 school year Juan Carlos Perla has been recommended for assistant principal at Dysart middle school and Kara Miller is being recommended for assistant principal at Luke elementary school and I believe they're both in attendance tonight a comprehensive selection process was used to identify all of our appointees for these positions which is our standard and I will stand for any questions all right thank you Dr polling do we have any questions all right I will move to approve the appointment of Juan Carlos Perla and Cara Miller as assistant principals for the 2023-2024 school year second motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Don Densmore and Madam president they are both in the audience and I would ask
048them to stand so that we all know who they are and congratulations motion carries congratulations [Applause] next we have H2 sorry H3 wait where are we at H2 Dr Dean it's contagious Madam president I'll take a responsibility for that Madam president members of the governing board members of cabinet in our community this evening we are pleased to bring a recommendation to approve the appointment of a director of federal projects and I will turn this over to Dr Poling thank you Dr Dean Madam president members of the board we are proud to present a recommendation for position of director of federal projects Dr Ashley Longoria is being recommended for the assignment for the 23-24 school year um Ashley Longoria has a doctorate in organizational leadership she was a principal with us for three years and if
049my memory serves correct she is a graduate of Dysart High School all right there we go so Dysart is in her blood so a comprehensive selection process was used to identify Dr Longoria and I will stand for any questions thank you Dr polling do we have questions all right I will make the motion to approve the appointment of Dr Ashley Longoria as director of federal projects beginning the 2023-2024 school year motion made by Crystal Chaffin seconded by Joe Grant the board is voting I would like to say we've actually not taken a blood test on Dr Longoria but we believe Dysart runs through our veins and go ahead and stand up Minnie [Applause] motion carries next we move on to H3 Dr Dean thank you madam president members of the governing board and members of
050cabinet and our community the State of Arizona allows school districts to petition the State Board of Education to create teacher education programs in an effort to recruit and train new teachers in a school district and so this evening Dr assai will present information on this item as it relates to a teacher education program that we have had approved by the State Board of Education as it relates to special education teachers in our district Dr assai good evening again Madam president members of the board bringing the education preparation program to Dysart is our way to fill a need you'll note it is specific to special education teachers we currently have a need we have many special education positions that are currently unfilled by certified teachers we have Subs we have contract teachers who are certified but
051they cost our district more and we really believe by opening this program that we can grow our own we did tailor it in accordance with what the state wants they want us to teach certain strands to be certified just like the universities would but the advantage we have is we don't have to do it like the universities do necessarily we can put our own Dysart spent on it and what I mean by that is there's certain things in there about our curriculum we just talked about what is the curriculum that we teach in Dysart and what are our values how do we teach this and what's acceptable and what's not uh things like lesson planning and how do we do our lesson planning what is our expectation for integration of Technology we also have assessment
052we talk a lot about assessment I think dysart's farther along than many districts and our use of assessment and breaking it down so it enables participants which would be a limited number who have bachelor's degrees already to indicate I want to become a special education teacher in Dysart they're trained over 70 hours in July that continues throughout their whole time teaching they have a mentor teacher they have a teacher appointed by the district really that trains them in those things that observes them provides some feedback while at the same time they're working with Mentor teachers at sites and we really believe this is an opportunity to fill fill a need for a high needs population and do it in a way that we can get Quality quality teachers question I'm sorry questions thank you Dr
053side do we have questions student teaching they're in the classroom but they have a mentor they would have a mentor they're not doing it with somebody they are assigned their own group a own group of students this is very similar to the model ASU uses now where they do get paid why they're doing that so to get paid to learn an example member Grant is I have a friend who works at a local local charter school we are still friends um but she she has a teaching degree in another state she hasn't or she was almost there in another state I guess she has her bachelor's she would like to teach in Arizona she would like to teach special education Charter Schools can employ teachers who aren't certified we don't she would have the opportunity
054to sub but through this program she could get her teaching certification and be a member of the Dysart family and learn the way we want to do things advertised I guess is the right word I mean you obviously have a friend you can tell but how else would you be able to draw we would we would work with our public relations team on advertising and recruiting hopefully we would get more recruits than we have spaces so we can be very selective um and who we choose our first step is getting it approved we haven't started talking advertising plans until we get the board's approval and I know that you mentioned that this is um for our special education some of the um the program content mentions social emotional learning can you just speak to how
055that is different with our special needs students yeah and I if I can talk to it in two respects number one a lot of our special education students do have social emotional learning goals so in a special education program we would need to address those we we have to write goals for them if that's their area of disability lots of times with our autistic children they need help with you know how do I interact socially so we do write those goals and that's embedded there but also in the classroom and I just made a note on 811 we presented to the board what SEL is and is not in Dysart you know SEL and Dysert has to do with problem solving goal setting when we talk about those things and it's really not what we
056would consider social social emotional learning even but what it's not is it's not about CRT it's not about sexual education it's not about social justice or anything like that so it also gives us the opportunity to teach these teachers coming in not necessarily what the university might teach them but say this is how we do things in Dysart and these are aligned with our dicer values thank you very much and then who would be overseeing these teachers who oversees this program we would hire a position funded to to do this through special education funds and then ultimately it would be Dr Dr wifridge is helping with it I'm helping with it as well and supporting so we would need to hire new District Personnel to supervise this it would be school-based Personnel similar to our
057teaching learning Specialists that already exist so it would be site-based yeah like our teaching learning Specialists or site-based they're in our schools everyday classrooms every day would be a position similar to that an additional position similar to that yes I want to make sure that we clarify for the board in terms of the number of positions that we're speaking about here that would be one we're talking about one okay just wanted to clarify one per site one for the district it would they would also work with teachers at each side the TLs at each site to also oversee so I mean you would have one person traveling around working with the 10 in the summer that person would travel around and also work with the TLs on how do we coach these teachers and then
058are we working with our tls's to train them on this protocol and on this particular schedule we would definitely work with them because their primary job is to support new teachers at sites but because of the special education content in it not all of our TLS our special education trained so we do need that expertise so that's when the district Personnel would step in yes and then if that District personnel is is say we've got three sites where the TLs is not necessarily their specialty isn't special special education so is that District person that District Personnel going to be able is it feasibly possible for them to have the manpower to supervise all three schools I believe it is because of the special education structure we have special education Specialists that you're usually assigned to
059two schools that can support so they would also partner with that person we also have the coordinators of four or five schools so I do think if that if it comes to that that we would have this the manpower to support and Madam president I would add that we anticipate that this program will start small and grow and so we believe that what is being proposed in terms of uh the staff involved would be adequate to begin the program I would love to be wrong and we would be flooded with a number of people and be back to the board and saying we need additional Personnel but at this point we believe that we'll be able to handle the initial number with what's being proposed and I'm not I'm not great at economics but I
060would think in what we would save with two or three contracted teachers and grow our own that pays for itself and then would they be receiving evaluations like every other teacher they would receive evaluations and their success is actually also based on seeing progress with student test scores so you would have to see growth with your students and they would be receiving those evaluations by principals and then do they do they have like an end of the program assessment or evaluation where you know they actually have to prove that they can teach they're not just going through the program and then all of a sudden we find out after two years that wow we have put so much time and effort into this person but it's just not going to work out yes Madam president
061uh members of the board yes at the end of that two years then they will need to take the state certification assessment in order to get a certificate okay said so they will have to take the aepa and okay at the end of the two years and not just with the test taking like if if we see that it's not good for our students in our schools you see it on page 10 it talks about if they need to go into more intensive support in year two um we look at planning and preparation classroom environment instruction and professional responsibilities so they are you know it would be at that time we'd be like okay we need more intensive support or it might be time to part ways Madam president very similar to the way that
062we approach our student teachers currently if we see a student teacher that we have grave concerns about we contact the university and refer them back to them and so it would be a similar situation if we see someone in this program that we have concerns about their ability to be effective as a teacher we certainly will move down a path that's appropriate for our students the probably the best way to look at this program would be it's similar to a post-baccalaureate program that universities would offer to folks who have degrees and then want to become teachers and they kind of fast track that this is just fast tracking it through our system and the the biggest Advantage is it gives us it gives us control of the folks to train them in our system our
063value system and what we believe in in terms of teaching and learning for our students thank you do we have any other questions sorry um how quickly into the role do you think that it would give relief to our current special education staff I would think that it would be within I mean really within the first year what happens right now is if if John and I are Dr crota and I are both teaching somewhere and Dr Credo leaves and he gets a sub that sub can't write IEPs so even though we compensate another teacher for doing it that's a heavy load on another teacher to write double the IEPs to design that specially designed instruction so it would take that off that staff and I think it brings really to our other teachers training
064that that new teacher to write those IEPs is it going to be their buddy teacher like their teammates are they going to have to pick up that slack and say oh I hope you do this and in addition to all their other duties I would it's going to be refined throughout the year throughout the year in July I can teach you how to do it that doesn't mean that you're going to perfect it by any means so you know there would be practice in July there would be more practice in August than they would probably submit it to one of the specialists at the sites the special education specialist already review IEPs and work side by side so it's really a multi-person effort even though there's a you have to have that central point but
065when all of us work together is how things get done and you think this would greatly alleviate some of the stress of our current special ed teachers who are spread thin and teaching more bigger class sizes than they normally would I believe Not only would it alleviate stress to the special education teachers but also to general education teachers to some of our administrators when you're short staffed it hurts anyway but when you're short staffed in ESS for some of our Learners that need you know that need qualified teachers great teachers the most um when we have to fill that position with a sub you know or when we have to incur the cost of a contract teacher I think it hurts the system and I think having that person immediately be able to be in
066the room when they're qualified trained by somebody that's qualified who's somebody who's passionate and knows ESS who knows instruction I believe you know my own personal experience my husband went back to school to be an ESS educator he's actually learned more in the classroom than I think he did in his teacher teacher program you know I helped him with his objectives once and he got a B but in Dysart he got an A because I wrote him the right way um but just going going through those things and I will tell you my my own experience being married to a special education teacher is that he's learned more from his colleagues and the people he works with here than he did in his three year three years of the University he did not go to
067U of A or he would have been more appropriately trained thank you for that clarification thank you do we have any other questions or points of discussion okay then I will make the motion to approve the educator preparation programs as presented motion made by Crystal Chapin seconded by Don Densmore motion carries we now have requests for future agenda items do we have any all right I will move that we adjourn the meeting motion made by Crystal Chapman seconded by Joe Grant midnight what motion carries we are adjourned