Dysart Governing Board Meeting - October 28, 2020

001this time i'd like to call the the meeting to order let the record reflect that all board members are present with the exception of jay leonard okay and we'll go ahead and 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 nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we'll go to item b1 approval of the agenda form i'll go ahead and make a motion to approve this agenda form consistent with governing board policy and temporarily suspend any policy with which this agenda may be inconsistent second motion passes all right next we have recognitions and celebrations thank you madam chair and members of the board members of cabinet this evening we have several great

002recognitions to to present we're going to be starting out with arizona daughters of the american revolution and the outstanding american history teacher of the year and mr dean will introduce this item good evening madam president members of the governing board dr kellis members of cabinet i would ask the board to please um come forward onto the steps of the stage for this award as we begin it is my pleasure this evening to share that mr christopher rosso social studies teacher at canyon ridge school formerly sunset hills school has been named the 2020 outstanding american history teacher of the year the award honors full-time 5th through 12th grade teachers of american history and related fields and is given out by the arizona daughters of the american revolution this evening we would invite the amer the arizona

003daughters of the american revolution to present the award ladies the time and microphone is yours if you would like well thank you it's a pleasure to be here tonight my name is mary lou feldman and i am an honorary state regent of the arizona society daughters of the american revolution one of the signs of an excellent teacher is someone who can spark a flame in a student's mind and heart to learn and treasure our american history and to become a responsible citizen mr razzo you're that teacher you're the man you're innovation your innovative approach to education ensures that no child is left behind when it comes to american history on behalf of the arizona state society daughters of the american revolution it is a true honor to present you with our outstanding american history teacher

004award for the year 2020. we're about five months late but it's here six i think couldn't be helped thank you we want to present this to you from our chapter our d.a.r chapter it's alwa freya sun city and we are very honored to have been the ones to nominate you for that position you're welcome and all of your work and everything you've done for the children of canyon ridge and how you've reached out to dysart with so many opportunities for our children to be in contests we're looking forward to keep working with you years to come thank you do i get rid of the microphone ready [Laughter] we all tried congratulations again mr rasso congratulations now we'll continue on to item c2 the government finance officers association and the international association of school business officials

005financial awards mr ken hicks will present this information thank you very much good evening madam president pro tem members of the board superintendent dr kalis colleagues and community members there's a first of two awards tonight but first being of our proud to announce our transparency and excellence award we have two awards one from the government finance officers association and one from the international association of school business officials and the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting has been awarded to us and mainly based on our kafir our comprehensive annual financial report the kafir was judged by an impartial panel to meet high standards of the program which includes and demonstrating a constructive spirit of full disclosure to clearly communicate its financial story the asbo international award was given the certificate of excellence in financial

006reporting for its comprehensive annual financial report as well both of these are for the fiscal year and in 2019 and it confirms the school businesses our office's commitment to financial accountability and transparency so i want to thank miss maridel spidel which i saw her in here earlier and her team for all their efforts um i didn't i didn't bring that award so i i apologize but for the next one what we also have is the phoenix business journals award to the dice unified school district for a healthiest employer award and so i want for this one i would like to thank miss janice peel our benefits and wellness manager and all of our staff for their willingness to engage in our wellness program happy and productive employees is our goal helps in the long run

007but the cultural determinant the culture determines the success or failure of today's wellness programs and leadership plays a critical role in affecting an organizational's approach to its programming healthy employees are more productive and spend less in health care which is part of why i like it understanding the specific needs of your employee population and measuring those results is essential and so we received an award for the number six award for the healthiest employees [Laughter] and that concludes our recognitions and celebrations for the evening thank you [Applause] next we have item d1 audience with individuals okay i'll go ahead and read the statement now 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 h action taken as

008a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision or later date in order to facilitate accomplishing the business of the district in a timely manner a time limit of three minutes will be imposed for each individual or group addressing the board when you approach the podium please state your name for the record and first tonight we have beth simek good evening dr kellis members of the board cabinet and staff my name is beth simek and i am an active dysart parent for the last 15 years i had considered using my time tonight to remind members of the board of the obligation they made as individuals when each voted as part of a unanimous decision to put

009the override out again this year i was also going to consider wagging my finger and yet again act disappointed that members of this board still don't seem to get that kids come before their fleeting political aspirations instead what i'd like to do is share about my friend ty tim brooks for those who don't know him tai was assistant principal and athletic director at dysart high school his wife marilee is principal at west point their son calvin is a high schooler ty was a brilliant man quick with a smile even quicker with a hug and even quicker than that with a word of encouragement he took personal responsibility and ownership for the success and failures of each and every child that he taught ty didn't just wait for his turn to talk rather he truly listened

010when a student colleague or friend needed him when i met ty he was an eighth grade math teacher at surprise elementary school and for the longest time that i've known ty he is everyone's favorite he's their favorite teacher favorite colleague favorite admin he just had that kind of personality that made everyone feel safe special and important he encouraged me to become a teacher and help me with the process to become a substitute and he was equally disappointed when i had to leave subbing after 10 years because well it's awfully hard to feed a 330 pound offensive lineman on a substitute teacher salary tai was everywhere in this district whether at his own school or at marylee's or calvin's he attended as many events at our schools as he possibly could every year he and marylee

011would come to the arizona state pta convention where i was a member of the board and eventually became state president and they would be there to support dysart's local school parents ty would famously make goofy faces at me when i stood at the podium because he knew i was nervous and he would attend as many override events as he possibly could because he understood the critical needs of this district and worked tirelessly to help ty was thinking of children and requested that donations be made to dysart high school even at the better end when the cancerous tumor in his brain became too much to bear you see when you give your life and service to others you do so humbly and graciously ty joined out on street corners and with colleagues and never felt demeaned

012he passed out and canvassed for all of us thai is what we are dysart is about so governing board as we close out this election season thankfully i hope that you will think of tai and give as much of your time as you can to this last week before election day by standing out with our community to tell as many people as you can to vote yes for dysart do it for ty because he did it for you thank you next we have kevin burner hello ladies and gentlemen of the board it just warms my heart to see the teacher recognition that we just witnessed it's um i think that's very very important and unfortunately we're here for a very different matter so each of you has a packet of information that we've dropped off

013there's no way i'll be able to run through everything in in the three minutes that we've been allotted but i'll i'll do my best thank you for this opportunity my name is kevin berner and i'm a parent at willow canyon high school we're here tonight out of frustration with a particular teacher i believe this teacher brings an implicit bias into the classroom and would be shocked if his behavior met the standard expected in the dysart school district my son jaden and his team marquis are two of six athletes losing their senior year of athletics because one teacher refused to enter grades in their grade book for four weeks holding them in a failing status and denying them any opportunity to affect their grade my son asked if he could submit missing assignments as other teachers

014allow this teacher declined he asked if he could correct submitted homework for a better score as other teachers allow this teacher declined he submitted homework early and asked if the teacher could grade it which other teachers have done this teacher declined my son tried to correct mistakes on a submitted homework assignment that had not yet been graded prior to the turn-in date and this teacher not only rejected the submission he marked the original paper with a zero starting that his answers were too similar to eight other students when my son asked if there was any extra credit they could do to demonstrate that they had learned the material the teacher's response was do you even deserve extra credit he accused these boys of cheating when my son pleaded with the teacher to allow marquise to

015submit his test corrections the teacher responded when a person commits a crime and someone is the lookout they are considered an accomplice and denied it in preparation to meet with this teacher originally i reviewed his facebook page and i noticed immediately that he was sharing posts that heavily criticized our society our youth our educational system as well as black and brown families and the way the children were raised i believe he is so affected by our social climate that he's bringing it into the classroom using criminal analogies to correct these black and brown boys further confirm his obvious bias he's operating with severe lack of empathy that's abnormal his relentless pursuit to penalize these boys is abnormal again i'm not the first parent who's expressed concerns about this teacher if you want additional information i'd

016be happy to share with you these are the boys let me introduce them they're cambridge and ib students marquis is a football captain and student council treasurer jaden is the captain of the wrestling team both boys are active in their church youth groups and serve in missions outside of the u.s to build houses for the poor they spend 12 hours a day at school and sports and neither of them has ever failed a grade check in four years of high school athletics they're leaders and college bound athletes it's a crying shame that one teacher in a broken system is robbing them of their senior season of football look these are good kids they don't smoke in the bathroom they don't deal drugs they've never been suspended they don't fight they don't bring weapons to school

017their crime was being lacked days ago during the remote learning portion of the school year and not turning in all of their assignments to be clear in the first 12 weeks of school jayden missed three homework assignments and as a result has had his future academic opportunities severely impacted we feel it's only fair this teacher's class be removed from the grade check requirement until this issue has been addressed finally we ask this to be expedited as there are at least six students in this class that are currently being affected thank you thank you next we have brent berner before we go any further i would like to direct dr kellis to please um follow up with mr burner and probably mr croto with this information uh madam chair miss solar singapore yes we will follow

018up thank you very much hello my name is brent burnham thank you for letting me speak tonight uh as a matter of background i'd like to give you a little bit of mind as additional experience to the perspective to the current situation that my son talked about i have an ms degree in education from vanderbilt i'm a certified state state mediator certified through the supreme court for juvenile domestic relations i'm also taught certified anchor management courses for a facilitator as a facilitator for the court system when the judges directed defendants to take anchor management my concerns here are the web posts by the teacher about black and brown kids are pure racial and have an attitude that is carried into his classroom it may be his right to for private beliefs or even to post

019them but when he brings them into the classroom to use and abuse specific students is wrong the posts are proof of bias mindset are having a major impact on the target of students well teenage bullying gets a lot of attention here it is coming from a teacher the problem resolution there may be a system for complaint resolution but at the high school it appears hollow there is no possible supervisory action against grading but what is possible to address a teacher's abuse of a position there appears to be no true recourse the teacher action is set so these students cannot pass a student is trying to survive but he's not allowed to because of the teacher's apparent bias so the long-term impact is ruining my grandson's senior year just one teacher out of three years and

020all of us on our courses and all of his other classes it's not allowing him to perform or pass and it's holding a hostage with no school sports there are also both near and long-term effects graduation college and health the student has become depressed this is due to the treatment and having no apparent recourse because this teacher is documented by us and brings it into the classroom our question is is any change possible thank you dr koss i'm assuming that his concerns will be followed up with the previous families madam chair ms pritchard yes we have our last one tonight is linda mcgee i'm linda mcgee thanks for meeting with you i'm actually a substitute teacher that's credentialed in the state of arizona i'm actually retiring and i also am a taxpayer in the dysart

021school district the reason that i'm talking tonight is for needed budget changes and no to the override i'm making it very clear that's what i like to do the school district of course is a moderate size it produces generally good students but we are in need of cost containment and changes to our budget and no to the overlap currently we have students in the last published measure of ability mostly averaging bees in math and reading this is good however we are not achieving needed funding and parity reimbursement from parents for their students and children in review of the highlighted budget that we just had i pulled a few items out one of them is because we still have an ongoing bond issue we have some 15 million dollars we have to pay on that we

022have some 23 000 students and actually lost some from the previous year so actually rather than looking for more money we should be looking for less i've seen a 13.2 percent increase in the cost of school support services in the budget i see a miscellaneous fund of around a million dollars i see a field trip budget around a million dollars i see five million dollars for text library instructional age of three million is textbooks i see about six million dollars for the i.t budget primarily for students and i see these student transport doubling from 550k to i'm sorry 969k a 76 percent increase i also see 25 000k for advertisements which i would think would be the dysart override postcards that came out once again even though we voted no a year ago this is

023back on again i see there's 185 preschoolers for an all-day kindergarten and 35 teachers that support that so i think those are extreme another thing as much as we do have a good superintendent i think his pay structure even though we have to pay for superintendent his pay structure is extreme to pay to be paid over three hundred thousand dollars a year and paying benefits is outrageous to be able to sell off your your leave and actually budget that and then include that for your retirement purposes is out of line we should have somebody that should be in that position no more than probably a hundred thousand dollars a year plus twenty thousand in budget so what are we saying why are we saying that the parents should pay more uh yes dysart does charge

024appearance for uh activities uh one hundred two hundred and four hundred dollars per a student and family and multiple activities but i think it's not complete it's not uh close enough to what it should be we need to have people are actually paying for the items that they're actually consuming and rather than letting taxpayers such as myself pay for it for the override itself for my portion of it it's over uh 300 a year i actually are paying some 800 a year just in dysart over uh i should say levy and the bond issue that's existing is 241 so to conclude i think there's a lot of things we should do and we should stop we've already addressed the issue of the override we need to say no we need to look our expenses and

025we need to teach a basic education if parents want something more that's all well and good if they choose to pay for it let them pay for it thank you thank you that's all we have for tonight all right next we have the student update dr kellis thank you madam chair um this evening i'd like to welcome luis back from valley vista high school uh good evening board members dr callison cabinet community my name is luis pion i'm a member of the district leadership council earlier this month we had the opportunity to come back in person with our monthly meetings we jumped right into it and held officer elections we also had a roundtable with dr kellis and we are working on a 100-year centennial float for the dysart district to premiere at the valley

026vista storm coming parade to the community in addition to that we have um talked with the council to see if we can bring a sense of normalcy to the campuses and look forward to hosting a coven 19 safety or not safety safe event in the community and we also want to give a kudos to ms brown who is instrumental in arranging the buses and scheduling our monthly meetings so we appreciate you for that and dr kelly's cabinet mr g and mr repair miss perechini for all their continued support and guidance thank you thank you so dicer is very fortunate to have the dysert student leadership team and these are representatives from each of the five high schools that we have in the district and it's an opportunity for them to come together and look at

027topics for the entire district they do extraordinary things for their their high schools and they i believe uh really cherish the time that they have together to exchange ideas and and some of the plannings but also to look at some some opportunities to bring all the high schools together in some kind of format mr greece haber is doing an excellent job and facilitating um with ms perchini and i appreciate their leadership as well as far as my report this evening as has been mentioned dysert is mourning with the tim brooks family we are very saddened to lose one of our own no matter who it is we value every single one of our our family members be it a student a parent or an employee mr tim brooks has been with us for a long

028time and we have seen some uh happy times and he has helped us get through some very difficult times where uh we're going to miss ty tim brooks like to extend a reminder out to our community to remember to vote and also we are putting out the call we need substitutes in a big way and if anybody has currently the state requirements are you have to have a college degree and then to get a state certification please consider doing something extraordinary in your life by associating with our wonderful youth and please be a substitute with the challenges that we have with the covid and then just life there are times when a teacher cannot be in the classroom and while the best classrooms are those with the best teachers we also have the best substitutes

029and we want to expand that pool and and invite anybody who is interested to please consider being a substitute also looking ahead on the calendar we are ready to wake up again the vista and we have two shows that are scheduled even with everything going on we have everything worked out logistically for the covid protocols to put on on december 5th a big show called noche buena and then on december 12th a slightly wicked holiday show and this is a holiday show using the cast from the broadway show wicked he will be performing so both of those are certain to be great shows and we extend our community the invitation to come to the vista and and be entertained and have a very pleasant safe evening out that's all i have to report next we

030have the governing board update i don't have anything i would just um also wanting to echo the sentiments that dr kalas had shared as well as one of our community members regarding ty tim brooks i didn't have the pleasure of knowing him as long as many of you all have but i can tell you when i was assigned to dysart high school as a behavior specialist i worked with him and just to walk into his office i mean he just felt um the warmth that he was very kind warm man had wonderful relationships with the students and had an amazing sense of humor that's that's one thing i remember about him and and so i was just deeply saddened to hear the news and just want to extend my condolences to the tim brooks family

031dysart high school staff but then the whole dysert community because it's definitely a loss he was a wonderful man and then also just make sure everyone gets out there to vote um research your your topics your candidates from national level all the way down to local it's just very important that you make educated choices but most importantly that you just vote and express your voice so don't forget to do that on november 3rd that's all i have um same just my condolences for tim burke's family and all those who were close with them i had a daughter who had the pleasure of having him as assistant principal at dysart high and same thing i always saw a smile on his face i kind of saw him everywhere you're right like i would go to a

032game somewhere and he was there and i would go somewhere else and ty tim brooks was always around so um but yes he always left a very positive impression not only of himself but of dysart and i know dicer is partly where it is today because of him and all of his influence and so it is a tough loss and i'm just extra condolent system early so um i hate to say the word ditto but yes um echoed the sentiments of everybody that spoke regarding mr tim brooks dr kellis shared um a lot of things last night at his service and i guess i was okay until miss emmett came up and started talking about it and he was one of those that was he was kind of quiet and he was funny at the

033same time so you have it you need to watch out for those folks and a great smile on his face and he will be missed he was a prominent fixture here in dysart and so my condolences go out to the entire tim books family again power of voting we have our chance next tuesday to elect officials just like ms pitcher said all the way up to national and so the power of voting is in your hands so please get out and vote and uh i just wanted to uh recognize somebody that's uh sitting in in our um our audience and mayor hall from uh surprise is sitting there he's hiding behind the podium there but uh glad he is here uh visiting and um welcome and i think that's about it so thank you all

034right moving to item f1 it will make a motion to approve the consent agenda item as presented she seconded thank you i'll move to information item h1 thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet this evening we have several policy items as a first read or just a review the first one is our regular board monitoring of adopted policies and i'll turn this over to mr croto thank you dr kellis madam chair members of the board superintendent kelly's cabinet and yes tonight we bring to you our continued monitoring of our policies we bring to you section 5 support services we do not have any changes in this section and it has been reviewed by cabinet and there are no no changes in section 5. any discussion on that no item h2 revision

035of policy 11. thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet this item is one that we have been working on for some time to help us with the operations of the district and i believe mr croto will take mr dean will take this one good evening madam president members of the governing board dr kelso members of cabinet this evening we bring to you policy 11.20 the distribution and posting of promotional materials as a change for first read the change in this policy really is to streamline the policy and to move the current language in the policy that is more related to process into our processes the policy has been vetted through legal counsel and assisted in terms of language through legal counsel and as i stated earlier can um allows us to

036move those pieces that are procedurally related into our procedures the same processes continue to remain with this policy change um in terms of all flyer requests still are vetted through public relations it allows us the same control that we've had in the past with our our flyer approval but it brings us into compliance with not only the way our policies and our procedures are um are aligned but will also bring us into the 21st century piece in terms of electronic flyers and their use as well so again this is a streamlined version of the policy and all those pieces that are procedural will will remain as part of this policy just now moved into the process piece thank you i'm just thank you thank you for clarifying that at first when i saw all that

037red line i'm like what like why are we doing that um so then obviously everything still has to be approved as it is now you're just moving that language to the procedure could should we reference that for anybody that's looking at the policy to to understand that like what you have rewritten here and then just say per oh madam president approved protocols richard yes at the end of the policy the procedural number will will follow um which will reference which which happens with all of our policies and and those of you have been on the board for a while will remember that this um the language in the current policy um references back to an agreement made um with an organization quite some time ago our legal counsel is the same as it was then

038so she has vetted and helped us to streamline this policy and again to to your question and point those all of those procedures remain the same and they continue to go through the public relations department in the same process that they are now okay thank you for clarifying uh it makes it a lot more simpler and i am glad that we actually took a lot of that stuff out and still reference it back to the procedure and stuff so thank you very much that was i'm sure it was a lot of work to actually go through and redline then think about it and then come back and everything but i appreciate that thank you madam president miss sawyer singapore we would credit our public relations department for doing the yeoman's work with us um with

039uh in conjunction with mr croto and our legal counsel thank you all right um moving to item h3 revision of policy pursuant to asba recommendations first one dr kelly madame chair members of the board and cabinet again mr croto we'll pick this one up thank you dr kellis madam chair members of the board superintendent callous cabinet and guests tonight we have a policy revision of 1.4 which is the result of a final rule amending title ix that was released by the united states department of education the office of civil rights on may 6 2020. title ix as you know is a federal civil rights law that was passed as part of the education amendments of 1972 it mandates that no person in the united states shall on the basis of sex be excluded from participation

040in be denied the benefits of or be the subject of discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance prior to the may 6 2020 rule title ix did not refer to sexual harassment however the final rule that was on may 6 now defines sexual harassment and establishes detailed procedures for how school districts subject to title ix which is our district must respond to allegations of sexual harassment in those it outlines a numerous amount of procedures that we must follow and implement for example there are six groups that must be trained that are a title ix coordinator investigators decision makers along with appeal processes process advisors and informal resolution team members so those all have to be set up by the district which we are working on the policy must change so run

0414 has been amended by our legal counsel to reflect the changes that must be made by law and we are moving forth scheduling training starting on november 5th all employees must be trained that will be upcoming also again we will do that in our dysart essentials and and we need to set up all that training so we are moving operationally to put this into effect so madam chair if i could just add a little bit extra to that also that um as much as we would like to focus on teaching and learning sometimes misbehaviors happen and in this case this is addressing sexual harassment and by requirement and this is not uh something that we're just you know thinking well let's do this this is something that is mandated of all this all the districts

042that we have these six different groups of of i don't know what you call the groups john there um people comply different groups of complaints so just the investigators that would include all of our assistant principals and principals and then you have your appeals group which can't be the same as the investigators and then the decision makers can't be the same as the investigators and they can't be the same as the appeals group and then you have your mediation group which can't be the same people as any of the other groups so all in all we're looking at a structure of i think we're extended now to over a hundred people who are going to have specific roles when it comes to complying with this new new law and this title ix is federal so

043this is nationwide but sometimes as a outside person for the from our community not understanding all of the different requirements the district has to comply with it takes people and so we are fortunate that we have a large district that we have a hundred over a hundred people to put into these positions that are mandated i would hate to be a small district of a district staff of two or five um i don't know how they're going to do it but it is quite a task and i like to extend my appreciation to mr croto and his team for putting this all together everybody now has to be trained it's very specific trainings and their roles and responsibilities so i have a question before um it said it stated the superintendent was the compliance officer

044and now it says that you should appoint one do you know why the change that the superintendent is no longer the compliance officer and i'm chair miss tanner it goes back to the designation of roles and responsibilities certain people can't be in duplicate roles so to have a compliance officer actually every school is going to have a compliance officer okay at the district level mr croto who's in charge of all of uh human resources in charge of all the people of the district the adults of the district it's just a natural role responsibility that would be placed at that level and then you said you have someone in each school that's the compliance officer and do you have those identified yet or mr crud i believe are those the principals or assistant principals superintendent kels

045madam chair members of the board uh correct so all the principals and assistant principals in all of our schools islam and the program directors they will be investigators um the title ix coordinator is actually the director of hr um cabinet plays a role and they are in they are decision makers and they are appeal board for cabinet so there are various distinct rules as dr keller said additionally i left out this is for students and staff which is very different from the past so there are rules for both this applies to students and staff so thank you miss tanner took one of my questions um and that had to do with the designation of the compliance officer um and i had the same exact question so you had answered that thank you very much and

046i did have another one but the fact that we have to now have layers upon layers upon layers i can see where a smaller district this is going to be um quite cumbersome and they may have to pull in i i i don't see how they're going to be able to do it if there's so much separation in so many different levels that if it's a a district office of 10 people i don't see how they're going to do it luckily we have the staff in order to do it and then the different schools and everything but a smaller district i can't see it thank you ma'am chairman sourcing ballet honestly i think the only way that they can do it is with hiring outside services to support them in many of these responsibilities we're

047fortunate we can double up the jobs that we already have with the current staff for other districts they're going to have to contract with outside providers again it's another one of those expenses that is an unfunded mandate but i would just also comment the dysart has always taken sexual harassment seriously this is not something that we're putting in place because we see that there's a problem we are complying with the federal mandates and we will continue to take sexual harassment very seriously at any level whether it's a student or a staff member we want everybody here to have an extraordinary experience and these types of complaints and allegations just have no place in bicert thank you we want everybody to be safe and we will take any report very seriously and we expect you to

048so thank you very much is this the first read this was the first read okay this will be brought back again if there are no changes all right moving to item h4 information on dysart's centennial celebrations dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet we are very excited again and still we're gonna say this every single meeting we have for probably three years um to be celebrating our centennial our 100th anniversary and this evening um mr dean will introduce our presenter good evening madam president members of the governing board dr kellis and members of cabinet um this evening we will begin with a quick video followed by a presentation on our plans for celebrating our centennial in 1920 local farmer nathaniel martin dinosaur wanted his daughter to attend a school

049he didn't want her to walk the five miles though so he donated a piece of his own land convened a three-person governing board and officially established the dysart public schools on july 16 1920. what started out as a one-room schoolhouse with less than 10 students quickly became a growing part of the community enrollment increased to more than 200 by 1937. in 1951 the original one-room schoolhouse was tragically destroyed by a fire despite the loss dicer continued to focus on educating local students and two new elementary schools el mirage and luke were built by the end of the decade by the 1960s dysart had grown so much it was in need of a high school the district's first ninth grade students attended the newly built dysart high school in 1962. the first graduates in the history

050of dysart were with the class of 1966. in 1977 the dicer unified school district was officially established kingswood elementary school was built in 1989 on his that growth was on the horizon in the northwest valley in 2001 the hyper growth began in the dysart unified school district with the addition of west point elementary school between 2002 and 2010 14 elementary schools and three high schools were built today as the dysart unified school district celebrates its 100th anniversary it now has a community of nearly 24 000 pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students one hundred years ago our founder nathaniel dicer envisioned a place where his daughter and the local community could receive a quality education in the northwest valley that goal remains true today thousands of children have been a part of our diced family over the

051years and we look forward to continuing that legacy for the next 100 years evening madam chair members of the board superintendent kellis and cabinet uh today is my pleasure to share how we're celebrating our 100 years it's not just every day that you turn 100 so we're trying to do it big of course we have a lot of extra challenges this year that we also have to face but we're doing our best making adjustments as we go along um so i'm just going to walk you through a few things that we have already been working on so the video you just saw we launched on july 16th which was our official kind of opening date that we found in our history so we shared that on social media we've you guys did a resolution in

052july and we had the cities do proclamations uh dr kels did an editorial and we created customized logos for each of our schools to use as well throughout the year and on their materials and in their celebrations we've we've done a few visual things as well and all i have some photos here so you can see there was a billboard on bell road we've incorporated it to a number of our publications the achiever we had a timeline there in the middle of the achiever as well and we'll go back because this the bus sign there on the right those just went up last week i believe on many of our buses and some of our district other vehicles so it's really nice to see those kind of driving around the district as our own little

053mini billboards so that's nice and we've been able to do lots of things through partnerships with our cities thank you mayor so they featured us on surprise lately and we're working with them on some upcoming things as well so some ongoing things that we'll be kind of doing through the course of the year are throwback thursday social media posts as we go through our photo archives we found those to be really popular with engaging the community it's really neat to see people tagging their family and friends when they see people they know in those and hearing some of the stories that they're sharing so that's really fun we're displaying 100 flags at different schools for our holidays so the first time we did that was at valley vista over the september 11th and we put

054that together into a nice kind of e-card that we shared with our first responders around the cities as a special thank you to them and upcoming for veterans day we have kingswood taking on that project for us um so we'll share that out as well with some photos for veterans day and then um also we'll be continuing to seek stories throughout the year highlighting notable alums and adding that information to our website sharing that out in our publications and on our website throughout the year as well some additional things that we're working on i don't know if you noticed when you drove in but we do have a new decal on our building that says 100 years nice and large so you'll be seeing that on every school around the district and we plan to

055leave that up throughout the year as a way to share with our community the wonderful news and then light post banners you'll start seeing these those pop up the one you see in the picture there is an el mirage on thunderbird just east of el mirage road they're aligning both sides of the road there so you'll start seeing those pop up around surprise as well soon so we're really excited to see those go up time capsules we will have those for every one of our campuses they're planning to do um ceremonies some some type of closing ceremony but also involving students in the community and what kind of goes in there i guess we probably can expect to see masks in each one of those time capsules so so that'll be fun to see what

056they choose to put in those we're doing lists of 100 achievements actually just last week we revealed our 100 top dysart achievements that's posted on our website as well and it was really interesting compiling those it was hard actually to narrow it down honestly to 100 so it's really neat to see and we'll be working on additional lists one specific to athletics one specific to choices that we offer a community things like that and then one of the things we're partnering with city of surprise on we were hoping to do the veterans parade and have a float in that obviously in lieu of that they're doing something different so they're doing a veteran tribute through signs and we are involving our students to make signs and we're going to provide over 100 signs for that

057project so those will be displayed for veterans day so we're really excited about that and then some of the additional things we're planning uh that we're still kind of working through because we don't obviously know what what's going to come in the future but we're still hoping to have some theme floats and it sounds like we'll be able to have um one with the storm coming parade um so anything like that that pops up we're hoping to be able to have a float in um in in the near future as as we have our festival of the arts in the spring in whatever form that takes in our dysart heroes recognition we're going to theme all of those for our 100th year and make those extra special in january we're hoping to do a state

058of the district presentation with dr kellis highlighting our history and kind of how we've gotten gone from there to where we are today so really excited to see what comes of that and then our graduation we could theme that for 100 years as well and make that an extra special time for those students and then i mentioned the closing of the time capsule ceremonies and then schools also have their own plans as well they've been very creative so this is just a variety of things this is not an all-inclusive list of things but they're planning for contests themed events and activities classroom activities and studies you can see that's a western peak student they had a spirit week where they did a 1920s day and then at 19 like just different decades that they were

059dressing up as so they've got some really fun things planned as well and the schools are providing us with timelines of events and things so we will make sure that we let you guys know when there's activities that you can participate in because we'd love for you to participate in those events so um so we're excited to see what what comes we're doing our best to make it as big as we can in light of everything and uh we hope you enjoy everything are there any questions and madam chair before we we move forward if we could return please back to slide number four i just want to point out that it has come to our attention that the young boy in the track photo is retired dice art teacher art mendeville from his high

060school days and so it's fun to point that out as well so that was awesome um so in in light of what you just said mr dean um are we still collecting stories from people that have gone through dysart when they graduated from several years ago and this is what happened the year that i was there because i know we did a big push of that some time ago madam chair ms sawyer sink bill yes we we continue to seek that out um dr kellis um continues to search for the first dice graduate um and um it would be fantastic if we could find um one of our very first graduates if they um are still with us um but yes we we are still taking that information and anybody who has information um on

061um dysart accomplishments from the past hundred years we would encourage to contact our public relations team awesome um i like the fact that uh you have several things like including veterans and just different components that could last throughout the year yes please keep us posted of the calendar throughout the year we would love to come and and um help each other you know here there we're not going to be able to attend every single one but the five of us we were speaking for people i'm sorry um but i did this is something that is yes like the student was saying 100 years doesn't come every day so or even every year but this is a highlight for us and um i just can't wait to see everything all you know come together but yes

062when i drove in i saw the 100 year and i had to stop and concentrate on driving at the same time but uh it was it's an awesome little decal that's just up there for everybody to see so thank you thank you that calendar so thank you any other questions thank you so much yep awesome thanks renee yay okay next we have item age five annual expenditure analysis of the voter approved mmo override dr kellis madam chair members of the board members of cabinet each year by statute the district is required to provide this report and mr hicks will introduce our presenter thank you very much miss merida maridel spidel our director of finance will be presenting this item thank you very much good evening madam chair members of the board dr kellis cabinet community

063it's my pleasure tonight as dr kellis mentioned it is a statutory requirement that we provide an annually has to be conducted by october 31st on any voter approved overrides and also how the district is utilizing those funds for the programs that the override supports and so we'll briefly be reviewing that information tonight so just a brief history on the override information um the voters approved the override for seven years so mno overrides have a seven year author authorization in place and so they are fully funded within the first five years of an override um and so at that point unless the voters renew it it starts getting phased out and so just a little bit of history there in november of 14 the override election failed and so the following year that was the final

064year the full funding so the following year it started the one-third phase out in november 15th of that year the override election did pass and so it was fully restored in fiscal year 1617 and so we are at the fifth year of that full funding in fiscal year 2021 that we are currently in the ballot language for the override that is in place is listed here so it includes maintaining manageable class sizes retaining teachers providing additional supports for our students in reading and math teacher retention as well as additional teachers provided in the areas of music arts athletics and bold ak and so a couple slides down we'll go over how those amounts are broken down and the override supports those programs as mentioned this is a voter approved initiative and so this slide shows

065the amounts of the overrides that have been approved um since 1415. over it's been in place since 2000 but we just listed out these last few years and so in 1920 the year that we're discussing it was 20.73 million and then that is the secondary tax rate listed there on the side that is directly related to the override um something to note i didn't include on here but for fiscal year 2021 we do have a budgeted override amount of 21.7 million in this current year for a tax rate specifically related to that of a dollar per 100 assessed valuation and so as mentioned this uh the 20.73 million dollar override that is in place for fiscal year 1920 is broken out here um in the various program areas that it supports and so retaining highly

066qualified teachers that is used to support pay uh increases for certified staff um it is also used to maintain current class sizes it equals to about 120 teachers or so um so not having it in place um brings uh increases the class sizes in those areas it also provides funding for about 7.63 million for personnel who provide student support in the areas of reading math music arts and athletics and so some of those positions include our instructional specialists our teaching and learning specialists as well as their special areas teachers and it also supports the full day kindergarten and so it funds half of those full-day kindergarten teachers and so that is about 30 positions that are funded with the override for the 20.73 and as mentioned the current year of 2021 that 21.7 million is

067also being used to support the programs in a similar breakout so that was a brief overview but if you have any questions i'd be happy to answer i have a question just for clarification on the um class size reduction of 8.82 million when i think of class size reduction i think uh just to make sure i'm clear hiring more staff that way that keeps our class sizes smaller so is that everything that class size reduction encompasses for that 8.82 million correct and so that is really hiring the additional personnel to maintain those sizes at a reduced class size and so it is kind of a worded a little odd but yes it's the class size reduction without it it would have a class size increase in the amount of students per per class but that

068was 8.82 million correct about 120 or so teachers okay thank you any other questions i can answer um i think so i'm fine i think i know the answer to this but marydale please explain it to me if i'm wrong on slide number one two three i think it's four where the um the breakout uh that shows the different years the override year 2014-15 yeah um from 2014-15 to 2015-16 why is there that much of a change was it because of the override number yes so that was when it did not pass november 14th or november it had to be on phase down by a third that following year thank you and so then in that fiscal year we went back out in november um and then it went fully restored in fiscal year 1617

069at the full 15 percent override amount and so that 12.56 million is a third reduction of the previous of over that had been in place gotcha just wanted to make sure i okay that was all i had i just have a question i think i'm on slide six um and i think miss pritchard maybe asked this too but i'm going to ask again because i maybe i just didn't understand it but the the class size reduction i mean really that's maintaining class size right it's not we didn't reduce class size from 2018 to 2019 right from 2018 no so without so basically that is being used so right now the override is being used to maintain a certain manageable class size so without that override in place 8.2 million 8.8 million dollars less salaries we'd

070have which is basically about 120 positions okay and then the same thing with the last line item with the the return to full day kindergarten we're not returning because we didn't lose it right so when we did lose it in 1516 we actually did go down to half day kindergarten for that one fiscal year when we did the third reduction we did actually go down a half day k so in fiscal year 1617 was the return to full day kindergarten which is currently funding half of that of the of the kindergarten teachers but this slide says 2019 2020 so really that's maintaining on that line so that ballot language for that override that was put in place back again in 1617 was to return to full day kindergarten and so this is still the same

071ballot language from that from that fiscal year from the year that it was approved it's miss stansmore if i could just interject that when this as um meredith said goes back to when the current override was passed these this language was put in place that it would reduce class size which it did reduce and i see what you're saying okay returning to kindergarten full day it did return to it so okay as we're going back out now we're not asking for more money to go even further right into smaller class sizes we're just maintaining that same um these same items as they were put into place if we wanted to reduce them further that 8.82 would have to be increased but we're not asking to to do that we're just asking to continue the funding

072that put us in the place where we are now that actually happened back in thank you for clarifying that thank you yes this might be actually a good qualifying question um so the class red size reduction again as you said we're not the over if the override passes we're not reducing class sizes we're maintaining and could you remind us what our current average typical class size would be now and then what what what it would be if we weren't technically still in the mode of maintaining small class sizes what would it bump up to um so if you look at that just that line item 8.82 million that's essentially the the cost if we lost this first year phase out it's actually about 7 million so we would look at actually spreading it out because

073that's a about 21 million total so we wouldn't take any one of those and completely eliminate it the first of the three year phase out right so um we would take some pieces of all of those and start phasing them out about a third perhaps so if you take about a third of the class size reduction it might be that we increase by one student per class the following year it might be another student if that now we're at 14 million the third year phase out we're at 21 we could be up to three students in addition um we haven't actually mapped it out and and calculated we're not saying that that's what's going to happen at this point we're not making those decision of what's going to be cut but when the time comes

074to analyze our class sizes if the funds aren't there if that 8.2 8.82 million isn't there then the staffing that that's paying for wouldn't be there so we would be looking at about after the 21 million is gone if that's what happens it could feasibly be around an increase of three students per class or more mr hicks is that pretty accurate uh yes and so it is a calculation so this is 120 ftes it depends on where the formula is that we're formula driven we would have to roll it out one two three could be four in some places we would keep increasing it until we saw the reduction in staff right i was just trying to i was just trying to illustrate i think for people to understand everyone knows where their class sizes

075are right now with an override in place and if the override was not in place what they would be looking at class size-wise right so if you're taking high school in there the the class max is different at certain grade levels right target so if you take just high school it's 32 is how we staff how we set up the schedules and everything so 32 students per class obviously band could have 38. pe could have 38 but you'd get into your math in english they might have 30. so it fluctuates but on average it's 32. so that class of 32 could go to 36. i see so about five five students per roughly five students per class is what we're reducing by the end yeah okay thank you any other questions because this is just

076an override this everything that you've provided us is um an override report from the price from the prior correct yes correct yeah not for the future so thank you thank you thank you very much move to action discussion item i won approval of the vista center for the arts membership fee dr kellis thank you madam chair members of the board members of cabinet mr dean will introduce this item good evening madam chair members of the governing board dr kelsey and members of cabinet as dr kalas alluded to earlier we are looking to reawaken the vista and are excited about not only the performances that we have um on tap in december but um contracts in which we are currently negotiating um and looking forward to in the fall or in the spring of 2021 and

077well beyond as a part of that part a component of the plan for the vista along has been to work to build towards a patron board and so this evening we bring to you a request for approval of the vista center for the arts membership fee and what this does is it allows allows various members of our community to purchase patron memberships and sponsorships geared specifically towards different aspects um and you can see in the item what benefits come with those again this is building towards um an eventuality of building a patron board a board of sponsors for the vista very similar to what other theaters have with gamage and others where they have um boards of friends or sponsorship boards what have you and so this evening we request the board's approval to begin

078seeking these patron memberships to the vista any discussion i i have one question for mr dean on the sponsor and membership packages each one of these has i want to say it's like the third bullet down vip room access passes and in parentheses it says availability is dependent upon dhs benchmarks madam chair um missouri sink bill we um chuckled um in cabinet at this item as well um those are not dinosaur high school benchmarks those are the department of health services benchmarks thank you so um they uh a little worried there yes um appropriately referenced azdhs that may help a bit all right can you just clarify how this works me financially so the the monies that are um i guess sponsored um how does that fit in with dice art is it going into

079the dice arts budget or is it uh community ed or how does that work madam chair um you'll recall that the vista center for the arts is run through the community education department and community ed is a completely self-funded department that is outside of the dysart budget they are they sustain themselves completely and and that is part of the vista aspect as well and so as it stands currently the proposal would those funds would be in or those sponsorship pieces would be in a fund held through community education those monies would then go back into the vista for future shows upgrades whatever the case may be there as we look forward um into the future of building a patron board that structure may change a bit but we certainly would come to the board prior

080to that ever happening and we're a bit away from from getting to that piece right miss densmore it's kind of a success breed's success the in order to get popular shows you have to have a funding source to be able to pay those performers to come and what the the big venues like gammage have been able to do even just in wickenburg the the dell web center they have a the del webb society and they're able to bring in the popular shows because the society members are contributing um obviously the more popular the show the more expensive it is to bring them to your facility um when you bring those popular shows more people come and watch and so it kind of breeds upon itself we're just excited to be able to offer those very

081popular shows and make the vista a place where our community wants to come and be proud of and and say that they have seen somebody like brian reagan or u2 or ariel speedwagon but again um we're under some contract negotiations currently with folks that we're excited about announcing in the future thank you like you too and are you speed bugs yeah what we can't say anything officially we we are in contract negotiations with some names that would be very familiar to um to those in our community from the 80s [Laughter] anyone younger and they're below 30 or anything we're working on that piece too ms taylor well you got brian regan you know goat boy um we are in contract negotiations with um with people who would be very um familiar in our country all

082right we like with all aspects of our community like that so to kind of go back on that but you you mentioned that those monies would obviously be put back into the best programs and also to possibly pay for repairs i know that we had some repairs on the on the list you know last year would we be able to get some of those things taken care of that weren't able to get taken care of last year madam chair we um we do have a list of uh renovations um that we would like to make to the vista um some of them are quite expensive and would have been handled through a bond um had the bond passed last year um however um you know the patron membership um would provide us the opportunity um

083to to look to work towards some of those as well um you know there's some pieces that are lower um hanging fruit than others in terms of costs that we certainly could look into but yes it is our it is our goal and our intent um to continue to renovate the vista as possible to make it the shining performance center in in the valley just as as an example consider the boosters for a high school sports program they do a lot to contribute and support the sports programs but if there are large dollar items the boosters just don't have the funds to be able to put in new bleachers or to put in a new scoreboard or to put in artificial turf or other large dollars this is the same thing the the society membership

084would be able to continue to support the vista but in order to attract the the most popular performers in their contracts they expect a certain level of equipment a certain level amenities within a performance center and those are the larger dollar items that we would be going out to ask for support with okay so we would be involved in some of those those conversations then okay thank you anybody else okay i'll move that the governing board approved the vista center for the arts membership fee for the 2020-2021 season second and we would also just like to point out the hard work and all of the dedication from john williams um as the director of community education um and his staff to to really help us realize the vision for the vista thank you okay item

085i2 recommendation to approve a guest teacher incentive program doctor thank you madam chair members of the board and members of cabinet as i mentioned earlier this evening we are in dire need of substitutes and mr croto is presenting a plan today that will help incentivize our current and future substitutes to pick up some of those jobs so mr croto will present this item thank you dr kellis madam chair members of the board attend superintendent kellis cabinet and guests tonight we bring to you an item for approval which dr kellis just outlined for our guest teacher in the senate program guest teachers substitutes what we call them in this district we refer to them as our guest teachers on our campuses um currently we have 291 active guest teachers on the rosters they work for esi

086which is a third party company which does all our substitute or guest teacher employment since the school year started this year 76 of those guest teachers are working 76 out of the 291 working in a range from one to five days per week that equates to about 26 percent of the workforce and our guest teachers that are actually working in our schools so there's a great need and a great shortage as dr kells has been mentioning tonight of those 76 58 of them are only working one or two days and then as you know school goes five days so that leaves us three days that we don't have a lot of coverage our fill rates which is when we put numbers we put requests for guest teachers for instance today we had 145 requests for

087guest teachers throughout the district in various roles we filled 71 of those for a fill rate of about 48 today over the last month i can tell you there's been one day um and that was october 19th that we were over 50 percent and that was uh 51 um on our fill rate so on average from august through october this year we're averaging 59 percent um because it was a little bit higher in august in september this month right now to date we're averaging 47 percent on our fill rate um and with like dr kelly said earlier with everything happening around us uh the kovid and people having the quarantine but we have a great need for people to be uh helping out in our schools so um we have been working with esi ken

088myself and the people from esi to come up with a way to incentivize our guest teachers to work more we want to do two things one uh encourage those 291 more of them to work than just and um of those that are working we want them to work more days rather than one or two so we're trying to move that group up take more days and hey come work for us we need you to come to work so we came up with a plan we'd like to pilot this plan and ken will go over the money part because that's what he does but working from november 1st to december 11th that's 27 work days um for our guest teachers uh we would like to go a tier one incentive so if a guest teacher takes

08914 of those days which is roughly 50 14 to 20 of the 27 days we will give them an extra incentive of a thousand dollars if they work 21 to 27 days in this pilot period they would receive an extra incentive of fifteen hundred dollars and um mr hicks can talk to you about the ramifications on our budget madam president pro tem members of the board superintendent dr kellis colleagues community members thank you very much and so as um mr croto indicated that uh we're trying to incentivize more days and so with a two-tier approach of a thousand dollars or 1500 depending on how many days that that you sub for us during those 27 days really what we're looking at is there's a guaranteed cost basically if you look at the month of september

090and october there's already people that are meeting this requirement and so that's not really incentivizing anybody so we're basically saying putting this pilot program in for those two months uh for the 27 work days we're pretty much guaranteed to spend an additional 000 if everything stayed exactly the same so if at the end of this program and we pay out 50 000 and we incentivize nobody um there's there is a cost uh without the uh benefit of getting more subs but if we look at um if we do incentivize and we've looked at some modeling and if it does move the needle we're projecting just talking with the si and these are just projections we're just looking at models and projections that if we did increase the fill rate we could pick up a potential

091additional 26 subs per day spread out over the time and just on that modeling to get an additional 5 45 subs to work more time or more days or new people coming in that are part of our subpool it would cost probably around 115 000 so the more successful this program is the more it's going to cost but the benefit is we have more subs and so we're not putting more stress on our system and the current teachers and adding more students into a class because right now they're being split and being covered uh an additional way which during this time in the covert time it's creating a lot of stress and problems across our system right now and so the goal is to incentivize our sub pool to do take more days or for

092more of them to become active and then take more days the the cost is is that the more we're successful the more it will cost but we did put it as a pilot program and we're only doing it for 27 days to cap it so that it's not run out of control in that sense and to add to that currently we do have staff covering those open positions we have principles covering classes we have tls's covering classes we have teachers taking extra classes missing their prep periods and they're being compensated for that so the system is totally stressed right now i believe our employees this is the one of the biggest stressors in running a school and we hear it from them every time we meet and we're just looking for ways to help like

093ken said this is a pilot for just november and december um if miraculously it was amazing we would bring that back to you we will monitor it obviously with numbers and come back and report that and if it's wildly successful we could talk about continuing in the future mr could you just give a quick report on um how much we have not spent on subs because we haven't been able to find any um madam president pro-tem members of the board so last year as you remember from our from the annual financial report we rolled forward almost a million dollars in unspent uh subs not being able to fill now this year the amount's not nearly the same because we're splitting classes and so we do split the sub rate between the teachers that are taking

094that and so we do have a small amount cushion this year but we do have the carryover from last year which we said there's going to be increased cost this year so if you remember from the budget afr presentation we rolled forward probably over 1.6 million dollars additional that we were not expecting to roll forward and that's to cover additional costs so this could be a little bit of additional costs but right now and we have that carry forward to cover the additional cost we need to help the stress in the system and so this is reacting and trying to provide a pilot program that we think could be incentivized we don't believe there's another district in the state doing this and so we've been looking for creative ways to increase the sub coverage we

095have a little bit of savings in this year we have the carry forward from last year so it's a conservative approach to try to move the needle a little bit and to help our teachers and our staff out we have so many people covering we have run this by our principals to ask about it and got very positive comments about thank you for trying to do something and so to me if we only spend 50 000 that is not a success we need to we are hoping to do something to actually so the more we spend on this the more successful it is and that is what we're trying to do thank you i don't have any questions i just want to say i appreciate um when administration takes the time to listen to staff

096and and you know hear them out of that hardship and the stress that it is on them and trying to actively find ways to to help within the school so i just appreciate that very much i got a couple of questions so um i know that all of the districts are feeling the stress the pinch having to split students split the classrooms and put them in other classrooms and i like miss tanner i do appreciate that but a couple of things come to mind this incentive of course is paid on top of their sub rate um this would also include those that are on long term assignments that would be on top of right okay and where would the funds be coming from i know you were talking about the carryover but um where um

097specifically the carryover the carry forward yeah just to carry forward okay um when we do pay um are we paying directly to esi for them to pay me how is it going to be tracked um track through esm madam president pro tem members of the board so yes um uh at the end of the december 11th i believe it's the last day um through the 22 or december 11th we would do a reconciling at the end of that so after that pay period in the 16th we would reconcile they would submit us an invoice of how many teachers qualified we i don't know if it's aesop still but we use a process that we manage the sub process in conjunction with them and then we pay that bill so we would see how many met

098the criteria of 14 days or 21 days so are they tier one tier two then we would make a payment and then on their payment they would pay those subs instead of payment i think it's the january 8th pay period for those subs for an incentive pair okay sounds good i mean you know if you thought or you run it past the principles and um it's it's sad that our average is 47 right now that's that's a lot of substitutes that we could use and i i totally understand um some of the fears that are out there regarding kovit but i also understand the stress that is on the teachers and ultimately it's on the students that um uh they don't have that continued support and uh whether it's a regular teacher or whether it's

099with the substitute teacher so um i do appreciate the fact that we're trying to pilot that your principles are on board with it because having principals and probably some district staff going in to substitute into the schools is taking you away from your duties and it's it it's a ripple effect and i i don't want that to happen so i i like the fact that you're thinking outside the box good ideas come that way and if it if we get the results that you know that subs are are coming in more and more maybe other districts might jump on that bandwagon also and create their own we hope they don't know yeah i hope they don't because it would be taking away from ours i know esi provides nobody's watching lots of substitutes for districts

100and everything but uh um [Music] it's a pretty good idea i like it thank you i have a couple questions and one actually was similar to um mr sink bill so start with that one so as far as how the money is filtered and distributed so it would we pay our subs now through asi as you said and so this extra incentive money would that come from dysart or would that still filter through esi as well so the guest teacher would get all the incentive and their regular sub pay through esi madam president pro 10 members of the board it all ultimately comes from us we pay them so we would pay the additional stipend uh incentive to esi who would then pay the employees so yes it's on top of 110 a day okay

101and then um you mentioned i believe you said like 112 dollars roundabout um now was that the difference like what would what is the difference between being fully staffed um and then the extra that we'd be paying under that incentive piece is that the 112 you were talking about madam president pro-tem members of the board it's all modeling so it's all estimated so we don't know until actually it happens so what we're looking at is um based on the last month's usage we would pay approximately 57 000 if they just did the exact same thing from for november and december for fully staffed or for the 40-something percent that we're going to use i'm using the september month because i didn't have the data of october on this so it's september's month which is the

10276 staff that we're actively using instead of the 291 pool so i don't have the actual sub rate for the fill rate um john might be able to calculate that right now so i'm using that as a model of our embedded costs um so if they continue their same behavior we'll spend 000 and we did not incentivize anybody to take five days a week because they were already doing five days or if somebody was only doing one day a week they just kept doing one day a week so if they met the one tier one tier two there was 32 staff members that met one of those tiers if that just continues it cost 57 000 we incentivized no additional staff but if we can get it up to 76 utilizing a tier 1 tier

1032 we could pick up an additional 700 days spread over that period of time would be 26 subs per day and that would cost about 115 000 so that is what we're trying to achieve but that's not the uh i'm just talking about what's the extra like with that extra one thousand and fifteen hundred dollars because you're going to pay them the regular rate anyway so i'm just talking about how much extra would it be it would be a thousand dollars for those that met the um the 14 days and 1500 for those that met the 21 days during that 27 days understand i'm maybe i'm not being clear that's okay i'm just trying to understand with that that difference how much extra would we be paying for those subs if we if we got

104the extra because of the incentive because we're going to pay them their regular daily rate anyway of would pay the 110. everything the hub for the thousand and 1500 it's all extra i know the 110 is they pay no matter what right so without the incentive so we know what we pay without the incentive and then if we paid the incentive what would that be and then subtracting those two out to get the difference like what more we would use can you do that on a monthly basis not on a per sub 110 versus 1500 but the the budget for september how much do we pay and total budget for december november madam president member pritchard super 10 kels if we just going roughly off numbers that he just pulled off here so it's a

105rough estimate if we were fully staffed um this month it would be about one hundred fifty dollars uh going at half right now we're at about 135 500 so there's a difference there of about thousand dollars that we are not utilizing by being fully staffed i believe that's what you're asking correct well no and just what the extra would be by this incentive how much is this incentive costing us it will cost us roughly between in the model 50 to a hundred and twelve thousand dollars okay and like you said we already have that rollover as far as where it's being pulled from the budget we've it's not necessarily going to be where we'll have to pull from anything else that this is one time money so using rollover we have i think we rolled

106over 9.6 million dollars to use some of it for that is an appropriate purpose i mean i guess i'm just thinking too um you know like miss uh sarah sinkbell had mentioned and i think we all can acknowledge the added stressors of our teachers right now anyway um because of covid and all the just all the extra that they've been having to do um then having to take more students into class so i think you know you have to weigh especially since it sounds like we've got that roll over for me i look at um weighing the just the emotional impact and the just how we're taxing our teachers um but then also giving the students to other teachers you're also then putting more students in a room and right now we're supposed to be

107trying to distance and limit our class sizes for the virus piece of it but then also we go back to what we know as far as large class sizes means it's impacting our learning environments and it's going to impact learning so i mean i just i mean i know that that's a lot of money but again since we we already have it um it sounds like the benefits are really outweighing the monetary cost just my opinion yeah you're right so thanks for explaining that i'm sorry if i wasn't clear and i was just trying to kind of get an idea of if we're spending all this money on subs and our current structure really how much is this model costing us if we do the incentive i was just trying to get an idea that

108it sounds like it's really not going to be a whole lot in in relatively speaking right now okay i guess my question my question i know we're just piloting us and then if it's successful like revisiting it in the future but my my hardship is like once you start that i don't know how you backtrack from that and i don't know if that's something that's already in the budget to cover if we would have some like if we would need to continue on with something like that um madam president uh prohibiting members of the board are you saying so the board is only approving this through december so it is easy for me to say and how do we stop it right we only have authority to go through december right we would come back

109and report to the board as soon as we have some good data so if it's successful and it's really working we probably would i would be recommending that it's a good useful because the stress and the morale on our staff right now is at a point that we need to do something right and so we're hoping this does something if it's successful i would be recommending that we do continue it but um we do not have authority we're not asking for authority to continue at this point uh we need to pilot it and see how it really is it is a little outside the box so for some of us i get a little nervous getting outside the box that's why you have marydell to assist you with this well i wonder too if just

110as part of the pilot maybe the way that it's written or something it can be it can be labeled as something that is kind of once a it has to be triggered by something so whether it be you know you fall below a certain amount of of um subs or you know you you hit this particular limit that kind of puts you in a little bit of a crisis mode then maybe it can trigger this incentive program but if we're not in that mode yet it's not triggered and maybe that would be a way that it's not in for good forever trying to you know back away from it it only happens during times of crisis or need i'm just thinking about it we won't know until we try right yeah i guess that's another

111point like with the pilot program then what what do you have measured as like then your success where if you would say you know what if we reach this and i say that this pilot was successful um madam president pro tem members of the board we have discussed some of it i'm looking at the hundred thousand dollars if we spend it and we'll pick up the nearly 26 subs per day is a success i i would answer to you that our fill rates back in the 80s um mid to high 80s uh 90s would be even better but at least get us back to um the pre pre-covered times when we were in the 80s and hitting that we can manage at that kind of rate so that's what i would be looking for okay

112thank you madam chair and members of the board also just we're trying everything we can to not pull teachers from their classrooms there was a time when if they needed professional development for a new math adoption or for how to write objectives um we would pull groups in we have cancelled all of our anything that would pull anybody from a campus we know that their teaching learning specialists are being used so we've canceled all the meetings that the tls's would have been pulled off campus for for district me we've looked at other people on campus who it's not their job to be substitutes but it's everybody's job at this point we want to also be judicious about how we help the schools by not forcing the need for substitutes are we thinking this is primarily

113because of covet or we noticed a trend and we're just not getting enough guest teachers anymore that's a hundred percent because of it um as soon as we came back um the pool just wasn't there yeah okay i'm glad you brought up that subject about professional development dr kalis because um if there is just like you said a particular math objective or something that needs to go for an entire group of third through fifth grader fifth grade teachers um we can't do it because we have to do a different way we have to do it a different way but yes the fact that we should be able to bring them together either in this room or everybody meet over at a certain school we can't do it because we don't have the substitute capacity so

114okay i just have a question about the so the the payment then would go i know you said it would go to esi um does esi take a percentage of that or how does that work with the contracting madam president pro tem and members of the board they charge a fee so they don't take anything of that but it does still run through the fica and others so uh then the sub will not get the full amount of but they'll get the the net of that we pay a separate fee uh to esi and it's 10 for this program okay thank you um and then you know just the talk about it being related to covid um is there any way that we could maybe not use the the funds from the carryover from last

115year and use some other coveted funding that maybe we've received or are thinking we're going to receive madam president pro tem members of the board we definitely can marry dell has many spreadsheets on all of our different various fundings from that and we have it all mapped out we do look at a very specific what's the best way so you can see there's not a funding source tied to this that we're not dedicating a fund we'll look at what's the best one so we that's a great question we talk various times we change things based on uh enrollments uh we're capped but where is the money coming from esser from esg from dema looking at that our carry forward so we talk on a regular basis about that and sometimes it changes as our data

116changes but we will look at what's the most appropriate place so it could be an esg and nester our permanent sub program that we put in place we did uh pay for that or code that out of some i think our esser funds looking at that and so we do look at uh where is the most appropriate but that is why there's no funding source of toes to this because we're looking we try to balance where's the best place okay all right thank you you're welcome all right i will motion to approve the guest teacher incentive program as presented i think tracy got it okay my second motion passes next we have action discussion item i3 endorsement of nomination for the arizona school board association honor roll award thank you madam chair members of the

117board and members of cabinet this evening we are to have to bring this item forward because it represents the the pending doom of what's to come but uh i would ask mr seabel to introduce this item thank you dr kellis asba arizona school boards association every year accepts nominations for honorable award and this is for any board member that has had eight consecutive years on their board and there is a certain time of the year that we need to get this nomination into asba and i want to make sure with the board's endorsement that we move forward ms tanner has she is ending her 12th year on the board well not just yet but in december and this is a a way to honor any board members across the state of arizona for their service

118their continued service anytime after eight years and once they're retiring so i would like to endorse miss tanner for the asba honor roll award for all that she has i don't want to say endured done over the past 12 years this is another way to honor miss tanner thank you is that your motion um i can go ahead and make them i just want to make sure i appreciate all the board members wearing black and white and we we didn't plan it but you know it's good inspect veils next time good morning um i haven't been on an honor roll in a really long time if that's the case but no i really appreciate it i know it's probably gonna be some small little plaque or something that whatever but it it does mean a

119lot actually it's an actual award oh it is oh yeah where do you see it all right okay um so yeah i'd like to go ahead and thank you make the motion to endorse the nomination of miss jennifer tanner for the asba honorable honor roll award a second [Laughter] or is it like a i said good luck but it is or is it just a bored individual board where she has it now she doesn't well we just oh she has it because she completed over two eight years it's just a board um uh it requires a board action so i just got it for 10 years yeah you got it you got it but it requires a board action so it's like you did something for it no no maybe i earned it here's a

120piece of candy i can i consider it's like 12 years old [Laughter] okay seriously thank you thank you guys appreciate it any requests for future agenda items from anyone no okay you have a motion to adjourn the meeting second motion passes all right thank you thank you and good night thanks everyone