001e e e welcome everyone at this time I'd like to call the meeting to order and we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and let the record reflect that all board members are present today and first up we have item B1 um and that is the annual board organization meeting at this time I'll make a motion to elect uh Christine Pritchard as governing board president Madam president if you could uh rephrase that to nominate Miss Pritchard as motion to nominee motion or just it says motion to elect open up the floor for nominations okay thank you at this time I'll open it
002up for nominations and you can now thank you and now I'll make a motion to elect to nominate okay I'm still going off of the script to uh nominee Christine Pritchard as governing board president I'll second and Madam president if you could um ask Miss Pritchard if she is willing to accept that nomination thank you do you accept the nomination I do thank you thank you are there any other nominations okay I move that Christine Pritchard be elected as board president do I have a second second so a motion has been made by Don Densmore seconded by Crystal Chaffin and it there's nothing on her screen she keeps track of my screen no thank you motion passes congratulations thank you very much next we will move to B2 action to elect governing board Clerk and
003we'll follow the same process used for election of board president for the election of board clerk so at this time I will accept nominations for board Clerk and with that I would like to nominate Crystal shaen as board clerk second um M Adam president if you could ask Miss Chapan if she accepts that nomination Miss chap would you accept that nomination yes I accept are there any other nominations for board Clerk not hearing any then I will go ahead and move that the governing board elect Miss Crystal shaen as governing board clerk do I have a second second made by Christine Pritchard second in by Don Dunmore do I do motion carries congratulations mevin and with that I will hand these to you excuse me and when we get to D1 you just read the
004script okay I'll help you thank you all right next we'll move to celebrations recognitions and celebrations C1 choir performance Dr kis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet Mr Dean will introduce this item good evening Madam president members of the governing board Dr Kellis and members of cabinet this evening we are proud to present the Willow Canyon High School show choir under the direction of of Logan McDonald and this evening they're going to perform for us Never Enough from the movie The Greatest Showman [Music] I'm trying to hold my breath let it stay this way can let this moment [Music] set loud can you hear it [Music] be never be enough [Music] never [Music] St [Music] never [Music] never [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] guys sounded incredible are you guys going
005to be competing um in Spring uh well we hope so I think you're on that in a couple weeks so I do believe that is the plan be heading out in April but you let us know awesome you guys definitely seem prepared that's for sure be a good time this actually a song from our Winter concert we just had it was our biggest show in a couple years thanks to the way the world is and it was just it was incredible to have a full Auditorium of people really enjoying the show kids did a great job and we are just jumping into our spring music and getting ready for a whole lot of Fallout Boy this ouring concert we'd love to see you and thank you so much for having us back we always love
006be here it was a pleasure having you thank Youk okay then next we'll move to D1 audience with individuals this is the time for a public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ARS uh 38-4 3101 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further discussion and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limmit 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 um our first one we have tonight is Janet LeBlanc good
007evening uh my name is Janet LeBlanc and I would like to the board to know that I am an awakened Grandma I am not woke but I am awakened to the atrocities and indoctrination that has been taking place in our school systems atrocities and indoctrinations that you have all allowed and even participated in first I'd like to say shame on you for allowing that to happen to not just my children and my grandchildren but to yours as well shame on you for not standing up for their inalienable rights that is granted by God and God alone you nor anyone else has any authority to mask inject or brainwash our children secondly I'd like to say shame on me for not paying attention and placing my full trust that you would do the right thing that
008I promise you will never happen again it is my understanding that transgender bathrooms and or locker rooms are going to be discussed I am here to express my utmost disgust that this subject is even allowed our school system and all who participate have got to start getting the is straight there are only two genders male and female doe the science DNA proves it any other gender anyone wants to try to identify is teaching false facts it is time boor to step up stand up and fight against these atrocities and indoctrinations against our children and Against Humanity I promise you this will not be the last time that you see me up here I believe I speak for many here many parents I thank you for your time and I hope that each of you take
009time to examine your own conscience and let that be your guide thank you Dr Kellis could you please make sure that um Miss LeBlanc is followed up with for statements please M president M Bill yes we will follow thank you um our next one is Lee IES yes I'll be oh so wait till I three oh sorry thank you um this one yeah they're all I three thank you thank you next we'll move to e superintendent governing board updates um Dr kis do have a student update evening um Madame President members of the board yes would' like to invite Miss Poundstone to the podium to give a student update good evening Madame President members of the board Dr Kellis cabinet and community my name is Json Poundstone and I'm a member of the daart student
010Leadership Council at our most recent meeting we continue to work on our upcoming events for all of the high schools high school we get together and learn from each other we also checked in with each Council to see what activities they had coming up on their campuses um a lot of the schools right now are planning a hoopcoming dance charity pageants and talent shows uh we are also in the process of planning a spirit conference for all the daart student councils to attend we look forward to sharing more information and more accomplishments with you thank you thank you thank you Jocelyn next we move to superintendent update Dr CIS thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet um first of all I'd like to welcome everybody back happy New Year it
011was nice to have the break and to be able to take a breather as I say that with lots of uh reservations about breathing but uh it was nice to to take a breath and to um reset for the the rest of the school year which we are off and running um also U congratulate uh Mrs Pritchard for your selection as president look forward to working with you and Miss Densmore it was a pleasure working with you as board president thank you for the time in that position uh speaking of board members this is the national school board Rec recognition month so to all of you I say thank you for your volunteer time and it's um it's just amazing how much effort it goes into serve you have to work really hard just to
012have the opportunity to serve and that shouldn't be the case but we appreciate your service um we as you have seen in the media there's been a lot of attention to the amount of the extraordinary amount of work that staff are doing extra to cover for absente isms and for illnesses and I just want to extend a a very heartfelt thank you to all employees every position is doing double work to help their peers who are out and for covering in areas that you are just asked to do again and again thank you so very very much to everybody um was listening to a presentation today and they were indicating that things are going to probably spike in the next week and then we'll start to see a decline so um there is hope on
013the horizon but I appreciate all the employees and what what you do that's all I have to report thank you next we move to governing board update um just welcome everybody back hope everybody had a good relaxing and healthy Break um and with that I'll open it up to any of the board members that have any updates we go um gosh it's been so long I had to really go back and look at my calendar um I visited Sunset Hills uh simmeron Springs and Canyon Ridge and um I want to give a thank you to Mr Hicks and his Department last month last year um there was a question about some voucher uh purchases of bath bombs and sunglasses Etc thank you for the prompt response at all of these were for certain science projects
014at various schools in the district so thank you for that um I also want to give a shout out to the HR department um these folks are doing their normal and I know everybody in the district is doing their normal job I get in above and beyond but the HR department is not only doing their normal job but also Manning the co hotline and that means they're working weekends and nights so thank you very much uh Dr Cotto to your employees for all that they've been doing lately that's it anyone else actually I just want to welcome everybody back I know uh it was um the time to celebrate with family and friends and uh I am really excited to see uh several people that are here here in the audience for uh the board
015meeting so I am also looking forward to I believe there are several um uh concerts uh within the schools that are going to be coming up over the next couple of weeks so I am definitely looking forward to it and I will apologize again right now if you hear this crazy lady singing in the back of the auditorium that is me because I like singing so just be prepared thank you Tracy I couldn't hear you were youing with the choir yes yes we'll go ahead and move to um item F motion to approve consent agenda items I move that the board approve consent agenda items as presented second motion made by Christine Pritchard second by Joe Grant right motion carries next um information and discussion items H1 board monitoring of adopted policy section 7 Personnel
016sections 7.33 to 7.68 and sections eight meet and confer Dr Callis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet Dr Cotto will introduce this item thank you Dr Kellis Madame President members of the board superintend Kellis cabinet and guests tonight we continue on our policy monitoring with uh sections 7.33 to 7.68 uh in monitoring those policies we do have a change uh to section uh 7.52 I believe it is um support staff fringe benefits it is uh if you take a look in the green part it is when staff members are eligible for benefits so we needed to change language uh it used to be on the first day of the month now they're eligible for benefits depending on the day they start so if it's the first to the um
01715th and it's on the 1st of the next month it's the 16th through the end of the month it's the first of the second month so not the following month and that's the way practice is so this policy needs to be brought up to date uh to reflect our practice other than that there are no changes in in the rest of the the policies any discussion from the board thank you next we move to H2 school reports rancha Gabriella Elementary in Valley Vista High School Dr Callis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet Dr P and Dr Dean will introduce these thank you Dr kis Madam president members of the board cabinet and audience I'd like to call up Mr Scott kirp principal at ranchel Gabriella for a school report
018good evening um newly elected president M Pritchard um congratulations um board members um cabinet members thank you Dr Kellis my name is Scott Kerr I'm the inter principal at Rancho Gabriella elementary school and I'm excited to be here um we have a little data and other things to go over so we're gonna all right can do well I can certainly cover the first slide no problem we have about 740 students prek through fourth grade um our our colors are orange and black our mascot is the Rattler we're dual language uh school which is kind of interesting for an elementary you don't see that very often so that's nice we have Spanish on our campus and every kid gets received Spanish we have some opportunities I'm just going to keep going I'm good with that opportunities
019um so I think what you have to know is I POS these questions to my staff and so by and large these answers are my staff answering which I'm happy to report um common culture one of the opportunities that we have um as our K our prek4 and our five eight schools were put together um we kind of swapped some teachers and within that we have to have next slide please um common culture we have to build that and that's built through building relationships with all the staff and through well when you do that you build trust and that's very much needed let's see there we go all right um staff growth and change we want to make sure that we are adapting to our students needs when we came off of the year that
020we came off of Not only was there just a lot of change on Rancho's campus and some other campuses with staff but now we are looking at students who some of them didn't go to kinder in our first grade some really didn't go to first grade earned second grade um and so on and so forth I can tell you um that that process of learning is so so so critical with the young kids it's so important for us to get it right when they're young so as they get older that those gaps don't grow on them and we need to be focused we need to make sure we're adapting to what students need and there are needs um and I'll I'll discuss one of those needs with you here in a minute strengthen our ability
021to work together um what is nice about combining two campuses is now you have twice as many ideas that's a that's a great advantage and so taking advantage of those opportunities and hearing voices of everyone matters um to be able to build us again our culture and our trust and our relationships is extremely important we also need to be student focused in our ability to work together we want to work together for a common goal that common goal are our students and their learning period that's number one we want to make sure that we use our professional learning communities plc's to help strengthen that the PLC I'd call it the Mantra is this what do we want want students to know really important question really important question you know what they are we want them
022to know the standards that's what we want them to know so as teachers we have to know them too as administrators we have to know them too so that we can convey them to kids we also want to make sure we understand and check assess if you want to call it what students know so we need to make sure not only do we have have a focus on what we're teaching them but we also have to check on that to make sure they're learning what they are supposed to be learning because if they don't we need to do something about that so there are two final steps that we have to take care of and one is what do we do with students who don't know and what do we do with students who do
023know we have to address those in our school and we do help Stu students grow academically and socially so here's one of the facts I'll I'll let you know of our students are behind I haven't seen these kind of numbers at ranchel before I have one reading interventionist she sees 45 kids five kids at a shot nine rotations of kids through the day that's 45 students she is able to help help them read those are kids that on Dibbles are are in the red or in the yellow which is not very good we don't want them there we want them being green being able to read I have 175 kids that are yellow and red that's a lot and I'm obviously not meeting that right now with that one interventionist so we got to think
024of ways outside the box to help meet those kids' needs we also have to make sure that we're addressing the needs of kids that have been out have been looking at devices for who knows what reason but being with other people has not what they've been doing so making sure that that we BR take that social awkwardness out we teach them the skills that they need walking in lines uh taking turns you know not hitting someone when they get in front of us in line that type of stuff and that's really really important um to have a a safe and orderly campus early intervention again is also critical we have to intervene early which means at Rancho not when they get to sorin Heights last thing is a curricular Focus again we have to know
025the standards and we have to we have to um deliver those standards as teachers to kids at the correct level of rigor let's try that there we go some of our celebrations you know what we are seeing victories with our students we're seeing growth and we like to see that we want to see that growth and that's happening our teachers are doing a great job I'm so proud of them um our staff works extremely hard and um as was eluded taking breaths is dangerous or whatever and it's difficult and all that kind of stuff we have several staff members out several but you know what we have other staff members that are picking it up and taking care of business including ourselves um I I'm my poor kindergarteners I was in a Kindergarten class for
026two hours today and um I I'm here so that's good not tied up somewhere um so I'm happy for that and and I feel like I was successful but that's the type of thing that needs to happen we all need to pull together and work together um we're in person with students that is so important um research shows that putting a student in front of a excellent a good to excellent teacher will overcome things that kids experience like poverty poverty like single parent homes like no parent homes like a parent who's in jail or whatever the case might be you put a good teacher in front of a student those things disappear it's so important for us to make sure we have kids in front of teachers period not on screens they have to be
027live team building we want to make sure we have competitions to help build morale community events that bring our community together and we can um work with them have fun with them enjoy the things around us ice breakers and activities and out of school activities we want to incorporate all those things to help build our team collaborating and working together we want to make sure we're again in just improving our plc's and making sure we're focusing on student learning um helping students grow academically and socially um learning through our benchmark scores what we need to do and um students interacting with each other and staff is again building that social awkwardness out and helping our kids develop what we want to focus on we want to focus on number one answer I was so happy
028to see this over and over from my teachers number one answer student growth learning at high level that was our number one answer from our staff building kids social skills we're k for we have a lot of little ones they need to be helped um creating a common culture and family atmosphere at our school not we're not two different sets of teachers or three different sets of teachers we're one set of teachers one set of Staff we're all together writing complete objectives and using academic conversation for student growth and learning which is what we're focusing on in our CIP but it's also what we're being trained in with West Ed and I was happy to see our teachers respond with this response and last but not least using our data to differentiate learning groups so
029with that we'll open for some questions if you have any thank you so much I really enjoyed your presentation and it's good to have you back you've always had a very um close group at Rancho very good culture and you guys all seem to grow together so I'm sure they're happy to have you back and you guys can continue your work together um I do like the fact how you had had said that you like to involve your staff with like okay what are our opportunities because then there's always that buy in so I love that and then I also liked um in your presentation how you talked about wanting to make sure everybody's on track before they get to sorin so it's just kind of like that accountability to not just your students um
030but also to your colleagues over at Sonoran and just so I just and our high schools too yeah I appreciate that so thank you anyone else um I did have something uh Mr Kerr it is awesome to have you back and um good to see you it's good to see you and um I remember years ago we uh uh a board member from another school district and I would banter once in a while that he said he was going to come back over here and steal you back and and I would tell him no he's not so um uh he didn't he didn't he didn't he didn't and and you know why he didn't um so thank you for coming back um I did have uh one question for you and it did have to
031do with the reading interventionist um 45 students and you said nine rotations um what type of ideas are you great question I was hoping you'd ask okay so one of the things we're doing right now and it's involving a lot of different people which is great um we're coming together and some people are doing some things in on our campus that are above and beyond which is great um our third and fourth grade are our heaviest especially fourth grade heavy testing grade for us and um label that's most of our label is going to come from fourth grade third grade also so what do we do we have some problems we're looking at benchmark scores we're looking at growth scores and we're talking about what we can do so we um involve our specials team
032in helping meet the needs of kids and what we do is we we are desire is to break down groups of kids to smaller groups so that we can manage that and help kids right where they need it the only way we can do that is we have the resources we need and now resources are people and so I'm going to put a plugin a couple of them for my reading interventionist and for my social worker because they both work hard at helping us in areas that we need help so what we do is we take our kids our our like for instance fourth grade gets together and our six teachers talk about kids and they look at their scores and they look at what they want to improve upon now kids who there are
033plenty of kids who have mastered that the these skills so what do we do with them they go to specials and it's kind of a reward for them it's a little different than just the regular specials for PE or for art or whatever it's a little different it's a little more interesting and motivating I would say but part of what they have to do in that group as an extension it's a three-week period they have to um take a standard from fourth grade and use it to write about what they learned about in PE art or music so there's a writing component to that that meets the standards of fourth grade in language arts what the teachers do in language arts since those kids are out of the way we take some of our special
034ed students we take some of our regular students we send them off to an aid to maybe a special ed teacher and now our six teachers have smaller groups of kids they have a choice they can um work on those skills as individuals or together so they take three language arts skills three math skills they're going to work on them and they're going to drill on them with the group of maybe 10 kids in the room now um rotating them through the three-week period where you have small group during our wi time which means what I need as a student and we are pushing that really hard right now so that is one of the ideas that we've come up with and involves a lot of teachers and a lot of resources on our campus
035um that help us with that so so did you start this at the beginning of the year or um meaning the beginning of school year not in this fashion no um but there was some structures put in place so that we are able to um we have done wind time at Rancho for a number of years now and it's evolved and we're kind of putting some things in place because our campus is a little different now than what it was is a K8 a pre8 sorry Chris um so you know we have to again change adapt and attack what needs to be delivered for our kids I'd be interested to see how it will come look well okay no but I would be really interested to see how after your you know a couple of
036the 3- we rotations um to see how um they have progressed right in that y okay I will I'll come over good thank you very much thank you you mentioned um the device overload for some of your students how do you manage that when they when they are in the classroom with Chromebooks for a big portion of their day do you try to limit the Chromebook experience as much as possible so that's a great question and on K4 campus it's not students are ignorant of Chromebooks right um but it is harder for them um as you're in Kinder first second third grade kids are learning how to read and fourth grade they're using their reading to learn um kind of transitioning then and write about then anyways so when you come to our campus you're
037going to see a lot more paper and pencil we want kids to write we want them to read um we want them to read books um bigger print is nice sometimes that font on the computer screen can be really small um so we um do have we do we do use our Chromebooks but not like you would probably see in a high school not probably like you'd see in a middle school okay is that fair yes thank you okay that's all I have okay well my first question to you is how was your Kinder experience today so here's what you need to understand my background is a high school math teacher for 16 years that's awesome but the math it was a math lesson so I was very successful with that um it was fun
038it really was the kids were great um I talked to um the teacher next door and I said Miss soy this is it just wasn't like your class I'm just telling you that right now and she goes no Mr Kurt you did pretty good so I was like bam um it was fun I it's a classroom that you know if I have to I'll go into do I want to that's another issue um but I've been in our fourth grade classrooms teaching language arts which is not my forte either but I if I have to do it I will um prior to that you know at when we were K8 I love to clear my schedule if I could and go into a seventh grade math class or an eighth grade math class and help
039out there so it's really important to be able to pitch in I want my staff to see that because I'm going to ask the same things of them and if I'm not doing it why should they I really appreciate that I appreciate your willingness to go in amid your staff shortage and go into a classroom and say well nobody's here I'm going to cover this you um I think that shows really good leadership you know not only stepping in to help you know for your students but also setting that example for your staff right and we have a lot of good leaders on our campus because a lot of our teachers are doing that too well and I would also like to point out that I really appreciate how you're using your special areas as
040the extension my my stance will always be special areas and electives we're not AIDS we're not babysitters we're not just your prep so I love how that your special areas are teaching their special areas in a different in a different manner kind of so your specials aren't a reward Bo but this extra special is yeah so they can do something even more that they don't get to do in the regular PE class and that we want that to be the intent I think that's awesome and I love how you're using that you're using your special areas in their fores this is what they know and the kids are also getting that extra experience and they're diving deeper into those standards and I love how you're tying it into the fourth grade reading where they're using
041these standards to write about what they learned so I love that connection there too right well without Miss Ashby who thought of that idea back at the beginning of the year and without our language arts teachers back here in fourth grade say hi and without our specials teachers like Mrs Mendoza over here that wouldn't be possible because they make it happen and and it's easy too it's not like oh you're asking me to do this or I don't want to do that it's yeah let's let's do it Scott what how can we do this what do we need help us well and it's always fun when you have a smaller group of students where you can really specialize that just makes it even more fun for the teacher too and that's what we want to
042do thank you yep good thank you very much thank you appreciate it guys have a great night too Madame President members of the governing board Dr Kell and members of cabinet it is my pleasure this evening to Welcome to the podium Dr Adam Wolf the principal at Valley Vista High School and with him this evening is his administrative team assistant principals Lisa parachini Aon McRae Joe Martinez and Pete jelic Dr Wolf the floor is yours Madame President members of the board Dr Kellis cabinet thank you for allowing me to be here my name is Adam wolf and I am proud to serve as principal of Valley Vista High School um thank you for the warm welcome thank you for introducing my team if you guys could just stand up and give them a wave so
043everyone knows come on you can do it we have Miss Partin on the right Miss McCrae in the middle there Mr Martinez on the left and our athletic director all the way in the back Mr gelic um I was not in a Kindergarten class today I'm not sure I can handle a Kindergarten class but I was in a Spanish class A couple days ago and it was a ton of fun um we're we're in some tough times now uh and we do have teachers out and I want to just first start off with the shout out to my staff and all their hard work um and for making this possible um they're continuing to step up daily covering classes um and I just cannot thank them enough for all their hard work and their efforts
044with that being said let's talk about Valley Vista High School so slide all right it's working so our current enrollment is 2345 students who arrive daily with Bright Smiles on their face ready to go every day at 7 11:15 a.m. our colors are purple black and silver we are home of the monsoon and as soon as I was hired Miss parachini pointed out to me that it is never the monsoons so thank you for that our signature programs at valy Vista High School our AVID program Avid stands for advancement via individual determination our law enforcement program our fire science and our culinary arts so let's talk about some of the opportunities here at Val Vista um so in looking at U specifically our data and our asm2 data for 10th grade for last school year
045um our reading and writing proficiency so the number of students scoring proficient or higher on the asm2 was at 32% um but then when you dig a little bit deeper into that data and go into our some of our subgroups and you look at our ESS exceptional student services we were at 2% proficient or higher and within our elll pop 0% within our math proficiency we're at 25% proficient or higher and within our ESS and elll you see the same numbers there of 2% and 0% so a lot of opportunities there um for learning uh and the teaching learning process and helping students to achieve at high levels our act data last year our uh composite score was 17.7 and you can see what the district and state averages were there and you will we
046will talk about a little bit later um but some of our goals this year specifically in the academics focus in on those pieces of data um of course R return to normaly what inperson instruction is going to look like we know there was a lot of students um who were undocumented students students who were in enrolled in a school and when the pandemic hint the students went missing we didn't necessarily have records of their withdrawal um and nor did they reenroll in another school and so um for some of our students uh it's been a while uh since they've returned to in-person teaching and learning additionally returning to our traditional curriculum returning to our events Games Etc and really just getting back to uh normal schooling and forging ahead at Valley Vista we really focus
047on preparing students for the lives they're going to lead outside of our high school and so we um feel that we have a great opportunity um to help promote career in college readiness and with that and look reviewing that data we also have some opportunities there um so what you're looking at is some cohort data from 2013 1 in 2015 um and the 14 date is not up there because um this is information from the national student Clearing House which tracks uh data for six years um and we all know for the 2014 class what kind of hit their sixth year uh that would be the pandemic so if we look at that data and we dive into it um 58% of valy Vista students enrolled in college within one year of graduating high school
048U for our 2013 cohort and if you look at our 2000 or excuse me within two years we're at 64% when you dive a little deeper into that and we look at the students who graduated so of the 64% we're talking right so um 500 students 64% of them is just over 300 students um 24% complete a degree within six years that's how long the Clearing House tracks his data um and if you break that down a little bit further 15% of those students was from a four-year school where whereas 9% was from a two-year school so we're talking about students who went to Valley Vista part of the 2013 cohort if we say there was 00 students who graduated 64% of them enrolled in in college within two years of graduating and of that
04964% you're looking at um 24% of them completing a degree if we look at our 2015 cohort uh we had about 50% of our students enrolling uh in college within one year and then up to 56 within two years and you'll see a very similar Trend there um so of those students who graduated 23% completing a degree within six years in very similar data 17 and six for our 4ye and two years respectively so lots of opportunities there um for preparing students for the lives that they're going to leave after they graduate valy Vista High School um and you'll see whenever we get to our our goals how that focuses around this data so what are some of our celebrations well we have a lot of them and I might have been limited but I
050snuck a lot in there sorry Jim um Dr Dean excuse me so Staffing we had a new administrative team coming in uh at Valley Vista this school year four new administrators to the campus and uh we were very busy in the springtime and summertime and we um as well as uh with the help of various support staff members hired 31 new highly qualified Educators for our campus and we are very proud of that we're also extremely proud that all of our classrooms are staffed with a highly qualified teacher uh and I just want to thank my team for all their efforts uh with that our failure rate uh this year um this first semester we set a goal as a campus to be at 5% or less and as of January the 10th we still
051have some students who are completing some late finals and different assessments uh we are at 6.4% uh and historically and reviewing that we are extremely proud of where we have gone with our failure weight uh failure rate at valy Vista High School tardies so I said that students arrive every day at 7:15 excited to learn with a big smile on their face right um sometimes we have had a challenge of getting students to class on time and so we have restored some sweet practices and we have made a a a tremendous effort um specifically our staff in being present and visible in the hallways during passing periods and really encouraging students to get to class when that minute bell sounds to really be out and about um and not just uh welcoming not only welcoming
052them but also encouraging those to move along we got to get moving all right it's time to move and groove and get to learning um and you'll see that we really started tracking a lot of our data U for our tardies just beginning when we returned from uh winter break and you'll see that over a period of really just our first week how with the exception of first hour we've been able to just about cut all of those numbers in half um and I just want to thank my entire team at Valley Vista High School our staff our dedicated professionals our security our support staff uh it really takes a village to be successful and it's their tremendous hard work and efforts that have made this possible so thank you to all of them if
053you look at our walkthrough data uh and so this is specifically when we go out uh as an administrative team uh as well as our uh TLS our teaching and learning Specialists um also uh some of our district Personnel who do walkthroughs on our campus and evaluate teaching and learning uh we continue to do learning walks each and every month and we try to make sure that every staff member um has at least one Lear learning walk per month minimum and you'll see whenever it comes time to um the areas that we're focusing in on with our academics and our teaching and learning uh there's three of those uh that's the learning intention and success criteria being posted and being aligned so ensuring that U the learning is matching what we um intend for them
054to learn so does the does the task match what we intend for them to learn um and of course the alignment to the standard there and you'll see that in August we were at about 31% with the alignment there um do2 are higher so we're talking about the level of rigor in the class uh we have a strive for a goal to have um all of our teachers teaching at at least a do2 or higher and you'll see that in August we were at about approximately 31% and then our emphasis this year is on implementing quality instructional practices with a specific focus on learning conversations academic conversations within the classroom uh and so we are going through a lot of our professional development centers on collaborative structures and student discourse and in August we were
055at 38% uh coll a collaborative structure happening within the class if you fast forward that um to the last month of the first semester December our learning intentions posted aligned um to the learning task that is being um completed within the class we were at about 73% do2 were higher at 63% and collaborative structures were observed 45% of the time during those walkthroughs once again this is a credit directly to our hardworking staff and all of their efforts their commitment to being professionals uh who continue to evolve their teaching and practices and we are super proud of them going past academics um we've had a record ticket sales for our choir performance uh in fact our choir director is Mr Preston's brother uh from Willow Canyon and we are extremely proud of Preston and all
056his hard work uh at Valley Vista and if you ever have a chance to to visit one of our shows I would encourage you to do that in fact uh Shameless plug but clue starts tonight U with our drama club it will air tonight Thursday and Friday at 7 just a plug stuco um we are extremely proud of our student council in all their hard work and efforts they are really who lead our campus the campus belongs to them and it's their responsibility to lead and to facilitate um our culture on this on on at Valley Vista and we are proud uh they stepped up this year tremendously and they hosted an aasc fall Spirit conference and they are currently in the process of submitting a bid to host the state conference in 202 24
057volleyball and bad mitt this year were region Champs Valley Vista and we had a girls golfer Nikki U Nikki Bowen who placed 11th in the entire state of of Arizona and she is competing in the highest level of golf that one can compete in the state that's the division one level obviously it's an individual Sport and she placed 11th and we're extremely proud of her and we have two more years with her and we can't wait to see if she can become a state champ at T1 level kayin Kenna uh girls volleyball was our region player the year and then Jenna asai girls basketball signed with the University of Oregon and we're extremely proud of her for that so our Focus for this year uh when you look at what we are trying to achieve
058as a campus um and the work that our instructional cabinet is doing as well as our teaching our teachers and support staff um they come to to school every day prepared to help students reach their full potential um and and as a campus we're committed to Preparing students for the lives that they're going to lead once they graduate from our school and so with that um we are working very hard uh to achieve goals uh that were set u with our instructional cabinet and input from our school stakeholders uh to achieve an a label academically to increase our act cut scores by 8% meaning the number of students who are achieving proficiency are higher and 40% of our students will um achieve proficiency or higher on the ACT Aspire and those will be our ninth
059graders finally our instructional goals which kind of Center on things I've already um mentioned earlier today but implementing our curriculum f with Fidelity so ensuring that we are teaching the standards to our students and that also has to do with those learning tasks making sure those are aligned to our standards engaging in the PLC plus process uh we believe a collaborative atmosphere is essential uh teachers learn great things from each other and they continue to learn and grow within their plc's um additionally we want to make sure that we have have um common things happen in our classrooms and so that all kids regardless of which teachers class they're in they are given access to a rich lesson that is aligned to the standards and finally utilizing quality instructional practices and again I've already mentioned
060focusing on those academic conversations so that has really been our Focus for the year as a staff and with that I will turn it over for questions thank you very much um so you you actually came in with virtually a whole new admin team which can be a challenge but it can also be fun and a lot of opportunity because you can kind of make the school your own so how was that process how how did that all evolve how you feeling about things now after you've had like a a two semesters under your belt now that's a great question and that's a a really difficult question um it was a challenge coming in with uh four new administrators to the team I always call miss parachini our historian uh and she keeps me grounded
061whenever I have whenever Grand ideas come up out uh she definitely grounds me but um it's it's been a it's been a great experience um for our our entire administrative team and for our staff uh one of the most important things I think that we can do coming in is to really get to know Valley Vista and what makes Valley Vista unique and special um we've worked really hard to focus in on building relationships and Trust within our campus um and with our school stakeholders and um our teachers have done a great job uh welcoming the entire new administrative team because there's I'm sure there was some fear there and anxiety with four new administrators coming in uh but they've been true professionals they've remained committed to teaching and learning uh processes and I'm super
062grateful and proud of them for for their efforts it's been exhausting at times I'm not going to lie um coming in with with four four new administrators uh but it's been a great opportunity um and you know as Monty Williams said everything difficult or hard as that one is on the opposite of hard something around along those lines and um I really feel that uh coming in it took a while to for us to settle but over time and I would say late quarter one early quarter two after fall break um it really felt like the campus was rolling forward in a positive direction and that we had turned the corner and I think that's um a testament to not only these wonderful folks that I get to work alongside each day um but just
063our resilient staff they are there and committed to teaching and learning and that hasn't changed even with the new team wonderful um kind of off of what you just said as far as um feeling like things are starting to turn a corner can you share um so obviously I'm share concern that the scores took a drop um are there some things that you've you've been able to kind of assess and and found that are moving in the right direction that you're excited about as far as interventions and opportunities for growth for our students in those areas yes so one of one of the one change that was made um early in the fall is that we're we are focusing in on those our those subgroups that I mentioned earlier right and ensuring that specifically our
064elll students are accessing grade level standards um which hasn't necessarily been the case and so we made some changes to to make sure that within their Ela classroom they are accessing those standards right if we're not teaching to those standards it's really hard to learn and to master what those standards are asking you um and so that's one change um leveraging the PLC plus process uh has also Mak made a huge difference within our um school so we have uh our teachers broken in I'm sure you're familiar with the PCS but um so they're all broken into the their plc's um and we are focusing really in on the um critical questions for learning um making sure that we understand what students want to know or need to learn and um I think that U
065the Partnerships we have on our campus um are within our plcs is very strong um we work with um Dave Nagel and Corin um education and um that process has evolved and he even credited our staff he said you know I've been to a lot of high schools and I've worked with a lot of high schools across this country and the level and commitment that your plc's have to um collaborating uh is something I've I rarely see on campuses and so um I think leveraging those plc's for the benefit of our students is also um something that is helping to drive our our instruction and our achievement that's good okay the only other question I had I was reviewing your integrated action plan development sheet and under um under the root cause you you had
066stated this was just on the website that the teachers don't possess the assessment literacy or have the tools necessary to empower students to analyze goal set and progress monitor can you um is that can you just explain that a little bit more what you meant by that yeah so um can can you can you repeat that I don't have our our sip in front of us but also um coming in new new to Valley oh did you not write that well I didn't write it oh okay then that's not a fair be happy to to try to no that's not a fair question then I'm sorry I I saw your name on it and I assumed that you you had a hand in that that's okay I'm I'm good thank you you sure yes I
067look forward to visiting your campus so we can chat more then how's that anytime M Mrs perard if I could address your comment Madam president sorry interrupt um the uh the I AP process is year round and there's deadlines in the spring that schools need to turn in for that next school year because it's such a long process to go through ad so um right I understand it was just it sounded like it was a finding that there was just some some work in the area of um of literacy the understanding of um assessment of literacy and so I was just curious about that statement thank you though any other questions yes um so I I wanted to just you know mention the the failure rate I know you said that the goal um was
0685% but we're sitting at about 6.4 I I think that that's pretty incredible considering the other numbers presented here um with the proficiency data so um and also um there were some reports of surrounding districts with much higher failure rates so I'm really happy to see that number at Valley um and I just wanted to mention that the tardies I I want to apologize you know for being part of that that problem I signed my son and around noon today we had dentist appointments though so it's okay happens yeah um but I can just tell you as a a Valley Vista parent I have been very impressed with your leadership as as well as your team um and handling a lot of challenges including one of my own so I appreciate that thank you we're
069happy to have him thank you just had one quick thing and I almost called you Dr Schwarz so please I almost I'm sorry I'm almost I don't know why I did but he's the other bald out I know well I wasn't going to go there I wasn't going to go there you can say it it's fine no um but the fact that uh a couple of the areas of your uh classroom walkthrough data even doubled from August to December I think that's that's a big feather in your cap and uh I think all schools struggle with the tardies um it's it's just a fact of life but the fact that you're you're actually focusing on it and and working through it and even those over those four days um it it did dip down and
070several of them did D did dip down even further and as far as uh um Nikki Bowen being 11th in the in the state that is awesome um I I lettered in golf in high school and I didn't even get close to the 11th but um awesome awesome I can't wait to see what she does over the next two years so it's exciting thank you very much it's an exciting time to be a valy Vista High School it is thank you thank you thank you and that concludes our school report for this evening thank you right next we move to H3 information on school safety threat evaluation and communication protocols Dr K thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet at the request of a board member this item is added
071to the agenda and Dr Dean will introduce this item Madam president members of the governing board Dr Kellis and do and members of cabinet even those who are not doctors we would like to uh bring to the podium this evening Miss winterstein and Miss Ryan uh who will present this information on our school safety threat evaluation and communication protocols good evening Madame President govering board members Dr Kellis cabinet members and Community uh Miss Ryan and I are here this evening to share with you uh this process by which our administrators use in investigating potential School threats um of course um as is often uh most of our letters and communication starts with the safety of our students is a top priority and we continually monitor student behavior and safety concerns that are reported to us
072for school threats once the site administrator is notified of a potential concern or threat they very ver ify and collect additional information to begin an assessment student services cabinet and our law enforcement will be contacted based on the level of detail and the contents of the concern social media threats are publicized more frequently as they have the potential to escalate and expand very quickly the threat assessment process includes consideration of the circle of involvement and we talk about that um that includes um those that are involved the number um of students or or other uh people that are involved any additional people that might um expand on that information or that who know uh the social media shares reposts Etc also the type of threat uh they investigate investigate social media verbal written types of
073threats the details and the levels of specificity within those um threats or concerns when law enforcement is involved in the investigation they may include their terrorism le as an officer which is often called a t depending on the sever ity of the threat police have the ability to obtain details about social media account owners to identify the people responsible and that's com in very handy in a few of our most recent ones as part of the threat assessment process questions are asked of any students that may be involved as well as the Guardians um by both school and or police to make the determination if the student poses a threat um and by um also having the potential to carry out um what they have stated in their their threat law enforcement may move forward
074with charges or even an arrest if the threat even if the threat is not credible uh schools will follow their discipline processes depending on the individual student behaviors and now um Renee will share the communication determination process that follows thank you Karen um the pr office works very closely with Support Services cabinet site Administration and law enforcement to determine if a communication is needed in each um Potential Threat situation and our goal every time is to find the balance between communicating enough information without spreading false information and rumors because we do remind our students repeatedly not to do that so we want to make sure we're not falling into that causing undue without causing undue panic and fear without desensitizing our parents to critical school and District Communications and we also um don't want to
075incite copycat incidents there's a number of criteria that we look at as we evaluate each Potential Threat to determine if a communication is needed um so anytime there's a credible threat that's a yes obviously um and that would be determined with the police another reason that we would choose to um send a notification schoolwide would be as if it's a large uncontrolled circle of involvement as Karen explained the number of students involved in um um some knowledge of that threat and including rumors and as that information may or may not spread um we would also do one if threat messages continued coming in if those posts if it was social media were continuing to be shared and then concerns continue to be raised um by parents or community members anytime there's an arrest or unusual
076police presence on a campus anytime there's a lockdown evacuation or a shelter in place and and also when there's local and National Trends or media taking place such as the recent Tik Tok challenges we've seen so much about um over the last year there are a few instances where we would choose not to send a communication uh for example if the Potential Threat is deemed not credible um the function of the school was not impacted and no one posed a threat and none of those other yes criteria applied if the tight there was a tight circle of involvement there was only a handful of of people there was very few impacted discussion did not expand Beyond those involved and if it was an isolated report there were no additional reports received or social media posts
077um inquiries or questions and just to give you an example a couple of examples um I'll show you how that was applied um at one of our schools that had a couple of instances recently and we in one case we did send uh a not ification and in the other we did not so the first case was a comment on a social media post among a very small group of students and it was reported on a Sunday and it was resolved that evening so in that case it was a very small circle of involvement it was not credible discipline was imposed and the function of school was not impacted so in that case we did not send a notification um a a different instance with the same school uh social media post was generating rumors
078and a lot of comments about potential threats so in that case there was a larger circle of involvement the rumors were spreading and those rumors were impacting the function of the school so we wanted to obviously stop those rumors make sure everyone knew that the situation was managed and dealt with and so in that situation we did um choose to send a communication so as you can see there's a really delicate balance um involving many details um in each threat assessment and communication determination but I hope this helps clarify the process for you and we are happy to answer any questions you may have thank you for the information I was actually the board member that requested the item so I appreciate you following up with it you're welcome um my biggest con I mean
079obviously my main concern is making sure our students and staff are safe on our campuses um when threats come through and I wanted to get a better understanding of how um the threats are evaluated for whether not they're credible or not and I understand a large piece of that is law enforcement obviously and their investigation but um and I I do understand that there is a fine line between not wanting to spread rumor and not wanting to cause a lot of alarm over something that isn't anything but I almost wonder about um I struggle like with school shootings and it seemed like for a while there were several weeks whether it be with diard or maybe just in the in the media in general there was threats school shootings and things for something of that
080magnitude I feel like parents should know I feel like um especially if it's a threat that comes in maybe after hours and we have high schools that start at 7:15 um how we can something as big as a school shooting um how we can be sure that everything's tied up perfectly before the first student steps on that campus um and again that's what the police do and so obviously there's a way to do it and they they've done their job but I know like as a parent myself and I can't think I'm the only one if there's something that large and it's something that just barely got resolved an hour before school starts I feel like parents should have the opportunity and staff too um parents have the opportunity to be aware of it so
081they can make decisions for themselves whether or not they want to send their child to school that day and then communication to staff so they're more aware you know because things fall through the cracks or maybe not all the information or a late piece of information filters in that the police didn't have it changes the whole scenario so I just want to make sure that um you know again I want to get a better understanding of how thorough are these after hours late last minute um pieces of information that come in with threats as far as being resolved before students arrive and how are we making sure that I just wanted you to hear my concern so I can talk about it a bit how we're making sure parents have a choice an opportunity to
082make that decision to send their child or not because if heaven forbid something's missed and there was a scoo school shooting parents find out the district was aware didn't communicate it that's just tragic I just I don't know if it's our information to keep to ourselves Madam president I I'll answer the your your question in in a couple of different um or the couple questions that were asked so one of the things that you mentioned was um the uh the things that happened on the night shift with the police so uh the police are incredibly responsive regardless of of the time of day and certainly they their work hours are are based upon shifts the same amount of work expectation is assumed in the evening and late into the night in the morning as it
083is during the day and I'll give you a very recent example of that so last this past weekend we had a threat that a stated threat that came through a safe report at about 9:30 on Sunday evening winterstein and I worked with the principal or communicated back and forth with the principal who was in touch with surprise PD as late as 11:00 p.m. that evening surprise PD did a tremendous job visited two students homes somewhere between 10 p.m. and midnight and actually made an arrest at about 2:45 in the morning for a student who um had no credible means of carrying out a thread but it stated a thread on social media they contacted the principal at 3 I believe 3:14 a.m. that morning she took their call to make sure that she knew what
084was going on and the situation had resolved so PD I I provide that example to let you know that PD is very extensive regardless of what time we call them I know they're very responsive and and we're very appreciative of that piece um so I just wanted to make sure that we that we shared that information um Miss winterstein can answer a couple of your other questions but I it it was a very pertinent And Timely example to provide um the response that surprise PD provides to us and now marage PD is equally as responsive thank you madam president uh just to expand a little bit on that um many of the school shooting threats that come about by the time we get them on social media oh gosh there's going to be a school
085shooting when we drill down to where the origination of that threat comes from many of them have come from oh this boy looks like a school shooter and then the telephone gain comes and it just um continues to to uh become embellished and so the the police and our great PR department um are able to look at the origination the original post and so what happens is that we are um oftentimes in those no threat was ever stated it's taken out of context and so the administrators work very diligently in finding the students that are responsible for reposting and embellishing that and so the then then discipline is imposed for not necessarily making a threat but but inciting it and instigating it and making it much worse than it is but the vast majority of
086them are not ones that just B blatantly start with um I'm going to shoot up a school there are some but the majority of them um have snowballed into a much larger issue than actually someone stating I'm going to shoot up the school MH and I I would close the the series of questions um by just assuring the board and I believe we've had this conversation on a couple of different occasions over the course of many years we are always concerned about student safety which is why we take any stated threat very seriously we contact PD on any stated threat that we we receive nothing is taken lightly to the point of if there's something written on a bathroom wall we we contact PD immediately and move forward we are always working to be diligent
087in that piece and if there was ever a concern that something could possibly happen on a campus we would not have school that day um we would make sure that folks were communicated with and that school had been canceled for that day we take this each and every piece of this very very seriously and I I think there's two pieces to it I'm not there's the issue of are we are we um diligent in our efforts to get to the bottom of it and resolve the threat which I don't have question about I know we I know the police and I know our disert staff do what they need to do my piece of it was are we communicating with our parents are we making sure that they have an opportunity to be aware that
088the school that their child is being sent to was the subject of a threat and again not okay Tik Tock challenge someone's going to rip off a soap dispenser off a wall or there might be a fight at lunch I'm talking about school shooting type threats I just want to make sure that we're communicating with our parents so so they know because I again I just think that would be awful if this a student gets to school and a parent if they would have known that they might have chosen to keep their child home so and also with our staff I just want to make sure too that staff on those campuses are aware and that includes not just those who actually report to that particular building but we have a lot of transient um
089staff that travel and um whether it be related areas or um a lot of our different staff can travel from building to building making sure somehow that communication Loop is complete with our staff as well so I just need to make sure you guys hear that concern thank you and and we hear your concern very clearly but thank you very much and I would add that I was happy that the police department had the principal's phone number at 314 am. and not mine any other questions for anybody else I I did have uh one question uh actually for both of you and whoever can answer it the quickest would be great is there any time that a school ad administrator is the one to release a news release about um to the parents without notifying
090PR I'm not aware of an instance that that has happened um in my time here um we work very closely together even after hours we're on the phone we're chatting communicating and sharing all that information so um it it has always run through our office for that okay just wanted to make sure thank you thank you um just sorry real quick um so I know that you mentioned that there were several arrests uh made and I'm assuming that at some point you're you would do a suspension on a child that makes such a threat right um what does that process look like once they're back Madam president member denmore I can answer that um as someone is responsible for uh student discipline long-term suspensions and expulsions are the worst part of my job one of
091them um because that deprives the student of uh a portion of their education um but we look at what uh the ramifications what their specific behavior is um in in whatever sometimes it's one person sometimes um there are there are more than one person so we do have uh we work with an independent hearing officer um uh the administration would put all of their facts together in a long-term suspension packet and they would recommend uh based on what our uh history is with the so uh the student Behavior the level of threat um according to our discipline Matrix and and determining uh the level of consequence uh we could go to long-term suspension all the way to expulsion uh depending on the severity of the threat and uh what that student specific behavior was okay
092oh and sorry specific to your your question when they return um there is always a plan in place there's uh we have a re-entry process for a students whether they return on a short-term suspension up to 10 days and definitely on the um anytime a student has returned from a long-term suspension okay and it usually involves safety plans uh whatever is specific to the need of that student student and parents Administration um are all involved in the process of creating those safety plans great thank you good okay all right thank you next we move to h four information on teaching and learning specialist position Dr kis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet at the request of a board member this item has been added to the agenda and Dr
093poing will introduce this item good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Kelson cabinet it's my pleasure to introduce Dr Shel asai director of curriculum instruction assessment for 912 thank you Dr asai good evening president pretard members of the board cabinet um I apologize in advance if I squint my glasses are at home um I am very honored tonight to present on teaching and learning specialist um I was honored to be hired as one of D's first instruct coaches back in the day so it's a program very near and dear to my heart um I thought about it yesterday or this weekend my kids got the honor of speaking to a basketball player who actually plays professionally and my kids are great basketball players but they don't always love practice and one of the
094comments was made wow it must be nice when you make the pros that all you have to do is go to practice in the games at which point um the guy looked at him and said it's not like that I work out with a trainer every single day because when once you get there it's about sharpening your skills and going from being great to being greater and that's really the role of our teaching and learning specialist is to coach our teachers to be the best they can be so going with our bullets why a teaching a teacher Coach position in daer uh today the demand for teachers is high is we have had great turnover and unfortunately we don't have as many new teachers entering the profession due to that teachers can really shop around
095I know that sitting at Valley doing interviews and sitting at Canyon one of the great attractions was always being able to say you'll have great support here we have a whole position dedicated to supporting you in your first years of teaching along with our great Monday PD um it's a recruitment tool we also know that 50% of teachers leave the profession within their first 5 years and this is unfortunate because most teachers reach their Peak Performance between years four and seven so if we have a chance to retain them and teach them them and increase their efficacy by being able to coach them we're producing Better Learning for students not only that it cost over $66,872 to replace a teacher in training so our TLs are in a way saving us money but what do
096they do teacher TLS and diert have been very purposely named um as they've been rebranded over the years and we specifically chose the name teaching and learning Specialists to let administrators to let teachers know and the position themselves if they're doing anything that's not relating to teaching and learning they shouldn't be doing it um this does have this it's kind of an exceptionality with covid because they have gone in they have covered classes they have filled in for longer stance when teachers were we were looking for teachers for a couple of weeks but on a normal everyday year they should be working with teachers to improve their craft and working to improve student learning they conduct new uh new educator orientation they work with plc's they work with data analysis which is really more important
097now than ever before when I taught 20 years ago um we really weren't required to get every kid across the finish line and we got a lot of kids across the finish line but if we lost a couple along the way it wasn't measured and now we're responsible for getting every kid to meet to meet those goals and data analysis and knowing where they are each step of the way is more important than ever and our TLS really help support teachers because not every teacher has time to really pull their data you know you're busy trying to get kids out on the playground you're busy talking to parents uh so to have the TLs be able to say here's your data let me help you with next steps let's target people together to pull for
098intervention or here's how that intervention group can work more efficiently research supports several things about teaching and learning Specialist or coaching positions as are usually found in the literature that having a coach helps us to implement skills more efficiently it lowers attrition rate establishes connections and improve improves student outcomes in daiser teaching and learning Specialists help in uh they help in a lot of ways uh but I tried to segment them into three uh three ways to talk about we support teachers in their first through third years of teaching they do this being there to support them they have bi-weekly Cycles where they pre-conference with the teacher and say okay Dr kellish you're working on classroom management today you know what specifically are you working on I'm working on my quiet signal great I'm going
099to come and observe give you feedback and then they conference after most of those goals are set by teachers sometimes it's hey we need to take care of management so we can teach um that happens to some of us in our first year of teaching um but having that support helps teachers to overcome the obstacles and establish the belief that they can do it they support our step program our new teachers in their first and second year Meet monthly that's facilitated by our TLS they help them with lesson planning in fact in fact one of the things we heard we had to transition four or five years ago we couldn't have a TLS at every site we transitioned to 21st century specialist um and one of the things we heard from our veteran teachers is
100I love to help the new teachers on my campus but I'm also busy planning for me so lots of times some of the responsibilities that TLS take on with our first three year third- year teachers helping them to grow fa our veteran teachers and put even more on their plate having that TLS gives some bit those teachers someone just to support them um because lots of times you're talking in your PLC and if you're blessed with a great PLC I'm going to use Justine Palmer who can talk math standards inside and out and if I'm a first year teacher I'm like what did she just say um so your TLS really helps you dig through that for our veteran teachers it really helps our great teachers become greater there's things that we can all improve
101on lots of times our veteran teachers ask how can I better differentiate in class I teach my lesson and I have a third of my kids that Excel I have a third in one place and a third that need a small group and what do you want me to do with the rest when I'm pulling small group they can benefit from having someone support them in planning for having an extra set of eyes or just to bounce ideas off of they also support our veteran teachers when they're engaged in things like being PLC leads I think one of the mistakes I made when I was first a principal in appointing PLC leads was to say hey you're a great teacher you're going to be the PLC lead we found out very quickly that just because
102I can lead students doesn't mean I can always lead adults um and coaches really get that uh formal training on how to work with adults and then they in turn work with their plc's on how to work with their plc's more efficiently because we want our harmonious working place that's focused laser like on student achievement finally they support the system in having a unified Vision um some of you have been around a long time like me but I'm not that old um but being around for a while when I came to dier I can't say there was a great unified vision for what great teaching and learning looks like you heard Dr W speak tonight you heard Scott Kerr reference things like academic conversations having learning intentions and success criteria I feel that we have
103a fairly standard vision of what the science of teaching looks like in daiser and that's not to say every teacher should still bring their own art the way Mr kert taught and the way I taught totally different however those elements of having academic conversations having learn in targets are all the same and so having a TLS that meets with the district and then a site based support helps to unify our district Vision so that the kids at daiser high and at Shadow Ridge are have the same expectations throughout and the same expectations for teachers and also that admin are able to provide targeted supports for teachers as well they do a lot more but um I wasn't sure what you're looking for so I kind of did a hodg Podge so I will stand for
104questions thank you for the presentation Dr exai I have one question um so for someone who maybe is isn't is familiar with the TLs position how would you explain how um a TLS would be helpful coaching a teacher that is outside of the tls's content area so how that's a that's a great question we actually um we're working on that at high school a lot I'm very blessed at high school I have Amy Crow who's a former dance teacher I have Aaron burges who is a math teacher Tracy Canan who was math and April who was social studies in English um so we talk about there's a there's a lot of elements that are the same our music teacher has an objective for the day English teacher has an objective for the day we find
105those objectives by looking at our standards looking at whatever is a performance spased test or unit test dissecting those and going back in posting objectives it doesn't matter what content I have for that academic conversations don't really matter but content coaching is very important in fact some of the best research talks about content coaching having a math person coach in that so we're really working to cross Trin on our road map for next year um you've seen our results as they go through we need help in math we need to focus on math uh so that is going to be a central focus of the TLs um and we do have a new Adoption too so it's the prime time to do it as we have a new Adoption but how do we train our
106T our TLS to be great coaches of math because they might not have all been Math teachers so I think it has to do with the training we are fortunate that we get to pull them um with Co like I said it's been a little up and down uh but we do plans for professional development for the TLs on how they can best support the teachers and we follow that throughout the year but that's exactly what I mean like how will they how can they learn that content how can um Spanish teacher who is now a TLS coach chemistry or trigonometry so the coaching that they do in those classes is mostly for best practice do I have an aligned objective even though I might not be a a chemistry teacher I can look at
107the chemistry standards I can see if the objectives aligned to that I can see if kids are I can see management I can see if kids are actively engaged uh you know we've all had I'm sure this has never happened to any of your kids um that the kids sitting there with droel coming down because the teachers just talking talking talking we know that's not an effective practice so at that point the teacher uh the TLs is able to say okay let's talk about the active engagement count I had 20 minute a teacher speak and I only had three kids that got a chance to speak we know that part of learning is verbalizing our thoughts that normally the person doing the talking is the person doing the learning so there's elements of pedagogy that
108they can still coach on to get better results in the classroom uh we do need to beef up probably our cross training with you know what does good um Ka does this really well because they're funded part through the literacy funds so they've done a nice job of what does good literacy look like you know so I think that it's something we could get better at they can still coach and we can still get better results um the thing I appre appreciate about my high school group is they're all working together uh they've also worked some with d because da does the Fine Arts and it looks a little bit different you know when you walk in there's not a board you know so how do you know kids are doing what they're supposed to
109you talk to the kids it's amazing they sometimes know what they're doing uh you know so you ask kids hey what is your learning Target for the day or what should you be able to do by the end I see thank you did that answer it yes okay thank you very much I don't have my glasses on so I can't you're not giving me dirty looks you anyone else I do have a question good were you going to go good so how is the TLs evaluated the TLs is evaluated by the principal um it's gone back and forth over the years it used to be by the district um and now it's the principal because they're site based and they are evaluated on they have a rubric I have to look I want to say
110it's been tweaked a little bit for them I think it's probably something that could be revised though and in what situation would a TLS um Step In so if you have a teacher resign like second or third month in the school and then at what point instead of having a long-term sub or just splitting the class at what point would a TLS actually step into the classroom to cover that I think that's probably a campus decision and it would depend for me if I was that site principal it would depend on multiple factors s um you know my nephew was at Freedom Amber Brink stepped into his class for two weeks I think two or three weeks until they found a teacher and that was a great experience Connie I don't think the time had
111a lot of new teachers um you know I think you really have to look collectively at the needs of your campus um do you have highly effective teachers who can take who it's better to absorb um an example I I can give you to parallel that when I was at Canyon I lost a fourth grade teacher and it was year that we didn't have TLS and I had to decide what are we going to do with the classes do you just put a substitute in the class well that's not fair to a whole set of 30 kids so we came up with a rotation where that person would teach uh a non-tested area we would rotate all the kids um so I there's not a set process because I think every situation you need to
112look at how much support do my new teachers need do I have a bunch of teachers on Spa which are the Midland between being on a plan and not being on a plan um because ultimately we want that person to impact the largest amount of kids you know someone had asked me oh well what happens if we put the TLs back in a classroom at Canyon's campus I go you lower class sizes for one grade level you know it's not like that person can pick from seventh grade e8th grade sixth grade you essentially lower third grade classes to some degree five or six kids okay and then how does a TLS know what's going on in every single classroom like if I'm teaching a classroom and I've got a TLS that just pops in for
113a minute and then kind of gives me feedback not knowing what I'm talking about not knowing anything about what my curriculum is and then I go and then they disappear after five minutes and I go um you were just criticizing me but you have no idea what's going on in my classroom um how how do how do how do we how do they know how to be effective for those classrooms I'm pausing because it's a really multifaceted thing because you get into people's personalities right you get you you talk about how how highly trained the coach is how does the coach how what Rapport do I have with that person you know my daughter is um she's very headstrong I I can't imagine where she gets that from uh she has a great relationship with
114Rachel matus Rachel Matas can look at my daughter in the square in the eye and say Jenna that suck to sit on the bench and figure it out if anyone else told her that I would be on the phone in a minute um and not that our TLS do that by any means that might not have been the best example um I I tend to be very straightforward and I have that relationship with my teachers but I also know when I went to Canyon I I needed to learn to be a little bit more blue after I put a second grade teacher in tear from giving her feedback which was not my intent in high school we kind of say hey this is going great and you might want to you know think about this
115to get it to the next level uh I found out very quickly you don't say that to K2 teachers um Mr Kerr and I can empathize with one another there um I think it's in training training our coaches and then I was fortunate that I was very well trained we've invested recently um I would say in the last two to three years and really doing a great job at training our TLS uh you need to know who you're giving feedback to right I need to know as the coach on campus hey when I phrase something to Chrissy she needs to hear it this way when I need to phrase something to Crystal I need to do it this way and also what coaching method does the teacher prefer some teachers you're in their classroom they
116say hey Shell what did you see what can I do differently and some are like okay I don't want you to say anything in the classroom so I think it's we need to make sure our TLs are well trained and they know how to deliver feedback and you're right five minutes from one lesson isn't a great slice what I used to tell my teachers though is five minutes over time if I come in five times in a math class and kids are off the wall and I have no kids writing anything down five times for five minutes over a period of time now that's a collect a picture you know and I think we need to be really careful that when we're coaching that things aren't a demand when I'm a coach I I don't
117supervise my the High School principles I suggest things to them I say hey you know you might think about doing something like this you might want to do something like that and the real beauty of having a coach versus a supervisor is when I tell people something they have to do it well not everybody my husband doesn't but lots of people do um you know I I'm supervising you you need to post your objective okay shell evaluates me I need to do that when I'm a coach I need to figure out a way to for the teacher to see a need to post the objective and sometimes I need to have that conversation with the teacher I went to I went to Fine Arts because that was not my area so I had to learn
118about a lot about Fine Arts and a lot about science um so I I studied them I worked with people to learn more about them I observed and so I think you need to to president pritchard's point you need to learn about that content area but you also need to know as a coach your audience how to deliver the message and that's what we continue to work with teachers on when we or TLS when we do trainings we actually do mock scenarios here's the situation how would you coach we've had them set in Triads where I coach you Don gives us feedback so it's really a skill okay and then one last question what if I had a bad experience with the TLs and I did not have a bad experience with the TLs the
119tls's I worked with were amazing they were wonderful so what if anybody has a TLS that they just buttthe heads with and they just don't get along and I guess they just have a horrible experience with that then how do we mitigate that so the last year we had uh we were fortunate many years ago to have two TLS at Valley because Valley has such a large staff and at the time one of us went into a classroom and the man was like I never want you coming in my classroom again um and it was fair the TLs Who had who had observed him was not of his conton area um it actually wasn't fair but uh she she was in his conton area and he went to he went to our principle at the
120time and said I don't want this person observing me and she was able to work with them through a process because the TLs needed to do her job and he needed there were things he needed to get better at so they worked together so I would say the first step would be to go to the principal and say Hey you know this isn't working out when Shel says things to me I think she's really mean and she Squints at me and you know and lots of times there's a logical explanation I think the principal that's part of my job as a principal to make sure my staff is harmonious and that we're maximizing you know our our agency working together so we're not there for our egos we're there to get results from kids and
121we all have to work together to do that so I would say the step would be to work with the principal on that you know there might be something else there might be an outlining issue surpris was a very interconnected community maybe we had a problem outside that's impacting that you know and then talking to the principal about wow could my AP work with me could this could this happen because I I'm guessing it wouldn't be that the teacher doesn't want to get better but they're not responsive to that coaching and I go back to when I was in the classroom I was in the right teacher for everyone I'm not the right principal for everyone you know but there is somebody who can always help me to get better tomorrow than today thank you
122in listening to you a bit I I thought of another question um yeah you're surprised I can tell um so just to prevent the burnout of our tls's what is a structure in place to where TLS goes in provides feedback to a teacher and is there any loop with either the assistant like does does a TLS report to an assistant principal or the principal to say hey this is the work I've been doing this week these are some areas with teacher so and so so the information they give is relevant and it's applied rather than thank you very much TLS I've been evaluated already this year good to know yeah so usually the information goes the other way the TLs in a coaching role is more of a support and confidential right like the TLs
123would never when I was at TLS I never would have gone to my principal and said there's a problem in Don's room unless it endangered kids if it endangers kids and it's a safety issue that's different but because your role is coaching and confidential and to help that teacher it shouldn't go in that direction now there were times that Tammy said shell I really need you to work with this teacher she's having problems with management and she would ask me did you go in and my answer would be yes uh from there she would Circle back in so there is a there is a collectiveness of working together to support that teacher sometimes it's more formal on a spa which is the precursor to a plan if the teacher needs to go on a plan
124but I would say very frequently when TLs are involved in supporting that Spa it doesn't turn into a plan not that it's a plan but how do you ensure that all the work that TLS is doing is incorporated into instruction I think that you see it in your walkthroughs so if you looked at Amy's professional development plan Amy Crow who is at Valley lots of her PDS have targeted their academic conversation uh they've done learning walks so you know the PD is about more than Monday is that she has Mondays going she has prep connects they're doing learning walks she's working with teachers giving them feedback and you see that in the rise in da data when I'm sweeping I should see an increase in the things that TLS has targeted over time and that
125would be my data okay thank you anything else thank you so much thank you all right next we will move [Music] to yes res recess for five minutes for break e e e thank you at this time we're going to go ahead and reconvene the meeting we next we'll move to item H5 update on DT's covid protocol and mitigation plan Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet um it's been a while since the board has had the opportunity to have a conversation about the district's covid protocols um the CDC has come out with some recent changes and so this is a good opportunity for administration to present to the board some brief information and then just allow the board to um ask questions and have the the discussion
126so Dr Cotto and Dr Dean will be presenting this item Madame President members of the governing board Dr Kellis and members of cabinet this evening it is my pleasure as well as Dr crotos to present um just a reminder to the governing board on our covid protocols for the year Dr Coto is also going to share information that is new from the CDC we will um preempt this uh presentation by stating that we do not have any recommended recommended changes to the governing board to our current protocols this evening so just a reminder um to our public and to our governing board some of the mitigation actions that have taken place prior to this school year um our all of our buildings all of our AC duct work have been or have had air scrubbers
127installed um which work to clean the air continuously throughout a school day or throughout a day as well as removing um various particulates from that if the board the board will recall that that was Esser funding that allowed for those to be installed in all of our facilities additionally PPE is available for staff and students upon request um PPE is personal protective equipment we have masks available for students we have gloves that are available as well and cleaning supplies and hand sanitizer are available as part of our cleaning protocol for this school year the board will recall that face coverings and masks are optional for staff and students vaccinations are not required for staff or students we may put a little asterisk there um in terms of the Supreme Court currently making a decision on
128uh the federal mandate from the president however we have not V we have not mandated any vaccines for our staff or students we have continued our enhanced cleaning protocols and the board will recall that in the past in the first year of the pandemic we required temperature checks um we no longer require temperature checks in our facilities additionally we continue to to consider all of our staff as essential workers you heard this evening from two of our principles in school reports how valuable and essential that all of their staff are and how tremendous that their staff have been throughout the course of the year and in the most recent uh uptick in Corona virus cases with the Omicron variant how wonderful are staff are doing in working to cover classes to make sure that our
129students continue to have in-person learning and that that learning is Meaningful just a reminder that our students or staff that do test positive for covid-19 are required to isolate we provide direct contact notices um to any students who have been within direct contact of a student who tests positive and then if quarantine is necessary that is determined and notified by the County Health Department not by our school system we are not determining quarantine for students um that is determined by the County Health Department Madam president continuing on our employee isolation and quarantine uh as Dr Dean stated if you're positive for covid employee related it's 10 days from the symptoms or a test date uh we ask every employee who provides a positive test uh remember that you did uh provide 10 covid relief days
130uh earlier on this year for for them to miss work uh we ask them to identify close contacts also um the close contacts are notified um that they have been in contact with somebody that has tested positive as well as we notify Maricopa County of the close contacts and of the positive test for every single uh employee case if you're a direct contact we ask you to monitor symptoms uh there is no quarantine uh stay home and if symptomatic and get tests if needed our new CDC recommendations you may have this have been all over the news uh you may have seen these you may have not uh here is what the CDC has done now uh if you test positive for covid-19 everyone regardless of vaccination status uh needs to stay home for 5
131days if you have no symptoms or your symptoms are resolved after 5 days you can leave your house you can return to work uh you need to continue to wear a mask around others for five additional days uh remember we do not have a mask mandate and we don't don't require our employees to wear masks uh it changes in the next piece if you were exposed to someone with covid-19 um next slide if you're exposed with somebody with covid-19 this is where it becomes very difficult uh to carry out the CDC recommendations uh if you have been boosted you have a booster you completed the primary series of fiser or Mna vaccine within the last 6 months or you completed the primary series of J&J vaccine within the last two months then you need to
132wear a mask around others for 10 days uh mandatory test on day five if possible if you completed the primary series of fiser or Mna vaccine over six months ago and are not boosted uh or you have completed the primary series of J&J over two months ago and are not boosted or you're unvaccinated you have to stay home for 5 days after that you need to continue wear a mask around others for five additional days if you can't quarantine you have to ma wear a mask for 10 days and you have to test on day five if possible just to note there uh we do not collect at this time I will talk in the next slide about our vaccine mandate Federal vaccine mandate but we do not collect uh vaccine status of our employees
133nor our students but I'm talking about employees here so we do not uh collect any of that vaccine status in order to carry out that piece the federal vaccine mandate you may have uh come in contact with this last year the president through OSHA uh OSHA had uh issued an ETS emergency temporary standard uh that all vac that all employees who have a 100 all employers who have 100 or more employees uh that they must uh have mandatory vaccination policy um what does that mean that uh we would have to build a database of employees that are vaccinated if we have unvaccinated employees then they would need to test weekly they would need to turn in that test uh if they did not test weekly then they may not come to work this has gone
134through uh the circuit courts the fifth and sixth uh the fifth circuit issued uh a stay on this ETS which means it paused it uh at that time there are very many um very many appeals to many Circuit Courts so they held a lottery kind of like you see on the Power Ball uh they threw all the balls in there and out came the six circuit the sixth circuit made the ruling they combined all the cour all the cases to the six circuit uh and the six circuit lifted that stay so in effect put the ETS back into effect um shortly after the Supreme Court decided that it would hear oral arguments and did so on January 7th uh the oral the result of the oral oral arguments have not come out the Supreme Court
135has not stated anything so we do not have a stay so as of Monday this last Monday the ETS is in effect um federally however uh it is our attorney our opinion of our attorney that in order to be effective in Arizona the Arizona industrial commission um they must adopt the ETS uh in order to be infect in a public entity so her recommendation is at this time we wait and see what happens a with the Supreme Court and B with the Arizona industrial commission so know that we are preparing uh and thinking about this we're not putting it on the back burner and putting all our marbles in this doesn't happen we are preparing and trying to get ready should this come into effect uh the OSHA has said that they will not find
136anybody there's a fine if you do not uh do not follow this ETS of 13,600 I believe per violation um so per person that you didn't collect this information on they have said that uh this will not be in effect until February 12th uh so we do have some time there um and we also have all these legal proceedings going on with that so um just know that it is in our process we're thinking about proc processes we're thinking what needs to be done should this go into effect and that's a should but we are not stating that going in effect I just want to update the governing board on that procedure or that policy or the ETS I should say and what that means for the district so with that as Dr Dean said
137at this time administration's not recommending changes to our protocol however we stand for questions and further directions from the governing board thank you for the information um just for clarity M uh Dr Dean when you were referencing the CDC uh the new guidelines as far as coming back and then masking for five days since Dart does not have a mask mandate then you're saying that we are not we're not going to um Implement that piece of it is that my understanding Madam president this evening we uh the intent was to present our protocols and share with the board the new CDC guidelines um so that the board was aware however we have no recommended changes to what we're currently doing okay um go ahead I sure I have another question but I lost it can
138I go um that the presentation was really hard to read from here and I can't see that at all even so could you provide that to the board Adam president member Grant absolutely um and then so there's twofold we have the Supreme Court that heard oral arguments so we have to wait and see what the Supreme Court said and then you said the attorney said that the the Arizona industrial commission would have to adopt it so depending on what happens with the subpreme court then the industrial commission would be involved is that Madam president member grant that is correct okay um so we're kind of in a holding pattern I'm waiting everybody has thought the Supreme Court would rule by now or at least make a statement or issue a stay or not issue a
139stay uh they have not done so we monitor it daily and I talked to our attorney daily and we're just awaiting what they what they're going to rule yeah but it still has a process so regardless what the Supreme Court does if they say yay then the Arizona industrial commission would then have to do their part so there's still a a process to all of this that is correct okay I just want to make sure I understood that piece okay thank you Dr CTO what did date did you say in February was uh the possibility of the fees starting February February 12th thank you any other questions um I am a little curious like why why we didn't get sorry I am a little curious why we don't have the um presentation attached to this
140item Madam president miss Densmore we were awaiting a possible Supreme Court decision and so the presentation was held uh to the very last minute in case the the Supreme Court were to rule as late as today that information could have been provided um that presentation will be emailed the presentation that you saw this evening will be emailed to you within a few minutes thank you um and just for clarity purposes um I I didn't see it but um you both spoke to it as far as us uh D start not requiring vaccinations uh I just want to make sure we're not requiring covid vaccinations thank you Miss denmore thank you for the clarity there there are vaccinations that are required for school entry except for the written exemptions that are in law exactly so thank
141you that the presentation should have correctly indicated it may have been on the screen I just couldn't see it it was not so you are correct okay that was it I know in the in the past um with covid positive employees we were having them quarantined for 10 days and then or maybe seven if they had a negative test I mean it's hard to keep up with all all the changes but now are you saying with with what's in place now um it's five days and then employees will be optional if they want to come back for five additional days ma Madam president um no our current practice is if you are positive uh you are out for 10 days okay are we still doing the seven days and a negative test no okay it's
14210 days uh with a positive test you can access the covid leave uh one time in a year so this calendar year you've approved that to June 30th with the presentation of a positive tests from a health care facility you do not take the home tests okay and then um does that still also mean because I noticed on the from what I could see on the slide um the CDC had said resolving symptoms other than if you have a fever you can't come in so that means before we'd say no symptoms but are we allowing employees to come back after 10 days if they still have symptoms as long as it's not a fever no we say they should not have symptoms um and we do have people that call us and and say that
143they still have symptoms so we work with them and or their doctor provides a note saying they need to be out an additional four or five days sometimes it goes beyond those 10 days usually cover the whole piece because you have weekends in there so it's not 10 work days that they're missing so we work with them on that but uh we are very uh in tune to we do not want people that have symptoms in the workplace okay and then first positive students is that where the five days comes in the five days does not come in for any students or employees in this District we are not adopting the CDC policies okay unless we hear otherwise from the governing board okay so CDC has fallen back on their time frames but we're maintaining
144our 10 days okay that is correct okay and then um let's see when students are again back to the communication piece I know staff kind of let classmates know of a certain classmate who might have been posi as far as that contact tracing we still doing that that one goes over to Dr Dean Madam president yes our our school administrators our school health office staff are involved every day in contact tracing are we doing that for our employees though so like let's say it's a high school setting or a a school building where again there's staff that travel that may not be on that particular DG group or whatever you guys call them GG Group whatever for email um are we making sure all staff that may have had contact with that particular student are
145aware so they can monitor symptoms so is not to pingpong back to Dr Coto but I will pingpong the answer is yes we we work HR works with our staff um to direct contact Trace back and to answer your question when we have a student who um is positive we work to not only Trace direct contact to students but also anyone they've been in contact with on a campus okay can you um just double check that that includes traveling staff or staff that may not always be housed on those particular campuses Madam president yes I will do that thank you I believe the next question goes to Dr Cotto I'm thinking go ahead I'm gonna look at Dr CTO when I say this uh but he's writing feverishly uh you were talking about the covid
146uh 10day as far as one time yearly is that calendar year fiscal year um Madam president member so s bill um that is um these calendar years so and well not no let me say that correctly that is the fiscal year the school year so in describing that you you approved the governing board approved for this school year so the fiscal year from the beginning of school until June 30th thank you and if an employee is is showing symptoms um is it up to them to decide whether they're going to get tested or if they come to work with symptoms they're told you need to get tested or you need to stay home um how does that work our supervisor are very in tune to uh people with symptoms I mean there are um people
147that have colds and all imagine the other things but we're very in tune to suggesting that people do not come to the workplace if they're not feeling well and that testing um should be done if possible or they need to go home um and if they feel better and they recover if not they need to be tested so so they're very in tune to having those discussions with our employees but no mandatory it's not mandatory unless you have a positive test that's the only requirement that's correct okay and they cannot be covered by your absences that the governing board unless they produce that positive test so if they say I'm going home because I'm feeling sick I might get tested they are using their days until they produce a positive test to HR okay thank
148you any other questions um just one I I know know the positive test requirement and I and I understand that I don't know how how realistic this is but I know that there are some media reports of shortages on these tests have we experienced this have any of our staff experienced this has it become an issue um Madame President member denmore I I think it's becoming more of a more issue as as you see the omnicron variant um explode so tests are becoming harder and harder um to uh to locate but I believe they're still out there there's a number of places you can get tested I know I I spoke with employees today who um stayed home because they did not feel well and couldn't schedule a test till tomorrow so uh they're out
149there there's many websites we try to give them the websites obviously um or you know we we kind of learned more and more places that are doing this um and and so it is becoming more and more difficult to get a test but I think they're still out there at this point well thank you for that and I would assume that if it became a bigger issue than it is now then that would be something that we could revisit absolutely okay thank you I had a quick question so if an employee stays home and they have like runny nose sore throat they have a fever they stay home and they're not tested but they take their own personal sick time if they go get a test and produce a positive test are can they retrograde
150that covid leave to to use for that day and get their personal sick day back uh Madam president member Chaffin uh yes we do we do go back to the first date of symptoms because that's how we track so we do go back and um we do go back and credit their days and go into the city leave Bank uh for the co okay one more quick question and then I thought when we were approving the extra 10 days I could be wrong um I thought I understood it to where you had a whole 10 days you could either use them all at once or if you got Co again you could use the rest of them did I that is correct that is correct yeah you have 10 the whole year if you use
151five because it was three days before break and then you got better over break and so you have seven more left okay but you can only have 10 the entire year is the way it was approved and should we again should that become a huge problem we could bring that back to the governing board um for more discussion and to to get guidance on that but right now um it's working out pretty good because it's not 10 work days usually there's weekends built in and all that thank you you're welcome anything else thank you all right we'll move to auction discussion items um I one recommendation to add an interim Elementary School assistant principal position Dr kis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet Dr crto will introduce this item
152thank you Dr Kellis Madam president members of the board superintendent Kellis cabinet and guests tonight uh Administration is recommending the addition of an interm uh Elementary School assistant principal at Sunset Hills uh in order to provide appropriate coverage uh at that school and at this time we are recommending uh the appointment of shanen dhy to fill the interm position for the remainder of the 2122 school year just a reminder to the governing board that all interm positions that you have approved this year they will be posted actually we're building our pool right now uh and they will have to interview that will be open for interviews next year so that's just to cover this year and then they will need to go through the process in order to um fill those jobs for the next
153school year so with that I will stand for any questions questions from the board Miss Dy here tonight she is here she is right there in the front stand up so we can give you a Round of Applause well actually after they approve it hold the Applause with that I move to approve the addition of interim Elementary School assistant principal position and appoint of shanan Dy as interam Elementary School assistant principal at sunent Hills Elementary for the remainder of the 2021 2022 school year second motion made by Christine Pritchard second and by Tracy sor sville carries welcome welcome now it's we move to action item uh two revision of policies pursuant to asba recommendations second reading Dr kis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet this item will be introduced
154by Dr CR thank you Dr Kellis Madame President members of the board superintendent Kellis cabinet and guest uh at our last governing board meeting we presented some policies for you uh 768 9.45 and 10.45 uh 49 that had needed to have revisions because language changes that came from law and then the law was repealed and those needed to change uh we took your feedback and we're bring them back to you for the second read tonight uh 768 is not changed because when you look at 768 uh that language has to do with uh law 15772 which uh does not exist anymore and that was a fine of $5,000 um the court May impose a civil uh penalty not to exceed $5,000 per School District charter school or state agency um and that law is no
155longer in effect so that one stays the same we would ask to strike that language however a few others that we can take a look at 9.45 teaching about contra controversial sensitive issues uh if you recall we had a whole paragraph starting um with a teacher administrator other employee uh we had that entire Pro paragraph uh struck in the first reading that we brought to you uh we received your feedback that you wanted to keep that language uh in the policy so therefore we changed a few key words so it would read appropriately for the school district and we kept the remainder of that language um in this policy the next policy uh was 10.49 immunization of students um we also uh took your feedback you wanted to keep that where we may not require
156a student or teacher to receive a vaccine or covid-19 or to wear a face covering to participate uh in inperson instruction we asked that was struck last time because the law changed however uh we heard your feedback you want to keep that again we made a few language changes to uh read appropriately for the school district just to note with our last presentation we may come back and revisit this policy depending on where all the legal stuff lands someday um but as of right now we're keeping that in the policy so with that uh those are the three policies we bring to you uh for the second read so I I have a question um m Mr CTO excuse me Mr Dr Cotto sorry um because at our last board meeting um we had uh
157voted to uh separate from the asba uh and this was asba recommendations does this still need to apply Madame President miss or if I could answer that one um the reason why it currently carries the asba reference is because this was presented for a first read and this is brought back for the second read so um I don't believe we have any other advisories coming from asba to drive our policy services so this would be a one that kind of straddles the line of the last board meeting and this board meeting um so that's why it has the SBA on I apologize like if this is um Twilight Zone for you for you guys when it comes to I know You' said Dr Coto as far as taking that one piece you had had that
158one piece out and then board discussion last time we decided to keep it in um hearing Dr Dean's uh presentation and just the discussion regarding the last item do we think that there is some um just validity to just waiting I mean because with if depending on what happens in the courts it's going to determine whether or not we're going to have to come back and change this policy again like should we just wait to see what happens before we make a policy change either way in regard to the vaccination of Staff which I also think should should be changed to staff rather than teacher because it sounds like it's going to be not just teachers it'll be all staff members correct and then also um the the face covering doesn't isn't so much like
159we're not waiting on that right now but I'm just thinking back to the last time like we never required it in dier we kind of fell underneath with the city and at the time the executive order of the governor um so with it all being up in the air I mean unless it's a big deal to or not a big deal to come back and take it out in a you know a week just because we're so close you know either way to see what the courts are going to say with that rather than solidifying in policy Madam president um yes that is a thought we can take Direction the board know that this policy right now is in place because we put it in place with when it was a law so it does
160read right now that we may not require a with the law with ars5 um 34205 that is in place right now in our current policy that law does not exist because Arizona Supreme Court uh ruled it unconstitutional but that is how our policy currently reads so it's in there so we would have to come back and strike that whole sentence if you want to wait um we can do that at the direction of the board it's very simple to do um but the policy right now is that we have a reference to an AR ARS uh code that is not valid it doesn't exist so we were We Were Striking it the first time the whole time because it didn't and then we got direction to kind of leave it so if we want to
161strike it and not have it we can do that again and I believe we'd have to bring it back for the third read Louisa or Madam president uh Dr Cotto so as Dr Cotto stated as you look at the text here whatever is um has the striketh through is what's changing so the current language says that uh School District may not require student or teacher which we can change the staff to receive and if you want to approve this with the edit that um approve the recommended changes with the caveat that teacher be replaced to student uh staff on policy 10.49 that that continues as is um if you want to strike it and put the strike through through that entire paragraph you can have the board discussion and and vote to um approve this
162item except for 10.49 which you would strike through that entire paragraph or just wait until the rules and then make our policy based on what the law says correct um keep in mind that the policy currently is that we cannot require vaccines I think I would personally prefer approving this policy as it's presented just because it is policy and it just takes out the wording and then if the Supreme Court rules a different way then I I feel like we could come back and visit it Madam president M jaff and you are correct um you could not change this policy ever but the Supreme Court does Trump your dis one thing I do want to mention though is um the information provided in here regarding the antibodies against a vaccine preventable disease that information I
163don't think is necessarily going to apply to covid as it may apply to measles or chickenpox because I from my understanding I I'm not a scientist or a medical professional um but as far as the antibodies go if you are have the covid infection and you have are carrying the antibodies I don't believe that that lasts forever or even for a full school year potentially so I think that maybe we need to create a CO specific policy that's my suggestion we don't need to do that tonight but I'm just suggesting that once a decision comes down from the Supreme Court um or the industrial commission that's my thoughts Madam president member denmore I if that ruling does come down from the Supreme Court there it is a requirement that you adopt a policy so we'd
164be bringing a policy to you right for that so I would also like to research and see what the life what the life of the antibodies are how long they last because if you've got antibodies then you don't need a vaccine I mean I've already had the chickenpox I don't need a Chickenpox vaccine because I done had it I've recovered I'm fine so if the co antibodies last like the chickenpox antibodies do then I don't think we need to beat a dead horse and get vaccinated if you've already got the covid antibodies those are my thoughts yeah I I really am concerned about Crossing that bridge um that's I would wait I mean we don't have enough research to say if the antibodies are going to last a year or going to last 10 years
165um because this is so brand new I I'm not prepared to pushed that one just yet just yet um but I did have one other thing on uh 9.5 uh Dr croo um under this technically the third paragraph where it says a teacher administrator other employee um the third bullet point oops the third bullet point and individual should be individually I don't know what individual do you see it we talking about I see that you see it okay it was just a small typo but if that could be changed I do have a question about 7.68 unless anybody else has 9.45 so last board meeting we talked about conferences we talked about conferences that are presenting workshops on possible CRT content whether it's blatant CRT or subtle and even though employees might say they're not
166going to those um it looks like it's in our policy saying we may not require an employee to engage in nor shall we use public monies for training orientation or therapy that presents any form of blame or judgment on the basis of race ethnicity or sex and that does not preclude any training on sexual harassment so would it be is it the same to say that any time we pay for a conference that offers this material we are potentially violating our policy Madame President Miss Chaffin um looking at the second paragraph where it says in quotes blame or judgment on the basis of race ethnicity or sex is defined in ARS 411 1494 um I would we could get a legal opinion on that but I believe our conference registrations are not in violation of
167ARS 411 1494 and so if I'm an employee and I'm attending one of these sessions would I not be in violation of this policy Madam president miss jaffin again it would depend on the content and if it was in violation of ar14 1494 um the interpretation of that we would certainly could have an attorney reference the conference and the statute um but this is where we go to to determine the definition of this policy is statute because my concern is you know we can look at I can sign up for a conference and we can pay $800 for registration for however many people and there's no accountability there's no proof that yes I attended that or no I didn't attend that so we've got the possibility of employees attending these and that's that's just a
168violation of policy and that is a concern of mine because we are we have been very adamant about keeping the CRT elements out of our school district and out of our curriculum M pres Mr jaffin absolutely and we have made it very public that we do not um teach or endorse the CRT um however if you look at a national conference say um it's about Athletics and at that conference they might have um a three-day conference with a thousand people there there could be 200 sessions and if five of those sessions are related to CRT uh we would ask our staff to not attend those five sessions but there are amazing in um professional developments that can be gained from the other 195 sessions so as far as accountability um we haven't got to the
169point where we are conference police and we would follow them to say no don't go in that door go in this door but we would certainly have that expectation that um according to policy that we do not expend monies for training that relates to ARS 411 1494 any other questions I I'm just wondering if because of the way that this is written it's really more about you know what's going on um in the classroom with the teacher student um education but maybe we could add something that that states something about the employees going to the conferences and not participating in these things Madame President Mr denmore yes that that can happen I think the intent here is that that is what this policy is trying to get at if it needs to be clarified we
170can add more language to it trying to avoid coughing sorry um and open this up for discussion but do we think that we want to modify this policy um or do you think we need a separate policy for that is there a way to include it and to maybe like modify the existing I mean maybe include some sort of verbiage this includes conferences or um I'm not sure what the wording we could always bring it back um after some thought since we're also still waiting on 10.49 ruling anyway and just do both of them at the same time if there's more um opportunity to kind of think about what you'd like a policy to look like and how it'd be drafted I'd be okay with that yeah and I think Dr kis had also talked
171about uh um because I have 41 -1 1494 pulled up and talking about getting a legal opinion on that further so I I would really rather not go down that road yet without legal opinion I mean I I totally understand um but if he's talking about getting a legal opinion on it I would like to have that first I do want to just jump back to 10.49 real quickly I just want to make sure that there wasn't any confusion or mis understanding and what I was saying about the uh antibodies line that is in the second paragraph of the existing policy regarding the other vaccines not covid vaccines so I I'm not just pulling that out of thin air on that um so I just want to make sure that that particular piece of the
172policy is not necessarily going to be applicable to co it may or it may not um but I think that we really need to think this through line by line um after those decisions are made um and and really have a lot more um a much more robust conversation about this so we can either um take no action or just motion to table it does anyone have a preference well we still want to have a discussion about it correct right we would either motion to table it or we would just not take action and then nothing happens to it and it would come back and we'd have more discussion on it okay I I would like to make a motion um I would like to make a motion to approve to I'm sorry to table
173the uh revisions to policies 7.68 9.45 and 10.49 as presented um with the caveat that with 9.45 to change that one word grammatical error grammatical era thank sure Madame President member Sawyer s bill it's actually a word in the law individual yes which word is it I'm sorry individual oh really it is in for is in 411 1494 too if you have it still up oh I see it I'll second it Mission made by Don denore seconded by Christine Pritchard motion carries next we move to I3 discussion and possible action regarding the social worker program Dr Kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet this is an item that was uh added to the agenda the request of a board member just as of note there is another item item
174I4 which is related to this item um and we will get to I4 but what happens with I4 may or may not be related to the discussion and action that happens with I3 um so I three um I don't have any recommendations or formal presentation the board has has received several informational presentations um already this year about social workers we'll be happy to answer any questions um about the the role of social workers in the district and I will add my my endorsement of the social worker um position and the work that is done as we look today have any time in my 30-year experience when student um supports were needed it is now I'm given the last two years and I'm not suggesting this but it it's not just students it's Society it's it's
175our staff it's our families it's our students um are at a extreme level of need and many of these needs do not originate in the classroom um they are things that inhibit their learning however because of the circumstances that that they are are facing seen in their lives um as has been presented previously the social workers are not tasked to fix um these problems they are tasked to connect students and families with the resources that are are needed to to help them get through those those challenges in their in their lives um as we continue to look at how to best meet the needs of kids putting the needs of kids in priority I appreciate the work that is done by our social workers um if there are concerns um these concerns from the general
176public have not been presented to Administration and we welcome any concerns that uh parents might have regarding the social workers and we can work towards those those uh remedies but I again I'm not hearing our principles are not hearing direct concerns about um about what social workers do or what they're not doing but we would welcome that conversation um I would also ask that uh as we continue to look forward I anticipate that we're going to see greater need it needs that even the social workers um will be stretched to resolve and that um we will be continuing to look at Partnerships with the district to be able to to assist students and and what they they need to be successful in the classroom Madam President we do have several uh individuals who have submitted
177requests to speak and so we'll let the Miss Chaffin um lead that and then it will just be for the board to have the conversation thank you okay um I'll read this one more time this is a time for public comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ARS 38- 431 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further discussion and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of 3 minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for
178the record we have Lee IES Madame President and fellow governing board members and Lee IES I'm here this evening representing my entire dice art Unified School District school Psych olist Department all 31 of us our intent is to communicate the need and value of our school social workers within the diarch schools from the perspective of school psychologists as mental health professionals who work closely with our school social workers we feel that their present is imperative in order to provide the support that our students families staff and communities need School social workers immense knowledge base unique skills and drive to assist all those in need are all invaluable assets to our schools during their time serving our dice art community over the past several years School social workers have positively impacted our students across all grade
179levels families staff and communities they provide vital support in times of Crisis by serving on our crisis teams threat assessment teams and navigate The Daily needs of our school campuses they work with staff to provide strategies that can be implemented in various situations for for example informing staff about coping strategies and developing safety plans for students they also collaborate with outside uh support staff to facilitate important home to- School connections such as reintegration meetings for students who have been hospitalized they help parents or Guardians navigate the process of seeking additional supports outside of the school setting such as with food resources gifts for the holidays and Community Resources School social workers address needs across all grade levels which all our students benefit from in addition to following District guidelines School social workers Provide support from
180members of the school Community while following their own strict code of ethics it is impossible to list the roles that each School social worker fills as they conform to the needs of their campuses but is without question that the value that they provide is unmatched although the need for these professionals on every school campus is apparent even in typical school years given the current social climate and the alarming increase in National mental health crises School social workers are essential to the functioning of our schools and the success of our students they are able to provide a wealth of knowledge and are advocates for our students and families sometimes for those who have never had this type of support before we ask that you consider the crucial role our school social workers play in The Daily
181functioning of our schools success of our students and families and facilitation of positive home to- School connection when making decisions regarding their continued support in our schools the impact of their present on our campuses over the past several years has felt W widely and they truly make our schools and Community a safer and more meaningful place to learn and grow thank you for your time [Applause] okay next we have Michelle Bohan good evening president Pritchard congratulations members of the governing board Dr Kellis um cabinet employees of derer and our community I am Michelle Bohan lead counselor at Shadle Ridge High School as an employee of this District since 1999 yes I am the oldest the most 10e school counselor in the district and married to the oldest math teacher I'm sorry honey the most tenur
182math teacher in our district we are blessed to be daer employes we've experienced many governing board members cabinet members superintendents staff members um as a parent as well graduate of Willow Canyon High School my daughter in 2013 and our current two students um Junior in sophomore at Shadow Ridge High School I have to my mind is just racing right now with a previous presentations as they spoke about reading struggles suffering academics Athletics and of course Arts so when we think about those and what our students are going through right now and we're and we think about student as a whole I want you to reconsider or consider the positive impact our social workers are doing to all of our students as a parent and I know most of us if you are a parent it
183is the toughest job toughest job in this world and when we have students struggling academically not knowing who to talk to our social workers their positive presence is it speaks volumes not only with our students but with our staff as well so considering the anxiety the suicidal ideation um the testing the testing being a member of the crisis team I want to make sure that you understand the importance the positive importance of our social workers with our students in in the in the district as I read behind you where it says power of the I can't even see that preparation I should probably take off my glasses excellence in the journey and success for a lifetime success for lifetime is what I hone in because to look at the student as a whole we need
184to look at their mental accessibility who can they talk to who can listen to them what are they going through and our social workers the collaboration that they have had with the school counselors and also with our staff in building those relationships having those positive courageous conversations with our students speaks volumes I just want to share the American Foundation Suicide Prevention suicide is a 10th leading cause of death in the US 47,51 deaths as of 2019 thank you for your time next we have Sarah ba Bax good evening Madame President members of the board my name is Sarah ba I'm the social worker at Willow Canyon High School and I'm presenting on behalf of Rebecca real the social worker at diart middle school I'm here to answer a question that has been posed at previous
185board meetings what do diart social workers do this question is usually answered by describing the day-to-day task we complete in our work however it's not been answered using the desired outcome that drives every interaction diart School social workers support students emotionally so their brains are primed to learn our purpose is to eliminate barriers that students face on a daily basis so they come to school ready to learn and reach their full academic potential learning requires activation of the prefrontal cortex the part of the brain essential for decision- making attention impulse inhibition memory and cognitive flexibility trauma and other complexities of Life have detrimental effects on typical brain function causing a sensitized fight flight pause and appease response when the brain is activated this way the prefrontal cortex goes offline and survival becomes the priority this
186can look like a student fleeing a classroom and ATT tension a panic attack or sleeping in class when this happens no learning takes place School social workers understand this concept and help students regulate to the point where their brain comes back on board thus allowing the students to participate and learn in the classroom students are not automatically primed to learn they walk through our school doors carrying tremendous weight that is often unseen or unknown some of their silent struggles include suicidal ideations self Haring behaviors threats of harm to others homelessness food insecurity substance use mental health issues disregulated behaviors unresolved and Newfound grief safety concerns in the home and missing out on social and emotional growth due to a global pandemic this year we've witnessed a drastic increase in the quantity and Acuity of issues
187we handle on our campuses this is consistent with what is being seen across the country our job is to teach students the skills to manage the obstacles they face so they can take those tools back into the classroom where they have a better chance of meeting learning objectives and responding to Big emotions and difficult situations in a calm safe and healthy way School social workers are professionals who possess unique skills to address the problems that occur in an educational setting we support teachers by handling situations they are not familiar with which allows them to focus on academic instruction and their class's educational achievement School social workers play an invaluable role in supporting advocating and helping to reduce barriers so that all students can grow and Achieve academic success thank you for your time [Applause] next
188we have tamy deasio good evening Madame President Estee board members cabinet Dr Kellis community members um my name is Tammy damasio I'm the lead social worker for the district I've spent the majority of my career working in Early Education and early intervention as an educator as a center director a mental health and disability coordinator and as a curriculum writer I've been fortunate to have witnessed many light bulb moments in little ones lives watching a young child investigate and learn something for the very first time is truly incredible my work has always been rooted in brain development giving the fact that the brain is developing at the highest rate from from birth to age five than any other time in life in fact over 90% of a child's brain growth occurs before children ever step foot
189into our kindergarten classrooms during early child brain development a child's brain is making over a million neural connections every single second it is these neural connections that allow our children's brain to develop in a manner that they need to be healthy and successful students and later successful adults these connections offer children the ability to build executive functioning skills such as solving problems thinking critically impulse control completing tasks and regulating Behavior after spending 25 years focusing on providing high quality Early Learning environments I made a big change I became a social worker at di art High School I decided to flip my career and start focusing on the students who needed someone to help them with these skills later on in their childhood somebody who would be patient and willing to watch them grow while all
190of us want to believe that most children are afforded the opportunity to experience an early childhood that's filled with opportunities for Rich learning nurturing relationships the reality is that many children do not have that experience children who experience positive and nurturing interactions in early childhood typically have success in schools while children who have repeated exposure to negative interactions and traumatic experiences often struggle to find success in school school social workers have a primary responsibility to create caring and responsive relationships it was questioned at the last board meeting about the role of the K4 social workers the easiest time to help a child who is struggling with executive functioning skills is in the lower primary grades it is in our K4 schools that school social workers have the ability to make the greatest change working with
191students at a young age increases their skill sets earlier leading to quicker academic and behavior Improvement in my lead leadership experience programs require over three consistent years to create solid change the social work program is still in the formative stages of creating successful systems in our schools additionally social workers have been faced with the ongoing impact that the pandemic has created in order to allow the program to grow to a flourishing part of the district it's critical that social workers remain in each of our schools to impact the children's need at the earliest age possible thank you for your time all right next we have Kimberly black and Magda scroggin Madame President cing board members Dr Kellis District cabinet good evening even um my name is Kimberly black I am the health assistant at Sunset
192Hills Elementary School I'm joined with my um colleague here another uh staff member here at sunsent Hills Elementary School um I'd first like to start by um uh inviting the social workers to um stand because although that we are not in the same Department we are a team and um I I would like to show Unison in that and that we are we're supporting each other in this um we work very intricately um we work together all day long um what I'd like to say to start with actually is uh Dr asai said something in her in her comments that really really struck me and uh I think it's going to stick with me for a long time she said uh made a comment that said um you'll be supported here um and and real
193quickly because this is my personality I'd just like to throw out my uh application for Dr asai new best friend um because she is my spirit person I think um uh but Dr asai said you'll be supported here um and that is something that I feel like when we have students that are coming from out of state students that are coming from other school districts students that are coming from other schools around the country um one of the things that we can say wholeheartedly and in all honesty we can say you'll be supported here um specifically uh before um after after break I had a parent uh email they were starting to enroll their student um they emailed and said hey my kiddo's got got um some some concerns my kiddo has severe anxiety my
194kiddo has severe depression my kiddo has has this and uh I am nervous for her she is nervous to go to school how can you support um and I was able to say oh my goodness we have this this and this in place um we have a social worker that is on it she is the most amazing here's what she can do here's the services she provides and uh the email back that I got from the parent um it was words but you can feel uh what what she meant um by her just being grateful for her help um in that email and uh that's why we do what we do right because of those things um so I I feel like uh that position had we not had that would be um difficult uh
195for that um uh another thing that I wanted to just say is that um and I am long-winded so I'm going to try and hurry here um 3.8 million adolescents uh per the US Department of Health Services um report major major depressive uh disorder in the last year 60% did not receive treatment but those that did only uh two-thirds of those that did receive treatment received it in our schools um that's a really big number 2/3 um especially in our pandemic uh that we're having right now not Ren social worker contracts does um compromise the mental health of our of our students both immediately and long term our students are losing family members they're losing they're losing grandparents they're losing parents and our social workers are the ones that have to step up and take
196place in that um so although I have so much more I'm going to wrap it up and just say that I hope that you can feel my heart in that and that you'll consider [Applause] all right next we have Marcy Hustler good evening Madame President and uh governing board members and cabinet I'm Marcy hestler I've been the proud principal at Countryside Elementary School for eight years I've been with this district for 12 years and this is my 28th year in Education Without a social worker and their expertise I cannot do my job when I was in the the classroom back in the early 99s all the way through the 2000s and even today they have more expertise more resources and more networks than I can ever imagine as a school principal we wear many hats
197all of us do in all of our various um capacities and there's no way I can add that to my very full banquet um I just want to take some time I know that you've heard a lot of Statistics from the other social workers I just want to to quickly have any principal in the audience who feels that they could not do the job of the social worker to please stand at this time we don't have the credentials we don't have the education and I just want to remind you we're going to go on a little memory trip here as a governing board because I've been coming to a lot of governing board meetings for 12 years actually for 28 years Mrs Pritchard you have sat on this dis for many years touting the importance
198of social workers in schools I have listened to many of your comments saying that they need to be added that we need to have them and now we're pulling the uh contract to go for another vote when you've asked for it for so many years and it's my understanding that you've worked with our district um and you know the needs of our schools directly um Miss Chaffin you were a teacher at our school for many years you know the importance of having all those extra hands on campus to help our teachers and our students and our community in our schools miss denmore your children attend our schools and I'm very fortunate to have your son at mine and I know that we've had several conversations over the past two years Miss Grant you're new to
199me I don't I've haven't had much conversation with you but I do know your passion and I do know that when you toured my school you saw some of my level C classrooms that have the greatest need and Miss Sawyer sink Bell I just want to say thank you for all of your support and being a champion over these last this last decade plus um being up there on the dis and doing what's right for kids so I'm going to end really quickly that I implore you implore you not to um look to attain your future aspirations on this dis don't look for a Golden Ticket endorsement but to really look at the faces of your families and your community in this district and serve them directly and put your aspirations on the Shelf because
200it's not worth it if going to do it on the backs of our students and our families and our very very supportive staff thank you and that's all our public comment thank you I do want to start by saying that anytime a governing board member chooses to ask for more information it's welcomed um it should never be interpreted as an us against them it should never be viewed as um something derogatory about a particular board member or about a particular position or a particular employee it's information so um I'm hoping that we can open up this conversation to learn get more information clarify any concerns that may have triggered um more exploration regarding these positions um and look at as an opportunity again to learn and explore what's before us here in regard to this
201position not as a um means of a threat to a position a threat to non-renew um recalling back to when this item was requested it was simply a request for information and that's how we're going to proceed right now um Dr kis I know with that last board meeting um and I'm sorry I don't recall the specifics maybe Miss Densmore you can remind me but there were some particular pieces that the board was asking about in preparation for this item um I don't know if you have those or if that's where you want to start and I did not write them down I did not have them with me but that might be a good place to open president um you'll have to refresh my memory I trying to think of the unanswered questions that
202were left pending you you and I have had many conversations about this topic um both in public and um in one-on-one conversations I I don't recall specifically um but I I can um start off by mentioning one of my questions that I've had for you and and that is initially my understanding when this was presented to the board I believe I want to say three years ago I could be wrong about that um about three years ago it was presented as a grant funded position and we were offered uh we were being offered the grant as a school safety grant that school safety Grant had an option of having social workers or school resource officers that was my understanding of it um my new understanding of this is that we did apply for the grant
203correct me if I'm wrong and we we failed to receive that Grant so these are being daart funded 100% without a grant uh Madam president miss stor yes and yes and kind of okay so the uh the need for social workers you're correct was about uh three and a half years ago okay um we this was was independent of the state safe schools Grant um it was just before that that that that came out and D started a pilot in the spring of 2019 I believe with five schools and that pilot was successful and that fall is my recollection um that the board approved to expand it to schools um about the same time um the state safe schools Grant Governor Ducey um was very favorable of the additional supports um there were monies made
204available for districts to apply which could have been for a school counselor a social worker or an SRO dcer did apply and we were not successful in that Grant um but we were already in that pathway my understanding if I remember is Karen still here um we asked for some counselors um so the funding source for the social workers at the time um and still today is not out of maintenance and operation funds it's out of the myips Medicaid and public schools funds um as Mr Hicks presented at that time um there was a healthy balance in the myips account and this would have been a great opportunity to um help kind of buy down that account um Mr Hicks presented recently that um we that account continues to be successful at generating revenues um
205so it uh it's a healthy fund and there's there's no risk currently of the funding source for the social workers I know there has been some questions in the past about um the type of things that social workers do I know Miss Pritchard has a social worker background and she has a Clear Vision of what she thinks the social worker position um her professional opinion as what it should look like and I believe there were concerns that maybe our social worker positions aren't looking exactly like they could be or maybe they should be if those are the correct words am I understanding that I can I'm not sure if that's from Dr Callis or if you're asking me my opinion on either one of you I'll go ahead um president M um cha and I
206would say that as one of the uh speakers indicated it's a work in progress from the very first time that we did the pilot to today there have been many modifications to the the roles and responsibilities um initially there were some classroom presentations some large group instruction um I don't think they even have time to do that anymore and intentionally So based on governing board feedback that has translated into changes in the the roles of the counselor or the social workers um it does look different today than it has in the previous couple of years um Miss PR I won't speak to your part of the question about um your vision of the counseling role versus what the actual role is and just to clarify I mean and maybe that got somewhat confused I have
207never been employed as a social worker with daart and nor did I create the job description so I can't I have no say over what it should look like in daart world I know a general um just uh industry standard of what social workers do in schools in general but outside of what daer does with them I mean I have no knowledge and have no input to that quite frankly we don't even approve job descriptions I don't believe they're just brought to us for information um my concern and and I'll be the the first to say as and I might be biased because I am a social worker not in a school but still they have tremendous value in so many different Arenas I mean that I would never say they don't my only concern
208um and I've been very forthcoming with this is that the board continues to get feedback of how they're used here yes and then miss winterstein speaks to us and says nope this is this is what our social workers do and it sounds amazing because it sounds like what they should be doing in our schools and then we get feedback that no they're either teaching large groups or they're talking about CRT or they're talking about inclusion or they're talking about all these controversial type things which in and of itself could be great I mean everyone has their own opinion and and what your what view you have on either side of that topic is your own and your family's own and the student needs to be separate from the social work individual social worker I don't
209I think there needs to be that clear line and it seems like it would constantly be blurred and so we'd ask for an item and again miss moers sign would come back or we'd get feedback from Dr Kellis that doesn't happen in our schools or we're addressing it on an individual basis um so my concern has only been not do social workers have value on our school which I 110% believe they do it's how is the social worker program working in daart and what is Administration done to make sure that when we have these pockets of of scenarios with student students or social workers that are deviating from that and causing concern with parents to where it get reaches the board level what are we doing to stop that from happening because historically and I
210don't remember Mr Dean you were you were here for sure I can't remember Dr polling if you were here then we had social workers way back when and we the superintendent at the time got rid of them because they weren't being used appropriately and they brought in Behavior coaches which are nothing like social workers at all shouldn't even be in the same category they do two totally different things and there was a void there and I I said I I wrote a proposal saying this is why we need social workers in daart and at the time the superintendent said no there's no place in di art for social workers so again I'll say it a third time I think there's a a lot of value and they do great work but we seem to have
211a problem in our district with how some of those individuals are using their role not all of them and I don't even have I have maybe one or two names but aside from that I couldn't pick any of them out of a crowd I just know emails that I get or conversations that I've had where people are like these types of things are family issues or value based issues or moral issues that's not what I want my child involved in when they interact with a social worker and I get concerned because I'm thinking we have this great opportunity to help these individuals and families and students with a social worker role and it's being tarnished by some people that are going outside of their Lane and how they're how they're carrying through their their day
212or their role and that's why we kept bring that's why I know in the past I did not request this item back tonight personally I understand why it was brought back but when I've asked for it in the past it's because hey tell me what this looks like in daart because I'm getting different pieces of information so that's my perspective is social workers are wonderful but the way that it's causing a lot of upheaval I think with some parents community and how we're using them and it's just frustrating to continue to get that feedback and then be told being given a presentation of the textbook role of what a social worker does and it sounds perfect and then the board meeting's over and everyone goes back to their buildings and things happen differently and parents
213are upset saying why is this being taught why is this said to my child oh a social worker said it um that's my frustration and that was my that's my perspective to your point on the upheaval and you're hearing from community and parents and and it reaches the board level I have never received one email from a parent I have never received an email from a Community member regarding a social worker going outside their Lane so if there is such an upheaval and such a concern why isn't the the entire and I can't speak for the rest of the board I can only speak for me but if there's such a concern on the community level then why hasn't the entire board been notified of this I've never received an email regarding that well we
214had a Community member speak to us Miss Grant regarding it and one issue went to Dr Kell so he's aware she spoke but you said there's a community um upheaval and parent one Comm one person speaking is not a community of people that's correct but I didn't say she was the only person I'm saying you said that's a person that came and spoke to the board yes I have never received an email I've never received a phone call regarding a concern of a social worker so I'm having a hard time understanding what the problem is and I can't explain why what I mean you get emails and you don't so but it's not an upheaval if they don't Comm if they don't contact everybody right shouldn't I learn of the problem just as much as
215the rest of you well it's possible that they believe that Miss Pritcher will take action that's why they send her the emails and not not that you wouldn't I didn't mean it like that I have been individually contacted on many different issues and I don't know whether it's them sending an individual email to each board member or am I blind copied or am I the only person receiving it but there's no way to really know that due to open meeting lot unless we were are all copied on that email we're never going to know so I I I think that we need to do away with any accusations on that on that I'm sorry I did not mean that the way it came out I apologize Jo okay I'm just saying if there's a concern
216in the community I mean you can say a parent contacted you or you um okay then but when you use the word community and parents if there's a concern and you even said and it makes it to the board level that we continue to have to talk about this it's not making it to the whole board level it's only making it to certain board me level and that concerns me [Applause] de not a debate I can let me chime in also um in my past 11 years um any type of concern I do I have always submitted it to the superintendent um but my time on the board I have yet to receive any type of feedback regarding social workers or school psychologist I have not um maybe I have it could have been singled
217out to just one two I have not received any any information about any type of feedback of what was being said how it was being done if one social worker was doing something and another one wasn't I haven't received anything regarding social workers have you received information regarding CRT in schools because a lot of my emails that are alleging alleging conversations between students in the schools and the social worker are in regard to CRT and Equity things and I know lots some of them the whole board was copied on from community so have you not received CRT concerns from the community I but how can you tie CRT back to social worker how can you tie CRT back to to teachers because that's what they said [Applause] I know I haven't received anything like that
218or I haven't interpretated sorry my mouth dry I have an interpretate you know what I mean um with regards to um feedback for CRT with social workers I know we we don't follow CRT I know that so I guess maybe I have put it out of my mind but I haven't received anything I will say I have received um some communication from a couple of Staff members regarding the school psychologist and I have received information regarding CRT from a couple of parents I think I received one email saying no CRT but I don't I don't connect CRT to the social worker or to the school psychologist that's a policy and again Dr Dean did a presentation I think you've done it twice now but the last one you did you were you did a chart
219that said this is what daart does and this is what daart doesn't do and you were so clear on we do not do CRT we do not do this and I mean it was just dot dot dot dot that's all I I mean but I've gotten maybe one email that just said I don't want CRT okay but that I don't I still don't tie that to a position well I think Al the concerns is social emotional learning can be used as a back door to CRT and different elements okay and thank you and also concerns I share Miss pritchard's concerns because I do receive communication that is concerning and sometimes I would receive screenshots and we bring it up and we submit our concerns and then we are presented and yeah it looks good on
220paper everything they should be doing but then at the same time it's kind of it's almost like this Balancing Act to where it goes this way and then it goes this way and then it goes this way and it's just it it just seems to not stop those are my concerns so I guess my question is what information is needed for the for the social worker program that it was pulled for more information so specifically what is more information needed I don't know I didn't I don't know I I didn't specifically there's there's several things several concerns that we had I know um but one of the pieces though I would like more information on is how it's being used at our in our high schools in their wi I don't know what you want
221to call intervention their intervention their their storm watch their study hall period I know I I have a an understanding I don't know if it's it's a correct understanding but it's being used differently at the different high schools question that's a question for you Dr kis mam president miss denmore as has been presented in the past about the high school advisory period thank you U the the topics there have um they're broad everything from preparing for a college application um to preparing for for college admissions exams um for kindness um I I won't repeat the whole presentation but okay um each one of those advisory periods as you just hinted to has a different title there's um stride at one school there's advisory going by the just the name there's each each High School calls
222it something different um that's not a social worker curriculum time that doesn't mean that the social workers aren't tasked with some supports for maybe on occasion but not not a regular classroom it's not their uh it's not their job description to prepare the the high school advisory period okay if I could mam president um also just again extend my sincere and true ask that if any board member has um parents who are coming to them we have a it's worked great actually to follow the lines of communication that they need to address those concerns with the principal or with the social worker and and go through the lines of communication so that these problems can be addressed at the appropriate level um when it goes straight to the board member and there the message gets
223lost or or it it gets stuck in into that that level and the opportunities to resolve concerns um falter so again I would even say that it it is the right thing to do to help parents use the lines of communication as have been established lots of times when I've gotten email sometimes there is concern either they have brought it forward and they don't feel like there was resolution and you know me we've had this conversation like I'll I'll respond if anyone has a question I mean I'll always respond to them I mean um I'll always ask if they followed up with their principal or if it's a teacher issue or whatever role we're talking about but I I would never just disregard it so there any other questions or or concerns do we have
224are we fully staffed with all of our social workers right now do we have any vacancies M denmore we're short to and it's currently all being paid through MBS M president M yes and there's one on every campus right now or other than the vacancy um Madam president there is a position allocated to every every site except for growing mines and Sundown so technically we have all and then also a lead at the district office correct or does she work with another Madam president I believe the lead is assigned to a school the lead is assigned to a school thank you did I hear right that it was 32 um m presid m denmore 32 positions and that would be 24 okay that was she's assed okay thank you okay I knew I heard 32
225somewhere any other questions or more discussion well this is an action item so what do we that's discussion we don't have to action anything it was just mainly for discussion but but I um I do want to reiterate that if any board member ever has a need for more information regardless of whether or not it's shared by the majority of the board that they should never feel um hesitant to voice concern and need for more as board members we all have equal opportunity to ask for any item and no one should ever feel like that is not allowed or would be respected so I do want to just bring that to everyone's attention I think thank everybody and I don't fault anyone for bringing it forward it's it's good discussion and if there isn't any
226action then we don't have to take any we can just move to the next item I believe we do have to take action don't no mam president Miss Grant there is no motion if there's no motion made then there's no action next but it says it's action slash discussion so you you can discuss what the opportunity for action but you don't have to take action just as we did on a previous item we can just choose to take no action at all and move forward so next we'll move to I4 recommendation for renewal of eligible licensed social workers and authorization to issue employment contracts for the 2022 2023 school year Dr Kell thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet Dr CR will introduce this item thank you Dr Kellis Madame
227President members of the board superintendent Kell cabinet and guests um it is the recommendation uh this evening to uh have a motion to approve eligible licensed social workers for Reemployment and authorize the issue of employment contracts for the 2223 school year have any questions oh if you remember excuse me sorry madam president last meeting you approved the contract but we did not approve the issuance so this motion is to approve issuing authorizing the Reemployment and issuing the contract does anyone have any further discussion or questions the the language on the summary here is that typical I I don't recall seeing this language before Madam president denmore it is the same language is it okay thank you um I I did have one question on this and and thank you for bringing that up Miss denmore
228uh on the summary uh employees who are currently completing a 45 instructional day Improvement plan um do we currently have anybody on the plan Adam president um m s that's probably not something that we would address in public personel inform sometimes we have before I'll entertain a motion I move to approve eligible licensed social workers for Reemployment and authorize the issuance of employment contracts for the 222 23 school year I will second motion made by Joe Grant seconded by Tracy sing bille motion carries all right next we move to item I5 recommendation for approval of a district reorganization plan Dr CIS thank you madam president me Madame President members of the board and members of cabinet um this will be another joint presentation from doctors Dean and crto Madam president members of the governing board
229Dr Kell and members of cabinet not to relive the Ping ponging that happened earlier but we're going to relive the Ping ponging that happened a little earlier so both Dr Cotto and I will present information regarding this this action request the board will recall at the last meeting uh a reorganization plan for the student services department was brought forward with an approximate cost of about $40,000 to the district at the request of the board that reorganization has been reexamined and through collaboration of cabinet the district uh we are recommending this evening a reorganization plan involving the student services department and aspects of the human relations department that results in a budget savings to the district of recommending the following and do we have this slide does the board have this slide yes we okay good
230make sure we're all on the same page cabinet is recommending the addition of a director of student services for middle and high school a director of student services for K4 and K8 and an and an administrative sector crary 3 position for the student services department you'll note that the salary listed for the two director positions include experience in this conversation that was a topic of our last conversation that the amount that was requested in addition to our budget um did not necessarily reflect experience those two numbers do ex um reflect the experience base level of that position a job description for that position a requirement would be five years at least five years in a principal um role additionally in um the reorganization cabinet is recommending an additional HR Regional specialist so four four total
231positions for new positions as the board can see that results in a total amount of an increase of $292,000 $292,500 who is resigning or resigning due to retirement the student services manager position the safety and compliance specialist which is currently vacant as well as two positions from the human relations department the HR manager which is an administrator position and the HR receptionist in which we currently have two people that uh fill the role in the front office of the district office every day this would allow us to maximize our res our resources that creates a budget decrease of 31,8 $3 which results in a reorganization budget savings to the district of $1 19,28 which could be used to pay additional experience if needed to incoming directors and um I will turn it over to Dr
232Coto for any additional comments and any questions that may be related thank you Dr Dean I think Dr Dean served in Ace there's really no pingpong needed because he delivered the whole thing but um we uh went through ma to maximize our resources to repeat Dr Dean and look for efficiencies where we could make this happen um and again took the direction of the board to come back with a plan that did not cost the board any additional money so we have that before you and we'll stand for any questions did the um the eliminated positions that are that are presented tonight were these the same that were were presented in December specifically to the human relations department Madame President no they were not included in December so these two positions um just within the
233last month they were told that their positions are going to be eliminated Madam president um I did have a conversation with everybody of on the eliminated uh positions list that it would be coming to the governing board last night so yes I told them that and it is uh the intent through to do that um put this in place as July 1st next year however we do have some of these positions coming vacant now and we ask the governing board to allow us to hire them if they become vacant at this time um but we do not intend to eliminate those um positions that the people are in until July 1st of next year they may choose to leave we've told them six months ahead of time um and they are welcome to apply for
234any of the positions in our district and I have stressed that with each of them personally I just want to make sure I heard you right did you say that you advised them you had that conversation with them last night no no no I've had it in the last week week okay yeah not last night all right thank you but I did personally speak to every one of them my only question uh in all of this yes you put a time as far as um the Lev of experience uh Dr Dean you just said five years of principal role um principal in well you're talking middle and high school and then the other one is K4 K8 so in those particular areas Madam president Ming Dr CTO could answer the question better than I it
235is M Madam president member Sawyer s Bill uh the way the job description will be written as 5 years of experience at principal level or higher so it could be at any of those levels obviously if we're looking for a director in K4 to K8 we would want some kind of experience in K4 to K8 to be able to direct the principles at that level as well as high school middle school we would want somebody with high school or middle school experience but five years cumulative of a least principal or higher or higher okay okay that was it thank you so it was sent back to I think it was $40,000 was right Madam president member grant our initial proposal in December would have been an increase to the district of approximately $40,000 that however
236to be fair and and was correctly identified during conversation did not include an ex exponential index to hiring those directors this proposal includes experience in that salary so to do that we're laying basically laying off two people I guess laying off eliminate their positions now I can see I don't know the whole makeup of the district but I can see where in HR receptionist could get a when you say I encourage you to apply I can see we're an HR receptionist could easily apply for other positions within the district not necessarily receptionist but I don't know the terms in the front office they all have titles but an HR Manager that's going to be a little tricky to apply for another job within the district if you're an HR Manager and are looking for another
237HR manager position yes but there are other we have tons of positions open that they may qualify for okay May classified and member Grant I may add with that position that um to keep our the number of Administrators to be neutral in the district um in essence the recommendation is to add one administrator and the HR manager position is an administrator in the district and so um by eliminating that that keeps the number of Administrators to a neutral number okay thank you I guess I was hoping that when we said you know see if you go back and find the money within our budget I wasn't thinking that you know I guess in a perfect world I'm thinking do we have some big positions that we can maybe reduce the salary to or combine or
238something like that I wasn't thinking that we would come back eliminating people for a position and I know it's you know I know it's not ideal from what Miss winterstein said but for a position that we have someone doing an amazing job right now as one person Madam president um thank you for your concern for those whose positions are being eliminated I think anytime a you have that conversation it is it is challenging and administratively as we manage the the positions throughout the district um we take the charge from the board to keep the budget neutral um seriously we we heard your feedback and that is um looking at at the the needs the greatest needs of the district and the priorities um this was the Personnel decision that was is being recommended for for
239those employees who positioned were eliminating would they get priority I mean if they're qualified would they get priority status for any open current open positions as long as they have good standing um president Pritchard member ch jaffin um they will still need to apply as we do with any employee we don't guarantee positions for people so they would still need to go through the process and apply for any position they're interested in um so we it's not we don't operate in necessarily um assigning people to spots and I you might know this better than than I would Dr Coto but for an HR Manager especially classifi but $85,000 salary I think that's going to be hard for that person to be able to find a job at that same level especially nowadays the district yeah
240I don't know I personally that's personally I wasn't thrilled with the budget going up anyway that's why I I wanted to see the um Administration bring it back and and see if we could make this work with the money that we had but um to to cut people um I'm not feeling good about it and I'm I'm not feeling good about it either um I was I was fine with the first um reorg that we were presented back in December um I know that there's times that you do need to eliminate positions and everything but um and I thank you for the work that you actually went back through and and looked and Shuff and everything um but I'm I'm not happy I'm happy but I'm not happy if you get my meaning are there
241any other questions I guess I kind of share your concern I don't feel confident about eliminating somebody's position that particular position right now just eliminating it from the HR so unless anyone wants to make a motion um I I want to ask a few questions first um so what I'm looking at this under the new positions so we would basically have the two directors as well as an HR Regional specialist am I understanding that correctly Madame President um member denor that is correct we're adding so since we are deleting an admin in HR we are adding a regional specialist to pick up some of the duties that we have um would a receptionist be qualified to fill the role of the regional specialist RR yes that last can you ask that question again I was
242asking whether or not the receptionist would be qualified I mean on paper would they have matching qualifications um for the HR Regional specialist because it's you know another classified position HR Regional specialist would be the same as a receptionist qu qualification wise yeah but that just sounds like a different skill set different job Madam Madam president uh perhaps to assist the the conversation I will share again that as the board has directed Administration to present a plan we have looked at our priorities and our needs and this plan best meets um the the Personnel needs of the district I appreciate again the the concern about individuals and their positions and if the board would like to um move to approve the model that was presented at the last board meeting that perhaps um I would
243worry that if the board is dissatisfied with both of these these uh models um that we're a little bit confused about keeping the budget neutral and making the the Personnel decisions um that are best for the needs of the district but that might be based on individuals and not on the needs of the district so we can't have our cake and eat it too well I mean I I know that from the from the meeting I I think there was confusion and I I think that at least in my perspective it was communicated several times the the point was not necessarily the the financial aspect of it the point was replacing one really amazing person with with with two people I think that at face value is is what at least I was struggling with
244um not understanding why w why why we weren't paying her double the salary you know if she [Applause] was I know but I think that's just mentally what I struggled with when when I had been presented the information last time um and it was an increase obviously um so I I think you took one piece of the of the concern and ran with it but you didn't look at the entire picture that makes sense Madam president thank you for that clarification and you are absolutely right um cabinet did hear from the conversation that there was the concern was an increase to the budget of $40,000 and to come back with a plan that did not include a $40,000 increase and so with that goal in mind um we did look at the the structures that
245are currently in place and with a budget neutral even with a little bit of savings um developed a plan that is budget neutral and that did not um create an increase to the budget um essentially the the request at that time was to request an increase to the budget for the for that position for those two positions um going back to the original presentation the need exists um I think we have said many times that Mrs um winterstein is irreplaceable as a single person and she has done an extraordinary job and probably deserves a bucket of extraordinary pins um looking forward to the needs of the district they are great and as we look at the Personnel needs Administration is looking at the the management of of the Personnel in a way that best meets
246those needs so if I understood you correctly a portion of the role of the HR manager will go to the HR Regional specialist what about the rest of the job Madam president member Grant uh those duties will be um absorbed by our current staff who are already doing above and beyond absolutely we have an amazing staff so but they're doing already above and beyond their regular job and now you're adding more duties to them to all of us correct yeah to all of you and HR and then so and then eliminating the receptionist then right there will be a receptionist in the front there's currently two people that sit in the front so it's not the district office will not have a receptionist there will be somebody in the front there are currently two people
247that sit in the front so Dr Coto the one um regarding the HR Regional specialist the way we have the makeup right now um each of those Regional special have schools that are assigned to them so if we're adding a uh Regional specialist then we're going to be redistributing those schools correct that is correct okay and so then some of the other HR manager duties are going to be assumed by others so the the the case load meaning the school load the number of schools will be decreasing correct with those people those specialists but the other that is the concept correct okay we'll decrease some of the case load take some of the duties as well as Dr we for and myself okay I still would prefer the district work with the money that they
248have and and make it work but I'll entertain a motion I will go out on a limb and uh moved to approve the uh reorganization plan that was presented on December 8th 2021 is there a second sure I'll second that motion made by Tracy souring bill seconded by Joe Grant we're rewriting the motion so please hold it's not me oh the December 8th one now was a $40,000 increase correct that's the motion approxim minimum that did not include experience so is is there any way to look at the other one before I vote is there any way to look at them side by side I don't PR a copy yes it is online as a as an archived boarded agenda item okay did you pull it did you say thank you oh than okay okay
249you click how do you click off of the vote you just close it I just opened a new tab you're so smart and you do that information social work isn't it on oh here it is information H5 yeah there it is we H that's Madam president member Chap and I can just give a quick as you're searching for that information I can just give a quick recap as I I've been able to pull it up in front of me the information presented on December 8th regarding the student services reorganization recommendation included eliminating the current position of director of student services support services manager which is a currently vacant position and safety and compliance specialist that creates a budget decrease of approximately $253,000 then the recommendation went further to add a director of student services for
250high school and middle school and a director of student services for Ka as well as an administrative secretary 2 that came with a budget increase of approximately $293,000 which Nets to the $40,000 that we discussed however we want to make sure that we point out that that did not include an exponential factor in the director positions that was the base level salary for the directors we are we will be looking at job description to recommend or or to write job descriptions that have at least 5 years of experience a principal or hire therefore an experiential index would need to be paid to those folks that $40,000 does not include that experience piece so really we're looking at how much then if not 40 it's going to be Dr Coto Madame President I would without doing
251the figures here I would say 75 to 80 quickly off top of my head I can do the figures for I'm sorry for each position uh Madame President member denp total not each position instead of 40 it would be 75 to 80 and then on this this new one it looks like it's an increase of is it 292 no what's what's the increase on the second one to in total yes and it's a decrease of 19 $1,811 so it's a savings of 19,800 but is it really 19,000 or are we going to add another potential 70 to 880,000 on that Madame President member denmore we we would not add another 7080 because experience is already granted um as Miss Chaffin pointed out in the December 8th meeting that we didn't have experience so we included
252uh what you see there is Step six uh on the director because of 5 years experience minimum so it may go up um a few thousand doll but not more than that Savings of 19811 if we say somebody came in with seven or eight years of experience um we would add additional but that is in no way the 75 to 80 to clarify though that 19 in the previous motion that wasn't a savings of n that was only a savings of 19 because of the original 4 ,000 from the last time we're still going to see a budget increase of $119,000 Madam president no this is saving the the plan presented tonight is a net savings to the district of $1 19,8 if you follow this plan as presented tonight well there's a motion on
253the floor it's been made and seconded did I vote did I okay I didn't remember seeing confused be side by side I know that's what I was trying to say too it's not adding up right the other one did the one from December 8 did not include the elimination of these two position me I'm just going to stare at it for like 20 more minutes that would be mine that would be me no no no we're just I'm still deciding want vot yes yes I'm just not sure so the motion that's on the floor right now is Miss sville Sawyer s Bill's motion that um after hearing from Dr Coto could potentially have an increase to the budget of 75 to 80,000 that's what we're voting on right now correct why wouldn't the December 8th
254be the same as 107,000 for each of those positions Madam president member Grant we this is granting experience in tonight's proposal the December 8th proposal did not Grant experience to that position so that is the base pay of that position so we could say for the December 8th make the the two directors the 107,000 and not leave it blank based on experience because this is based on five years of EXP experience is that correct Madam M president Miss Grant um I think that would be a separate motion depending on I understand that but I'm asking that potentially we can redefine the first proposal and include the years of experience which would reflect the 70 80,000 and that would and that's an estimate it could be less I mean I have to do that but by
255putting in the years of experience and making it this 107 because I just did the math it would we wouldn't have that 75,000 potential it would be like this the same and not eliminate an H position the point they were saying is from the last presentation was that the level of experience they would need to bring forward they couldn't bring in an entry-level person they would need to bring them in with at least five years which means more salary we have but Mr Hicks we have how many not if asking them to redo it positions across the entire District that are not filled and we keep we we have several positions across the district that are not filled that we keep allocating funds for right um Madam president uh members of the board we do
256have vacant positions but if we were going to use one of those then we'd have to close it and not hire to it so there's the chance that they hired and so we don't have Perpetual vacant positions that we just bank if that's what you're yeah that's that's good it is good it is good okay all right guys I feel like we need to call for a vote Madam president the vote was we should be discussing the the vote died um there was no um majority vote on this so that motion is is dead okay we would ask if the board has a second motion or further Direction I think for at the late of the hour if there we move on and if an Administration wants to or if the board has Direction um
257to provide to the superintendent um in preparation if you want to bring something else back but I don't know as far as um could we possibly table this till the next meeting I understand this is time sensitive this needs to happen but maybe could we take till the next meeting where we can kind of process this a little more and figure out which plan can't T right so it's already that's why I was saying if we want to give some direction to Administration then they can bring back another item right um my my position still stands of have it you know try to make it work with what we have I don't like to just add more to the budget but certainly other board members um if there's any other specific Direction you think could
258make this a workable option then Administration can bring it back next time can you bring back the December 8th whoa whoa not everybody get excited with the experience cap like before there was if I understood you correctly there was the salary could go many ways because we didn't put an experience cap on this proposal there's a fiveyear experience B base Bas M president thank you for the feedback and we can bring back another proposal um we will just again for clarification keeping a budget neutral there will be a jobs eliminated to be able to accommodate the the plan unless we just hire that position as it is now which I mean not hire advertise that position as it is now as a possibility or or look into savings I know do or Mr Hicks you
259said that um we don't necessarily have a lot of positions that are just waiting vacant but maybe another quick scan see what we have and is it possible maybe in our next board packet to have all three of them attached that way we can kind of look at them that way if we want to go back and say oh we like the December 8th or we like the January 12th we can kind of see it ahead of time and look over that thank you it's so much easier I do have one more question um and I just lost it when you started talking um it's okay I'm trying to get it get it back um oh okay so I am wondering with with the two um director positions I I guess I'm curious why we
260would need both of them with the five-year experience base especially if we could maybe use one as I mean they would be partners they would be a team that they would be working together I would almost think that that would be easier like maybe if we had one at that lead in that lead role in a sense and then we had one that wouldn't necessarily require That Base even though we could have them at it mam president miss denmore the reason for the five years of experience for both of them is because these directors will be advising principles on a day-to-day basis on very serious issues um very high level serious issues and to have somebody without experience would be frustrating to the principles as well as potentially liability to to the district true are
261internal candidates have already expressed interest in these positions Madam president um no however to say that we have not posted it and we haven't had conversations about that so to say no doesn't mean that there aren't it just means that no one's come forward to say he it's not something that we have gone out and solicited for okay all right well thank you okay so next we'll move to um item I6 discussion and action to set a date and time for an executive session Dr K thank you mad president members of the board and members of cabinet this is um at the request of a board member to have a special meeting to review policy with the uh presence of an attorney this recommendation is for next Wednesday January 19th from 6:00 to 8:00 pm
262does that work for everybody sure and this would be an executive session next Wednesday not hearing any concerns then yeah no concerns um I move the board establish an executive session for January 19th 2022 at 6m pursuant to ARS section 38-43 1.03 A3 for the purpose of getting legal advice from the attorney from the public body regarding legal parameters regarding establishing policy addressing locker room and restroom use by transgender students do I have a second second motion made by Christine Pritchard seconded by Crystal shaen motion carries next request for future agenda items anyone have any items I would like an action discussion item um and information presented on school resource officers in our middle schools anyone else next we move to adjournment I move that we adjourn the meeting motion made by Christine Pritchard seconded
263by Joe Grant you v Joe you gonna vote no to Jour my vot yes I'm tired not popping up oh my gosh oh