001at this time i'd like to call the meeting to order will 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 all right and we'll start with item b1 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr dean will introduce this item good evening madam president members of the governing board dr kellis and members of cabinet this evening it is our pleasure to have shatter ridge high school student yumi takahashi here to perform for us and without any further ado we look forward to her performance [Applause] do so do
002so [Music] do so [Music] do [Music] do so [Music] [Applause] madam president we could listen to that all night long i think we would be probably very well treated please stay beautiful thank you so much next we have item c1 audience with individuals no okay thank you next we have the student update dr kellis madam president we have no student update this evening okay move to superintendent update madam president members of the board and members of cabinet just very briefly would like to extend again huge gratitude to all of our community of the arts we had a great reception the other night with the mayor's art show and still on display in the vista lobby we have the first second and third place winners from the art show we have the mayor's choice award and
003while you're there looking at the art this weekend we also have a fabulous country music festival friday evening and saturday evening and tickets are still available i don't know how many so you might want to get them fast but there are still some tickets available and this is in a commemoration of september 11th thank you very much dr kellis next we have governing board update i'll go ahead and get started um i attended that uh mayor's uh reception and saw the great art that was up on the wall and also um there were students that were doing interpretive dance that was a sign of for veterans and for 9 11. so all of the pieces are moving so if you don't get the opportunity please make it the opportunity to get over there and see
004that also attended the superintendent parent advisory it's great to see the parents that they came back and were actually part of comments part of things to help the district move forward and from the viewpoint of the parent not to mention all the things that might be going on at the school such as different stem events and what have you i also attended the national board certified teachers kickoff thank you to kristen cox one of our teachers over at kingswood special ed for inviting me and also i especially want to thank the teachers that are actually wanting to go ahead and take that journey and become nationally board certified there were several dysart teachers that came in yesterday and uh it was great for them to actually ask questions how long would it take all the
005components that were going to be a part of their program so thank you for all the teachers that are wanting to improve further their education that's it i also attended the mayor's honoring hero art exhibit and it was very moving and if you do have an opportunity please take time to go over to the vista and see it i also went to the superintendent's realty advisory council it was nice to see a lot and well not a lot but there are quite a few realtors there that are trying to learn more about the dysart school district and become better informed for their uh for their customers with all the new homeowners that are moving into the neighborhood so thank you for that next we have item e1 the consent agenda items did we move that
006one second i would like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items with the exception of item nine and moving item nine to action discussion second is this removing completely or putting it moving it to action okay motion passes thank you up next we have item g1 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet this agenda item is our regular review of agenda item or of board policy items this particular policy was approved by the board last spring it escaped the asba advisories and is presented with no recommended changes thank you there's no comments um we'll move to item g2 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellum kellis madam president
007members of the board superintendent kelly's cabinet and guests tonight we bring you a revision of policies that the asba has recommended this is a first reading of the policies and they are listed there for you and we have reviewed these policies and bring them to you for any questions and your approval will be on the next agenda so we'll stand for any questions you may have on these policies i just have one edit to suggest on policy 420 4.20 in the green text it cites uh to post on its website home page instead of home page that was the only thing i identified in there madam president thank you for that uh that catch we will make that edit um i'm looking at section 9.22 on the acquisition of supplementary instruction materials i'm not quite
008sure how i feel about um instructional aids teacher resources and trade books and sets of 10 or less not intended for whole class instruction are exempt from this policy may be purchased after the discretion of school administration um i'm not quite sure how i feel about books just being able to be purchased for supplementary without board approval supplements or materials i don't know does anybody else have thoughts where is that um yep dr kellis is that in any way statutory madam president members of the board i'll ask dr pauline to respond to that question yes thank you madam president um dr kells um not to my knowledge that it's statutory i would have to do a little more research and reading through the statutes again but not to my knowledge it's something that um everything
009dicer's had in long-standing time that's been in place and that's where it came from but i would give a definitive answer need to do a little more research on that on that statute and could get back to the board okay okay can you give us the reference to that one again yeah it's uh 9.2 are you talking about the yes the section the section acquisition of supplementary instruction materials um it's at the bottom of page one on part of nine point two two yes yes can i ask a question for clarification on what that means so since it says in there not intended for whole class instruction does that mean that these would be books that would be part of like a classroom library rather than a instructional type text memphis pritchard that is correct
010um when it indicates it's not intended for whole class instruction it may be that it's available on the bookshelf but it's not like an assignment that all the students are expected to to study but this could include supplements that like uh social workers could use for certain social sel social emotional learning and supplements like that man president miss chaffin um yes there are lots of resources that the social workers would have access to it could be included in this our social workers may or may not use a book as they go into a classroom to do some some group instruction so to say that it's in a school that won't be used by most of the students would be impossible to say to we would err on the on the side that if it's in
011the school we would expect that one or many would have access to that title of course where it says instructional aids in that sense could that be a resource and then it even says teacher resources that's that a teacher would be using maybe to assist with the whole whole class instruction man president miss pritchard again it could be used for that if the fact that it's in the school it could be used as an additional resource for a teacher in their lesson not that every student again is assigned because if there's only 10 copies then that's not enough for every student to have one but the student could reference it likewise the student or the teacher could make reference to many instructional resources that aren't in class set it could be a dictionary it could
012be a thesaurus it could be a website it could be a video or a movie or there's many things that a teacher could make reference to in the course of providing instruction and that wouldn't have to go through the approval process man president miss pritchard according to what has already been approved so as you're looking at this policy it's not green lined which means it's current policy it's not recommended changes that has been the practice any other discussion on any other items so if we did want to make a change or make a suggestion would we do that at the next meeting when these become action items or would we do that today madam president members of the board if there are any um recommendations in addition to the green line changes i guess you
013could inquire about the green line changes as well but any changes other than what's proposed here it doesn't have to be tonight but in the course of the next week or two before the next board meeting we would incorporate those those suggestions into the second read draft of the of the proposed policy changes and then the board would be able to vote on those changes okay during the second read sorry i guess i'm just concerned about things sneaking in under the radar because we just did an entire discussion item on the sel because we had some concerns and i don't know we might still have some concerns and my concern is that things are going to get ordered and they're just going to be swept under the rug and and the hustle and bustle of
014just everyday school life i mean our office managers and our principals probably aren't going to go okay okay like if they know the books it's different but that's just my concern is things just passing under the radar madame president miss chaffin that's i appreciate that concern i will say that administration is very aware of the board's concerns with regard to this topic and that we try very diligently to be vigilant of anything that don't use the word swept on the rug or snuck in but that may find its way into a classroom um there may be things that are 50 years old that the board didn't adopt that are there there may be things that are brand new that we are reviewing for the first time um if at any time anybody has any concerns
015about curriculum we please please and we invite that conversation so that we can review the the curriculum whatever it is so what this is saying is if to address your concern specifically even if the board took on the task of reviewing every item that was presented in the classroom which would be extraordinary task there is a possibility that something might still find its way in but understanding the will of the board administration fills that charge very seriously and we will continue to act under that direction okay and just keeping with the the same item 9.22 just out of curiosity um i know that we have well it states here that we have committees textbook selection committees is that specific to textbooks or do we also have that for the supplemental classroom materials madam president members
016of the board yes and yes okay um the committees definitely um look at the textbooks that are presented to the board from time to time for adoption um many times those textbook adoptions is more than the textbook it could be the workbooks it could be i'm just dating myself the the slide decks the the transparencies that come with the books and the markers um these days it's not even a cd it's website resources um the the challenge that we again take very seriously is to continue to monitor those curricular and supplemental materials so the board could adopt a curriculum it comes as a package deal with access to the publisher website and to all the the materials there it's very easy to update a website from one day to the next without a lot of
017fanfare understanding that that's just the nature of technology these days we again accept that responsibility to be vigilant that when there are publisher updates to curricular resources that we are attuned to those and if they do not match the mission of the district or the intent of the governing board that we are vigilant of that thank you and how often do those committees meet i'm present members of the board um depends on when the money comes available so it would be great to do a textbook adoption every four or five years there are some curricular areas that i would venture to say we're going on 15 years without having done a textbook update there are some that tend to be a little bit more frequent um as the state adjusts their standards sometimes we are
018able to keep it in touch with those and stay on pace with those right now it'd be great to bring a proposal to the board for a math adoption um that's something that we've been reviewing but that's a not to jump off the topic here it's over could be one and a half million dollars for a district our size to get access to the material for that many students in our district k-12 so when we say it's based on on funding yes um say math never changes but um instructional strategies do change and and we continue to want to help students learn the most efficient way that they can thank you are you reaching for your mic no okay all right i was reading something okay i was actually i was reading something that uh
019um uh under the objectives of the selection place principle above personal opinion so i was yes i understand what miss chapman is saying but no i don't want to review all the books that are in the district so i don't want that to be our thing maybe one here one there but we have better use of our time no i don't think again i don't think the board needs to [Music] necessarily review every single purchase order that comes through but i just want to make sure that we're vigilant and we do have something in place to where we're just being watchful and careful okay thank you moving on to item g3 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board this evening we are pleased to welcome two schools who will be presenting reports
020and we will start with dr pulling good evening madam president dr kellis members of the board cabinet it's my pleasure to introduce a canyon ridge school principal mrs jill hoppy to present an update on canyon bridge school good evening madam president members of the board dr kellis members of cabinet and our members of the community i am jill happy the very very proud principal of canyon ridge and when i was asked to do this board presentation i was super excited because there is nothing i like better than talking about canyon ridge so if you guys need to give me the hook to stop feel free anyway who are we we are a k-8 school our enrollment as of yesterday was at 931 students our mascot is the cougar our signature program is stem science technology
021engineering and mathematics our vision is inspiring the innovators of tomorrow and our core values our student-centered innovative and hands-on learning so um we'll start with some of our opportunities that we are focusing on is so i'm sure you have heard other schools talk about our west ed protocol and our instructional practices so each quarter our team which is mr griesel our assistant principal and our tls mrs justine palmer we conduct walkthroughs throughout the school and we use our protocol and that protocol becomes our roadmap so that everybody has that same idea of what best practice instruction is is so our first quarter well i should say in our pre-service we presented the protocol which hasn't changed i'm just to revisit that for our teachers and then let them know what our expectations are too is
022so um through our our talking and our learning we really wanted to focus on objectives but coupled with the objectives is our success criteria and it's not only okay just to put an objective on the board it needs to be coupled with the success criteria so that students actually know what the expectations of learning is so that picture right there is an example from a sixth grade or i apologize the fifth grade math class and it doesn't only just say what i could explain but it also has the levels of proficiency so that the students know where i'm partially there where i'm proficient and i'm highly proficient and it really has helped our students as well as our parents because they have access to it understand this is what we're learning and this is how
023we demonstrate it um it's we're talking about math adoptions and textbooks adoptions we are a pilot school for illustrative math or i am and so we have noticed that over the past two years our scores that have decreased in math about 10 percent um i'm always up for let's you know change something we can't continue to do things the same way expect a different result so um when we were asked if anybody wanted to pilot we said ah sas please um so in grades three through eight we are piloting illustrative math what we really like about it is it couples with what we believe students need which is hands-on learning our core value academic conversations which is part of the protocol and critical thinking so that is one of the things that so far our
024teachers have been learning and when you but you pilot a program it does take a lot of work um but we have support from um cami bernard from our our math specialist and justine palmer so um we're we're moving along with that quite nicely and then teaching at a dok level 2 or above so do ok depth of knowledge 2 and higher again we noticed that over the last two years our ela scores have gone down approximately seven percent and we attribute that to just the the dok is important because we have to have that critical thinking um so we know that there's a direct alignment with dok2 and above and problem solving and critical thinking so those are the ways that we are right now just trying to think differently work differently to increase
025our students knowledge our celebrations um so canyon ridge is recognized as an a plus school of excellence through the arizona department of education however part of that is that we have to recertify every three years that re certification was up the first year that i was principal and you have to be there for three years so we waited patiently for my three years and then the pandemic happened and it was all postponed so last year we collaboratively with our instructional cabinet and community parent input student input we wrote the application and it was due august 31st but true to canyon we submitted it before the end of may um and then i called and i just wanted to make sure that we got it all in and we did and um we're waiting for september
026or october to see if we get a site visit so hopefully we'll have more celebrations and when we're awarded that application um we're also undergoing our so cognia used to be advanced dead and um three four years ago now probably um we were awarded a stem certification that is also up for renewal so we are undergoing that big project as well and then um we're really excited that our staff development is focused uh in person and we're very very focused so that's a celebration um we have on our campus uh um onyx and he has a therapy dog and a therapy dog's main job is animal assisted activities so our onyx all he has to do is be him and spread joy the kids have an opportunity to pet him to watch him um just
027to be in class with him and he absolutely he could walk down the hall and everybody smiles and just wants to give him a little pet um so we have our therapy dog onyx and then lastly on friday we have found out that stacy peterman a sixth grade teacher at our school was awarded the staples hashtag think a teacher contest a parent submitted an application and i found out that thousands of applications were submitted and only 20 teachers across the nation were selected for the grand prize and stacy peterman was one of them and so what that meant for her personally is a two thousand dollar check but for the entire canyon ridge school we are being honored with five thousand dollars that we get to share evenly amongst the staff and then they get
028to go shopping at staples which they probably normally do but this time it's on staples not out of them so we're super excited about all of those celebrations that are going on and then focuses so uh um we have a canyon ridge plan on a page and our plan on a page everybody has it we have pd binders for the teachers and and we ask them to use this plan on a page as your roadmap and it outlines what our cip goals are our action steps are our measures of success are so that is a something that we are using as that that roadmap we are also using the west ed protocols so research supports that when we're learning something new we have to be exposed to it 23 times for it to really sink
029in and have mastery so our amazing tls justine palmer she is doing a spiral review so we have mini pd's each monday pd that we have and we're highlighting the different instructional practices within the protocol and with them so for example um we will talk about academic conversations will the teachers know academic conversations but we will introduce a different strategy so that they you know because it gets boring if you're always turn and talk to a partner turn and talk to partner right so we try to mix it up a little bit and um and just have different ways to do that um and then we have a champion program and our champion program really pairs the adults with students um and just making sure that everybody has an advocate everybody has that friendly voice
030and then we have a wellness committee and our wellness committee is uh led by coach richardson and a group of individuals um and their main purpose is just to make sure that our positive canyon culture remains um so we do fun things like last friday we had a potluck and it was in celebration of football season um and we're also in the beginning stages of our 30-day squat challenge so we're all walking around with sore thighs but that's all right we're healthy um but that's just ways that we could talk and just to get to know each other and smile and just connect so um and then lastly i know that we talk a lot about returning to normal well our theme is we're re we don't want just normal we want better and how
031do we get better revisiting those strong practices that we have so um we are back up and running for our quarterly stem council meetings um we are back in person we have a canyon ridge university and that's coupled with our pta meetings is so that we share topics um our our pta meeting is next week it's uh um the canyon ridge university is on move on when reading and and k3 literacy and how we support students we're also going to be talking about math engagement strategies stem activities the engineering design process so we really want to bring our community back together and just to share things that are going on with them and be an educational hub for our students as well as our parents um we will be having our spring stem festival again
032and that's a april 2nd we have our chief science fairs we have a lot of partnerships so we have our d-a-r-s-a-r we have our arizona scitec we have our volunteers who come in um so we have a lot going on we have a whim um and then our events are back on campus so um next friday if you guys want to stop over we have our constitution day and we have our faces of george washington and our student founders who are going to be talking about you know george washington in the early days for the constitution we have our veterans day assembly um that is in the process of being planned polar express read across america school dances we're having a sock out tomorrow night if you guys want to come on over um but
033if but overall canyon is a place that we all want to be and we love connecting with our students and our community again um and i feel like this year we definitely are so thank you questions i have a question who gets to take onyx home every night our amazing stacy peterman does i bet there would be a lottery for him uh thank you miss hoppy that was there's lots of great things that are going on at canyon ridge but then there's always lots of things going on in each of our schools so i appreciate that one of the things that you had said about the a plus application process during your third year is it because i know they're going to do a site visit is this recertification more rigorous or less rigorous than
034the initial application was i would imagine because we had that time lapse it's it's probably going to be just like it's starting all over again so um i haven't experienced the the walkthroughs so i i'm gonna just prepare and it's gonna be more rigorous okay all right okay good answer and congratulations to stacey one out of 20 nationally that's that's a big feather in her cap and yours so thank you very much thank you just have a couple questions thank you for the wonderful presentation of everything that you're doing at canyon it sounds fabulous i really liked your how you're tying success criteria to your academic objectives and the question of how do i know i'm successful i think it really makes it meaningful and um for the students to know and kind of put
035in relatable terms for them very measurable so i think that's pretty exciting that you're you're doing that thank you yeah um and then just curious i know last year you had a goal to focus on um grades three through eight and uh in regard to ela and math and making some improvements in those areas how was that coming along i know last year was kind of crazy but have you noticed some growth for those students uh you know so we're in the process that now that we've been in school for about six weeks of doing our first unit assessments uh um and our we're gearing up for our benchmark assessments coming in um it just in our short-term data they are progressing um are we where we want to be i i can't 100 say
036insta until i see that big solid data um you know for us we want a hundred percent of students at meeting or exceeding um so when we don't reach that what can we do um but we do have a lot of work to do we definitely slipped last year i you know we could we could just hypothesize that the pandemic had a really large role to play online learning um excessive absences a lot of students having to go on quarantine so this year with the students in school learning um it's been so much better just and we have small group instruction again and i i really believe that our our teachers go above and beyond um to make sure that they are learning sounds great and last but not least so what kind of dog
037is onyx so onyx is an australian and i think it's an australian shepherd he where is it so you saw a little picture of him oh yeah his little head is right down there he's by the check he kind of looks like a shepherd yeah oh yeah very sweet thank you thank you thank you so much for the presentation [Applause] madam president members of the governing board dr kellis and members of cabinet it's my pleasure this evening to to present dr ashley longoria who is the principal of dysart middle school uh dysart middle school existed once upon a time it uh transitioned to dysart elementary school and we've brought it back from the ashes to become dysart middle school once again and we're excited this evening for dr longori to present the the school presentation
038for dysart middle school good evening i don't think i can follow up onyx but i will do my best on that um so we are home to 726 5th through 8th grade students half of those students are brand new eagles after the merge with el mirage elementary we are proud to represent the blue black in yellow we've had so many opportunities this school year whether it's opening one of the four brand new middle schools in the district or helping our students become comfortable with high school style transitions and bell schedules um or really maximizing our instructional time to ensure our teachers are teaching bill to bell in addition to that from the 18 19 school year to the i'm really short to the 2021 school year we are down 17 proficiency specifically in seventh grade
039math this is one of our biggest areas for academic growth so to help support that this has led us to a wonderful opportunity to develop and implement a school-wide tier two math intervention period daily where all math teachers pull small groups of students based on academic need as determined by weekly common formative assessments we partnered with sonoran heights middle school to create those common weekly formative assessments some of our celebrations this year um include that we are already in week three of our weekly data chats between administration and um teachers dr dean has even had a chance to stop by and check one of these out together in that conversation we analyze student by student standard by standard data which really helps drive the decisions for that tier two intervention program daily that i just
040discussed and then also helps teachers share instructional best practices we are thrilled about increasing the amount of opportunities students have at the 8th grade level to take high school credit before we had algebra 1-2 but we've added spanish 1 and pe we're also very excited about our student opportunities that students have both before during and after school some of those opportunities include our cte lab elective which has grown in a lot of popularity i invite you to come out and check out some of the cool things that the students are doing just today they were building a little framed house and they're hammering away in there and really enjoying that class we're also growing our choir and we've got some clubs and athletics running speaking of athletics our focus for the year is just high
041expectations with all three a's so academics arts and athletics we want to grow our arts program so we had a good interest this year as we rolled out some new electives for students and we want to continue to grow those we aim to be competitive athletics not to brag but we did win three out of four games last night so go eagles thank you and then finally for academics we are all about supporting our teachers through professional learning and coaching aligned to best instructional practices so that we can accelerate that student achievement and growth in closing as a former dysart elementary school student and dysert high school graduate i could not be more proud to be here serving my community so thank you i remember you saying that you were a dicer i start elementary
042person so yes i just can't leave the district no you can't now you can um i do have a question for you uh dr longoria um you had mentioned about the scores uh for math being down and um yet you have uh out algebra one two um from last year to this year did you see any um did you see more students sign up for the algebra one two from last year to this year absolutely last year we ran one class of one two and one two honors in one section because we didn't have enough students to fill two this year we are running two full sections of each class so our goal is to continue to grow that okay okay good thank you in regard to your um your arts program as far as
043wanting to to build it and expand it what are you thinking like what types of ideas do you have to do that great question i would love to base it on student interest so this year we had so many students sign up for 2d art so painting and drawing the next crop of students are very interested in activities like ceramics so we would love to bring that on board also we have piano running and more of the performing arts so dance and programs like that for daily electives for our middle school students wonderful and i just wanted to thank you for um just being so transparent and open regarding scores and things i just really appreciate the honesty and um and i'm always excited to hear about you know the fact that people are talking
044about tier two instruction because that really seems to make a huge difference anytime i've ever heard or seen a school talk about those interventions they they really do see a lot of benefit from it so again just really appreciate i know it's sometimes hard to talk about the realities that not everything is perfect but um it just is sometimes you know we're going to have areas we need to work on and i just appreciate your openness and that you have a plan to address it for the sake of our students so thank you for the wonderful presentation thank you thank you so much as a follow-up on the math question so it was the seventh graders so now they're eighth graders that's so is it the eighth i don't know if i understood you correctly
045so is it the eighth graders now that you're focusing on the tier two instruction or seventh grade good question so we are doing tier two school-wide so fifth or eighth grade students for math math overall for us was lower than ela and we did take a dip in all grades our biggest dip was that seventh grade current eighth graders as you mentioned so we are focusing all grades um but technically really honing in on those eighth graders to get them ready for high school thanks okay thank you so much thank you [Applause] next we have item h1 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellis madam president members of the board superintellis cabinet and guests tonight it's my pleasure
046to bring to you a recommendation for the addition of an interim elementary assistant principal at west point elementary as you know last week you did appoint amy michaels as the interim principal um at west point and now we are looking to fill her spot so additionally we're recommending tonight the appointment of miss jennifer evans to fill the interim position for the remainder of the 21-22 school year she miss evans was previously or currently until you vote currently is in the position of dean of students at luke elementary and she received her master's at nau so i'll stand for any questions that you may have okay um i'd like to move the approval of the addition of an interim elementary school assistant principal position in the appointment of miss jennifer evans a former lumberjack as interim
047element well she's still you're always a lumberjack sorry as interim elementary school assistant principal for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year second motion passes congratulations and miss evans is in the audience as you know miss evans is in the audience so congratulations louis so do i need to refresh to see the everybody could refresh as i moved item f9 down to action discussion i refreshed and i didn't i don't have one i refreshed i got it you did okay do i need to sign out and sign back in no just do your response maybe third time's a chat let me know when moving to item h2 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board and members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellis madam president members of
048the board superintendent kelly's cabin and guests it is my pleasure to bring to you tonight a great opportunity between ottawa university arizona and the dysart unified school district in an employee scholarship program and mr john williams is here to present that to you thank you dr croto madam chair members of the board dr kellis and cabinet i thought it was going to be so easy nailed it all right coming forward today with some very exciting some great news opportunities within our community for our dysart employees our entire staff coming from community education we have 90 plus employees all of which are classified and this is a great opportunity for them to further their epic further their education and so um this partnership with ouaz and i'm gonna um introduce dr dennis tyner president of ouaz
049in a second to say a few words to you all it's just an outstanding partnership it will discount um nearly 80 percent discount tuition at ouaz for all current uh dysart employees in addition we want to incentivize and promote and thank them for all their hard work day in and day out so there are performance pay criteria embedded in this for all those people that are exploring and and entering in this uh educational pathway and continue to work for dysart schools and on top of that once they've gotten through the program there is additional incentives if they stay with us so the idea is that we embrace our dysart employees our staff we embrace them in this in our school community we want them to grow with us and then we want them to stay
050here we want to train them and we want to retain them and and that's the goal here and brian sandusky and dr dennis tyner have been amazing partners dr john croto um and hr have been amazing in putting all this together and and we're really proud proud to present this too so i want to welcome dr tyner up now to say a few words thank you john madam president members of the board dr kellis and members of his cabinet uh i am truly delighted to be here speaking to you uh the reason i'm so delighted is because ottawa university came to this community uh four and a half years ago and we came here with a plan but our plan was limited in what we were able to do and we knew when we came
051here that we would have to rely on members of the community and large organizations in this community to assist us and as i stare at you jim dean you know how instrumental you were in our relationship with the dysart unified school district to make so many things happen for us we came here with a full slate of athletic teams but no playing surfaces no fields at all to play on we've utilized the dysart school district to teach some of our laboratories when we didn't have laboratories and on and on the list goes and so it's my honor to really stand in front of you and tell you that we believe that this is a great opportunity for you and we're just delighted to be able to do this uh we know like you i don't
052want to speak on behalf of the dysart unified school district but we value education so we believe that this is a great opportunity to provide education to those people who for whatever reason in their lifetime didn't have that opportunity to pursue an undergraduate degree when the time came with what they graduated high school and so it's uh we believe it's a super opportunity to provide that for students who are would come from your organization who could take classes through our online programs they could take classes on ground in a face-to-face environment they can select whichever way they'd like to do that they can choose from any major we talked originally about just selecting particular majors and doing this in a cohort model which of course would be beneficial to us but we when in our
053conversations with john we thought it was just best to open the door and provide this for any major that any student wanted to pursue with us so we're delighted again to provide this opportunity we thank the dysart unit unified school district for helping us to achieve our goal and our first four years here ottawa university had its hand out and we were asking everybody what you could do for us to help us be successful and today it's it feels good for us to be able to say what can we do for you and we're providing this opportunity i do want to make one correction of john's words we don't use the terminology discount in the world of higher education so what we're doing is we're providing scholarships for any members of the dysart unified school
054district who would like to take us up on this undergraduate offer and i would be happy to address any comments questions with john actually i would like to thank you dr tyner um as a uh somebody that received their undergrad and their masters through um ottawa 15 years ago oh geez um i had a great experience um i transferred from another college and remained nameless and came over to ottawa um during my undergrad and it was one of the best choices i had ever made so when i saw this on the agenda i was like yay because those people are going to get an exceptional experience so thank you very much it's always great to meet an alum yes i have a question that looks like this uh goes through what june 2023 so if
055we prove it to the night it's kind of like it'll go for two years and is that correct madame president member champion that is correct and then i do have another question on the scholarship incentives um this is incredible i love it it's great is this contingent on gpa at all or so they would follow the same rules and regulations that all of our students follow at the school which indeed has a gpa requirement in order to remain enrolled at the institution that is correct and like anybody could do this so you could sign up get trained work as a bus driver for a couple years and then do this and then if you wanted to go into the classroom or you know even if you're a teacher and you decide you want to become
056an administrator you could sorry sorry mr hicks he's like you're still my yes that is true it's exactly what we avoid to our employees again the value to us of education we believe that people will come in in particular areas some of them are uneducated before they come to us others have their degrees already and they want to advance in an organization and we believe that one of the great opportunities to do that is through education thank you part-time employees can qualify for this as well because it says all that would be all employees if the dysart unified school district wants to exclude them they are entitled to exclude them we are not we are extending this to all employees of the dice unified school district okay thank you josh that's great i have a
057question first of all thank you so much what a what a gift working with us the way that you're working with us um just for clarification so the and i won't say discount scholarships scholarship um well how do i put that into a sentence regarding that okay so that the reduction of the eighty percent tuition and then said equals the 250 um is that then the tuition amount is is provided in a scholarship less two hundred fifty dollars or does it is it two does it come to two hundred fifty dollars like per credit hour or per class it's it will be 250 per credit hour so we have our regular rate and when students are billed uh they will be billed at an amount that is at our current rate and then a scholarship
058will reduce that amount to down to 250 per credit so what is your uh credit hour now like without a scholarship so if you if you look at the way we work it's i'm not trying to avoid the question uh we we cost 29 600 in tuition per year and that's for anywhere from 12 to 18 credits per semester double that is 24 to 236 for a year so it's a it's a range so you can you can take as many as 18 credits at that rate oh okay so then whatever however many classes you take basically your scholarship would be would reduce it eighty percent and then whatever that balance is is what the student would pay when we say eighty percent eighty percent is a a round figure right so if you if
059you took fewer credits then the amount would be a larger percentage and if you took larger credits it would be a less amount okay i see and then is this just for undergraduate degrees currently this is only for undergraduates we are looking at the next step once we get this one off the ground okay and then um miss grant asked earlier in regards to just as far as um all employees being eligible do our employees have to be employed by for a certain length of time to be eligible mr um williams no no they just have to be current dice aren't employees okay well while they're in the program well they're important and so then my last question in regard to the additional benefits is that when you talk about perfect attendance are you talking
060about in school so like during the semester are you talking about at work for the year that's applicable to their work hours okay so for the year correct okay all right thank you and one of the things we i'd asked john when we had our conversations is so we had we ran a program similar to this with the city of surprise another one of our partners and uh we thought that it worked better because there was an incentive for the employees because the city of surprise also rewarded their employees by putting a portion of their tuition in place and we thought that it helped with the program it made it more affordable for the people and i thought that it would help here as well so my recommendation to john was if the school could
061put something into this for the employees i think you'd have a better response thank you so much that's wonderful i just want to mention what miss pritchard said that you know this is really and truly a gift so thank you for that and there's no other commentary i will motion to approve the agreement between dysart unified school district and ottawa university arizona and to create the ottawa university arizona dysart employee scholarship program and authorize the superintendent to sign the agreement and any affiliated documents second it's a tie yeah you're the alumni i'm the alum okay there it is motion passes thank you so much thank you we look forward to your first graduates walking across the stage and having you in the audience watch them thank you so much moving to item h3 dr kellis
062thank you madam president members of the board of members of cabinet dr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellis madam president members of the board superintellis cabinet and guests tonight we bring to you iba standards as we do each year for you to review provide input on these standards and take action regarding these standards as i said this year we recommend the use of the established district standards that have been used and previously approved by the governing board and the standards you can see there are they guide us in our process in the iba which is starting in october by the way so that information comes up but these standards are legal and these guide us through the whole process during the iba legal affordable alignment to obviously our district beliefs sustainable viable
063efficient necessity judicious and equitable so with that we asked the governing board to approve these standards and i'll stand for any questions that you may have dr crow during the last time that you met were these discussed in any way that any possible changes or somebody that they wanted something more that they wanted or um everybody because we we have used these for many years and they have worked well but i'm just wondering was there any type of discussion like that madam president member sorry sink bill that is a great question we lead off our iba process with these standards so they are reviewed ken and i as facilitators review these standards we take input and actually everybody agreed with all the standards they were happy to abide by those standards but that this is
064how we lead off the meetings when we begin in october thank you good to hear um i'm i'm not quite sure about that word equitable just because i don't know if we should treat every single employee the same as we talked about with our 301 monies um i don't think we should just do a blanket statement for everybody maybe we could you know and i don't think when we give raises i don't know if there's a way to give raises based on individual performances not just 301 versus just hey everybody gets three percent i don't know how everyone else feels madam president member chaffin um that that is the key to equitable it's not equal it's equitable um so in the equity we take a look at the groups and do other groups need more
065than certain other groups and that's why we use the word equitable and not equal so two different words and very specific about being equitable because some groups let's take our last process the bus drivers did receive a little bit more than some other groups because it took a little bit more to bring them up to the standard of where they need to be so that's a key word there is equitable and not equal so is that just equitable across the board and everything or just in certain areas um remember chaff and that would be equal so equitable is just providing the needs to the groups of whatever they need to be so equitable is kind of a theory of some groups may need more to bring them to a point that's uh that they can
066function than other groups so it's not necessarily equal across the board it's looking at every group to see what they possibly need in order to make them function and and bring them up to where they need to be if that kind of explains it so it's it's not equality it's equitable it's equity i'll entertain an emotion on this item okay i move to adopt the ipa i moved to adopt the iba standard that's established for the 2021-2022 meet and confer second motion passes thank you moving to item h4 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board of members of cabinet mr hicks will introduce this item good evening madam president members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues and community members as this agenda states um administration is asking the governing board to
067approve this resolution that was drafted by our attorney to join the class action settlement with blue cross blue shield um i will say just editorial i've been doing this 20 some years as a business manager stuff this is i get lots of class action notices here there look into it doesn't really apply this is the first one bringing to the governing board because after call talking to our attorney and doing a little investigation um it was that this does look like it is eligible that we could be receiving something from the standpoint so um this is about the limited competition and the potential increase in premium costs related to health insurances and the administrative services that were provided between uh 2008 and 2020 and so there is a settlement that has been reached into by
068both parties that sets aside 2.67 billion dollars we are in the self-funded plan side of it so we do not purchase the individual plans or the fully insured plans we are in the self-funded plan uh from all indications that i'm looking through all the different facts and um information which means that is the much lower of the two point uh some billion dollars uh roughly around 1.7 1.8 billion is for the fully insured product and for the self-insured there's about 120 million dollars left and so what this would do is authorize us to submit the claim that is due by november 5th to the claims administrator putting us as somebody that's in line for a disbursement and so it would go in as representing all employees and we would probably just put it back into
069the ebt i say probably because i need to talk to our attorney on some of these things on how disbursement comes since this is the first time this has ever happened in my career so we would probably put it back into the ebt and probably just look at a recommendation of reducing rates for one year or something to that to go back in the benefit of all employees and so i will stand for any questions that was my question mr hicks so thank you so so you mentioned that you would be deducting i guess from their insurance premiums um did i am i don't know if i'm understanding yeah madam president members of the board not sure how much money we'll get but if we receive any money it'll go into the employee benefit trust
070employee benefit trust makes a recommendation to the governing board of what our rates will be let's just say we get an extra hundred thousand dollars we could then lower everybody's rates by whatever the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars for the year um that could be one option that we look at so this potentially could benefit people that were not employed at the time of the incident it could um madam president members of the board this is really coming back to the dysert so this is our costs we're the main spender of the the costs for so yes that could happen we could look at something else crafting i have no idea how much money is coming back and i said there is 120 million dollars set aside for everybody who's eligible to submit a
071claim and until the claims are submitted they don't know the disbursement so we're simply just approving the agreement to go into the settlement correct correct but we're not um making the determination for how that is processed that would be up to the board of trustees madam president ultimately that would be the board's uh hearing questions if that's the direction we'll definitely make sure that we bring that back to the board but the bohr employee benefit trust board would be making that recommendation to the board governing board but ultimately the board will approve the final decision those five people first madam president members of the board the governing board always approves all of our rates and our benefit package and structure so that's always something the governing board does this will be now part of that
072process okay thank you any other questions okay i'll make a motion to approve the resolution and authorizing the joining of the class action settlement and authorize the superintendent or designate to sign all requisite documents second benefited by mrs pritchard yes oh passes okay next up we have action discussion h5 dr kellis thank you madam president members of the board of members of cabinet i will ask um mr hicks if he will explain what this agenda item is and then i believe there's board members have some comments about this um thank you madam president members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues community members this is the requesting approval and ratification of our expense vouchers so as we're receiving purchase orders are approved as long as there's budget capacity it goes forward we make purchases and
073the vouchers are coming back to the board in a ratifying sense that we've already made the purchase and coming back to the board for their approval thank you i know that one of the the concerns was some of the um the scholastic purchases on here um typically i know in the past we see supplemental classroom materials being presented um in consent agenda but not as part of the voucher listing with over 400 pages so normally we might just see a few pages on supplementary classroom materials so it's interesting to see individual purchases of books listed in this well and i'm curious about certain book titles that could possibly have components possibly have components to the crt certain titles that i've looked up and googled and i have not personally read the books but looking into
074the books and looking at the titles and what it's about it appears that one of these books could be used for crt another one is promoting religion and then another one is all about vaccinations which could lead to a discussion on the coven 19 and all three of those are pretty much illegal at this point can i ask where these books are listed yes um if you're looking at the expense document the admin on page 13 is the one about vaccinations 13 of the document and it is page 12 of the actual voucher listing and let's see taking strides i think that's there's another one on here too but most of these are done on page between page 11 and 13. and one of them is about from reading the summary and looking at those
075things one of them is about a young man of a certain heritage who is in a poor neighborhood and then moves to another area of town that is more prominent of a different heritage and he is made to feel bad about himself by members of his school and community and the new heritage madam president if i could ask dr pauline he's done a little bit of research on the three titles that ms chaffin has made note of here yes i gave you madame president uh members of the board dr kelly's cabinet um um first is to answer that question concern about why are they in the voucher so it does go back to that supplementary policy of individual titles can be ordered at the you know invited by administration and so these would be examples
076of titles that were vetted for social workers to use and um for example about vaccinations we were required to do many vaccinations and so i've not talked to a social worker per se but admin reported that sometimes students have you know concerns about the many vaccinations arizona already requires and so it's really support for that we're happy to look into any titles or questions or concerns and certainly with some more time be happy to research those that's why they're on the voucher and not a lot of times when they're supplementary listed it's more for a grade level or for the whole district so again these are individual titles that have been ordered for staff use and embedded by staff can i just ask specifically in regard to the the book that crystal just mentioned about
077little boy um would there be a reason why we would be ordering books such as that that seem like they could align with a crt type of approach even though we've said multiple times we're not teaching crt and dysart yeah we definitely do not teach crt and dysart and um i would have to do more research on that per se just an initial look at it i think there's a variety of topics that book covers and and my curse review it does not cover crt but it certainly could warrant for the review ma'am president miss pritchard as dr pulley mentioned these titles are titles single books that were purchased for the social workers who will be and are who are and continue to work with individual students and small groups and perhaps larger groups class
078sizes but as if you take a student who very likely would fit the very same scenario that ms chaffin just described a social worker having read through this could be able to better talk to the student a student who comes from one neighborhood to another and is struggling with the culture of that new neighborhood the social worker would be able to meet with that student individually and and help that student navigate through the experience um it's not intended that these books become part of a classroom discussion like the teacher stands up and reads the book to the class rather on a case-by-case basis based on the students personal experience and what they may be going through at the time um as far as the the religion i did get a sample of the book i
079looked through the pictures of it it covers actually about 10 different topics and on towards the end of the book it brings up one reference to that so if that is something that the the board is not comfortable with then we can pull that title from from the schools and and collect those those books back but the intent is not to teach crt the intent is that social workers have tools in in their toolbox to be able to work with individual students who have these experiences in their life i guess one of my concerns too is you know when the social workers do whole group instruction i mean i i understand we have really good ones who understand are our that we it's illegal to teach crt and our social workers as a whole understand
080that my concern is yes this is how it is intended but it's it still has that component and it still has that possibility to be misconstrued in a way that is illegal to teach madam president miss chaffin uh very much the possibility exists um i would extend that possibility to many other opportunities that um that are out there but go back to as you just stated we have had this conversation with our social workers they do understand the the nature of the the curriculum and the intent of the board that we protect the the population of the district from those things that are not legal there are a lot of things that we teach that are not crt but if you look at from a different lens they could be construed as crt and we
081had a discussion at the last board meeting about some certain terms and it's it's um never to my wildest dreams would i ever have imagined that some of those terms would have been categorized in in a crt discussion but others might and so that that shift in in mindset is something that we will continue to be vigilant about and while all of our social workers have had that instruction provided to them and they are on board with the the will of the board to say that will never happen i can't promise that but i would say that again anybody any parent any student any teacher who has any discomfort with the instruction of a social worker a teacher substitute a bus driver any employee of the district that that should be brought to our attention
082and we will have that conversation thank you and have you looked at those other two titles have we have we done book reviews on them just read through them i would like to know what books you're talking about yeah absolutely um the first title was taking strides by gary soto and the second title was abc mindful me by christian engel and the third sorry abc abc mindful me okay and the third one was you wouldn't want to live in a world without vaccinations by anne rooney thank you madam president uh as you and i have discussed if there are any items on this list that any board member has discomfort with these have been purchased but they can be collected back and if the board approves this this item that does not preclude administration from
083taking action and pulling these titles back may i ask dr polling have we looked at the books and read through them a cursory review of them yes and i've not talked to the people that have read them but certainly a cursory review of them yes okay but we haven't read them i have not talked to the person that read them so i need to get a little more time to get information on that okay and you haven't read them i haven't read them okay um just to go back to your statement about the policy um dr polling we do have it on our policy where as long as you're buying under 10 units of of a book uh that we don't need the review but this is 420 pages and many times the same titles
084are repeated i don't know i haven't gone through and counted them to see if we got to the magical number 10 number or not um but as you know even if it's one book if one person whether it whoever it is whether it's the teacher the social worker whoever if they're doing a group instruction with that or just reading a book to a classroom you know you're potentially capturing more than just a few children you know their minds so i do think it's important that maybe that policy be revisited when we when we talk about it again um but i would appreciate just um the follow-up on these particular titles and i'm sure that i have a few more again i just have to go through all the lines in prison president dennis moore absolutely
085thank you thank you for that absolutely and members of the board if i could comment the books are vetted and the reason why they're on different lines it could be because each school has a different code right and each code and so it's likely and we have to verify title by title but likely that um you know one copy went to the school or one to this school and that 10 or under would be per school and so no those books should not be used for whole class instruction that's per the policy as well so just to clarify but happy for any input on that okay thank you thank you can i can i ask just uh i was thinking about this on the way to the meeting too and this seems like a good
086time to bring it up so like first for an item like this um and it's it's an action item so there's going to have to be some a vote can the board have discussion on like what the plan will be so we kind of more vote as we know where like the different points of view and we can kind of discuss it collaborate collaboratively rather than we each maybe don't necessarily know where one is coming from and then we just vote as individuals when we should be voting as a whole for whatever's in the best interest i mean like some of us like everyone can kind of like share what they think about it and we can kind of know as a board where everyone's at before taking action i mean unless you know you
087see what i'm saying i i don't are you talking about each item that's a consent agenda item no i'm talking about in general like so for this you know we're getting ready to someone's getting ready to make a motion and it's where it sounds like there's concern with some of the books that were on the list but you know it's a matter of we've got to decide whether they're going to approve all these vouchers but there was a concern brought by a board member so we have to take action and i'm just thinking our actions as a board should represent what's in the best interest of the students of the district and we should be moving as as a whole wholeheartedly as a board making decisions so i just wish sometimes there was more discussion
088from everyone on the board so we can know as a whole others thoughts which may which may end up influencing another or changing perspective and so we're kind of all on the same page as much as we could be and maybe we won't be on the same page but like crystal brought up a very you know concerning point for her and i just would like to hear from the rest of the board to see like what should we do with this like or is it a matter of well i just just just to clarify miss pritchard um i want if i'm understanding dr polin correctly that he was waiting for someone's feedback on these particular books correct i was saying they've had a cursory review and they can have more of a review if the
089board would like oh i thought you said that i had not had a chance to talk to all the people involved in this situation in terms of district office working side admit with social workers that would just need more time right okay and miss densmore was talking about how she had a couple of them or there were several different ones um i'm not sure how we're going to be able to take what he said and then what she said you know with the different elements that she was talking about so that's three books i haven't looked at i haven't looked at anything and if she has more it's going to be kind of hard to you know these these expense vouchers have already gone there they've already been paid and gone and of course we
090ratify afterwards um if those books come back or you know after they've done the review um we can have them pulled right okay so um is it something that we need to vote on tonight or go back over this voucher and look to see what further books that just might tweak us wrong or something so i think what needs to happen is we need to i don't want to be presumptive but we probably should approve this so because we need to make these payments um or ratify the payments um but i but the discussion was necessary and this discussion may still be further and that's sorry i'm not sure yeah i don't think that we're voting on whether we're not we're going to approve these books or not tonight because they've already been paid that's
091right the vouchers have already been gone but i think in the case where we do have them presented as actual supplementary materials and it's not this i think that we should have those conversations then i agree with you i agree and kind of exactly what just happened is exactly what i meant like so we're all talking about okay so we you know this is probably fine to approve now and when it comes back just so it's more rather than just everyone voting as individuals yes no yeah when really just coming together to say hey this is probably the best approach and this is the direction we're going to go as a board right rather than everyone just kind of votes in a silo and then your your view is lost maybe or you feel that
092way and then so thank you i don't think the discussion is going to be over with right um because miss chapman has brought it up um [Music] i'm not sure how detailed each board member goes over the payroll vouchers and the expense vouchers but i i do scan through them and look at them at each meeting so of course if there is something that catches my eye i do contact mr hicks and ask him about it but that's just because i've prepared expense vouchers before in my life so um but that's just me before us before a social worker makes a request for one of these books or several of these books they don't read them ahead of time to know what the content is or is it just based on we get a i
093don't know a catalog and then the catalog gives the title and then a paragraph about what the book is about madam president member grant the board yes the the book should be read and vetted absolutely prior to ordering prior to ordering if available and so yes they should be should that should be whether that request comes through with a social worker or for admin working with social workers so miss um grant if i could just also add that you see [Music] i don't know how many titles are on here a lot and for every social worker to read every book before we purchase them we have 24 social workers and it's not likely that all 24 are going to go through this proposed list or this catalog and request preview copies of the books and
094read them all yes it is great when social workers have the book in advance and can read through them as as we all order books from amazon or from kindle or from wherever we can take recommendations from friends from book clubs from other social workers and whatnot and and act on those those references but the ultimate final decision is administration is responsible for the content of what goes into our schools and it's our responsibility that if something is not compatible with the will of the board then that we understand that and and protect the schools from those titles looking forward for um the the content here i appreciate miss pritchard's comment because as we have been saying several times this evening anytime anything comes up that discussion should be reflective of the will of the
095board when i say the will of the board it should be the will of the board and those general conversations should be all-inclusive and i understand that but i mean for example on here is clifford the red dog well i think everybody has read about clifford the red dog but so they may have heard from other social workers or something hey you should get this book but these are just titles i mean i don't know if they're all red flags just because of a title because i look at this and i go oh the feelings book what's that all about the bad seed it's okay to be different i mean these are just titles and so they could send up red flags and yet they're perfectly good books to use in the the proper in
096the settings that they're going to be that's my point i will also say that i don't just look at titles if i if i see something and a title pops out at me i look into it and i do some research i know and i try and find the book online so i can read through it and and i don't just go to one website i i go to like three four or five six and just try and peel back the layers and see what the actual essence and the core the actual story is as much as i can i know but i'm just commenting madame president if i could also add um thank you miss jaffin i will tell you that there are employees throughout the district who um often wonder if anybody reads
097these these vouchers and to know that people are the members of the board are reading through these and that you're making informed decisions is welcomed and appreciated thank you with that uh with that i move to approve ratify expense vouchers two two zero nine two two one zero two two one one two two one two two two zero one two two zero one three two zero one four and two zero one five in the amount of four million six hundred twenty two thousand six hundred thirty two dollars and fifty cents second i know it's a big number motion passes next we have a request for future agenda items okay this time i will make a motion to establish executive session to be held immediately during a recess in the regular meeting seconded by miss pritchard
098i think you do a verbal this time we'll reconvene the regular meeting all board members are present we'll move to item k-1 action regarding governing board decision to promote or retain student in the matter of rpa 2021-05 i will make a motion to uphold the decision to retain a student in the matter of rpa2021 dash pursuant to ars 15-342 and governing board policy 9.36 second motion passes next item is k2 um action regarding governing board decision to promote a retained student in the matter of rpa 2021-006 i move the governing board reverse the teacher's decision to retain a student in the matter of rpa2021-006 pursuant to ars 15-342-11 and governing board policy 9.36 with the modification that the student continue to receive math instruction and intervention in the fourth grade until student shows proficiency and
099fourth grade math standards second okay first motion passes thank you at this time i'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting second seconded by ms pritchard okay