001e e e to start off this evening we will um first of all we had a very nice reception for one of our departing board members Mrs Jennifer Tanner who's been on the board for 12 years so congratulations to her for [Applause] that I'm going to do one step further let's give her a standing ovation thank you for that um and thank you for all of her supporters who have uh been with her throughout her campaigns and and the work here in daiser um we have two new board members who are here this evening and we're going to take the next couple of minutes to officially swear them in as govern board members so I'd like to invite Crystal schaen and Joe Grant to come up and Miss Don denmore will take care of that
002and for your information Don is uh the board Clerk and she is presiding at this meeting come on up here oh great anyone want to go first I'll go first yeah okay thank you all right this time we'll call the the oath of office saring uh in ceremony to order we are here to administer and witness the newly elected governing board members taking their oath of office to comply with Arizona revised statutes Article 4 oath of office 38- 231 officers and employees required to take the Loyalty oath form classification as governing board Clerk and president proem I will administer the oath of office to Crystal Chaffin and Joe Grant at the conclusion of the swearing Inn Brenda Rosalez attesting officer will give further instructions to governing board members regarding the signing of the oath of
003office document and provide notary services Ryan McGinley will take photos during the event to post to the website at this time I'll call forward Chris Crystal Chaffin and you have the oath of office document um before any officer enters upon the duties of the office the officer shall take And subscribe to the following oath or affirmation I will read the oath of office in sections and then pause to allow you to repeat out out loud the section just read i crystal Chaffin do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona i crystal chap do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona that I will
004bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the the same and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of governing board member for daart Unified School District number 89 and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of governing board members for daart Unified School District number 89 according to the best of my abilities so help me God according to the best of my abilities so help me God now at this time I call forward Joe Grant before any officer enters upon the duties of the office the officer shall take And subscribe to the following oath or affirmation I
005will now read the oath of office in sections and then pause to allow you to repeat out loud the section just read I Joe Grant do solemnly swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona I Joe Grant swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Arizona that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same and defend them against all enemies foreign and domestic and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the sa and defend them against all enemies and domestic and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of the office of governing board member for dice art Unified School District
006number 89 and that I will faithfully and duties of the office of governing board M for Dart Unified School District number 89 according to the best of my abilities so help me God according to the best of my abilities so help me God congratulations [Applause] Ryan right thank you thank you we are going to start our regular board meeting in about 7 minutes so we'll have a quick recess until then e e e at this time I'd like to call the dier governing board public hearing and regular board meeting to order let the record reflect that all board members are here with the exception of Jay Leonard we'll start with 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
007nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all and first we have the public hearing for uh fiscal year 20120 through 2021 expenditure budget revision Dr Kellis um thank you madam chair as uh is required by law Whenever there is a change to our annual budget it requires a public hearing and U Mr Ken Hicks will introduce this item good evening president protm denmore and members of the board superintendent Dr Kellis colleagues and community members I'm pleased to be presenting our first budget revision of the fiscal year 2021 normally um I would be uh sitting here saying um we don't we're not required to do a budget revision at this time um but this is a unique year and with our budget actually going down right now it is actually required and so and
008also any time that we revise a budget and adopt uh a budget in that time uh public hearing is required so I'll go through this um probably a little quickly just because we're going to be revising it again in May and our budget will continue to adjust as we go through that because of the times and I'll try to explain some of that so in U this is our maintenance and operation fund broken out by the different categories and different programs and you can see just overall we're seeing about a $600,000 reduction there's a little more to it than just a small reduction of $600,000 uh we carry forward as reported back in October for our annual financial report of an increase um um that was probably um between about $1.5 to $2 million more
009than expected and so that increase in carry forward U with the anticipated reduction of our average daily membership that we already anticipated when we adopt this budget shows that with the reduction of where we are is um much smaller and so it is important that so we anticipated um through our process and during the times when we were adopting there was going to be some loss of students and so we we approved a budget with less students even though uh we have an increase of a loss of about another 1.8% students on top of what we're anticipating so the good news in that number is that we're better than the state average so the a Arizona joint legislative budget committee came out and they're anticipating right now that the state is down around 60,000 students
010that's about a 5% reduction uh Statewide and so we're from our budgeted process only about 1.8% reduction and so also as part of the revision we'll see uh a few slides down the road we'll um I'll point out our enrollment stabilization grant that we reive that's the Governor's cares uh funding that was allocated to school districts and our allocation about 5.2 million is part of this revision and so we'll be moving some expenditures out of M to cover and compensate for the decrease and over into the enrollment stabilization Grant um and um that is not the end of the reduction so that is the reduction just based on the reduction based on number of students going down there's another reduction going forward as um executive order uh from the governor also requires the school districts
011that do distance learning or remote learning must treat those students as if they were online um so for financial purposes only and so that what that means is uh online students are only funded full-time online students are only funded at 95% so there's another reduction coming in for the proportion of time that was spent online that we'll have to reduce our budget accordingly um by that 5% of those days and now that is not of just the first 100 days um I believe the executive order is the por of time that's online through the whole year so that's over 180 days so for example if we're um looking at 180-day calendar and there's been 30 days that have been online then we would take 30 of the 180 so it' be down to around 177%
012of the popul we would reduce it for 95% um down to 95% on that so just on the back of the envelope calculations and talking with ad a little bit it's probably another um that this adjustment will happen in January I'm looking at another one and half million doll reduction the good news is through coordinated efforts of planning of a conservative budget um through the ESG uh funds that are provided by the governor on top of the Esser funds that are provided Des directly to the district for covid related expenses even though we've had a lot of increas in expenses of increasing the devices either students or teachers or servers or software um we have had funding that has uh covered each and every one of that and we have not exhausted all of those
013funds so we'll be able to absorb that decrease as we're going forward to so um a very good collaborative effort and we knew early on um and through our budgeting process we accounted for most of these so I talked a lot right there through a lot of the different slides that it applies to um but I think it was a relevant conversation so that the governing board understands the reductions that are happening that will continue to happen due to covid and or our enrollment and the different funding sources that have been um used to support all those uh reductions going forward and that we're still in a very good place right now and I would actually say we're in a lot better place than almost every District I talk to right now um Capital funds
014um so there's a little bit of adjustment on the capital side here that is really just a slight decrease from our carry forward where we anticipated it it actually didn't materialize as high as we thought um and then an increased reduction from the state so we are still um reducing our capital from the state so that uh I think went from 1.6 million to 1.7 million so they're required to capture a certain amount of cut um when uh and that's spread out Over Districts with a thousand or more students and so depending on that enrollment they have to redistribute how that cut is and so that cut hit us a little bit harder um but you could see the emergency building renewal grant program that is the Arizona school facility program to help with our
015facilities as things fail we submit them roof um weatherization flooring HVAC we will submit all of those to our to the Arizona school facilities board um I think last year we were around $600,000 and you can see right now we're already at $1.1 million so Mr Young and his staff continue to do a great job of identifying building the relationship with our liaison from the school facilities board and submitting them as soon as possible so that we're getting funded and coverage for that Capital so that's relieving our current capital budget and putting the burden on the state and that is a really good thing classroom site fund this really is just a a slight change really it's increasing we included our interest earned from the previous year and a little bit adjustment on student counts
016had a little bit change um uh going forward on this budget our special project fund so you can see under federal grants um where it jumped from 18 million to 24 million um it is that increase that you can see that is where the enrollment stabilization Grant is coming in through the feds um that is helping support all of the reductions all the increased costs that are going forward um you also on the state grant that is going up that is the results based funding um and our food service is the same so a lot of changes going up and down we do present we soon as this is approved we push it and update our district website so um we put out and push out all of our budgets and all our afrs so
017that anybody can see it for our transparency sake and so we try to provide as much information to our community as as um as we think they could like but if they have any questions we do encourage them to call and come on in or um um over the phone ask the questions and we try to connect with our community as much as possible now I do normally go through the rainbow report in sometimes exhaustive detail um because we see so much more fluctuation going on and I'll be honest this is going to be skewed this year and next year because when we're taking so much expenses out and moving it to federal funds because of covid we're really pulling them off of this report and moving them into there so it is purposeful but
018at the same time it might skew this uh in in various ways going forward I think the most important is we continue to look at our revised budget at the Top Line uh the majority of the funds 62 and a half % uh going into the classroom and trying to make sure that our admin costs are kept in check and that's 8 and a half% but this will fluctuate and there could be wide fluctuations based on the federal uh Grant and where that money's those expenses are being pulled out from and moved over to the federal projects and that so I'm not going to uh belabor this report too much um the May revision when we revise to our final numbers uh we'll spend a little bit more time going through um the correlations and
019where we are on all of these so with that I will um stand for any questions and if there's no questions we'll um we'll see if the public has any comments thank you very much Ken um are there any questions from the rest of the board okay thank you um next we have Madam denmore this would be a time if there's anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this item and they're welcome to stand and approach the podium if there are none then you can proceed with the agenda thank you moving to um item C1 uh approval of the agenda form and I will um all right I will make a motion to prove the agenda form consistent with governing board policy and temporarily suspend any policy which with which this agenda
020may be inconsistent second okay we'll vote call for the vote okay call for the vote motion passes all right moving on to recognitions and celebrations um first we have the Valley Vista High School unified badminton double state champions Dr Kellis um thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet this evening we have several recognitions and uh Mr Dean is going to lead off with the first one good evening Madam chair members of the governing board Dr Kellis and members of cabinet we have a a bit of a change in our recognition um procedures that we're going to um begin this evening and have moving forward and that is when um we call your group's name for recognition we would like for you to remain seated until we call all names and
021then you'll come forward to receive um a certificate and then we would ask um that you proceed over to to Ryan McGinley um and Ryan has his hand up and um that you stand in front of the dice art background I don't know I'm sure there's an official name for it um and receive a picture um at that point in time so this evening we are excited to begin that process with the Valley Vista High School unified badminton team and Unified sports is a very important aspect within our school district and very much evident in terms of success at valy Vista High School Al Vista High School this year had a unified badminton double state champion and we are um absolutely thrilled and excited about that and we would like to recognize the following valy
022Vista Unified bad mitt recipients Trenton given Nick Mayberry Carter price Tyson given and Samantha Reyes Diaz would you please come forward to receive your certificate come on down and Samantha we're still working on getting yours and they brought some Hardware with them this evening as well and Trenton before you go you got to hold up the hardware we've got to see it show everybody in the audience let's give them a hand yes we'd also like to thank coach milbar um for for the outstanding job that she does um with the students thank you very very much congratulations for our next recognition I would like to extend a very special thank you to a very important group of individuals who have gone above and beyond and done extraordinary work for the district in supporting a an
023initiative and early last summer uh late spring the governing board called for an election for an override and the the way the laws are um the district cannot use District resources to promote such a an initiative nor can the uh the governing board um take action to to promote or to not promote a as a board um that puts it on the on the hands of community members to step up and to carry that that responsibility um to to help support the initiative that has been called for by the board and so this evening we'd like to recognize um anybody who uh put in countless hours and time and effort and and emotion to um to help educate our community on why the override was important and why um it is needed to to help
024our our voters make the decisions that they made so um with that I would like to invite anybody who is part of the political action committee to uh come forward and receive a certificate [Applause] [Laughter] continuing on with our recognitions this evening each year our Communications and public relations team works hard behind the scenes to share important information with our community through a variety of different Publications and media tonight I am pleased to highlight some awards that they recently received from the Arizona School public relations Association for excellence in school public relations congratulations to our dice art Communications and public relations department for winning the following aspiration awards for excellent or excellence awards were provided for our College and Career CTE Expo multimedia campaign campaign CTE photos the mock crash Prelude video and daer breaking
025barriers article Awards of Merit were given for the community connect magazine the super n60 video series the drive-through promotion celebration photos and the veteran celebration photos we'd like to invite our Communications and public relations team to come forward when all of your names are called then you can go over to the background and take a selfie of yourselves congratulations to Ambria Brown Ryan McGinley Karly mcfay and Renee Ryan congratulations and keep up the great work [Laughter] Ryan take a picture of himself and our final recognition of the evening if you'll give me just a moment for email to pull up or me for me to stall long enough for Steve to take a picture and Renee to come back we'll be in good shape all right I appropriately stalled did I get it on okay
026sorry all right uh Madam president members of the board superintendent callus and members of cabinet on the same topic of aspiration Awards it is my pleasure to share with you that diart superintendent Dr Kellis was named the Arizona school public relations Association 2020 superintendent of the year for his contributions to education the award recognizes the superintendent for their leadership and high ideals of professionalism commitment to good Communications support of public relations planning and strategies and the ability to work with staff parents and the community for the benefit of students tonight we have a video of the virtual presentation of the award to share with you now we would like to honor our superintendent for contributions to public relations to Dr Quinn Kellis of Dart Unified School District as a large K12 district with 26 schools
027in the Northwest Valley daar Unified School District has nearly 2800 employees 24,000 students and spans 140 square miles that's a lot of mileage to cover and a lot of employees students and parents to serve but Dr Quinn Kellis does not shy away from The Challenge as a district resident whose family has been educating in dice art since the 19 1960s Dr Kellis truly is at home in daar which is evident in his actions Dr Kellis easily balances the leadership demands with approachability collaboration and a regular focus on Communications He makes himself available to all stakeholders in a variety of ways and is unusually responsive to emails and phone calls for a superintendent of a district this size Dr Kellis is just as willing to speak to the media as he is to any community M
028he's done media interviews in Spanish although that's not his primary language Dr Kellis strives for transparency and accountability in everything he does he conducts countless meetings with a VAR various stakeholders to ensure their voices are heard and he genuinely listens and takes into consideration what he hears over the last two years he visited every school in the district at least once a month among attending many other events and competitions he is highly VIs ible and extremely approachable to all last year Dr Kellis launched weekly super n60 videos in order to briefly share news and information to the community and at more regular intervals when it comes to superintendents that continue to support public relations and Communications efforts Dr Quinn Kellis is at the top of the list simply put he is extraordinary join asraa in
029honoring Dr Quinn Kellis from the da Unified School District for earning the 2020 aspiration award for superintendent contributions to public education hello thank you Arizona school public relations Association and our npra friends for this very kind award too often educators are tasked to do extraordinary work without extraordinary Acclaim public relations has been all about keeping our communities informed reporting emergency details or responding to Media questions today however the world of education is a high stakes Marketplace a competitive industry that demands each of us wear a new hat that is marketing I am most appreciative of the extraordinary efforts of the public relations staff that I have worked with I've been greatly blessed to work with exceptional PR staff in multiple districts thank you for this award and thank you for all you do to promote
030public education congratulations Dr Kell run forest run hold please so how about those Steelers they finally lost a game shocked D we're doing good Madam chair those are all the recognitions we have for this evening congrat conratulations Dr cull thank you very much all right next we go to agenda item E1 audience with individuals yes we have one this is the time for the public to comment members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda pursuant to ARS 38-43 1.01 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or schedu scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely
031manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and we have Miss Beth simik good evening for Dr Kellis staff and friends I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome the new board members who have uh were recently inducted into the board but I also wanted to take this time to thank Mrs Jennifer Tanner for her time and dedication to the students of diart school district we have known each other for at least 10 years and in that entire time I have never seen anybody work as hard as you do to advocate for the kids of diart and I wanted to thank you and appre appreciate you for the work that you have done
032um I would rather Advocate with anybody As Long As You Are by my side to do it you have been amazing you are tenacious passionate and you have been a friend to every kid who has passed through these hallowed walls of diart school district and every decision you have ever made over this course of time has always been with their best interests in your heart and in your mind we are lucky to have had your leadership and I am very lucky to call you my friend thank you for your work and your dedication thank you just had the one yes thank you all right moving on to item F1 do we have a student update thank you um Madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet we have two students who are here
033this evening who are going to be sharing some comments about um the Shadow Ridge and Valley Vista so I'd like to invite them both to introduce themselves at the podium uh good evening board members cabinet and Community my name is Luis Pion and I represent Valley Vista out of DLC and I'm Ariana corano and I'm representing Shadow Ridge at the DLC and so far already districtwide we've been keeping up our positive spirits and we've also been trying to bring normality into to our campus safely and effectively we also wanted to take the time to thank all of our teachers administrators School nurses and our substitutes during this difficult time we know it's hard but we appreciate your efforts and support and in addition districtwide we've also been having Spirit weeks that have been districtwide in
034session we would also like to thank our administrators with supporting us and guiding us through our new Co friendly events as example we had our vvhs virtual assembly and our shadow virtual assembly and they can also be found on the social medias of the schools so yeah we just wanted to thank you guys and we truly do appreciate it and also to Dr Kell congratulations we appreciate your transparency and you're willing to work with the students and we appreciate all of your guys' efforts thank you thank you moving to item F to the superintendent update Dr Kellis thank you madam chair um members of the board and members of cabinet um I also would like to just take a quick minute and congratulate uh our two outgoing board members um we were just reminiscing a
035minute ago where we were at the day Jen Tanner and Bonnie schroer and April Allen all were uh talking about the opportunity at daer and um while many have come and gone Jen tenner has been here still and it's been uh it's been wonderful for daiser to uh grow under her leadership and she leaves the district better than she found it and that is a true Mark of leadership and also with uh Jay Leonard having been a board member for four years anytime somebody volunteers for four years it's commendable and I I appreciate his his time that he has given to the the community of daer um also just want to wish everybody a very safe holiday we won't meet again until January and we have a lot of trust in our community that you
036will all um make good choices it used to be when you would say that people would think about behaving um but we're hoping that everybody will make good choices about their their Co etiquette and that everybody is safe and well and and comes back healthy and we're looking forward to um the rest of the year we're halfway there almost give us one more week and then we'll be ready to to bring it home that's all I have to report okay next we're moving to item F3 governing board update uh okay uh just a couple of quick things uh attended the asba annual virtual conference um uh was quite interesting because of uh ducking into different breakout sessions and uh um uh then to see the speakers and so it was just anything virtual is kind
037of weird but um it was a lot of good information and a lot of great guest speakers and and uh we had a lot of people that were actually uh in attendance at the annual conference so it was an awesome thing um participated in the parent advisory Zoom meeting that was on Monday um uh thank you to Jay who's not here but thank you Jay for um your years of service and I am pretty sure that Dr Kellis and cabinet will uh keep him busy you know throughout uh the next several years I would also like to make sure that everyone everyone same sentiments as Dr kis said um make sure you have a safe and happy holiday um happy K Quanza zou Noel joyous joyous FIS Navid all of the different types of uh
038celebration um but please be safe and we we'll see you back here on January 4th January 4th um last but certainly not least is um 12 years I um that's a long time that's three terms and um uh that's a lot of board meetings that's a lot of documents um that we used to have our um our packets that were delivered to our front doorstep that sometimes were a little bit thick and sometimes they were a lot thick um so thank you for technology that we were able to put everything on there but um Jen Tanner has been um pretty consistent over those 12 years and we are um I am sad to see her go and uh I know um she won't be far Dr Kellis will keep her busy right okay thank you
039um but uh as I was telling Jason earlier I says you know you're going to have your wife back and he kind of said yeah but uh um this is uh it's been a long journey but it's been a great one I remember the first time I got to meet her uh we just had a vacancy on the board it was back in January 2010 and um back then you would apply and then go through an interiew interview process and then those final three names would go to well it still happens um goes to the Maricopa County Superintendent for him to select um of the final three which board which person would be appointed to the board position and uh Jen had called me and said I was uh one of the final three um
040introduce herself and um and the rest is Jen Tanner history um it it's been a privilege to serve with you it's um it's been quirky I I loved every minute of it um even though we had challenges and um got together with um the purpose of daart uh in mind and uh I believe it was our last meeting or the meeting before last um I had asked the board to um uh it was part of um you had to have the approval of the aboard in order for uh a retiring board member of eight years or more um to be um awarded the asba honor rooll award and this is for retiring board members of eight years or more and I received the certificate and so I would like to read it to you and
041it says Miss Jen L Tanner was elected to the diar Unified School District governing board during the November 2008 election and has been reelected in 2012 and 2016 serving the daar community for 12 years she has been extremely instrumental in the development of daar strategic plan in 2009 the passage of emo overrides and bringing Unity for the daar community Miss Tanner has also served as board liaison with the city councils of surprise and El Mirage Jennifer Tanner has been such a remarkable board member for our district she will be deeply missed but just like any good retiring board member I know she will continue working behind the scenes advancing the great work she has created dart's vision statement power in the preparation excellence in the journey success for a lifetime exemplifies what she has brought
042to our community thank you Jennifer Tanner you have served well thank you appreciate that you go thank you very much thank you yes oh and you can have the envelope yes and that was that's my report even knows a little long but that's okay um thank you Tracy and um it's I I was joking with Dr Kellis that for 12 years I deserve a diploma um walking out of here um but not just for the time um served which is a long time but um I truly received an education here at daart um I received an education just alone in public education and all I've all I've gained from that on local level state level and federal level and I'm grateful for um that knowledge that I've gained I'm grateful for um I what I've
043learned from um making decisions on a board and learning different people's perspectives and learning how to work together um for our kids in this district and I'm grateful for those opportunities for um getting those other perspectives and maybe they weren't ones that I agreed with but it helped me grow as a person as well and so I'm I'm grateful for that and especially um most than anything like when I think back to all my great dice art memories it's always about the personal relationships um and all those that I have met and who have supported me in helping to help me understand something more uh whether it's a budget process or um maybe about one of our educational programs or you know going through all the CTE programs and just helping me be able to
044understand better so that I could serve the students of this District as best as possible um so I I hope I can say I can leave like as a productive member of society now like as one of our gradu um couple other things um these last couple years I'm not going to I'm not going to lie they were hard I was tired um it it when you put your heart and soul into something it does over time just kind of it it wears on you um but I wouldn't have had it any other way and I'm grateful still that like that passion of public education is still with me and I had a a experience this last month where um I work now for a consulting company that helps um school districts um hire superintendence
045and so I had the opportunity to work with a board in um helping them as far as criteria for a superintendent and I love that when I was talking with them that that passion was still there and so it's something that's going to continue to be with me I feel like I have been able to serve that it's not just going to end here that it will be something that I carry on um and to other areas to hopefully help continue to benefit others and benefit kids you know across the state as well and um I I he's GNA hate me for doing this but I'm going to put some focus on my husband because I mean my fellow board members they've you know they've heard me on the phone for hours at times and
046and but my poor husband has like dealt with it all and so he's probably an honorary board member just from having to listen to me he was he was great to vent to Great to discuss um some things with and so I so appreciate him and my family um we were just talking Brena was in fifth grade when I first started and it's just amazing how time has flat and my kids were so supportive when I was away from home just so I could help serve the other kids of this District so my family is such a huge support to me and I'm so grateful for them and it's really true you love who you serve and I love dice art and always will so thank you everyone for your support and help and um
047I won't be too far away so thank you you're welcome um I would definitely also like to to thank you um Jen and as well as as Mr Leonard who's not here but thank you so much for all of your your time with Bard and and all of that caring um it's you've definitely um left an impression I think um he left an impression on me as just such a caring and nurturing type of person and um I I wish you the best in whatever big new thing you have next or maybe small so whatever uh you are going to do I think you're going to do wonderful things so thank you um also would like to congratulate um our two me board two new board members that were sworn in tonight uh as well
048as Miss Pritchard who will be sworn in soon um for her reelection so thank you for that um and that's all I have not gonna say ditto but I do want to repeat several of the things um congratulations Dr callus that's a huge honor um definitely celebrating with you congratulations on that um also want to Echo Dr Call's comments um please everyone be safe make smart choices um we expected that our Co numbers would Skyrocket we we knew that but um we definitely can um have control over how high they get so it's one person at a time and I just hope everyone enjoys their holiday but that they stay healthy as well and look forward to a healthy return in January um Miss Tanner I I don't think it hit me until listening to
049Tracy and just listening to you talk about your time on the board I I I can't believe this is the last Mee I mean I literally I escaped me because you've always been such a part of this board I mean it's been 12 years and so now I feel like I'm at someone of a loss like there's some perfect thing to say for everything all the years you've served and uh I don't think there's anything that I could say that would Encompass all that you've done and um and I know still will continue to give I can tell you that I um there's probably not a corner of this room or any asba conference or any anything that is not going to have some memory tied to you and it's definitely not going to be
050the same you brought um just so much humor and fun into a job that sometimes isn't or is very intense and um I feel like we shared a lot through the years and sometimes we agree and sometimes we didn't but we always were able to laugh at the end and that's what I like to remember and I will always remember about you is that your um your your ability to bring laughter um and levity to any situation um I'll definitely miss those times with you um we'll always remember them though and just very appreciative of I know for a fact that regardless of what side of the fence we were on on things your heart was always into doing good by this district and by the students and um no one could ever Vin me
051otherwise so I'm just very thankful for you and and your time and wish you all the best and know that as Tracy has mentioned too you you won't go far so congratulations to a new chapter in your life and remember Miss Pritchard um both Jay and Jen are gone so they won't be taking pictures with your cell phone anymore the 300 pictures you know that was the least of my worries of all the things I've been like subject to over the years my phone is the last thing I have to wor about but yes my phone is finally safe your phone's safe I'm not going to touch your [Laughter] [Music] phone thank you everyone all right um next item we have is the cons uh G1 uh that is the consent agenda I will make
052a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented second call for the vote motion passes [Music] all right uh next we have the information item uh first one is uh for policy governance board monitoring of adopted policy section 7 Personnel Dr kis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet this evening we once again bring before the board as part of our regular policy monitoring um section 7 uh 7.0 to 7.32 and Mr croto will introduce this item thank you Dr Kellis um Madame President members of the board superintendent Kellis and cabinet tonight we continue our policy monitoring with SE section s excuse me um specifically policy 7.0 to 7.32 and at this time we have no changes in those policies call for a discussion is any questions all right
053um we're moving on to item I2 information on post High School St post high school student success thank you madam chair members of the board and memb of cabinet um as part of administration's um attempt to help share data throughout the year rather than having one great big data book at the end of the year this evening we are presenting information about post high school student success and our director of research and accountability Miss Jane we will will present this information to you good even evening Madam chair board members Dr Kellis and cabinet tonight I am going to present National Clearing House data and CTE graduate data the majority of this data comes from the national student Clearing House they utilize solutions to meet reporting research verification transcript and data exchanges across the Continuum to
054track students along with providing various services to students they are one of the largest tracking systems of post-secondary education so this is the first slide of enrollment immediately after high school remember this is the very beginning of covid for us we're slightly stagnant but at a later slide I will include the items that we have put in place to raise these numbers however we don't know the impact on covid on postsecondary education numbers at this time so this is going to be the same numbers only they are giving you the enrollment at the institutional levels meaning they give you all institutions the four-year institutions and the two-year institutions for you to tell the difference equals the same number on the previous slide this is the breakdown of schools at the district total we range from
05534% to 45% with the district average being 41% so it is the number of students in the cohort for the given class and then the uh percentage of students enrolled in college according to the Clearing House so this is the percent uh persistence rate for the second year and we are maintaining pretty well our persistence persistent rate that is freshmen who return on their sophomore year and again they break this into public versus private institutions for you so running about an 80% persistence rate this is a slide that they produce of the most common institutions in Arizona uh these are all derer students they would have had derer on their transcript um not necessarily one class uh they do it with a range of years but belong to daer at some point during their high
056school year years and as you can see we um have two out of States really Ottawa it's registered for um another state but clearly they we have Ottawa here and we have Ottawa here in surprise so most of the those kids are going to surprise they're not going to Kansas to Ottawa the only other out of state is we have um bergam young in Utah and we have a lot of kids that go out of state but just just these are the identifiers of the most the highest number for out of state so this is our CTE uh postgrad placement again this is a CTE data it includes students in the military it is uh CTE doesn't differentiate in this report between trade school and college they combine it into one category uh we don't
057have the 2020 as it always runs a year behind and students who graduate with two or more CTE program credits are and they can be duplicated in the numbers so for instance if you have a student that graduated with four CTE program credits in two different two credit programs they would appear twice in these numbers this is one of the most interesting slides for me um this is a six-year tracking device so the Clearing House tracks kids for six years and deter determine how many graduate how many leave or return from school how many are enrolled and what's interesting about this is this slide shows graduated students and those are students that only receive an Associates or a bachelor's degree this does not include any military or any technical data so in 2014 there were
05810,059 students in that class after they tracked in the Clearing House those six years actually 70% of that class appeared in a community college or a university somewhere even if they were just taking one class but that tells us that um students continue to appear and when we look at these growth numbers we can see that um they persist and even if they drop out we still had 122 members of that class reenroll somewhere in college so this is a very good report in that I think it shows us that eventually we have more kids going into college and they um we are tracking better through the system and one of the things that you need to realize is the Clearing House not everybody belongs to it so the Clearing House colleges pay to belong
059to the clearing house and we pay to get Clearing House data and that it helps us track our students but there's actually schools in place that don't belong so out of that 317 in that six years that doesn't include technical schools it doesn't include our military and it doesn't include a school that may not belong to the clearing house so we continue to work with our supports and interventions um we have very active Mr GRE shaber in the CTE department does fairs um even this year with covid they did online fairs uh Dr asai has worked with High School departments and counselors to be sure that fast nights career Affairs and college visitation are they're still happening again a lot of that is happen happening V virtually or online um Co has had an impact
060on on all of these things um remember we still have our outliers that are not everyone belongs to the clearing house and we may have students in places that don't get reported so again that's it I would be happy to stand for any questions is there any slide that you'd like to review or any questions that you may have Dr W I have one that's kind of quirky um but it was on the count of class 2014 post-secondary enrollment um what do you find as persistent meaning persistent is meaning that those freshmen in 20145 where you see 598 started as a freshman 469 persisted okay in their second year of the University okay so they continued on okay um and uh is there and I think it had to do with the uh most common
061institutions of enrollment um is it just because the uh Ottawa and uh BYU is it just because um that they are incl included uh just because of their numbers I mean because we have several other students that go out of state yes we have several that go out of state but for instance if you would take uh BYU there's 17 so it's about the numbers I mean we may only have one that goes to Denver so it's not going to appear in their report this is just the top of the the numbers okay and they rank them according to the N they're ranked that's their ranking but it's according to the number of students so actually I and I said that wrong BYU had TW I'm sorry I'd have to track the line 20 I
062had to take my glasses off because they were steaming up so I apologize I'm sorry mine are too okay so that's okay okay and there was another one but I'll let somebody go ahead and ask back to that one slide with all the universities on it cuz my my glasses are steaming up too Arizona State University is ranked it's number three on the list where's where's the University of Arizona two more down to the number like four or five down there okay I just want to make sure thank you Leonard one last one was that a [Laughter] dig desmore if I could just miss desmore if I could also just make a comment early on in the presentation you saw that there was a dip in the number of students who entered College after graduating
063from high school and that was our graduates from just this last May and obviously there is going to be some consequence with Co where we shut down Schools starting in March and many of the universities have been shut down um it's going to have an impact but another interesting component that University have been tracking for some time is there has been a decline in college enrollment over many years what is also fascinating is that there's been an increase in the number of students who are participating in CTE courses and who are going from high school into careers um directly with certifications without going through college and those certifications allow them um to enter into a new career pathway so all is not a a concern as more students follow the the career pathway directly out
064of high school there will obviously be some decrease in the number of students who choose the college path but as we track all of the students we are very pleased with the success that our high school graduates are having regardless of the pathway that they take thank you Dr Kellis um Dr weid I I really appreciate just seeing this you know um this presentation I am I am curious um to kind of go off of what Dr Kellis was just saying are we looking to track data from some of those trade schools or certification programs maybe going forward well we do pretty well I mean Mr greher with CTE does pretty well with that I did look up the cohort numbers although they don't appear on here and it's interesting from what Dr Kellis uh
065just said if I look back here I can tell you that back in 2015 there were 1661 kids that accomplished CTE the two or more credits and into a program that would would help them with certification and then moving along the Continuum in 2019 there were it it moved up to 1873 students okay so you can see that CTE and the postgraduate placement has a big impact and um again that's a report that comes down from the state level and I work with Mr GRE shaber to get this report and they track really well the military and the students who have accomplished that two or more credits in the CTE area and they could be students that receive their certification and go on to the working the work field and that's why they don't appear
066in the Clearing House is because they're appearing on this side of the report and the numbers have increased every year 1661 1665 1721 1829 last year 1873 so we see that growth and I it does doesn't appear on the report but I actually did look it up and track it in case someone asked that question great thank you so much you're welcome do we have thank you very much thank you I can't remember my next we have item um I3 information on the D start covid protocol and mitigation plan Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet um I will share that uh every employee in daer is currently doing extraordinary efforts to implement the the safety protocols that we have in place here in daer these Protocols are
067absolutely founded in the guidance that we receive from the CDC the state and County Health departments um and looking at our own unique situations here in daiser this evening Karen winterstein is going to start us off with u some information that we just recently um will be well we're going to be sharing it with all of our employees U first thing in the morning in an employee webinar for all staff and following Karen we will provide some financial information and some curriculum information and just kind of go through um all the different departments on how now daer is meeting the demands of Co so we'll start off with Karen winterstein thank you um good evening mad denmore uh governing board members cabinet and audience um my presentation this evening is first of all I have
068to share um my math says Co Queen um and was given to me by an administrator so um that's my um Fonda nickname I guess since uh that is consumes a lot of uh my time and supporting um our set administrators and health office so my presentation is going to include um the definitions we use in which um our Protocols are um founded in um our uh the process of contact tracing which is um our predominant uh part of covid as well as some data so the definitions I want to start with um because this has kind of evolved and we've gotten as we've gotten guidance so there are two major types of tests that can capture the active uh virus and that is the PCR or the antigen and that is the saliva or
069the nasal swab um the antibody test which is done with blood a blood draw or blood stick that can test antibodies but that is not the active culture so sometimes a parent will bring us an antibody test and so our health office and administrators need to know the difference and so this was included in the uh the ongoing training that we are providing for our employees um the one positive uh when we bring up a positive case is that anyone that has um a a positive test and that they have completed their um isolation um they if they come in direct contact with anyone within the next within three months of that antibody test uh they do not have to quarantine um per the CDC and marov County Department of Public Health so if there's
070a positive in in having a positive test then that's what we share with them so if someone tests positive we have a process by which we go through they are assigned to home um immediately for 10 calendar days and that was adjusted on December 2nd for CDC guidelines as well as Arizona Department of Public Health who we report all of our positive cases to they can anyone um who is in isolation or quarantine can return after 10 days of completing that um uh quarantine or isolation and they have to be symptom free for 24 hours without um pain or fever reducing medication the exception would be a loss of taste or smell because sometimes uh that can take um quite a bit of time to uh return but all of the major symptoms must uh
071be completely gone uh for them to to return to campus that's um for any staff member or or student and then um the process of contact tracing is the first uh task at hand for our administrators and health office staff because we know how imperative it is to stop the exposure and identify those who were in direct contact so that we can put them in quarantine we also are required to report all cases to uh amop accouny Department of Public Health so what is the difference between isolation and quarantine really the um the time period is the same the requirements are basically the same but isolation is uh for someone who has tested positive um and the time frames are just a little bit different quarantine is for direct contact so when we look at
072um when we have to put someone in isolation or quarantine isolation begins with the date of symptom onset or for those who are asymptomatic it begins with the date that their test took place not the date that results were received with con with direct contact and with quarantine it's still a 10-day period but what we do is we go back two days before the person that was positive became symptomatic or if asymptomatic had their test and so if someone comes in and says you know I have I was I'm symptomatic or i h we go back if it's on a Wednesday we go back to Monday and whoever they had contact with on Monday Tuesday um and Wednesday if they are still at school so it is quite the the detailed process so the quarantine
073period would start two days before symptom onset with anyone that had Direct contact that's why I live by this calendar and Ryan and Renee I don't think I've ever appreciated the daer calendar as much as I have this year so direct and indirect conduct is really um the uh most important piece that direct contact definition was changed by the uh Department of Public Health um we as daar we we were always more conservative in our direct contact definition um initially when was just um within 6 feet for 15 minutes we our definition was within 6 feet for 10 minutes and then it changed to and that was 10 minutes for each short period of time and I believe it was 1029 that that direct contact definition changed to being within 6 feet of someone for
074a total of 15 minutes for an entire day and so that really changed how we did things because it wasn't just oh you could have 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there and 5 minutes here and 8 minutes there now it's 15 minutes in one in one setting whether it's 3 minutes 5 minutes 8 minutes 2 minutes 15 minutes or more or physical contact with someone so then indirect contact there's two different um ways in which someone can have indirect contact that is being within 6 feet of someone with less than 15 minutes and we try to be conservative if it gets close to that 15 minutes uh we want to be very careful or if if I'm at school and I have someone within my household that has tested positive I'm a direct contact
075but anyone that has direct contact with me is indirect so I think of it as the positive person um some of our administrators call it ground zero so the the first layer of contact is that direct contact they would need to quarantine that second layer that is a person in between the positive and them is uh just the indirect contact and we ask that they um either continue work and stay in school but they need to monitor their symptoms just as we would whenever we go out in public we're always um have the the opportunity for exposure and we need to monitor our body and um any symptoms that we may exhibit I can tell you the vast majority of direct contacts and indirect are through the um households household positives so contact tracing again
076I explained that the two days before and how we do that as administrators um the message is loud and clear that our kids sit in in seating charts and so that the teachers provide those if there's any changes they're continually updating them they also the important piece is speaking with the students and staff about where the who were you sitting with at lunch who you know asking them were you are you in any clubs before after school sports um and also the outside of school activities because sometimes our students may not have contact during the day within our school activities but they may participate in club sports or outside activities in which the students that they don't typically interact with at school they might be part of so with all of that they come up
077with the lists for direct contact and then those would be pulled from class or contacted at home if they're not at school and then um asked to quarantine I apologize I need a 30 second mouse break sorry it's getting a little steamy so if they have direct contact they're assigned for um 10 calendar days um to come home to go home and then they're able to return administrators communicate with the necessary staff members who would um have contact with those students and of course the parents um as a caveat this does not happen very often but if they become symptomatic while on quarantine they're tend days starts over from the day of their symptom onset they can return after 10 days if they are symptom free for 24 hours without medication I can tell you
078that one of the most important things that we did in this whole process was establish from the very beginning a questionnaire that um our staff capture all the information when they are um question as soon as um a positive is uh in we are informed of a positive they contact the parent and they collect a whole spreadsheet of information regarding symptom onset what the symptoms were the date who they had contact with and that has really been the foundation and we have continually revised that Google form and our questions to really hone in on specifics to help us identify um who should be in quarantine and isolation because those decisions um are not made lightly we are we tend to be overly cautious uh just in case we'd rather quarantine a few more kids and
079make sure that our exposure is extremely limited so the definition of quarantine uh we can place students on quarantine and we can give them the information of what our expectations are we cannot enforce it when they're not in our school so we um do share this information with in every letter the for direct contact that goes out so it's very difficult to do um I actually thought I was sick early on and I did it for two days it was the longest two days oh my gosh so I do feel sorry for everyone anyone on quarantine so the quarantine again Begins the day after their last day of contact so the the day of contact we call Day Zero so then the first day starts the when the the full day of separation and it
080goes through the 10 so that means and we we talk to the kids it doesn't mean you can't hang out with your friends you can't go to work you can't go to school you shouldn't go to anything social and even within the household we ask you to be careful because we don't know if the exposure is going to lead to a positive test and and we even say right in our letter you know if you've got anyone that is um compromised in your household please make sure you are separate you use separate utensils bathrooms we because we want them to be very careful and know what the possibilities are so if someone had indirect contact of course administrators what we are doing now is just um informing the entire class that it like if it's
081a in a home room class if it's in the Young grades or um a period class that there was someone who had Direct contact with someone in your classroom um and so that they can just monitor for symptoms and then with all communication uh we might get questions well I need to know who it is and I need to know you know where where the exposure was so we isolate it down to a classroom um but we do have to maintain all the the typical uh confidentiality pieces so in looking at the numbers we've published our Active cases since November 11th we've been collecting that information um starting back in uh since um after the right after the fall break so what you will see reported through 1214 sorry 124 is um the 14 day
082because we were following the 14 days up until December 2nd so this last one um on Tuesday uh that includes the 10day and in conversations we realized that with a 10 day we could possibly not um include everybody or what that happens is each day when those 10day quarantines um or isolations not we don't do quarantines I apologize we do positive case isolations when those um are finished they what we call drop off of the active case list so we wanted to be as transparent as possible and because over the weekend Mondays are typically our highest days for processing positives we wanted to make sure that we were reporting and sharing with our community um upto-date uh case numbers so that's why cabinet decided to add the Tuesday right after that 10 because we wanted
083to make sure that every case was captured it would be on Friday but because of the drop off we they thought that Tuesday would be a good addition we anticipated that after Thanksgiving there would be an increase and it did I can tell you that um nearly all of those that includes students as well as staff are because of exposures in the household um so with that we know that a lot are going to fall off um so I was talking to Renee today in anticipation of um the winter break we are not going to be monitoring these um our administrators and and health offic are not going to be processing them but we will continue the Tuesday Friday and then the Tuesday January 5th I believe um we won't be processing them during the
084winter break but that um January 5th would be able to capture all of those that we have processed um in that weekend before which we will start doing uh to make sure that anyone that's quarantined needs to be quarantined and then um on that Monday and Tuesday when we return so a lot of um our efforts are spent on making sure that the um safety Protocols are known and Contin reinforced um The Masks are so important limiting time with students and each other um social distancing we know that's impossible within a school and setting all the time especially in a classroom but when when it is um when that opportunity is there absolutely um many of our teachers are holding small group instruction um virtually many of our related services are are provided virtually so
085they're really taking advantage of um that instructional model to limit um the exposures uh and then our staff they're keeping track of who they are within six feet of for 15 minutes especially our related Services um our schools are uh monitoring it in a spreadsheet and that way if it's at night an administrator needs to know who had contact with the student they can look it up oh they're being Serv by otpt um and they can look in the spreadsheet and they can they'll document who they had that close proximity to if they did um and so then it's easier to do that contact tracing and then of course stay home if you're sick that's a hard one because as an educator um I remember coming to to to work with sniffles or cold or
086even worse because I knew that it was easier for me um and I wanted to be in control of my classroom and my kiddos um I didn't want a sub to be teaching my kiddos but um this is when we really need to be careful and know our symptoms and I always say what is new and unexplained um if I have a back ache I'm going to think well what is what did I do oh I did yard work over the weekend you know what that is new and explained so knowing the difference between your typical allergies and a different symptom that's what that's part of that process in speaking with our parents and our students where we try to weed out what is uh what symptom is more of a um concern and where
087other ones maybe oh yeah that's right you know I always have seasonal allergies at this time of the year so I'm sorry my classes um an example I'm going to use myself because for me um it's really it it's more concrete if I can give you a scenario so let's say I'm a student and my mom tests positive on Friday we get a lot of this where a household member is tested positive my mom didn't have symptoms so I was at school on Friday and my mom completed the online Co report which I love our parents are really starting to do that I'm monitoring that and I'm able to collect that information and get it to ad administrators and health office staff as soon as it comes in so I now have direct contact with
088my mom and I'm going to be home for 10 days in quarantine anyone who is in direct contact with me as I shared earlier is in indirect contact with my mom who is positive so indirect contact will be go home with administrators to the students that were around me and in my classrooms so now if I get positive that's where the schools really need to get involved so the first example of a positive is that I go and get a test on Wednesday remember I uh Friday was my last day at school it came back positive I do don't have any symptoms contact tracing because it's Wednesday goes back Tuesday to Monday the two days I wasn't at school on Monday so there's no need for the administrators or health office staff to do any
089contact tracing um there's no one that is in direct contact at the school with me the second example is that I became symptomatic on Sunday I got tested on Monday and my results were positive on Wednesday we are seeing that there is some lag time in the testing um it depends the if you can get a rapid test or not so the school was notified that I'm positive now and that I was symptomatic on Sunday which means Saturday Friday I was at school Friday so now the school has to go back it's Wednesday of the next week and contact Trace to where I was and who I had Direct contact with back on Friday so then they will um communicate pull those kids communicate get information to parents and for all of the quarantine for
090the direct contact contact and indirect so I apologize if if I had um more technology or I'm sorry if I knew how to use our technology in a better way I know this looks a mess but follow me okay start with a red Co dot that's the day my mom was positive on the uh Friday this this C calend is the fourth skip that little Blue Cross go down to Sunday the 6th that yellow dot is when I became symptomatic that's why we live by the calendar so the green triangle on the 9th is when my parents found out I was positive and notified the school so then the school goes back to contact trace and identify all of those that I was in contact with on the Friday the 4th that's our day Zero
091anyone that was in direct contact with me starts their quarantine on Saturday the 5th the Blue Cross you count 10 days the 10th day of their quarantine is on Monday the 14th the big purple star is the day the direct contacts can return to school on Tuesday the 15th so now my direct contacts are going to have a different return date than me because I was symtomatic on I started my symptoms on Sunday so the isolation is 10 days from symptom onet so when you count 10 days for me I'm the little purple star and my return date was on the 16th so that's why the calendar is our best friend in m in keeping all of this Str with our direct contacts and isolation I hope that was understandable so our in our constant
092trainings um I have to tell you that my partner is um our lead nurse uh she participates in webinars with the Maricopa County Department of Public Health every Thursday from 1 to 3 and they are continually providing us updates and guidance we change and um well I should say change we revise and update our procedures on a weekly basis and I send updates usually every Friday sometimes it's Thursday afternoon um but every week um all of our staff that has any responsibility in um the uh Co processes uh gets an update from me and it's whether it's additional training um uh a tweak in definition or expectations um I updated all the spreadsheets today to uh just be a little bit more clear in the questions that we're asking our students and our parents to
093get that precise information so it's really um being diligent and updated with our training and expectations um and then we also ask that we give grace and patience um sometimes kids forget sometimes adults forget and we're continually reminding each other uh uh for what our expectations are regarding maintaining a safe learning and teaching environment for our students and staff so with that I'm sure there's lots of questions um Dr kis do you have anything um well thank you Karen and when she wears that mask that says the queen of Co um there's a reason as you can just have listened to her presentation she repeats this process about every hour every day and I don't know how many students you process um on a weekly basis but it and it's not just Karen it's every
094school um we Engage The School nurses the administrators who if we have to quarantine 70 students parents don't want to just say okay thank you they have questions they want to talk through the notification that they're getting and so um over the weekend uh the same same thing happens and so it really is a a very diligent effort but it's important and the reason why it's important is because it's working and all of these safety protocols that uh they're all listed on our website we have flowcharts we have q&as we have lots of information on our website for our our community um but thank you Karen for all that you and your staff do for that uh we have more information to share but we'll stop at this point if you questions for Karen and
095then we'll move on to other aspects of how DT's managing Co I guess I'll go first then um and excuse me because I'm GNA jump around because you when you're talking I was writing a few things on another side so um but first of all I just want to thank um Dr Callis for putting this on the agenda in Fairly short notice I knew it was probably fine because I know you guys like eat and breathe this every day anyway but I feel like um I know as a board member and as the entire board and probably you all as well we've been getting a lot of emails from parents teachers staff with tons of concerns community members so um to me the best way to address fear is just to to you know present
096it with facts and a lot of communication information and I knew that I had some questions that kind of come up along the way too so I just figured it would be a good um opportunity so again thank you for all the information um I have some specific questions about quarantine but before I get into that would you mind um doing a reminder on just like a a review of our cleaning protocols and I think I remember maybe it was in the summer Ken had mentioned um purging the air and like re like can you kind of review that again or over the months have that has that changed or are we doing things differently or what are we doing to keep our our buildings clean and safe Madam president protm members of the board
097uh we do continue to purge a every single morning but just also through our regular HVAC system we're cycling through the air and bringing in fresh air at least twice an hour so just the regular process is continuing to bring in fresh air we have uh soap and sanitizer uh one or the other in every single classroom and we have cleaning supplies that we've distributed to all the schools with the paper towels to continue to do additional if anybody feels the need to do additional cleaning and disinfecting we have either ABM or the plant managers walking through through uh multiple times a day I think it's at least three but sometimes four uh going through the entire School uh doing wipe Downs of high touch areas continuing to disinfect anything uh to manage that process
098uh We've included spray bottles with disinfectant um in every single classroom um hopefully they're put away and safeguarded I think you've done some training on how and what to do on that so is I would also say that we evolve actually as we hear and get feedback back on certain things will adjust to it and so some places where we put hand sanitizer on a stand out in front of a few classrooms we've mounted it on the wall as we get feedback that maybe people are kicking or pushing them down and stuff like that so uh we make U um modifications as we go we started with the electrostatic sprayers it was kind of just like a single um we bought uh wands now where there's multiple uh valves that nozzles that it comes out
099of so we're able to cover so much more so for like playground equipment that they were um only doing once a day which I believe we're still only doing once a day but it was taking a long time now a wand you come by and wand it you wand A a bathroom or a locker room and it you could do vast amounts of areas in a very short period of time and so that's helped um and we've locked down uh we uh continue to go in and disinfect the bathrooms four times a day to help with that and we um have modified so that uh put signage um multiple multiple signs everywhere all over the Place some of it is around water fountains no more drinking from water fountains filling water bottles only most all
100of our classrooms um elementaries have um uh sinks in them so we have the soap in there for them to continue to wash their hands and um I believe most of the schools have brakes where they take and wash hands brakes at least at the elementary I know they're stopping and washing hands on a regular basis so we have that incorporated into their days as well we've done other uh modifications uh through the through the uh as the years evolved one of them in transportation we have seating charts in transportation as well they load uh back to front and uh release front to back so that they don't cross people and interact with people um we did start with seaing charts and uh found out that kids jump in and off and so we are
101now revising seeding charts every single week uh so as during a uh contract tracing um event we noticed that the seaing chart wasn't updated from two weeks prior when somebody else added so now we have a process that we updated every single week unless it doesn't need to be updated but there's a verification that goes on on a weekly basis on that um we're still providing food service uh the spacing the signage um as they prepare they stay away from each other so um the worst thing that we could have which has happened uh one p one positive test will take down multiple people and then having to get substitute or redistribute our resources over to help provide me meals is very difficult and so we try to minimize that and they try to space
102each other space from each other as much as possible we are still at this time providing curbside meal so although we're doing a grab and go everything's closed and uh we just provide all options even though we've limited the options we put them all in a clam shell or a closed box container just grab and go we're still also sending people out to the curb to provide that for our I school students or those that are home really because we have the waiver from the uh federal government um anybody body under the age of 18 whether you're in our schools or not gets a free meal and so from the curbside so we're continuing uh the curbside process um trying to think any other equipment uh we bought uh we um we also adjust as
103we heard there was I had one school call me saying hey a lot of people coming off the bus don't seem to have mass we give Mass to every bus driver as long with also cleaning supplies CU they wipe down the bus in between routes and so we go talk to those bus drivers say hey we're here that kids are coming off I don't know if they're taking them off in between getting into the classroom or not here's a 100 more masks to put on your bus so if kids are coming on they need a mask before they get on the bus so that everybody's masked up as they're going um so we'll continue to manage that um we reinforce all of this I know Transportation met with uh on Monday at their meeting with
104their staff they were going through all the protocols and reminding everybody and um I know I've mentioned it with our directors um be vigilant uh Lacy and cting Corners is where we're going to pay the big price and we don't want to do that so continue to follow through all the way to the end of this first semester as we're coming to break back with the with the buses um I'm assuming just because of our just our Fleet we're not able to alternate every other seat um are we relying just on mask wearing um Madam president protm and members of the board uh correct we don't fully distance it's not but we do have some spacing and we do like a uh but with some of the buses we'll have 50 kids on it there's
105no way to be uh you can't go every other seat on that and also one to a seat we can't do so we minimize it the younger they are the easier it is even though you feel like they'll be moving around the bigger kids just take up more room and it's harder um to knock off a seat on that so we um some buses might have just because the route's a little bit light um but by and large we try to keep them masked we wipe it down and we keep them sitting in the same spot so we try to minimize that impact or risk okay um you mentioned doing a lot of wiping down and chemical supplies at schools um do students especially at the high school level students or their teachers wipe down
106desks at class change yes okay and um that's at K8 as well okay and that that happens every day every class change between every period okay do we have staggered um or have we consider Ed staggered release times even if it's just like a couple minutes in between um this I guess would only apply to the high schools um class changes so we're not having everyone out in the hallway at the same time has that been I know that was um that was on the County website as far as just a recommendation and I didn't know if that's something that we're doing Madam chair Miss Pritchard um I can tell you that at the high school level um what we're doing that is working very well is we have one-way hallways for students we have
107entrance doors and exit doors um and our students are being very Vigilant in following those protocols I was at uh one of our high schools this morning um watching passing periods again um students have adjusted very quickly to those pieces and so they are um doing exactly what we're asking them to do at this point in time obviously asking 2,000 students to move um to different classrooms you know five six times a day um you know staggering times um is certainly an option that we can look at and continue to look for ways to to improve our safety protocols but currently the the one-way hallways and the exit and entry doors are helping tremendously um in the flow of um of our students moving safely between classes okay and then um at both Elementary and
108high school are we limiting um how many students are in the cafeterias or at how many students at a certain table at all just to to prevent you know tons of students from kind of being on top of each other during lunch which we used to always see um are we doing anything different with that um they are definitely uh they all have seating charts in the cafeteria they're all facing one way and so they they only have so many students to a table so yes they are definitely limiting the exposure in the cafeteria and I would add at I would add at the high school level the campuses have increased the the amount of area where students can eat um and so um you know whether they're limiting um to three or four students
109per table um students are doing a bit of that themselves but they're also allowed to eat anywhere in the interior of the campus and students are taking advantage of that spreading out um and really um doing the best that they can individually from a social distancing perspective during the Lunch Period okay so I like the idea that we're we allowing more outdoor seating but for indoor do we have staff that are monitoring to make sure that students don't choose to just sit like T of a table yeah I I can't tell you um what the exact number of students per table is we do obviously have supervision um but students are encouraged to spread out even at lunch period as well so and certainly we're going to have three or four students sitting together at
110a table um but I can tell you firsthand anecdotally from watching um all of our high school lunches that our students are taking advantage of the opportunity to spread out um and eat throughout the courtyard um you know and our our school administrations have done a great job of spreading um supervision out as well to make sure that our students are well supervised during that time okay and then and then I'll stop for a bit and I might like chime in later throughout the conversation but here's my my takeaway is that again with so many people that are um legitimately concerned with the rise in numbers and being in school not in school every you know that's a completely you know divided issue some people want schools to completely close others want them open and
111and I I'm grateful that diart provides our our community members with choices so if you're uncomfortable you can stay at home if you really want to be in school um you can be in school because I do firmly believe that the deaths related to covid numbers really far exceed just people who pass away from symptoms of the virus I mean we've got so many psychosocial aspects um that go along with isolation and things like that and it's just uh so I I'm thankful that daer provides that choice however um one thing that makes me feel comfortable um with what Dort is doing is that you know we have some good protocols in place and our top priority is safety and I just want to make sure that we are clear and consistent when it comes
112to the I appreciate you Tak the time to go through like the days 10 days 14 days and but I'm wondering there's been there's been there's been some times when say parents are confused because they will have reported this might you clear this up they'll be reporting that their student was may be exposed outside of school so you had kind of mentioned too that you we only kind of have control over exposures at school so does that mean then that for an example if we have a student who's vocally saying I was exposed outside of school and we know that are you saying that we have no control over doing the contract tracing asking that student to quarantine because that's a little bit of a concern to me so I want to I want to
113make sure that's a a valid or accurate understanding first and then maybe I'll go from there so if you want to respond to that piece of it sure Madam chair um member Pritchard um what we do is it depends on um the comment or uh the information that he shared with us let's say um Karen reports hey I was at the park and I hung out with Sally all day Sally's a a student at this school um the administrators um can you know definitely speak to that student to gather more information talk to the other um student but unless we have a positive we have to whatever action we do must be associated with a confirmed positive and that's Per meropa County Department of Health if we don't have a confirmed positive you know the
114administrator might contact Karen's mom or or parent and say hey Karen is saying this this happened at the park um do you have any information about it well I don't know so unless we have a confirmed positive the administrator can say hey if you believe Karen to the parent if you believe Karen was exposed please consider keeping her at home until and monitor symptoms um I can't verify I don't know if the other name I used Sally um if if the person that I came in contact with was conf had confirmed positive so sometimes it boils down to we if we can't confirm it we cannot Place anyone in isolation or quarantine what do you mean by confirmed like if if the student says yes I was around somebody who tested positive then is that
115confirmation enough for the district or you have to what talk to that person we would need a confirmed positive and that's why I mean an administrator could reach out to Karen's parent and say hey Karen is saying she was exposed to someone at school this student this person doesn't go to our our school um so we can't make Karen stay home in a quarantine without it being positive as part of our reporting and I apologize I didn't include this earlier as part of our reporting to EV every single student whether they're in I school um uh remote learning uh not remote learning in I school or in person we we report that to Maricopa County but on the second page we are required to report every direct contact with that is connected to that person
116so every student that has been in direct contact that we're placing in quarantine we're accountable for and we report that to Maricopa County so we if we're placing anyone in quarantine and we don't have a positive uh to connect that to um because they they they do check with us on every positive case goes through um Jaclyn Hofer our lead nurse they contact and they will verify that's why we have our spreadsheets um because when she is verifying with Maricopa County they will ask her questions um okay is this person in quarantine is this person in quarantine because Maricopa County calls the parent before they call us and so because they have to justify the any because the labs send it to Maricopa County and then we send it to Maricopa County and so there
117are various teams at Maricopa County they've got um the people assigned to um verify every positive case and then they've got cluster teams so if there's anyone on a direct contact list that we've placed in quarantine that has turned up positive we get a call so there's lots of checks and balances with Maricopa County and the way how we have to report so we couldn't Place anyone in quarantine unless it's connected to a positive if that makes sense well I can tell you what happening and I can tell you it's happening inconsistently because that's what's causing that's what that's what's triggered some of the emails and phone calls that I've gotten recently because it's like how are we doing this for one person and then the same exact situation from an outside contact happens but
118we're not requiring the same thing for another person so I think that's something that can easily be fixed the my concern is it sounds like there's a loophole and this is like where my frustration comes from with nickel and diming things not necessarily the district but just in general with this is the county will say and the nation will say CO's you know killing people it's you know all it's it's serious it's serious and then we're like okay you have our attention and then when it comes right down to it we get down to when we're trying to keep kids safe it's like well how many minutes was it more than 10 was it eight was it six feet was it 5et was it it's like oh my goodness if you have someone saying I
119was around somebody who tested positive and I had close contact with this person that should I think and again this is not to you or to daer It's just in general that should warrant enough concern to where we're going to say if you're telling me you've been around and you've spent time with this Co this positive person we're gonna ask that you um quarantine or stay home or we're going to alert anyone who's been around you now because you've been around a positive person just because they don't go to dice or just because maybe we don't have that person's positive test result in my in our hands I feel like that's a little bit of a disservice and a loophole where we could potentially be infecting lots of students and teachers if we're letting students
120come in that have verbally verbalize that they've been around positive people so is that a county thing or is that let uh let me um remember Richard uh an at least uh hopefully clarify now we have parents that call us and say you know what my daughter was exposed at the park I'm keeping her home absolutely by all means that's what we call a self- quarantine we encourage that so we don't have to have documentation of that for a parent to on their own do that so I would certainly hope that Karen or or anyone else that was in that situation would be communicating with their parent because if we we and we would our administrators have many times if someone has come up and said hey you know I think I was in contact
121with someone who was positive they'll they'll pick up the phone and and contact that parent um and just to clarify if Karen was at the park and exposed to someone positive Karen is the direct contact but she is at school everyone else is indirect contact so we and then if you know heaven forbid if anything happened to Karen she became symptomatic then we would but we have parents that have um called just about or many of our schools and said hey you know what we had an exposure I'm going to keep my child home um until uh for you know the rest of the week just to make sure give us time to test uh we welcome that because the less exposure we have at school um you know we don't want people to take
122advantage of it we have it had a couple people milk it for three four weeks um and so then we'll have continued conversations and and get more information about the exposures um but again some things are outside of our control we we are continually saying I mean if if there's not our students we can't um you know go out there and and put anyone Force anyone to be in quarantine we can have conversations with parents hey if you think your child was exposed please feel free to keep them at home and self- quarantine and uh my department of two um we handle all parent concerns so we are receiving those calls but I can tell you that we um after explaining our processes and what is in place um 99.999% of them I think I've
123only had one or two that don't understand they like oh now I understand okay yeah I'm I'm completely okay with what you guys are doing so it's just a matter of understanding our processes and what we are required to do but then also provide our parents with information of what their choices can be as well what options they have and I'm not yeah I'm not uh I know that parents are calling in and and obviously parents are being responsible with if they think that their student has been around somebody who tested positive that you know there's a lot of parents that are doing their part and saying okay I'm I'm keeping my student home but I feel like the district should take more responsibility if a parent calls in or if student says I was
124around somebody that was positive and you know sadly I don't know how this is the case but there are still people that think this whole Co thing's a hoax or they don't believe you can get it like you can get it so they may say yeah my student was around so and so and they were positive but I'm sending them home I'm sending them to school they seem fine and then that student is around teachers and other students and could potentially infect their class and so that's where I'm wondering where can the district take responsibility and say you've admitted that you've been around a covid positive person we're going to ask you to quarantine you know I understand it can't be a rumor but if they're like yeah they tested positive that makes them a
125direct contact you see what I'm saying like why I feel like that is just inviting without some more um structure around that plan it's inviting potential infection Madam chair Miss Pritchard in in the situation in which you describe um the definitions that are used for direct contact UM and others that are used for quarantine are not ones that have been established lished in the dier school district they're from the CDC from the center from Disease Control so those are are the pieces that that we follow if we have a if we have a report of a student indicating that they've been exposed outside of school for example Administration and the nursing staff would make contact with that parent with the parent of that student to determine if direct contact existed remember being around someone for
126one minute doesn't direct doesn't constitute direct contact even if that person is positive there are other factors that can that that factor in there and and the primary definition that you use is 15 minutes of Contin 15 minutes um throughout the course of a day and so if a parent tells us no my student was not in direct contact with anyone that was positive then as a school system we don't have authority um to enforce things outside of school um based upon rumor or inuendo we would have to go with um the parent or Guardians information that they've provided to us um we did seek legal opinion on that and and they indicated that you know we can't quarantine students on hearsay um and so those are pieces that we have to make sure that
127that we we have in place to protect all students um and um again if if that allegation or or report is made our schools do follow up with parents and then at that point in time we are at the mercy of what the parents are telling us to determine that outside of school contact as to whether it it result or whether it it warrants a quarantine or not well and obviously I'm not suggesting that we quarantined students on here say this was actual I'm I'm talking about instances in which a student says yes I was with this person who definitely tested positive that's what I'm talking so that's not here say that's like they had that firsthand information agreed and and again we would go back to um you know the the questions to the
128parents would be direct contact questions um and and and there are questions that are asked to determine if direct contact if the definition of direct contact was made remember being around a person who is positive doesn't uh constitute direct contact unless you're around that person for 15 minutes um that's what direct what constitutes direct contact or there's a couple of other things that that factor in there as well um but but you know if a person if a person comes in and says yeah I was around um you know my um you know my grandpa um and um you know they're positive that phone call is made home to the parent to start the process to determine if they were in direct contact or not when we're talking about quarantining students with somebody who's positive
129in school remember that they sit in classes for 45 to 55 minutes so therefore if that student's positive that's been direct contact we can absolutely guarantee that was direct contact so we use the CDC um definitions of of to determine direct contact and then that's when the quarantining begins right I understand I understand how things have been done I'm just clarifying so knowing that there's going to be staff and students who don't agree with that process are we at least allowing because I I thought this was happening as well and I learned recently that this is not um are we allowing any student who feels uncomfortable if the district is not going to require someone to quarantine if they've been if they've been directly exposed are we allowing other students the option of zooming into
130a class not be counted absent because they feel like they need to be safe whether it be they live with vulnerable adults or they're sick themselves or whatever um I always thought that was an option um but is it not so what I would say is that any student can call in absent um in a in a day parents can excuse students um that are absent um and then each school has processes that are in place to make sure that the um information from the class um and any work missed is provided to the student as well of course I'm talking about zooming into the class Miss pitchard if I could just respond to that um we were in the process of acquiring web cameras for all of our classrooms right now we don't have
131those and so it I guess would depend if there is technology available in the classroom that might be available but there's no guarantee that that would be available for all the all the classes right but if a student had that option if that class was zoomed in the past or there's a link that would be the the district would not hold that would that student be counted present if they were in attendance virtually if that option was available through their teacher um as far as the attendance goes I'm not sure if I I believe we're remote learning we do not count students absent as long as they're checking in that's correct for for quarantine um we're considering that remote learning okay so even if it wasn't a a formal quarantine like if this was the
132scenario that I just described and there was other students in a class said I don't feel comfortable then we would be okay as a district saying if if there is a zoom link available through your teacher um you can attend virtually and that's a that would be a teacher by teer decision if they open up their their Zoom link right but we won't count them absent as a district is what I'm saying right but we also would be cautious about just allowing students to self- select absences um we would work with their parents if they want to self quarantine that would be basically what that would be considered is the parent is excusing them to self quarantine okay and then I know and I haven't seen this in the literature for a while I know
133back in the summer um it used to be quarantining for 10 to 14 days after the last symptom was present so I'm assuming with all the changes of Co that's probably something that was kind of sifted through and they decided that's no longer um necessary so now we're going to the 10 days but do we really emphasize with that family that that means no no symptoms sys present when you come back so if your 10 days it's not like I feel good it's been 10 days I can come back it's like you can't have any symptoms um I can tell you that our health office and our administrators as part of that whole process and that big spreadsheet I explained they have they call every single person in quarantine um one to two days before
134their scheduled return to verify with the parent that they have no symptoms if there's symptoms they document them and and they are not allowed to return until they are symptom free without any medication for 24 hours so if at day 10 they still have a headache or um any other symptom the nurse will call again the next day the nurse will call again the next day until they the nurse can verify or an administrator that they are symptom free and then even the next day because it has to be 24 hours contact is made to verify that they've been 24 hours and then they have to be released to return to school and it's all documented on the spreadsheet okay so there's no it's it's not an individual decision if I feel good it's been
13510 days I'm coming to school there's that checkin that formal screening process they have to be called to verify before every return okay that's good to know and we still do temperature checks twice a day is that both Elementary a yes okay and then one more thing really quick so the negative t test I know the county kind of discourages um just going on a negative test they want more of that that that 10day quarantine I've heard something about you it's 10 days or seven days with a negative test are we doing that no Maricopa County has uh said at this time we are not accepting a negative test after s seven days good okay all right thank you for that information sure I do think though J wrapping up and I might jump in
136like I said I want to be very very careful I think the community needs to know that you know we're doing the best we can and we're taking it seriously to where again I guess thank you Dr kis for for allowing students to attend through Zoom because if we're not going to tell people that that actively promote yes I was around someone positive you know and they are still in school and they're they're concerning their their friends or their teachers that those people then if the district's not going to say you've been you've been exposed or you've been run positive person you can't come to school since we're not saying that we need to allow them to feel comfortable to attend in other ways because the last thing we need with everything going on with
137the hype of the the virus and everything is to have the community lose trust that we're doing our part to keep kids safe and teachers safe um so when I hear little inconsistencies here and there or things that sound a little bit concerning that's why I want to let you guys know and we can talk about it openly because um if we lose trust of our community we're it's not going to be a good situation we want I just I just I want to know that at the end of the day we're doing everything we can to make sure people are safe and healthy and don't succumb to this Miss prer just again for clarification that Zoom permission is teacher dependent we don't have zoom cameras in every classroom I understand but what I'm saying
138is if they if the teacher says I'm going to send you a zoom link the district will not count that student absent if they're there if they're excused by their parents for self- quarantining and that can be just at your discretion self quarantine if they feel like their student has had Direct contact and need to be quarantined no it'd be indirect it'd be it'd be for the students that were we know they have said we've had positive contact but the district isn't going to tell them to stay home then the other classmates can say I don't feel comfortable being around a person that said they've spent all this time with a direct person I want to ask my teacher if I can attend by zoom and stay away for a few days or if we're
139going into a weekend or something like that we' have to have a further conversation about intermittent absences cuz if that's every 3 days out of a week it's they're here they're not here from week to week to week um we really have to look at it a case by case yes when a student is quarantined even if they're self quarantined those are excused absences and if the the teacher has the technology available to zoom then that's obviously something that can be provided okay thank you I do have a quick question um too so if a student um is going to be quarantined are the teachers let known why they will be missing okay because that is a concern that I've heard too is that some teachers will say that um all of a sudden their
140students gone and they haven't been told um why they aren't in attendance and so I just didn't know what the process is for as far as letting the teachers know who's gone in their classrooms and for the duration of days yes um uh what we do have is we've got kind of like a script template that um administrators can cut and paste um and and share in a document schools um have um evolved into their their communication some um automatically send uh a list uh to each uh teacher dependent on um who's in their class others um um uh do it differently um by maybe uh like an eighth grade team or a uh individual teacher um the uh qua car qu attendance quote code is quarantine again those absences do not count against them
141so when a teacher of record um pulls that up they're going to see that the student just in case there's a laps in communication because sometimes um it happens a quarantine might happen at the end of the day or or after school and if they have that um student first hour maybe they um miss that communication but they would see that um attendance code okay thank you sure I'll try to make mine quick um have we had to hire um additional staff to keep up with all the calls and the database and the it's me and Tammy really MH and our administrators and office and health office staff they do an amazing job I am really there for guidance um they call me Karen what about this you know I had this um an uncle
142came in over the Thanksgiving helped me with a calendar um for you know uh uh indirect contact or direct contact dates so I'm really there to just guide their decision- making and make sure that because when either when you don't do it for a while or when you've got unique cases it can be interesting so like today there was there was an incident and was like well wow I need to put my thinking cap on so I went back to pulled up our documents okay it's this it's not this where it gets confusing sometimes is when there are different um isolation versus quarantine dates and maybe one group had Direct contact on a Monday and a different group had Direct contact on a Tuesday especially with Athletics or other or um stuco or something like
143that and so it's just kind of um uh drilling down to um the exact dates is where they need the most guidance okay M chair and m s SN Bel just for clarification Karen receives all the incoming calls and questions um the schools do the phone calls to parents with quarantine of their students and and the contact tracing and then John's going to give some information in just a few minutes about some some help that's on the way okay um thank you Dr Kellis uh so with regards to um the individual schools that are placing the phone calls or keeping track of the calendars and St and such um how many staff members at each school are trained in your calendar oh um all the health office staff all the administrators uh the admin 3
144the Arts attendance um Personnel um it depends on the uniqueness of um a site like f Freedom has fewer staff they also have fewer students versus Valley Vista but our staff have become extremely proficient at this process okay because it's it's more than three um so you have a wide variety of people that that can uh place these phone calls and keep up the calendar okay and dashboard is updated when Tuesdays and Fridays um around 4:00 depending on when we pull up because we want like literally um the most upto-date information Fridays uh database staff calls contract she answered that you answer okay I'm good cuz there was you know with some of the questions that Miss Pritchard had asked and some of the things that you had um uh either supplied beforehand or afterwards
145I've got my questions answered thank you thank you so much for for your grace and your patience tonight um I just had a little bit of a I just needed to clarify a little bit on the self um identified quarantining people that the example that Miss Pritchard um kind of brought up if we we had a student or a family that decided that they wanted to self-identify and self quarantine and then they communicated that to the school um but then for instance they they found out that there was something really exciting going on at school and and then they all of a sudden stopped caring about it so then they maybe they wanted to come back in 5 days would that be okay or after they've already self-identified and communicated are they stuck with that
14610day quarantine requirement does that make sense it does um I think initially when the uh self- quarantining takes place that we collect information about what their exposure was who it was right um you know was it at Thanksgiving was it Grandpa for example if it was if it was a confirmed positive contact uh we would we would ask that they not return okay thank you we want to stay um consistent we don't we want to reduce the any type of exposure so if they've told us um that this was their exposure and they're keeping their child home uh we hold them to that thank you that's I don't understand that's exactly contrary to what I just asked I just asked that question you said that we can't enforce something that's been in out of school
147contact unless I misunderstood it was my understanding Ed it differently I'm not sure um well you said it was a confirmed case confirmed Cas I gave the example of at Thanksgiving with with Grandpa and so the uh member perard if if I in the family right so how I see them differently and maybe that's my misunderstanding is that this was a parent who informed us that there was exposure and they want to keep their child home the example you provided was that um a student said that they were um exposed to someone positive we've contacted the parents the parents haven't validated that and so we can't force that child to be in quarantine if the parent isn't receptive to us putting the child in quarantine oh then I then maybe I didn't explain it correctly
148um no parent I'm at any time if a if a I thought you meant you have to have the district has to have confirmation like talking to the person that was actually positive to confirm the test for us to do anything no this would be a situation where yeah parent would even acknowledge that there was sure and I apologize I because the examples that I kept giving was that um I'm saying that I was exposed to someone at the basketball or at the park and we the administrator contacted the parent if the parent isn't we can suggest do you want to keep your child home in self quarantine but if the parent isn't receptive we can't force that parent to quarantine their child so for the interest of time how about you and I talk
149like a later date um just another few little questions um I know that we we already talked a lot about the disinfecting and the cleaning um have we had any reports of you know staff members that are um they're expected to be cleaning in between classes have we had any reports of that not happening you mean concerns about employees from employees about cleaning yeah so maybe I so I have heard you know um things and some of the things that I have heard is from staff members who have that expectation that they um are to clean in between classes especially if there is turnover in their classroom um but that maybe they don't feel like that's their that's in their job description so they don't really feel comfortable with it or they're just feeling they're
150not with that I I would say that is an expectation e e we covered those quarantine procedures in a different way uh we have a lot of openings um and contacts and uh absences that need to be covered so our staff is ously filling those positions as we allow um the FFC leave uh which by the way is uh sunset on December 31st and we do not believe that is coming back or being redone and talking with our legal council and reading the all the updates uh the family's first Corona virus response act which gives the 10 work days paid by the federal government it's an act we had to follow since March um that's going to expire that is not going to be available to to our Workforce so that's an important piece of
151what we're going to discuss here um additionally uh we still have um you know people that have to have use their personal leave and be out so all those absences um are creating a Workforce fatigue when uh all kinds of employees including administrators secretaries not just teachers they have to cover each other's classes when they're not physically in the class because they're quarantined obviously if they're positive they're not going to be there um we've done some programs to try to um alleviate those um needs across every campus we did the guest teacher incentive program which I'll cover later this evening uh which you approved um in October it's been amazing um so thank you we will go over that um you approved the emergency sub search for our pair Pros tonight in the consent agenda
152um which we will begin that process where we use our par professionals to help substitute and cover those classes uh we use our classified substitutes all we can I'll talk a little bit in a minute um towards the end about our covid response teams that we're putting together um but our HR staff is working tirelessly seven days a week um till 7 8 9:00 at night to process all the inquiries for our employees it does not stop uh they've done an amazing job they continue to do an amazing job um but um they are working tily to do that so it's causing that workplace fatigue um I've put on your um put on your desk a couple an executive order and a CDC guideline um in the executive order and the CDC um education falls
153under the essential workers category so what does that mean well through that if you look at the CDC contacts if you're an essential worker um you do not need to quarantine if you've been directly exposed if you're positive you need to quarantine and spend the 10 days out if you've been directly exposed according to the CDC the Maricopa County Department of Health you need to be able to work still because you're an essential employee okay those are the guidelines it's put out I spoke to Maricopa County Health this week they agree with those guidelines they back those guidelines the governor put it in his executive order and as you can see the CDC has some guidelines what are they supposed to do um if the if the been in direct contact um if we still
154notify them that they've been in direct contact if they are not showing symptoms so they asymptomatic um they are to return to work according to the guidelines um and follow our safety procedures that is temperatures which we already do regular monitoring wearing masks social distancing disinfecting surfaces washing hands keep the S keep the uh distance um and those type of things that's if you're asymptomatic you're not showing symptoms um if you're positive obviously you need to quarantine for 10 days that is a confirmed positive test we do all the reporting as Karen described to the Maricopa County Department of Health the contact tracing and everything with f FC expiring that poses a little problem and as well as um I described of working from home which we let them do now so we let them
155work from home um if they potentially can or to use ffcr day days the FFC days are expiring they are not going to be available any longer um working from home is posing the problem because it's creating a ton of absences across our schools um and they're all have them fill these spots so what we're proposing to do is start a new procedures January 4th and fall in line with uh the recommendations of the CDC in Maricopa County and the Governor is that our employees will be essential employees if they are directly exposed and don't show symptoms um they can continue to work they can choose to quarantine if they want to they have that choice if they feel safer to quarantine that is their choice but they will have to use their personal leave
156days we do no longer have the ffcr days from the federal government to provide the funds to pay them those 10 days so they will use their leave days if they are positive they must quarantine for 10 days and they will have to use their personal leave days for that um those FFC days are gone we believe this is going to help alleviate um a lot of that Workforce fatigue that we talk about um yet we produce options some people may not have days uh the leave days to use now that FFC is gone um and this gives them the option only if they do not have symptoms or show signs of symptoms um if they do that then they were going to need to quarantine um and go from there so I don't believe
157I'm leaving anything out Dr Kellis you can jump in if I'm left everything out just kind of a overview of the whole piece and I'll answer questions on that before we move on on well just to finish your sentence you said if they don't have any acred leave days um they would not be paid for their absent days that is correct what if they worked from home like if they were showing symptoms um and they didn't have any leave or enough leave kind of like the students are they able to still be paid if they're not they're not sick to the extent to where they just need to be in bed but if it's just like you know this lagging cough or something like that are they are they able to work from home if
158they're positive or we are saying that our work from home is going to end on December 31st and that's to try to reduce that workplace fatigue um and not drive up the absences because we have an a large amount of absences that are occurring right now so the work from home piece we're going to give them the option if they don't have symptoms if they do they were going to have to use their own leave days so working from home would no longer be an option unless with a caveat with that they follow the Ada process and have documentation medical documentation or FMLA working from home will be available for those two pieces but they will need to have proper medical documentation in order to do it and the medical documentation would include a positive
159covid test it could if it definitely could include that and that would have to be documented with medical documentation currently under FFC by law we cannot ask for any medical documentation that is part of the FFC law so when you were say I misunderstood you then when you were saying before like you they were being paid through the end of the month I thought that's if they just chose to quarantined from home they weren't necessarily sick but they just felt better quarantining I'm talking about if they're actually sick but not so sick they didn't feel like they could sit in front of a computer at home if it meant getting paid versus not getting paid you're saying either way not able to get paid if they're actually actively working from home correct okay unless they
160go through the Ada or FMLA process and that requires medical documentation we will still process those as we do right now so our staff is going to be classified as essential workers correct correct so with the um FFC gone and I'm going to be blunt when I say this um are you expecting um resignations um it's a possibility remember s s bill it's a definite possibility there are people at both ends of the spectrum and it's really going in waves as things get better and things get worse it goes back and forth so it could be a possibility that there's resignations they've been pretty um on and off all year to tell you the truth more so than um a normal year we've seen resignations come and go as much as today I've had some
161so um they continue and and it could it could drive that yes okay um you said something just a little bit earlier that your staff was working seven days a week that's not true right that is very true you are working seven days a a week we are working 7 days a week to process our employees till 7 8:00 at night I'm chair Mr SEL just um so you know how they're doing that they have a phone and somebody's designated as the the person who take the phone home and they received the phone calls of of Staff who uh may be uh feeling symptomatic and want to know what do I do and those phone calls very typically come in the evenings after they're home or they've received their tests and so um yes it's
162happening all all the time and these are exempt employees we using exempt employees of we've talked about offering overtime to our current hourly employees um my staff has been real Troopers and getting it done they you know but the fatigue is setting in and it's setting in not just with my department it's setting in across the whole District if you talk to people um covering classes it's starting to wear on our employees drastically okay okay that was all I have we have a copy of the um executive order in front of us but this is not a new thing of the executive order this is the original one from March correct just wanted to clarify that so the original executive order from March identifies them as as essential workers correct correct okay and mam chair
163it's just that daer hasn't done that where others have um we're to the point where we need uh to stop the the class coverages and splitting classes and doubling up classes and um which our teachers are are handling but it is as Mr CTO said wearing down on them if there's no more questions for Mr Cotto will move on um who has the next one Dr polling can I give a quick update on academic Services yes and then we'll move to Ken Hicks and then Mr Dean um so some of the changes that we've made um in academic Services earlier this semester or this quarter excuse me just getting feedback from staff um we began limiting our district uh professional development really feeling like teachers are spread so thin and need more time so we
164did a pause on some of our Consulting work with West Ed or 95% group who were Consulting with our principls visiting our schools um giving coaching on teaching and learning so we did a pause on that and and able uh so staff and teachers got more time and and were not spread so thin um the other thing we did again on getting feedback um and looking at um giving time to teachers we worked with our site admin and on Monday's early release we asked our principles to do an hour or less of professional development and give the rest of that time approximately two hours to teachers to be able to contact their students um work with their their high school or remote students and just have time uh to do that that needed work so
165there's just a couple of the changes we've made you know ongoing we're talking with um with with building admin with teachers with staff how are things going how can we better serve and those are a couple of the changes that we've made um this quarter I have a question about that before you move on um as far as pausing the PD though I guess one of my concerns with that is kind of we're in the area that we're in and CO's going to be around for a while so I mean I hate to pause professional development um I like the idea though that they're using some of that time to reach out to our online students because pausing PD the first thing that comes to my mind is the fact that we know that our
166online students are really struggling and so even if our P PD was more geared toward you know how to effectively teach online or how we like anything that we can do still use that time for to help our students because we know there's definitely still a student need so I'm a little bit nervous about pausing PD and Miss Pritchard um we still have the tls's that are on site to be basically instructional coaches for the teachers during every day of the week and they continue to be in classrooms and to be coaching the teachers it's just that that designated early release time on Monday um that we are reallocating for teachers to to have time and that time is designated for online students or um all but well we're as um M Dr poing said
167we're asking principles to limit staff meetings or professional development or whatever to one hour and then the rest of the time is free for the teachers to use to work with students all right um who's next yes thank you um so just quickly I know I've already talked a little bit about the budget um and so that was really wanted to highlight the financial concern so I've already mentioned that on our budget revision so we have increased costs we have a reduction of our Revenue we have less kids and we're going to have a reduction from our distance learning plan uh for students on remote learning uh the good news is is that we anticipated almost all of it and also prior to going into this year as we were looking for the um Capital
168we were allocating to ed services a budget adoption uh curriculum adoption for 1.8 million that we paused uh so knowing that we needed to continue to have as much flexibility going into this year um pausing that uh getting the over $9 million from the federal government anticipating some reductions already reducing some expenditures last year Rolling them forward this year of reduce utilities redu sub costs um reduced Transportation costs helped roll over more money that we reserved going into so this was a last meeting or the October meeting uh when we approved the first sub incentive program was talking about the S the savings that we've had for example this year we've already saved $250,000 in utilities uh a loan this year so we have some increased costs so I talked about the increased PPE The
169increased equipment they increased technology we continue to uh manage that actively manage that but we have not exhausted all of those federal funds and so we have plans for them and we have identified where they could be but we're not pulling the trigger until we have to the ESG the enrollment stabilization grant that came from the governor uh we found out our amount last week we have to spend it all by next week and it all has to be expended by December 31st we'll get all that done they're working on journal entries this week and so we'll have all that so we're prioritizing those grants that are coming in first and have to do first we did receive $100,000 for dimma for uh FEMA um Emergency Equipment emergency supplies over the summer that helped buy
170a lot of the PPE uh that we had um over the summer and the um April May June portion of it so we received $100,000 from there now we're going into the ESG once that once we finish all those AG those journal entries we're then um going to focus uh what is our um reduction that we know we're going to be an additional reduction in January what is that reduction uh so that we could um continuously active manage this but with not exhausting all of our federal funds we still have a lot of flexibility in front of us and that's our conservative nature um just a little insight into that conser ative nature like earlier I said our cut will be 1.5 million I round up on all of that so the cut is actually
171estimated closer to 1.1 but uh once we cross the million I move to the next one just to so that we all prepare for it um when the actual comes in last we're like hey that's great news uh don't tell anybody in cabinet because then they'll probably try to spend that additional funds but we create slack by uh moving in those directions that try to be conservative on our estimates uh so that we can plan and have all the FL flexibility so we've already budgeted for the increase in the second incentive program um so that we could absorb that and we still have additional funds to absorb the reduction coming in January and the increase in technology as we're looking at the uh cameras and other uh we covered uh software uh the Florida virtual
172from K8 or the k6 part of the Florida virtual some Google security enhancements all of those are being covered and we still have reserves because of our um cusing and being able to repurpose existing funds in there so we're being as flexible and adaptable as possible during a very difficult year and that's it and I would just add um and close thank you for the opportunity to present the information and with the agenda item because it's very important information um not only for you to hear but for our community as well um it's very important that we stay vigilant in communication um and making sure that we're thorough in explaining what we're doing um even with um you know the increase in in cases um over the Thanksgiving holiday which Miss petard you pointed out
173was expected um and that's absolutely correct um our um Active cases currently in the district is approximately 0.38% um and so all of the efforts that you've heard this evening um are being effective um within our mitigation strategies and and the last thing I would point out and I don't know if she's still here or not I don't see her but um or she's hiding behind the podium while Karen winterstein Department made be a department of two they are small but they are incredibly Mighty um and they do the work of literally 100 people they they do tremendous work and so um we just want to publicly say thank you to them for all of the effort that they put into U managing not only the covid issues that with from student perspective But continuing
174the student service piece as well um real quick to miss Mr Hicks uh you said that the ESG has to be used by when the 31st um the requirement is that all expenses have to have actually occurred so you can't put in future expenses it all has to be through December 31st but since we have break going out we have to do all the journal entries ahead of time so we have submitted all documentation and are working on the journal entries right now as soon as we get approval of checking all the Box the last box being that we had to submit all of our Benchmark data from our testing a three years of benchmark data um as well and we had to show proof that we did the school level reporting to the governing
175board which we did at the last board meeting um and so um with all of those we should get the final approval and we will then get the money hopefully next week and we will do all the journal entries immediately and you're confident that you're going to bring it down to zero right or uh we will spend all $5.2 million yes I'm confident on that okay thank you Dr kis from cabinet and uh everyone that has a part in um helping prepare for all of this because there's just so many facets of of covid and and I think that our response has been fantastic considering um such a large community with um diverse things going on so I really appreciate it um next item is J1 and that is the recommendation to approve classified staff
176notice of employment language and benefit packages for the 2122 school year Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet Mr Cotto will introduce this item thank you Dr Kellis uh Madam president members of the board superintendent kellison cabinet tonight we bring you the notice of employment for our class ified staff this is for aity and exempt staff uh last board meeting you approved the certificated contract language this is for our classified employees as I said exempt and certified so we're asking and requesting approval on of the language and the benefit packages for uh the 2021 2020 school year for our classified staff there any changes from last year there are no changes and this has gone through our thank you for the reminder there are no changes and this
177has gone to our attorney for review and she has returned it with no changes I move the governing board approve the notice of employment language and the benefit packages for hourly and exempt classified staff for the 2021 through 2022 school year second C for the Reemployment staff and issuance of notices of employment for the 2122 school year thank you Madame chair members of the board members of cabinet Mr Cotto will also introduce this item thank you Madame President members of the board superintendent Kell cabinet uh now that you've re um approved the language we are asking you to approve the issuance of the notices of employment uh this happens usually in May the first part of May um but this gives us the authority to issue them um if the board would approve that and
178I'll stand for any questions thank you any questions okay I move that um we approve the issuance of notices of employment to eligible classified staff in their current positions at the 2122 salary level with Benefits can measure it with the possession with the position second call for the vote that wasn't me that seconded that do what I think yeah it was Miss Tanner who seconded it not that I'm not okay with it but just as a ort of clarification I didn't second that just to be technical I think they're going to go back can fix that yeah thank you they can't fix it oh no it still says have to manually fix it thank you okay motion passes next we have item j3 recommendation to approve to approve a guest teacher incentive program Dr Pa
179thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet Mr crle will introduce this item thank you Dr Kellis Madame President members of the board superintendent Kellis cabinet uh we are excited to bring back some information about the incentive the guest teacher incentive program that you um approved in October for the beginning of November 2nd through December 11th um if you remember previously uh we had 291 guest teachers in our available pool of guest teachers before you approved this and before it began on November 2nd was 76 of those those 291 teachers were working um the program that you approved and wanted to try from November 2nd To December 11th we now have 130 guest teachers that is a increase of 54 um guest teachers in our district um also prior to the
180incentive program we had about 44 guest teachers working just one or two days a week we wanted to reduce that that was our discussion that night so we're proud to report that now um we are down to 30 guest teachers working just one to two days that's a good thing because if you look at the other side of that we have a 100 teachers now that are working um more than two days a week in our district and before that was 32 so that has gone up by 68 teachers taking more uh days in fact um from when I pulled this data we have 94 guest teachers that worked 10 or more more of the 18 possible days when I pulled this data um on December 1st so that was fantastic uh with this we
181we've talked to our sites our sites see a huge difference obviously in the increase of those guest teachers uh we've had comments by guest teachers that are very um excited about the program and excited to work in daart with that information we'd like to run another guest teacher incentive program um and this program would run January 4th through March 12th um again that's 48 days the last incentive program was 28 days so using the same formulas of working um at least 50% to 74% so if if in this tier one incentive for the new program if a guest teacher worked 24 to 35 days um which is 50% to 74% of the days they will receive a $1,700 incentive if they work 36 to 48 days we are asking that they receive a $2500 incentive
182these are the same dollar figures if you compute it by day as the first program although those amounts look bigger it was 1,500 in the first one remember we have 48 days in this one not 27 so we almost have a little bit under double the days um and with that I I will let um the financial Guru talk about about the finances with that because I know you're going to have questions so I'll defer to Ken for the financial side of that um thank you very much so in the first pro program um we were estimating success would be around $100,000 I think uh the last poll um we saw it over 107,000 and that's just on the uh the cost direct incentive program cost but then the S the benefits on top of
183it U push it about $130,000 so we're very um happy with that using um now we have to prepare these agenda items ahead of time so I haven't used any data this week we were looking at with that same success rate the cost would go up to about $259,000 so we think it'll cost uh with continued success um uh in excess of about $250,000 I really look at this is uh we're putting PPE we're trying to create safe environments the other thing we're trying to do is not to overload classrooms for the distancing and this is another tool to help relieve our staff and to help in this situation so I think it's a a good cost it's something we've already budgeted for we still haven't exhausted all of those federal funds um but this
184is uh something that will help uh continue to help with our morale of our staff and to create safe environments and with that we'll stand for any questions mine's going to be a quick question um Mr Coto uh for tier one uh for the 24 to 35 what was it for the um the first set of days the first time we did this the first time we did it yes um it was 14 to 20 days oh I'm sorry the dollar amount oh it was $1,000 a th000 and the 36 to 48 um that was uh 21 to 27 days and that was $1,500 at that time thank you uh I'm glad to hear that uh that guest teachers were you know um on board with it and you know the the numbers did exactly
185what you wanted them to do um I'm hoping for a better return for this next this next break so thank you thank you anyone else have any other questions okay I will make a motion to approve the continuation of the guest teacher incentive program as presented second motion passes thank you very much next we have um recommendation for approval of the proposed boundary changes beginning in the 2021 through 2022 school year Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet Mr Hicks will introduce this item thank you very much Madame President protm members of the board um so on this agenda item this was something that was uh brought to the board um back in um well that was uh November 18th but November 4th is when we started it
186part of this uh start this mainly started on the middle school and looking at the boundary changes that were done but as you know part of our policy and our goals and our objective is to um maximize the use of all available facilities and to create efficient use of our right resources and to um account for itively positioned for the incoming and projected growth going forward so as we're looking at that process um we're always constantly looking at other things and one of these there's some other boundary changes and so these are the other boundary changes that are not directly as a result of Medal School changes and so um the first one is the Riverview Luke um that's uh sundow for I believe is the name of that Community um that is right next
187to the Riverview they were current they're current going to Luke we're going to re um boundary them and move them recommend them moving to riverv just as has mentioned at the previous public hearing and other presentations um the existing students that are there and I think there's about 80 sixish uh students that are in that boundary that go to Luke currently right now they can continue to open roll and we do give them priority uh when that is happening um and then so we would so that's one change moving it for efficiency the second efficiency is moving the Mountain View uh the Sonoran Heights currently on the other map um and the bottom left corner um removed from Sonoran Heights and moved to Mountain View is that other one change right now there were a
188and that's now moving to Mountain View that has I think 20 20 32 kids um in that one that currently go to Sor they would also be able to open Ro and get priority um purpose in and positioners for growth and for efficient use of resources um move them to Mountain View now originally um presented to the board was um a few other boundary changes um currently after talking with our attorney we think we might have um uh messed up a little bit of communication and even though we do an abundance of sending letters and communicating everything um we left off a couple of the changes that we told you back in November that we were also making outside the the Middle School uh for efficiency we're going to bring those back in January and
189just redo the process a little bit just to make sure that we have all the um eyes dotted and T's crossed from that standpoint so this right now is just those two boundary changes that we're recommending so the top one um removing Sonoran Heights and adding to Sunset Hills is not part of this agenda item at this point in time I'll stand for any questions and also I'd just like to uh our planning administrator Mr Kevin Shipman who does an amazing job who's sticking it out for the board meeting to uh make sure he could handle our help and support any questions he does a lot of the leg work and appreciate all his time and effort and work in these areas thank you very much for that update um any questions from the board
190I will make a motion to approve the boundary changes for Luke Elementary School Mountain View school and River View School beginning in the 2021 2022 school year second and we will vote on that thank you motion passes all right next we have item uh action item five recommendation for approval of the proposed boundary changes to establish middle schools beginning in the 2122 school year Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet um it was getting close to about a year ago where um the governing board asked Administration to put together a plan for middle schools and we have worked throughout the year to bring this plan into fruition and this evening we are bringing this item forward Mr Dean will uh present this information good evening Madam chair me
191uh Dr Kellis members of the governing board and members of cabinet this evening um we bring to you a recommendation for the approval of proposed boundary changes to establish middle schools beginning in the 2021 2022 school year and so we wanted to take just a few minutes to go through the middle school plan recommendation um and make sure that we um provide opportunities to answer any questions that may arise as well so first just a brief history um just as Dr Kell stated um about a year ago we had a governing board request to explore a middle school plan um we started that process with a community webinar on April the 28th um we also had a Facebook live Forum on November 7 17th if there's been one positive that's come out of the pandemic
192it's the fact that we are able to reach a lot of people through Facebook live forums um and so where in the past um decade and and previous to that we've had held um in-person forums to very small audiences the Facebook live Forum has allowed us to broadcast to thousands of people um and then continue to rebroadcast afterwards and so that's one positive that's come from um this time following the community webinar on April or yeah on April 28th we put together a middle school planning framework planning team um that consisted of teachers and administrators in the district that team met um five times from June through September we shared their that committee's framework with the governing board on September 23rd that would be the framework for the Middle School um what the middle schools
193would look like um after that uh 9:23 meeting we met one last time with the Middle School framework planning team on 930 um to make sure that everything was solid in terms of the recommendation our district demographer Kevin Shipman worked to identify transportation and safe route to school needs um and then again we shared the boundary recommendations uh with the governing board on November 18th at the last meeting as Mr Hicks stated the boundary process actually started um a few weeks prior to that with notification in the paper and then Mass notification um throughout the district via um uh various communication forums the rationale for the Middle School selections really came down to establishing four um or proposing four middle schools within the district one Middle School pairing for each High School feeder and so
194when we talk about our middle schools we we've we proposing to pair them um with another school um that's close in proximity that would become a primary school um our pairings um are proposing that the primary school be be pre kindergarten through fourth grade and that the middle school will be fifth through e8th grade for each feeder um what we're looking at is the daer High School feeder that dier Elementary would become the middle school and that would be paired with El Mirage for the prek through four School the Shadow Ridge High School feeder would be Sonoran Heights as the middle school and Rancho Gabriella would be the prek4 school for valy Vista High School Ashton Ranch would become the Middle School Countryside would become its paired pre- for school and at Willow Canyon High
195School simmeron Springs would become the middle school with Western Peaks being paired as a primary school in terms of Staffing and what that would look like um should the recommendation be approved our teaching staff um will basically flip-flop so if you are a kindergarten teacher at um simmeron Springs and that Simon Springs becomes a middle school you that kindergarten teacher would move to Western Peaks um the paired Primary School um and and retain their position there at that point in time the same would be true with the fifth or eighth grade teachers at the primary school they would flip to the Middle School in the framework that's being recommended by the committee the only additional teaching um position that we would see at this point in time would be the inclusion of a Spanish teacher
196at the middle schools um foreign language is one of the um components of the framework of the Middle School um in in the seventh and eth grade um which provides our students high school credit or would provide our students high school credit for foreign language um putting them uh a few credits ahead knocking out their University requirement for foreign language and freeing up their High School staff to take additional courses in which um they may have interest our office staff would remain the same at the schools and the administrative staff we are proposing at this point in time to remain the same as well from a cost Factor we're working at a very minimal cost to transition our schools to middle schools in terms of furniture the current Furniture in our buildings will be used
197and moved to the appropriate building for example um if approved the primary Furniture that's currently at Ashton Ranch would be moved to Countryside their Upper Grade Furniture would be moved to Ashton Ranch and that would occur after school um is over during the school year there will be a need for Marquee change and signage on the building for the Middle School um we have requested estimates on that and here's what we have found that to change the four Marquees at the middle schools it would be at a cost of about $2,500 per school for a cost of approximately $10,000 total for the Marquee change and the signage on the building would be approximately $8,000 total per four schools um so we're looking between $18 and $20,000 for that change we are looking to provide CTE
198Ive courses introductory CTE elective courses um and the cost of that um a cost of those curricular materials will be paid through CTE budget um as we look to plan those and move forward in terms of moving playground equipment there is currently not a plan to move playground equipment at this time if you as you will recall our schools are built for approximately 1,200 students each and so when they were built they were built with playground equipment that um provided for up to 1,200 students students at the schools at this time we don't see a need to to move playground equipment should that need arise down the road um you know we certainly um have the equipment and could look to move it um that could incur future costs down the road that could be
199planned for um in terms of bringing that equipment up to code up to current code I should say and those types of things um but at this point in time there currently isn't a plan to move that we'll monitor that as that goes forward and in terms of future costs if there are future costs for example potential renovations to middle school buildings such as additional science labs those kinds of things those would be incorporated into budget plans for future years um so we're looking right now if if there was a question as to what cost would be moving forward we would be looking at approximately $18 to $220,000 total for Marquee change and signage on the on the middle school buildings we do not have a need to change the the Marquee or the signage
200at the primary schools and then we would be looking at the cost of a Spanish teacher um at each of the middle schools that would be the cost that would be excuse me that would be the cost that would be involved in um in the process it gets a little humid in The Mask once you start talking for a while once again the school pairing recommendations that um we're providing this evening would be daiser would become a middle school paired with El Mirage sonor Heights would become a middle school paired with Rancho Gabriella Ashton Ranch would become a middle school paired with Countryside and simron springs would become a middle school paired with with Western Peaks we provided information to the governing board regarding those boundary changes the boundaries of the two schools would become
201one continuous boundary with the pre kindergarten through fourth grade students attending the primary school and the fifth or eighth grade students attending the Middle School a couple last things that we would like to point out is that we have looked at Transportation needs and safe route to school's needs and so in instances such as sonor Heights and Rancho Gabriella where there currently is not a safe walking route to school schol um as there's not a light at choya and Reams um all of the students for both schools would be busted um to the other schools and so that would be a part of of our plan as we move forward um and um any other students who fall within our transportation um uh boundaries um would be provided transportation to the various schools and with
202that I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you very much for that detail um one question I I I think some of these questions maybe I triggered um in my conversation with Dr Kell so thank you for that um I guess in my mind when you're looking at um K through four and you're merging you know potentially two schools you know into one or whatever that happens to look yeah two schools into one so you're doubling amount of K4 students and you look at our playground equipment and can you maybe just help me um understand how what that would look like as far as recess time and play time is that just going to be staggered in such a way that it wouldn't be double in my what I'm picturing okay Madam chair the
203answer to your question is yes with a couple of further explanation so certainly a school princip certainly a school principal um has the ability to stagger lunch times and stagger um playground locations and those types of things when we built our buildings um as I said earlier we we built them to accommodate students up to 1,200 students um and so there have been times in our district where we've had that many students which is about 150 between 133 and 150 students per grade level um you know and I will tell you that um back a long time ago um when I was the principal at Sunset Hills um in our second year we we reached very close to 1,200 students and so certainly that's a good number of students on the playground at a given
204time but the equipment was adequate for what we have if you look at the number of students in our schools that we're preparing that we're proposing to pair together the only school that the only School pairing that we see um that would see a number of students in a grade level close to 150 would be sonor Heights and Rancho Gabriella and so all of the other schools would be well under that number for their current pairing and that's why we say we don't have any current plans um to move our playground equipment um certainly if we were to see a large number of students open enroll um to a primary school and or um a lot of development that would bring more students in there then we would revisit that conversation the good news is
205we already have the equipment um we would just have to look to pay the cost to move it and bring it to any um codes that have changed since we've installed it okay um so that equipment would potentially be staying um at the middle school then at this time that's the plan there is not not a plan to move that next year um and again any um any future moves we would plan within our budget process as we move forward okay so no no storage costs that's correct we're not we're not removing them and storing them anywhere great okay all right thank you for that any other questions um I do have a question with regards to start times what would the start times be for the middle schools versus the elementary and Madam chair
206Miss Sawyer sbell in thinking through um this the recommendation for middle schools and understanding that there are um older grade students who at times provide um supervision for younger grade students after school um we have planned for the middle schools to start at 8:15 they would be the first um first tier of um K K8 start and our primary schools would start at 9:00 what that would allow for is the opportunity for our middle school students to be dismissed earlier 45 minutes earlier and be returned home um to be able to provide that supervision um to the younger students and in some cases if even necessary um or if necessary to be able to um go to the the primary school and walk those students home as well so that's that was a 45 minute
207window yes it's there a 45 minute difference between both the start time and the end time of the middle school and Primary School certainly in the morning the middle school students would start prior to um but that afternoon supervision opportunity would would be available okay thank you just curious um I know we've all received a lot of feedback from the community regarding the Middle School's um decision and I'm sure you probably get a lot more feedback than than I do but so so knowing that like what would you say is the the common theme for those who are opposed to Middle Schools based on your conversations and your emails what would you say was the most common theme for no Madam chair Miss Richard um in terms of the common theme I will tell you
208that the common theme that has arisen in the communication that we have received um really lies in um in parents' desire to see their school continue to be K8 um that has been um the common theme while we've had a few parents um indicate to us that um they don't agree with the Middle School concept we've had parents who um are very happy about the Middle School concept um matter of fact for a number of years I I've been in the district 16 years um and and I can't think of a year when we haven't been asked multiple times when we were going to to um move to middle schools and so um really the common theme of of parents who um have concerns and and we thank them by the way for providing that
209information and communicating with us um and um the the common theme really centers around um that that they don't want their school to be um transitioned to um a middle school or primary school that they would prefer it to stay K8 and Madam chair M Pritchard just to extend that which Mr de is absolutely correct but to extend that just a little piece further is every school has its Community identity it's neighborhood that Community is very important and the the perception that we're splitting a community um is something that hits home for a lot of families and as the principles of the two paired schools are are anticipating that that element of concern um they're already having conversations about how to unify two communities versus splitting a community um one pairing is already talking about
210kind of a a tagline of two schools one family and doing common activities and and talking about some some common um thematic planning so that the families can see some um some alignment as they transition from one school to the next um but the the idea behind middle schools is not new and it's kind of strange for many from the East part of the United States Who come out to Arizona and particularly to daer and wonder why don't we have middle schools here um just looking around our neighborhood there's a a lot who have middle schools and it's something that we get the the question about is why don't you have middle schools and having been a middle school principal and a superintendent of a middle school I appreciate the the questions but I also
211understand that there are those families who value the K8 experience and those opportunities those choices will continue to exist and we as we have said many times this evening there's choice in diert and those choices are intentional and we want to uh meet the needs of of each family as much as we can you um the only other question that I have my hope would be um if we move forward with this is that we don't approach it like a a build the plane while we're flying it type mentality when we're talking about programming like for an example then I'm going to date myself but back in the day we had and our we weren't middle school but we would have the home and wood shop when you were at that age in those grades
212and so like I know where I went to school before they changed the boundaries we were busted like to Lichfield Elementary to get those classes in so that program was built around very different programs and very different experiences um so between now and then we have eight months are we feeling confident that you like you talk about foreign language or if we're going to have things like a culinary or which however that's going to look we're going to all of our students are going to get the full benefit of what middle school means it's not going to be like well the first class class didn't really get that but hey if you come in next year we're really going to be awesome like we're going to start out awesome right Madam president or Miss Richard
213um I still have my box that I built in wood shop as well and um the answer to your question is yes we're going to open we would open fully ready to go um and and it's very important that that um opportunity is provided to the students in the first class as it would be students 20 years from now obviously things will evolve over 20 years um but yes we would open fully ready to hit the ground completely running with every student in eth grade every student in seventh grade every student in sixth grade and every student in fifth grade that would be a very important component and a priority for us as we move forward we've already had um planning meetings with um with Mr gree saer um with Miss Montana W with with
214District staff and School staff ready to hit the ground running should the board approve this recommendation and we are ready to absolutely roll and fly um through the remainder of the planning down to every little detail so that we're ready to open um successfully on August I'm not sure which day it is but I know it's early in the month 2021 with our programs too with programs ready to go yes those programs will roll um and and they will be they will move forward yes absolutely one uh one additional question I just thought of um looking at so be would be fifth through fifth through eighth grade for our middle schoolers um typically at that age we do see like an increase um in I don't know hormonal issues in these kids and they start
215going a little crazy and they start doing things they shouldn't be doing um similar to two instances that might happen in a high school where a school resource officer would have get involved whether it's you know in school fighting or drugs or something VAP vaping whatever that looks like would we um have an opportunity to share those Resources with their feeder High School um with the school resource officer potentially getting involved with with different issues or Madam chair um the answer to your question is yes and and um the thought process in the recommendation is very intentional um you know there are times where we reach out to our high schools now to provide support with our their SRO to our elementary schools these schools are in very close proximity to the high schools with
216the exception of sonor heights Rancho Gabriella um but that that sonor Heights is a Shadow Ridge feeder um and um as we stated in a past meeting with several students from Rancher Gabriel who open en roll to Shadow Ridge so we would have the opportunity um to pull on Shadow ridge's SRO if needed um additionally if there were um more pressing needs we certainly would contact the city immediately and or um contact Valley Vista who might be able to get there a little quicker okay great thank you for that anyone else have anything no I'm sorry I thought I thought that was the look that you were thinking Ive I moved the governing board approve the proposed boundary changes to begin in the 2021 through 2022 school year second call for the vote could you
217repeat the second D second okay this PR is very active today you are active tonight it was Miss denmore that did the second there you go wow you're good and that is approved right good luck have [Laughter] fun silly moving to it agenda item six and this is the approval of grade level reconfiguration Dr pellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet um continuing on with the necessary um approvals that are needed to fulfill this plan we have a couple more items Mr Dean will U make this presentation Madam chair members of the governing board Dr Kel and members of cabinet this evening we um asked that the G the the governing board following the the last approval um formally um approve the the recommended reconfiguration pairs of the two
218schools together um we have reached out to the school facilities board to make certain that there are no issues with us providing um reconfiguration of um the uh the schools in this manner um there are no concerns from the school facilities board and so we would request that the governing board um we request approval from the governing board for the grade level reconfigurations listed as Countryside prek4 Ashton Ranch fifth through 8th grade El Mirage prek4 diart fifth through 8th grade Rancho Gabriella prek4 sonor Heights fifth or eighth grade and Western Peaks prek4 simron spring fifth through e8th grade any discussion um yes uh Dr Kellis um or Mr Dean um please uh because you and I had a conversation uh why fifth grade in the Middle School Madam chair Miss Sawyer SN Bell um the
219answer to your question has has a couple of answers um certainly one is balance of the schools um it provides provides a um more of an equal split um between the the schools but more importantly from a curricular component while um our curriculum um used in the middle school will be that of that we that we currently have in place um we have the ability with our middle schools to offer some Advanced courses that will provide High School Credit in so doing we will push that acceleration down to the fifth grade and be able to provide um a stronger base for students um identify students at at a younger grade that that we will be able to um utilize Resources with to have more students for example be eligible for algebra classes um we've already
220talked about the Spanish aspect and and providing um Spanish um credit high school credit for our students as well but really looking at from a flow of curriculum um being able to really identify and um begin that um base acceleration piece for advanced courses in the fifth grade and one thing that I would point out as well is that the framework for for our middle schools um especially for seventh and eighth grade will look very similar to a high school schedule right our seventh and eighth grade students will will go through six or seven periods a day um they'll be elective Choice etc etc our sixth grade students will have very will have similar aspects with just a few changes our fifth grade students will not have a high school schedule um our fifth grade
221students will not go through the process of having seven different classes during the day um individually our fifth grade piece will be paired a little differently um than our sixth seventh and eighth grade as we start to get into that true Middle School component um and one of the reasons for that is the fact that there are some very stringent certification requirements um for um k6 classes compared to seventh and eighth grade classes and some of them are iron um in that you can have a teacher in the fifth grade for example who is certified to teach all classes because they're certified to teach fifth grade they can teach all four class four core classes yet if you separate individually those four classes where one teacher teaches math one teacher teaches English science and social
222studies now there's a certification issue um it makes no sense um from The Logical World um however what we would be able to do in those situations is to pair teachers together together so that you have maybe a math one teacher teaching math science one teacher is teaching Social Studies English and be able to pair that way so fifth grade will look a little different in the middle school but it will allow us to build that curricular flow um in which we'll be able to provide some Advanced um courses for our middle school students leading to further um opportunities in the high school M chair Miss s sell I will also share that I've had personal experience leading a district that had uh middle schools with a fifth through e8th grade grade configuration um the
223parents found it very uh rewarding for their students to be in a middle school where they earlier on than perhaps traditionally is seen in a middle school their students have access to those more advanced opportunities um I've also been a principal of a 78 middle school and uh I've seen that yes they're they do very well being have the that higher level grade configuration isolated from everybody else um but I did see that the students in the fifth grade were very successful in a middle school and were able to make that adjustment in curriculum typically there's kind of a big bump there when you hit fth grade um it the the the topics get harder and your math takes a jump in into some more complex Concepts um other curricular areas do as well so
224there there's some natural opportunity there for students to be successful in fifth grade parent it into a middle school there's models of success as I'm thinking and this is just in my mind that uh Middle School is sixth seventh and eth or seven and eight or S8 and n as they do in um Mesa in some of the Eastern schools and um fifth grade is what 11 years old 10 11 101 and I'm just thinking that's just a little too young for um middle school and as Miss denmore had brought up in the last uh thing about that hormonal change and I know that no two students are alike and no three or four compared to another are alike but uh um I guess in my mind and being in a middle school um that
225it was I guess I'm I'm having trouble separating to me Middle School meant six through it probably is relative to like your experience because um I know with me I had a middle school that started in fifth grade so I went during fifth grade this was in Nebraska um and just from my experience because I was what 11 going on 18 so um I know for just it's so weird I actually remember this stuff I was going through some old stuff during Thanksgiving but I I truly remember hitting that Middle School time during that and because I felt like I was older going to a middle school I did take for some reason it it did correlate with me that the classes would be a little bit more difficult I took it a little bit
226more seriously um I don't know how to explain it between that but I I personally had that fifth through eighth experience and um from what I remember from my experience was that um I knew the seventh and eighth graders were there but they kind of had their own side of the building too kind of like how the K and8 were you know there was still some level of separation and I do remember and I don't know how you how you have the model set up but um as fifth and sixth graders we were kind of separate from the seventh and eighth graders so it's although we were moving into a middle school it still felt very private in a way for us fifth and sixth graders I don't know how to explain it other than
227that so which Miss Tanner just brought up a good point the schools that will be middle schools do you think we'll be having the fifth and sixth on those bottom floor and the seventh and eighth on the top floor so that that would be a school specific conversation however they will be separated yes there will be there will be a distinction between um the grade levels whether it's side of building or floor of building um there will certainly be um either seventh and eighth grade will be downstairs and fifth and sixth grade will be upstairs or it will flip-flop one of the two I I will I will agree I when I first think of middle schools for a while the the fifth grade threw me cuz I too I think 6 7th eth um
228so just just out of curiosity I mean how how big of a deal would it be if it was just 6 seventh and eth is I I I mean I I that's my familiarity with it but then I also see the potential benefit of okay fifth and sixth grade it be a good transition to kind of be in the same environment the same building and kind of prepare for you know that extra push into seventh and eth so I can see both sides but my personal reference is when think Middle School it's seventh and eth or sixth seventh and eth Miss brard if I could comment on that if you look at some of the programming that for example that I experienced as a superintendent of a district that had the 58s we could take
229that Spanish and grades five and six took care of freshman Spanish grades seven and eight took care of sophomore level Spanish um when we looked at the the math we could break down the and I'm not committing the district to this um but we could take the the algebra class and start doing more advanced work in the fifth and sixth grade so that they could be even prepared to take geometry and get two credits an algebra credit and a geometry credit um if we don't include that fifth grade then those fifth graders will basically not have access to that higher level curriculum and some of those programs it will probably be more likely that Spanish is only going to happen where they can get one credit and not a potential for two credits if you
230have a four-year sequence versus a three-year sequence same with the Arts um as we looked at in I'll just say it was in the Madison in school district um getting students involved in in the band it's a fairly typical time when students start band start learning their instruments and rather than having students start at sixth grade starting them at fifth grade um they have that extra year there to start getting ready to to be more advanced and ready to enter High School actually ready to march in many cases is they already know how to play they don't have to teach them how to play at that point I just look how good I turned out just kidding okay um um Middle School sports so um we don't play other districts do we Madam chair um
231Miss sorn but we currently do not um we we play at with all of our 20 K8 schools we play Within the district um the the plan for Middle School sports would be to play um outside of the district um so as not to create a competitive disadvantage to our K8 schools um we're doubling the number of kids at the middle school that have that would be involved athletically So the plan would be that our four middle schools would play in an outside conference um whether that be with the Deer Valley Paradise Valley Schools or with Lichfield um and others um we are exploring that the 12 um K8 schools would continue to play each other um and that League of 20 would just become a league of 12 um right now we have five
232um divisions of four schools we would make three divisions of four schools and so Athletics would continue on both ends um in terms of opportunity with the middle schools there would become a seventh grade team and an eighth grade team in each sport um so um the opportunity would continue to exist for our students um to to play and and to have that competitive of opportunity as well with the middle schools it would just become outside of the district and against each other as well obviously so we don't currently have fifth and sixth graders playing in occasionally we do if we do not have enough athletes in seventh and eighth grade to fill the team um then we will we will allow sixth graders um to try out and then fifth graders on very rare
233occasions um but in this situation in a middle school um we would be looking at seventh and eighth grade teams um and should the need arise for lack of um of participation then we would do the same thing that we do now and and that would be to um provide our sixth graders the opportunity um we don't anticipate that would be the case okay there's no other discussion um I will motion to approve the the grade level configuration for Ashton Ranch Elementary School Countryside Elementary School simron Springs Elementary School Western Peaks Elementary School diart Elementary School El Mirage Elementary School Rancho Gabriella Elementary School and Sonoran Heights Elementary School beginning in the 2021 through 2022 school year second seconded by Jen Tanner and we will vote like CHR motion passes thank you next we have
234item seven approval of school name changes Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet as our final item of business for the middle schools Mr will introduce the topic of name name changes Madame chair members of the governing board Dr Kellis and members of cabinet this evening our final recommendation as it relates to Middle Schools would be um to request the board approve name changes for Ashton Ranch to become Middle School simron Springs to become middle school dyser to become middle school and sonar Heights to become middle school as the school names for those middle schools beginning in the 21 202 2 2021 2022 school year here and I'd be happy to answer any questions any discussion or questions on that not I will make a motion to approve
235uh Ashton Ranch middle school simron Springs middle school diart middle school and Sonoran Heights Middle School as the school names for the middle schools beginning in the 2021 through 2022 school year second seconded by Tracy Sawyer sink Bell and we were we will vote on that motion passes thank you moving on to item eight recommendation to approve the 2020 through 2021 revised expenditure budget Dr Kellis thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet this is the information that was presented during our our open hearing earlier this evening and there's no additional information to present so it is presented to the board for approval you mean Mr Hicks doesn't have an a PowerPoint I'm trying to give you credit okay I will make a motion to approve the 2020 through 2021 revised expend
236expenditure budget second seconded by Tracy Sawyer SN Bell we will call for the vote motion passes thank you moving on to item n this is a discussion and action to set a date for an executive session for the superintendent's midyear evaluation Dr kis thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet um it is tradition and it's part of my contract that the board provide a midyear evaluation and each year we set a date for this typically around the January February timeline um I am asking that the board set aside an executive session for the superintendent's midar evaluation either on during the meeting of January 27th or 10th February 10th and either one of those would be fine with the superintendent does anyone have any I'm conflicts with either one of those
237dates I'm okay either way February 10th works better for me I would prefer February 10 because I think it gives the the new board members a little bit of time to acclimate I'm fine with that good with that okay okay thank you are you available tune in you can tune in Facebook all right I will make a motion to establish an executive session on February 5th of 2021 for the superintendent's midyear evaluation uh oops Madam chair just want to review that date we' heard we heard two different dates February 10th and I think the motion was February 5th was it wrong was it February 10th 10th we just want to make sure that the motion's correct did you hear fif I'm G to make a motion to establish an executive session on February 10th probably
238the mask uh for the superintendent's midyear evaluation do I second second Tracy s sink Bell has seconded that motion we will call for the vote I don't care computer doesn't want to move motion passes moving on to item K1 a this is um a request for future agenda items any requests from the board okay no request um and this is item L1 I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting seconded by Miss Pritchard we will call for that vote I've done that so much they expected motion passes the meeting is adjourned thank you