001getting started appreciate everybody coming in let the minutes reflect that we have everybody except for miss pritchard and miss sawyer sink bell they will be absent tonight and we will go ahead and start out 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 thank you go ahead and move to agenda item b1 and i'll make a motion to approve this agenda can form consent with the governing board policy and temporarily suspend any policy with which this agenda may be inconsistent okay motion made by jay leonard seconded by miss tanner let's go ahead and vote and that passes thank you very much we'll go ahead and move down to
002item c1 employee benefits trust dedicated service recognition and we'll turn that over to dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board members of cabinet this evening we have a couple of recognitions and we will turn the first one over to mr ken hicks good evening mr president members of the governing board superintendent dr kellis colleagues and community members i'm somewhat conflicted with this presentation here the employee benefits trust was established back in august of 2010 the purpose of the district's employee benefit trust is to provide guidance and support on the district's benefits that are provided to employees trustees serve at the pleasure of the governing board for a three-year term this is an unpaid volunteer position and tonight we are here to honor a trustee he is a founding member continuously serving for
00310 years he is a rock he runs our meetings he is funny he's dedicated and he is amazing with all that being said i am honored to represent to recognize mr ed christie for his dedication and service to dicer as a trustee can we get a picture with the board is that nice too much to ask how about we'll do a spacing [Applause] mr president members of the governing board dr kelsey members of cabinet moving to item number two we are very pleased this evening to recognize shadow ridge teacher zachary zimmerman as the 2020 outstanding biology teacher of the year mr zachary zimmerman was awarded the presentation by the national association of biology teachers in conjunction with carolina biological supply company the award recognizes a teacher who has made invaluable contributions to the profession enhancing
004the teaching of biology upon his award mr zimmerman was quoted as saying by approaching education as a builder i am able to equip young people with critical thinking and interpersonal skills as well as a solid grasp of the scientific method so that they can become problem solvers that change the world i'm honored to receive this recognition it is my pleasure to empower students to become tomorrow's innovators mr zimmerman is a tremendous example of our our teachers providing extraordinary experiences to our students and being recognized for his excellent instruction would you please recognize this evening mr zachary zimmerman oh [Applause] thank you for those i thought you're going to sing to us all right 3d1 all right we'll go ahead and move on to action item d1 and we'll look at audience with individuals miss densmore
005thank you 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 action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a 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 the first one that we have tonight is alexandra uat good evening i'm alexandra um like i said my name is alexandra ewit and i'm here tonight to share my yes for dysart story
006in the hopes of inspiring other dysart parents community members and teachers to share their dysart experience in support of our district my yes for dysart story started in 1993 when my single mother enrolled my brother and i in kingswood elementary i was an esl learner which is an english as a second language learner and i came from a low-income family dysert was there to support me dicer is a place that supported and challenged me as a student it's the place that offered me my first teaching position it's the place that fostered my passion for education and it's the place i turned to when it came time to enroll my children in school i have said yes to dicer as a student a teacher a parent and a community member i'm a proud dicer product and
007i'm urging everyone here to share their yes for dysart stories so that come this november election we will all know that our override serves a community of people who depend on dysart as your dicer community legislative network president i'm challenging us in our community to start sharing our stories in whatever capacity we can share with us here at our governing board meetings locally at your schools and socially in our communities please share your yes for dysart stories and give your guests to the dicer override our students and our community need your guests and i'm excited to hear your stories thank you thank you next we have gisele norberg good evening dr kellis members of the board my name is giselle norberg and i'm here to discuss the different opportunities that congresswoman lesko's office has to
008offer i am her community outreach liaison and i have given each one of you palm card that talks about the different services that our office offers first of all we do deal with a lot of federal agencies so anybody who has issues with federal agencies can contact our office and we are actually right here in surprise and it is open to the public by appointment only right now but i do want to talk about how we can impact the students here in dysart first of all we do have an app challenge that is available to those that are in junior high up to high school there is a recommended registration date by september 1st the deadline is october 19th this is where the the kids have an opportunity to actually build an app for your
009phones i mean it's pretty incredible that they do this now there's also the scholastic achievement program last year 317 dysart students were given the scholastic achievement award and they are nominated by their principals the other thing that we have is the art competition this is pretty exciting for those students also it's the junior high in high school students what they do is they give an art project to our office it gets voted on and actually the last time that we had this prior to covid was right over here at the vista so the person the student that comes in third place their art is displayed in the local office for a full year second place is in congresswoman lesko's d.c office for a full year first place is in congress with all of those winners
010nationwide for a whole year it's pretty exciting to have something like that we also have a surplus book program through the library of congress this is something that a lot of people are really not aware of your teachers your librarians anyone in the school they can go to congresswoman lesko's website and request specific books from the surplus book program it gets delivered to our office and then we bring it to whoever is requesting those books and then we also have military academy nominations and those who do want to go to the military academies they do need to have a letter of recommendation from somebody in congress whether it's your local congress person or whether or not it's your senator uh and we're talking about the u.s congress not your local senators and a congress people
011here and also i did notice that principal hawkins walked out however he was also given a letter of recommendation this is another thing that we do through our office and so if there is anyone that you know here in dysart that goes above and beyond we want to know about them thank you so much anyone else excellent thank you all right we'll go ahead and move on to item e1 superintendent update dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board and members of cabinet just as a our weekly celebration of the annual celebration of our centennial as a reminder that we are celebrating our 100th anniversary this year and this is a memorable year um lots lots of history is being made just as when we first launched as a district we made history
012our 100th anniversary is making history that will go down in the books forever um supporters of dysart are coming out of the woodwork we are so privileged to be able to acknowledge the the many many efforts of volunteers of community members of businesses and the supporters of dysert are extraordinary and the things that they do to support kids is extraordinary i'd like to thank our staff and our parents for their endurance and for the extraordinary efforts that they are making to make sure that our students are having a tremendous learning experience at home and we can't wait for them to come back and have an in-class extraordinary learning experience but it takes a village and the village is all coming together and we'd like to extend our thanks to the village thank you excellent thank
013you for that update we'll go ahead and move on to e2 governing board updates anything done all right that'll be short and sweet just wanted to say congratulations to those that were recognized tonight and it's awesome you know especially biology i remember uh have many fond memories of being in biology class i think that was one of my favorites so we'll go ahead and move on um moving down to action item f1 motion to approve consensus consent agenda items as presented i move the governing board approve consent agenda items as presented all second motion made by jen tanner seconded by jay leonard let's go ahead and vote motion passes thank you we will go ahead and move on down to information item item h1 policy governance uh board monitoring of adopted policies section 2 governing
014board dr kalis thank you president leonard members of the board members of cabinet this evening we will continue with our regular monitoring of governing board policy and mr croto will introduce this item thank you dr kellis president leonard members of the board superintendent kellis and cabinet tonight we continue our board monitoring of adopted policies with section two we bring section two to you this evening we do have one change in policy 2.19 last week we did discuss the ability to bring second reads of policy to the consent agenda therefore we need to change policy 2.19 in the policy adoption we are scratching the words discussion and in policy adoption second reading to read the proposal shall be presented for action and that allow us to put that into a consent on the second reads and
015that is all the changes and i'll stand for any questions thank you very much any questions all right thank you for that let's go ahead and move on to item h2 um update on uh enrollment and staffing for 2020 2021 school year dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board of members of cabinet each year administration shares with the governing board information about our current staffing statistics and mr croto will introduce this item as well thank you again dr kellis president leonard members of the board superintendent kellis and cabinet tonight we have our annual enrollment staffing report to take a look at the numbers currently in the district maybe and maybe not there we go um longitudinal enrollment data first day of school so up here you see four years of enrollment uh
016this year on the first day of school compared to last year we were up 96 students we were down 60 in elementary and up 156 in high school and that was the first day of school next slide if somebody's there okay and one week comparison after one week of school so from 8 11 to 8 4 there was not a gain of students actually we were down 267 students so a lot of that is attained to cleaning up some of the enrollment actions and if kids are truly coming this year presents obviously some challenging times with kovid and kids enrolling in those kind of challenges so we are down after the first week 266 that's down 158k eight students and down 109 high school students okay um preschool programs our current student enrollments or ess
017preschool uh compared to last year is at 459 last year was 801. our growing minds again we're controlling the number of enrollments in growing minds due to the social distancing pieces and and controlling that so that is down also at 140 our total at the mark compared to last year was about a little bit over half and some of that is due to social distancing and we feel once we reopen a lot of these students will come back okay next slide there we go uh hiring where are we at in our hiring process total employees hired since may 2000 or may 22nd 2020 227 students or 227 employees sorry we don't hire students and our employees hired since may of 2019 so looking back at that year we hired 370. so that is great news
018we are down quite a bit in the number of employees hiring remember one of the goals of the governing board in the district is to retain highly qualified staff and that number is reflective of definitely starting to retain some employees so that is great news in that remaining teaching vacancies last year we had 25 elementary and six high school this year at that given at the same given time uh 10 positions in elementary two in high school which is another good so that is the numbers for enrollment again i stand for any questions that you may have excellent job on that thank you for the presentation we have any questions all right president leonard if i could just uh add an exclamation point on the celebration in that slide being that it's important that we
019are able to retain our employees and the fact that we had over a hundred more that we had to hire last year indicates that our employees are choosing to stay in dysert and the same with the number of vacancies that we have starting out the school year that reflects a lot of hard work by the principals in our hr department to process applications and and candidates for positions but the fact that we are starting out the school year with so many so much fewer vacancies this year than we have in the past is another celebration and that means that um classrooms are not starting the first day of school with a substitute they're starting with an actual teacher and that is always something that we aspire to absolutely thank you for that clarification yeah it's
020definitely important and uh definitely one of the focuses that i love to celebrate um the retention of good quality people and obviously having them in the classrooms on day one is vital to our success especially in this ever-changing environment it's good to have people that are are willing to work with us and also know our systems so that definitely helps all right we'll go ahead and move on go ahead and go to action discussion item i1 and that is revision of policy pursuant to asba's recommendations second reading dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board again mr croto will introduce this item thank you once again uh president leonard members of the board superintendent kellis and cabinet tonight we bring to you the second read of three policies that we brought to you
021in the last board meeting 7.10 9.7 11.1 they are in the action this evening because we need to modify 2.19 that i just presented before we can put them into the consent agenda so there are no changes to these policies as presented at the last board meeting excellent thank you for that any questions all right we'll go ahead and move on to oh let me go back to that one so we need a motion all right so we need a motion to revise was it two point okay i'll make a motion to revise policies as presented motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner we'll go ahead and vote motion passes thank you now we'll go ahead and move on to action discussion item i2 recommendations to approve the dysart student broadcast sponsorship package
022dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board of members of cabinet bastard is very fortunate to have some extraordinary leadership in our student broadcasting network and this evening there's some action that needs the board's approval to make it even better and mr dean will introduce this item mr president members of the governing board dr kelson members of the cabinet this evening if the board will recall in the spring when you granted approval for the beginning of the dysart student broadcasting live position and the coordinator of such in that conversation we talked about the goal of the program would be to become self-sufficient within three years we're very excited about dsb live and the opportunities it will provide our students to broadcast athletic events arts events and other events throughout the district given the
023kova 19 current situation and uncertainty with the number of fans that can be allowed into athletic events or other activities dsb live becomes very very important in the forefront of us providing that broadcast for our parents and so this evening we'd like to do two things one we'd like to introduce you to brian yoder who is here in the audience and he's going to stand up and he's sporting a dsb live polo with the new dsb live logo we're very excited about that and thank you brian uh for being here this evening but this this evening's agenda item is to ask for approval of the sponsorship packages listed um for the board in tonight's agenda the packages vary um in in price and um and accommodations that go with each package and the sponsorship packages
024will be peddled to businesses throughout the valley and provided an opportunity to become part of sponsoring our initial dsp live program and we'll continue to offer annual packages as we move forward so that's what we're asking for this evening we're very excited about dsb live taking off we already have a lot of buzz throughout the district our high school kids are very excited about what's coming and their ability to participate in this program and again we are thrilled to be able to provide this for our parents as well excellent thank you for that any questions on this no i'm very excited about this program and uh i think it's an excellent opportunity for us to utilize the students and their talents and also bring in some revenue on top of that so i love the
025fact that you know we're working towards the sponsorship opportunities as well as providing um some great opportunities for people to advertise and and get a lot of bang for their advertising dollar with dysart um so i'll make a motion can i have more questions please do um question is um so how is it going to be the students that are trying to present this to businesses or how is that going to be like introduced out there to try and gain some of these um platinum members and things like that mr president uh member tanner to begin with uh mr yoder we'll we'll do the lion's share of presentations to um to local businesses and and we'll be contacting them as we move forward as the program begins to take root and we move forward not
026only in future years but this year as well then we'll begin to include students in that piece one of the big pieces that we'll be looking to do is to provide content very quickly that we can put together in a sponsorship pitch that would that would provide information to local businesses to help them understand what they get with each sponsorship piece okay and then i'm assuming that's good for a year is that how they're doing yes the the the packages that you would be um approving this or that we're asking for approval for this evening are one-year packages so for example if a local orthodontist was interested in sponsoring dsb live they would have an opportunity to um to select from one of those packages as well thank you i also heard once upon a
027time that local orthodontist loved platinum it's strange that is my understanding as well and very strange yes agreed i'll tell you with very frugal orthodontist we will not be buying the flag the tickets um that are being offered through the packages for the vista performances are they only for outside groups or would those include student performances as well mr president um member densmore the answer to your question is yes so when the vista announces its yearly schedule um those those tickets would be available to the yearly schedule and i would point out that those that part of the sponsorship package will return money to community education to cover the cost of those tickets so that the revenue is not lost at the vista for performances as well okay thank you and it's also my understanding
028that uh mr yoder who's here tonight um comes with a pretty impressive resume so welcome and we're excited to have you and get this program started so thanks for your leadership and all that you bring to the table any other questions all right i'm excited to make a motion to approve the sponsorship packages for the dysart student broadcasting program second motion made by jay leonard seconded by don densmore let's go ahead and vote and that is a yes go ahead and pass that we appreciate you and are excited to see what uh what you can make happen so very excited about that program let's go ahead and move on to action discussion item i3 recommendation uh to appoint a trustee to the employee benefits trustee board dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the
029board and members of cabinet and this evening mr ken hicks will present this item good evening mr president members of the governing board superintendent dr kellis colleagues and community members tonight is an ebt night so as mentioned this agenda item is to appoint two members to the employee benefit trust board there we had two terms that ended on june 30th so we were without two members as we recognized one and as you've heard from earlier this isn't an advisory oversight board that provides those recommendations on employee benefits that then come before the governing board after we requested interested citizens that are not employed by the district to submit a very short and abbreviated notice of interest with some additional personal information i believe we received eight requests and two of them were selected and are
030being recommended recommended by administration for appointment mr matthew kinney and mr and jason tanner i also see that we have one current member of the ebt ms caruso that's uh sitting back and keeping a watchful eye to make sure that we're doing it properly i'm thankful for all those that applied and expressed their interest and i will stand for any questions thank you any questions i just had one um on the agenda it cites that that was a news release on july 7th but the website says that the news release went out on july 27th yes we had it i'm sorry yes we uh i started this agenda item early and then revised it that is the second part is correct not the first we did have some issues on the timing and when and
031so we delayed it until the 27th okay thank you very much no problem any other questions president leonard if i could just make a note of um order that because this involves the spouse of a board member that the board member would do well to recuse herself from voting the question may be posed if there are two board members who are voting out of three is that a quorum and based on the rules you can vote with the majority of those present okay so we do have to have a quorum of three so should we put this we just vote on the one then can we split it and vote on the one tonight so we'll have to represent that she said we'd have to represent represented at the next meeting mr president uh miss
032dunsmore is correct you could make a motion to vote for the one um which all three of you could vote for if it's in the affirmative but um i mean that still is an option if you want to modify the the motion mr hicks when's your next meeting or what's the time frame as far as are we good to wait in there mr president members of the board there's uh i think our next board meeting is uh september 9th i do not believe we have uh ebt board meeting before that probably if anything i believe it's in october or the first schedule so there's time there is time okay um we did have this question come up in a previous district where i was superintendent and the legal opinion on that was that it's the
033majority of those present you have to have a majority of the board members to conduct a meeting but for those who are present at that time our legal advice was that it was the majority of those present okay miss densmore you needed something to do are you okay with moving forward on voting or would you prefer to wait that's fine okay i'm okay with moving forward i'm good either way okay um so based on that i'll make a recommendation um to appoint the trustees as so stated i would need you a second second okay motion made by jay leonard seconded by miss don densmore we'll go ahead and vote you abstain yet and based on that we move forward and it passes um mr president does not pass oh sorry that did not pass i
034guess my goggles need a little bit clearer all right mr president again as point of order um this will be brought back to the next board meeting okay we will go ahead and move that to the next one all right action discussion item i4 uh closing schools for in-person instruction dr kellis thank you mr president members of the board and members of cabinet um this has been an ongoing conversation with the superintendent on the board and our attorney and the attorney has suggested that the board ratify the decision to delay the opening of school passed the august 17th date which is when the governor ended his closure of schools through executive order um i will say that the board does not have to take action on this the attorney has made it clear that that
035is an option of the board but has suggested that the board should consider and have a discussion of whether you do or you don't one proceed with this vote and the other is then to decide however you vote so this is one of those unique agenda items where the board can make a motion and if there's no second then it is the motion dies you don't have to take action you can take action it is up to the purview of the board essentially you would by a yes vote you would be ratifying the decision to delay the opening of in-person instruction the interesting thing about this is that the state and the county health departments have made it very clear that schools should not open until it is safe to do so and have presented
036um dashboard data that would indicate when it is safe to return to in-person instruction so regardless of how the board acts the state and the county have said that schools should stay closed which in essence the board would be voting to ratify a decision to stay closed which is in compliance with state and county health guidelines if it doesn't do it we are still under compliance with the state and county health guidelines and the attorney makes the suggestion merely on the fact that with a board vote it comes as a matter of policy that the action has been taken and voted on any questions on this item all right i'll make a motion to direct the superintendent to delay the reopening of the schools for in-person instruction until october 19 2020 pending the benchmark data
037from the state outcomes from our resident expert science and our ability to do so safely safely and effectively if the benchmark data indicates it is safe to return earlier then october 19th dysart will adjust its in person return date second motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner when that motion passes we will go ahead and move on to action item i five recommendation for approval of the superintendent's 2020 2021 goals objectives and evaluation plan dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board members of cabinet um each year it is the responsibility of the superintendent to submit to the governing board the superintendent's goals and objectives for the upcoming year i will present these that should look very familiar it is the board's goals and objectives and in alignment with the governing
038board's goals the superintendent is presenting the same goals so that we will remain aligned and on flown in the same direction i would share also that these are the districts goals and objectives that each entity of the district is has accepted adopted and is working towards the fulfillment of thank you for that any questions okay all motion to approve the superintendent's 2020 2021 goals and objective and evaluation plan second motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner let's go and vote and motion passes thank you let's go ahead and move on to action discussion item i-6 approval for approval of the appointed district delegate delegates for the arizona board association asba dr kellis thank you president leonard members of the board and members of cabinet it is the responsibility of each member district of
039the arizona school boards association to select one delegate and one alternate to represent the governing board of each district at this year three different events the responsibilities of these delegate and alternate delegate is to vote in a delegate assembly and the vote would potentially represent the the governing board that they are representing and we have had many conversations about this over the years this is an annual action item um i would share that governing board member sawyer sinkbell is on the board of asba as a county director i believe is the title so she will be there anyway but if the board would like to select a separate delegate or alternate um it can she has expressed interest in and being the alternate if necessary um so with that would turn it over back to
040the the president to have the discussion to uh identify one delegate and one alternate excellent i went last year so if anyone else wants to go mr president if i could have that these meetings are all virtual okay i'm easy either way i could attend so i'll i'll make a motion appoint jay leonard to represent dysart unified school district as the district delegate and don do you want to be the second yeah is that okay i like the alternate alternative sorry yes sure and don densmore is the alternate to the arizona school board association at an annual delegate assembly and direct the district's delegate to support all items i don't think we have an except for the asb proposal 2021 political agenda second motion made by jay leonard seconded by jen tanner let's go ahead
041and vote motion passes thank you very much we'll go ahead and move down to j1 request for future agenda items do we have any future agenda items that anybody would like to discuss okay then we'll move down to our favorite k1 and i'll make a motion to it during the meeting motion made by jay leonard seconded by miss jen tanner and that is the media adjourn thank you everybody for attending we appreciate you and uh thanks for your support have a great night