00138-431.03A1 to discuss the potential appointment of Carrie Soderman as director and safety of director I imagine that's supposed to say of safety and security. Uh is there a motion to uh move into executive session? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. All those in favor of moving to executive session, say I. >> I. I any opposed? Thank you very much. and afterwards uh we will do the pledge of allegiance led by Miss Shaina Murray. I pledge algiance 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 for participating in that. We will ask Miss Wilson to do roll call. >> Mr. Chad
002Thompson >> here. >> Dr. Mr. Blake Robersonson >> here. >> Miss Shaina Murray >> here. >> Miss Jill Humphre >> here. >> Mr. Jesse Brainard >> here. >> Mr. President, all board members are present. You have a quorum. >> Thank you, Miss Wilson. >> All right. Agenda item 3.01, approval of agenda. Is there a motion to approve tonight's agenda as outlined? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Dr. Roberson. Is there a second? Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Brainer. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda as outlined, say, "I." >> I. >> Any opposed? Thank you very much. And we'll move on to our superintendence report. Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. Good evening and thank you for joining us live and online. Um, just some updates. On Saturday, August 16th,
003we held our annual V-Net kickoff training and vendor expo. We had over 400 parent volunteers and employees attend this event. That's the most they've ever had. I'd like to thank uh the V-Net uh which is volunteer network for always providing opportunities for our parents to connect and learn about what it means to be a member of a PTSO and booster club. And uh thank you to everyone who pitches in to help make the experiences of our students the best they possibly can be. We have presentations from our finance department there. Uh we have vendors that are there and they just get to experience a lot of great things, but more importantly they understand that um being a part of a PTSO or booster uh club organization, all the intricacies that go on uh when it
004comes to the financial side of that and how important it is to make sure all your records are straight. So again, big thank you to VNET. Uh, our next school connect cafe will be on Tuesday, September 9th from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Camp Overy High School. This is when Camp Overy and all their feeder schools come together. School connect cafes are designed to bring schools, local businesses, and faith-based groups together to benefit uh for the benefit of students and the community. And we're looking forward to working with our community and those businesses out there to help make each one of our schools a better place to live, work, and learn. And then lastly, remember Monday, September 1st is Labor Day, which means no school that day. And did you know Labor Day is
005a federal holiday celebrated on the first Monday in September to honor the social and economic achievements of American workers, a tradition rooted in labor movement of the 19th century and it commemorates the hard-one victories for workers rights such as shorter hours and safer conditions during the industrial revolution. And that also marks uh the unofficial end of summer, which in Arizona, I think is October 1st, maybe. I'm not sure. Uh but we hope everybody has a safe 3-day holiday and and please enjoy yourself and rest up. Mr. Thompson, that concludes my report for this evening. >> Thank you, Dr. McCord. Agenda item 5.01, 01 appointment of Carrie Soderman as director of safety and security for the 2025 2026 school year. Is there a motion? >> I motion that we approve Carrie Soderman as the director of
006safety and security for the 2025 2026 school year. >> Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Murray. Um, is there any discussion, >> Dr. Robersonson? >> Yeah, I just wanted to mention when I heard um or got the email about Al leaving um I was I was really sad. I think he's done an amazing job for the school district and got the chance to go and visit and and see the operations and all that they do to help keep all of our kids and and uh faculty members, employees safe and really tremendous job. So, just want to thank him for that job. Was really nervous um about finding a replacement. Uh just had the chance to meet with Mrs. Sodderman here before the meeting and was so impressed
007and super excited. Um, I think she's going to do an amazing job and and really happy for all of our families that we have such a amazing person to to fill in for for Al who's leaving. Thank you. >> And we do have uh Mr. Al Kaine in the audience and this is the type of person he is. He came to to show respect for his replacement. Let's give him a hand for everything he's done for Gilbert Public Schools. Thank you. Any other discussion? Okay. I think we all uh echo Dr. Robersonson's uh comments and sentiment and we're excited for this next chapter uh in our uh in our school security. And um we'll go ahead and call for a vote. All those in favor of appointing Carrie Sodderman as director of safety and security
008for the 2025 2026 school year say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> And that passes. Congratulations. >> Carriers like to come up and say a couple words, please. To the podium. >> Oh, it's on. Sorry, I'm shorter. I would like to thank the board for all of your time this evening. It was great get getting to speak with you and talk with you. Like to thank El Kaine for his dedication and contributions to the district and I look forward to continuing his legacy. As you guys know, I am a parent in the district so safety and security of the students is a high priority for me as a parent. I thank the Gilbert Police Department for 20 years of wonderful service and wonderful opportunities and I look forward to bringing that uh to the
009school district and working with our A-rated district and all of our students and our parents and our administrators. So, thank you for this opportunity for your vote of faith in me. I very much look forward to the school year and working with everybody. Thank you. Let's go ahead and take about a three or four minute break to uh congratulate Miss Sodderman. And also if any board members would like to wish well wishes to Mr. Kaine, we can do that now. All right, thank you for allowing us that brief recess. We're going to move on to agenda item number six, request to speak to the governing board. And we'll ask Dr. Robersonson to read our district statement regarding request to speak. Request to speak to the governing board pursuant to ARS 38-431.02H. The governing board may
010make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body. After an open call to the public, individual board members may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the governing board, may ask staff to review a matter, or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda. However, members of the board, sorry, members of the governing board shall not discuss or take legal action on the issues raised during an open call to the public if the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action. During an open call, the governing board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against school personnel or anyone connected to
011the district as it may impact due process rights. Please contact the Office of Talent Management if you have specific concerns about any individual employee. >> Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. We have one request to speak to the governing board tonight. Susie Jackson, if you'll come up to the podium. Uh you'll have three minutes and your time will be uh on these on this board up here. And I believe it flashes yellow or red as you're getting close. So, the time is yours. >> Hello everybody. My name is Susie Jackson. Um tonight I'm here to speak about my son, Rigo Jackson, which I did bring a visual for you all to see how cute he is. Um, but as a parent um to multiple children with disabilities, I find myself in a position to advocate for their
012needs quite often. Here I am today trying to find a resolution so that my son can safely attend school. Rigo is 17 years old and was a senior at Gilbert High School until recently. He has attended Gilbert Public School since sixth grade, the year he joined our family, and was adopted. Rio is non-verbal, non-ambulatory, and feeds only through a G ttube. He has significant medical diagnoses that impact his health. He has a paliotative care team who we work with to make sure that Rigo leads a quality life and is supportive of his health needs. With much contemplation and discussion with his medical team, we made the decision for Rio to have a do not resuscitate order in the event that his heart were to stop. While we owe no one an explanation, I think it
013is important for you to understand how that decision was made. Through his paliative doctor, we understand that compressions on Rio's fragile body would ultimately not save his life. Yes, it may restart his heart, but he would likely sustain violent injuries that he could not recover from, ultimately resulting in a traumatic death. Our goal through paliative care is that he live his best life and when his body is done, he is able to have a peaceful and dignified death. We were shocked to learn that the Gilbert School District refuses to honor his position's order. We are required to have a physician's order for his G tube feedings and medication administrations, but the district has chosen to disregard this physician's order. There is no policy in place. This is simply at the direction of a GPS attorney.
014State law allows for each district to make their own decision to follow the DNR and GPS has determined that these students medical wishes won't be honored. Therefore, we had to withdraw our son to protect him in the unlikely event he would pass at school. I believe there are many concerns for the staff and students and how they would respond to watching someone pass. I truly believe there are and have been as recent as last year special measures that can be put into place to account for these valid concerns. As difficult as it may be to not provide heroic actions in the event of an emergency, I truly believe that staff would struggle more if they were a pathway to a violent and traumatic death for our son. I found policies across the country where districts
015honor a student's DNR. One that stood out was a district with only 850 students. Yet, they have a beautiful policy that honors the wishes for their most vulnerable students. Please understand that only 50 years ago, these kids weren't even allowed to attend school. They were institutionalized and hidden away because their disabilities were uncomfortable to others. GPS offers specialized programs specifically for students who have multiple disabilities. For many of them, their end of life plan is equally as important as their individual education plan. This is the reality when parenting kids who are medically complex and it is certainly the reality of educating medically complex children. Please don't pretend these realities don't. >> Thank you, Miss Jackson. >> That you develop a policy to support and honor DNRs within the school. Follow the law of the DNR,
016respect the physician's orders, and honor the dignity of students like my son. You already trust his doctors. Please trust as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Miss Jackson. All right, moving to agenda item number seven. We're going to start with the entertainment portion of our evening. 7.01 monthly financial report for month ended July 31st, 2025 through fiscal year 2026. Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. I will turn this over to our associate superintendent, Miss Bonnie Betts. Uh, thank you, President Thompson, for being so excited about this agenda item. I'm appreciative of that, governing board members, Dr. McChord. This uh monthly financial presentation represents the very first one for the school district. So, this is reflective of the first month of activity here in Gilbert Public Schools. Uh, and because it is
017the first one, we always include all of the uh, financial grids for you to make it easier for you to review. Uh, and so you can see that they're all here, though I'm not going to speak about all of them. They're just there for to um to facilitate your review of the financials. So, general notes regarding all of the CRIDs. Um, keep in mind that all of the available balances are calculated from the adopted budget values that you all approved uh at the end of June. All spend and incumbrance columns are inclusive of any actual spend um that was paid in July for the current year as well as all incumbrances of salary and benefits. In the past, we were not able to get all of the medical benefits encumbered, but we've been able to
018resolve that issue. And so now all the medical benefits are encumbered as well. And then please remember that for all cash funds that um that we only include what we are presuming is going to be the the new revenues that we receive. Uh so in our federal grants we were we are only including the appropriation or the allocation from the department of ed as uh carryover has not yet been calculated. And then finally we are obligated to present to you our first budget revision before uh September 15th in order to catch up with legislative actions that have occurred. And when we do that budget revision, we will only be updating the um maintenance and operations budget as well as unrestricted capital. It's not useful really to update any of the other funds as we we
019won't have any results regarding the annual financial report and actually what our our actual spend for all those funds were reflective of the incumbrance period which hasn't which I think just has expired. We're probably at the just Thursday. This Thursday is the end of the encumbrance period. So with that, we'll go to the first grid, which is our district operating fund grid. So note the very first uh row, maintenance and operations. Um note that the year-to- date expended and is um nearly the same as the budget. We are having we are calculating an available balance of 1.3 million. If you remember when we were giving you our projection based upon all of the decisions that you made this past spring that we were presuming $120,000 available balance by the time we had everything considered. So
020we're doing a little bit better than that. Um and then also just a reminder remember that we have um sacked away um 11.5 million of M into unrestricted capital. So keep in mind that that money will be available for us to move back into M in the event that we need it. But we're at 1.3 million now and we also know that based upon legislative action we are going to be increasing our budget in M. So that available balance will will be increasing. >> What changed between then and now that gives us an available balance that's a little over a million dollars more than we anticipated? mostly that based upon that our that our analyses are based upon last year's staffing. So we don't have a lot of visibility regarding which of our employees are
021retiring and then nor do we have any idea what the new salaries are going to be for those that are replacing them. So, as you've seen in the past, whenever we recalculate the average salary, often the average salary for our teachers is less than we anticipated because generally those teachers that are retiring are our higher cost teachers and they're generally replaced by teachers that are not not as experienced and so therefore not not as a high cost. That's the main driver. >> Thank you. >> You bet. Uh classroom site fund, the available balance is $24.1 million. uh note the year-to- date expended encumbered. It's important because right now our allocation in the current year for classroom site fund is 30.8 million which is just a little bit more than what you see is expended in.
022So we've matched up our spend to our actual annual allocation. Uh and so therefore that available balance we expect will continue to um to be drawn down over time. Um, but if I show you really quick the classroom site fund, one of the reasons why we're so very conservative along with the other supplanting issues associated with classroom site fund. But you can see the variation in our funding every year. All of us as finance professionals are just wondering, you know, how how much longer we're going to be able to see those increases in revenue in classroom site fund because it's all based upon sales tax revenues as well as some contribution from the state land trust. So, we're always very conservative um and monitoring that fund very closely. >> Question. So, if we have a
023slowdown in tax revenue, that would affect the classroom site fund. >> Sales tax revenue that would that would have a direct impact on our on our classroom site fund. Yes, >> that's what I meant to say. >> Yeah, you bet. You bet. And then finally, I'm going to group Medicaid reimbursement and indirect cost together. So these are funds that we have built up a fund balance over many many years probably over um at least since I've been here over eight years if not closer to 10 years. So most of that available balance is what we would consider one time. So when you're looking at the year-to- date expended encumbered that $1.8 million in Medicaid that matches our expected annual revenue. So if that expected annual revenue continues to decline or we add more staff into
024that fund, which we can on an as needed basis, it it does um continue then to draw down that one-time money. So I just wanted to to make sure that you were all aware of that. And then when it comes to indirect costs, one of the big drivers of that indirect fund balance has been the um the pandemic and the uh universal free breakfast and lunch which gave us sub significant revenue that we were able to build up fund balance. That allowed us to take 100% of the indirect that we were able to take from nutrition services. In this current year, we will not be able to take the full indirect out of um nutrition services. So, likely we will have a revenue and indirect cost of about $600,000, which means we would uh start
025drawing down that available balance with the individuals that are uh funded out of indirect right now. And then finally, unrestricted capital. If you recall from the uh adopted budget presentation that we anticipated having about a 15 to$16 million spend budget on unrestricted capital purposely trying to maintain that um $30 million or so available balanced not knowing what's going to happen in the future knowing that we've had so many issues with roofs and with our heating and cooling systems throughout Gilbert public schools due to the age of our buildings. We're all at we're all of our buildings are near that 20 to 30year mark. So we want to make sure that we are careful about how we're spending our unrestricted capital. So that $17.7 million is very close to what we anticipated. But also keep in
026mind that in that incumbrance is Desert Ridge High School and Gilbert High School. Both of those schools we have submitted to the school facilities um board for consideration for funding those those roofs at Desert Ridge High as well as Gilbert High. That would be great news because we could preserve as much as um six or seven million and with if we were if we were successful with SFD money. >> Do we anticipate receiving that? Well, I can tell you now that all of the requests are close to $400 million and the allocation that they have available to them is $250 million. What I can't comment on is how they allocate it out like what are what is their prioritization. I believe that they consider life safety um usability of the facility as a as a
027high priority. So therefore, our roofing projects would rise to the top. Um, but we're in the submittal phase and the review phase and so as soon as we have more information, we'll be sure to share that with you. >> Do you know when we should hear something? >> I do not. Okay. So, moving on. Um, so these are the federal grant funds. I already shared that we do not have the uh carryover. We have no idea what that will be until we're done with the incumbrance period and through the annual financial report, but the adopted budget represents the allocation that we were given uh last spring uh last year. At this time, we actually reported a an adopted budget of 5.8 million. So, we anticipated that when we did our budget projections and we anticipated
028that that we would potentially have to offload special education expense out of IDEIDA into M um to the tune of almost almost a million, but it's a it'll be about $800,000. We're hopeful that some of that um appropriation will come back, but at this point in time, we we're not not at all certain. And then again, note that that 5 million does not include any carryover. And then finally the 300 to 399 the other federal projects we generally do not budget in those um but you can see that we have seen some uh activity uh when once we um when we revise our budget in um in September we will address that so that we are not showing a negative available balance on any month. Okay. So the state grants fund, this is the last
029time that we will be talking about resultsbased funding. We have successfully spent all of that down on purpose. So moving any eligible expense out of one fund and putting it into resultsbased funding, that fund has not been appropriated over the last two years. So we just wanted to get it off the books. And in fact, there is no there isn't even a cell for the resultsbased funding for the annual financial report. So we'll be grouping it with a bunch of other funds for that particular reporting. Uh enterprise funds. So our enterprise funds are nutrition services and community school. Just a reminder, we're calling them enterprise funds because they are expected to be able to fund their own operations without having a negative impact on the school district operations. So we have recently uh in increased
030the estimated revenues to reflect their activity to match up with their particular revenues earned through June 30 because both community school as well as nutrition services have significant operations during the month of June even though school is out. And then in addition, uh just a reminder about nutrition services. There is an item under consent for approving an emergency purchase for just this year for fries um food stores. We have had issues uh encouraging I will say grocery stores um in Arizona to respond to requests for proposal so that they can be approved under a variety of contracts. So none of the grocery stores have uh responded to those. However, um, so, however, there's Walmart is still available. Uh, we do have a potential contract that would be approved for Smart and Final to be able
031to meet our ongoing needs. The issue is that nutrition services serves a lot of students that have special diets due to allergies, etc. And FRISE has been the consistent provider of all of those special um, menu items. And so we are requesting that you approve this emergency procurement for fries for nutrition services on an annual basis. Okay. >> Can you go back one one slide? >> Sure. >> So it Nope. >> Which one? >> The food services. >> Oh, sorry. So, I seem to recall in in last year and the year before our available balance in nutrition services being closer to the $8 million mark. I've always, for some reason, that number has always stuck in my head. Maybe it's because I I love to eat so much, but um but it's usually around the
032$8 million mark. This is about $800,000 under that. And we recently approved uh within the last year approved raising the uh the cost the me the the meal cost at I think all three the elementary, junior and high schools. So is this I guess I'm wondering why this is lower than it has been in the past. So, um, the approval was for 10 cents, meal meal price increases of 10 cents across the board. And we're trying to be very conservative regarding our request to you to raise meal prices in Gilbert because of our socioeconomics and and the um and the demographic of our students and their families. Most of our families are taking on the burden of paying for their student lunches. So, we've been very diligent about making small requests to you uh when
033we um when we do bring you a request. Um but we have been drawing down fund balance to the tune of $500 to $900,000 annually even with that 10 cents. Um and so, uh we still are drawing down fund balance. Our normal amount that we carry over on in in a normal time uh prior to COVID is between two or$3 million. So we're trying to make recommendations and decisions um that are considering everything. So um it's possible that this fall we will be bringing to you another request to raise prices. So, just another example, Scottsdale Unified last spring approved a $110 increase to all their meal prices across the board. We we have no intention of doing that. Our our our um hope was that as we see a need that we would just increase
034it in incrementally um so that we're balancing out the the cost across the entire um the entire uh community, not just what's in the best interest of nutrition services, but our families as well. >> So if we did nothing, if we didn't raise food prices, we've got an available balance in here. If we draw down $500,000 to $900,000 a year, essentially 7 to 14 years, give or take, depending on inflation, cost of product, things like that. Um 7 to 14 years of available balance if we didn't do anything. Is that right? >> Yes. And keep in mind, so I'm I'm just cautioning, but yes, that's correct. Uh again, as is true with our buildings, our nutrition services equipment is also um 15 to 25 years old, and this fund is obligated to pay their own
035one-time costs. So, it's arguably wise to carry a a2 to4 million fund balance to be able to offset any unexpected expenditure. Um but we also have provided pay increases over um over the time as well. So continuing to absorb the cost of labor as it's gone up again with consideration to our families and our community. So that was my my next question is how does this available balance measure against what I don't want to say what it should be but you said it's it's wise to have a balance in there of at least 2 to 4 million. We've got seven just over 7 million. Um, will that will that help us help our families, district families? Um, will that help us in making a decision to raise the cost of meals? And how much in
036helping our families, our district families, uh, not have to come out of pocket much more. >> So, um, so I I I think I understand. So, the um, Um um and I think so as we make recommendations to you as a governing board, we're considering all of those things, but also the fact that we definitely did not want to hit our families to the level of a$110 per meal at one point in time. So, but that's a philosophy. I mean, we could do as you suggest or not maybe not as you're suggesting, but as you pointed out, we could just continue drawing down fund balance to that two or three million dollar level and not even consider consider it moving forward. So, it's it's a choice. We >> we also have we're declining school districts,
037so we have less students each year. I mean, when we budget for 12 or,300 student loss, >> some of that's going to be reflected >> in our revenue. That's the other thing. So, we did so to date um we we have seen that we definitely have lost 800 students um year-over-year. And I want to make sure that I'm clear about saying that it doesn't mean that we lost 800 students all at once. This is just the cumulative effect of that cohort movement going from kindergarten all the way through high school. Like all the losses in numbers of students, it's been it's accumulating to that 800 student level. So given that we are staffed right now, this gives us some flexibility. We're staffed probably for 800 students more. So we're trying to figure out trying to
038give us some time to staff accordingly. Food prices continue to increase as well. So we're trying to we're trying to look at all of the pieces of information to make the right recommendation to you as a governing board. >> Can I just clarify on one thing? So, so you had asked if if we did nothing, if we and meaning if we didn't increase prices, would we continue to draw down at the 500 to 900,000 a year? But aren't we're drawing down at that amount with with the very modest increases we're doing. Right. That's correct. If we did zero increases, we'd actually draw down faster. >> That's correct. >> Yeah. >> I I did want to point out to you, Mr. Thompson that um the town of Gilbert kept their water rates low and didn't raise
039them modestly over 10 or 15 years and now they're dealing with the consequences that they've had to really increase their water rates to cover their infrastructure. We don't want to be in that. We don't want to be in that situation. I think a dime a meal is, you know, that's 50 cents a week more for per child. I think that's manageable and I think to stay in that position where families can just find that little bit more instead of having to do a dollar or $2 a mill. I think that's a to me that's my philosophy that I want to make it easy and keep that fund balance rather than decide that we don't want to we don't want to have that fund balance and then have a big increase at one time. Well, I
040I think this is this is great management of our finances by by your team and by our food services team. So, >> okay, >> this is great. I just had some questions. Thank you. >> You bet. >> So, um and this is another fund that will have a huge impact on go public schools. It's our employee benefit trust fund. So, um, the details on this one is the beginning balance is $24.9 million. That is about just under a million more than we anticipated. So, during the 25 school year, we anticipated drawing down about another million dollars of fund balance. due to our uh investment income as well as um more than expected stop-loss reimbursements, we we were able to actually increase net position by just under a million dollars. So, that's good because if you
041look at the estimated revenues and compare them to the year-to- date expended encumbered, we're looking at drawing down maybe as much as $8 million over the year due to numerous factors. So, we have a number of high cost claimants. There are six of them in which our stop-loss insurance basically said we're not covering them. So, we are going to be on the hook for their in total their total um medical costs associated with those six uh individuals, whether they're employees or dependents, doesn't matter. Um, so therefore that was not expected when we set the premium rates back in the spring because our stop-loss renewal didn't complete until uh late May. So now we're looking at potentially seeing an $8 million draw down in fund balance. Another positive regarding our diligence in the past that we
042had the available resources and $17 million if it does come to pass that we will draw down to that level. $17 million still puts our employee benefit trust fund in a positive sustainable um sustainable uh position. Um but this is also foreshadowing foreshadowing the fact that you we will definitely be recommending a premium increase to you in the spring for subsequent years. So, uh, nothing on the studentbased fund, the bond fund. Just really quick, note the incumbrance in the 2026 school year. There's a $257,000 incumbrance in transportation. We ordered the buses last year. Of course, it takes a long time for those to be manufactured and received, so we had to roll over that incumbrance. Then you can also see the $52,000 left over under facility renewal. you know, from all of our agenda items
043that there are numerous capital projects that were that were uh completed in 2025 that would be eligible spend under bond. So, we will be moving those out of unrestricted capital and putting them into bond. So, that $52,000 will be totally spent by the time we're done um in 2025. Okay. And then finally, um I know this has been a long uh report, but um this is an unusual occurrence for us with the debt service fund summary. So I just thought I would share some details regarding the debt service fund. You can see that our adopted budget shows a principal payments of just under 23 million and interest payments of just under 3.9 million. But note that we have a year-to-ate expenditure of about 250,000 and an incumbrance of about uh 25,000. So our payments for
044principal and interest are due in July and January. Um and so the July payment that we just had actually is pushed back to last year just because of the way accounting goes, right? So we're talking about looking forward to next July. So there really shouldn't be any expenditure or encumbrance right now. So we are obligated by federal law to do what they call an arbitrage calculation on our bond proceeds as well as on our debt service fund. Basically what that means is the uh the US Treasury regulations indicate that we as an entity cannot earn interest earnings either on our bond proceeds or on a debt service fund that exceed the yield of our bonds that we've sold. So they did two calculations back to two series in the past and we owed to about
045$250,000 to the IRS and then of course we still had to pay the um the actual calculation fee. So the act the calculation fee is that 3.7 that uh $3,700 and then we had two um two series that were impacted. So just under $250,000 for one and then um about $22,000 for the other that we were obligated to pay back to the Internal Revenue Service. I want to make sure that it's clear though. It's not like we had to take money out of our coffers. We earned more interest than that. That's the amount that we have to pay back. So we still benefited. No no negative impact on our taxpayers or any of that. >> I've got a a question. Not related to this specifically, but is is there any update on the findings from
046the state based on our audit findings that they dinged us for? >> Oh, yes. >> We were obligated to pay that back. >> We are obligated to pay in full. >> We've already pulled it. We've already paid it back. >> It's okay. And it's reflected in this budget that we're looking at. Um I think we paid it back in last year, right? Yeah, it was it it it'll impact our beginning fund balance for this year. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Y >> Oh, it wasn't a Okay. Okay. Thank you. >> There were question costs to that level, but we had to pay back 140,000. That was the only thing that was in question. Okay. Thank you for that question. And that's my the end of my report. Thank you all very much. >>
047Thank you. >> Are there any other questions from the board? Okay, moving on to 7.02, our church touching and leaning teaching and learning academic spotlight. Uh we've got some folks here to present to us tonight. We're excited to hear from them. And so I'll turn the time over to Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President Board members. I will uh give this to Mr. Ryan, our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning about tonight's presentation. >> And Dr. McCord, I'm going to shoot it right across the way here to Miss Taylor who's going to be leading the way tonight. Thank you. >> All right, President Thompson, governing board members, Dr. McCord, we appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit about the transformation that our secondary summer school has gone through in the last uh several
048years. Just to provide a little bit of background, I found it interesting when I first took this position 10 years ago that secondary summer school was housed in administrative services rather than in teaching and learning. And I think it was uh because summer school was seen as more of a transactional credit recovery. I know I'm buzzing >> and I don't know trans more of a transa transactional credit recovery program rather than a real genuine learning opportunity for our students in in Gilbert public schools. Uh, one of the reasons for that is because of the lack of consistency that our system created because we relied very heavily on deans of students to be the principles of summer school uh, every year. And as deans, they would then move up to becoming assistant principles and principles. And
049then we'd be retraining another summer school principal again. I went back today and I counted seven different summer school principles in my last 10 years. Uh so the system itself created those challenges because setting up s summer school starts in October and they prepare for it simultaneously being a dean of student at a campus. So, it's like having a full-time job plus another almost full-time job. When you think about the preparation that goes into summer school, uh, it has all the same components as a school. So, they're doing enrollment, registration, course description book, they're doing curriculum, they're doing FTE and budget, um hiring of teachers, support staff, uh consideration of special programs, they're working with uh their training teachers, they're great grading practices have to be considered, transcripts, evaluations of teachers, student uh discipline, they're
050working with tech services, uh transportation, health services, um the site administration, sometimes campuses can change depending on the work that's being done each summer. So, you're working with different custodial staff, safety and security, all of those things uh that go into the creation of a school. Uh but it doesn't just roll over to the next year and they don't roll up because you have new students every summer and new teachers. So all of those things, it's a lot of work and I think that that's why it started out the way it did. However, one of the benefits the last few years that came out of the new Title 9 requirements was that we were able to pair the Title 9 coordinator position with secondary summer school principal position. So there's been some consistency and because
051of that we've been able to align our summer school at the secondary level not only with global academy summer school but with our teaching and learning department so that we are sure that our students in the summer are receiving the same highquality education that our students during the school year receive. Uh, so now that you've eliminated the buzz and I've given you a little background, I'm happy to introduce our two ladies that will be sharing with you some of the progress that's been been made the last couple years. uh Danielle Fuks, our secondary summer school principal, and Pat Patricia Shores, who is currently our assistant principal at South Valley Junior High Junior High, but acted as our summer school dean of instruction this last summer. So, they're going to share uh some of that progress
052that's been made in the last couple years. Appreciate you being here. Thanks, of the awesome and exciting work that we've been doing over the last couple of years with secondary summer school. And I do want to um point out that the information we're sharing with you today is specific to in-person secondary summer school. So we serve 7th through 12th grade students most of whom are GPS students throughout the district but we also invite students from outside the district as well to join us um on a requested basis. So uh we have been doing a lot of very intentional work around incremental but intentional improvements. Whoop you got the buzz. Uh again, like Miss Taylor said, aligned with the work and the expectations that have been placed on our comprehensive sites during the school year. So,
053we are excited to share with you um a little bit about our team and our mission specific to summer school work that we do um the communication and the collaboration across the district that it takes to prepare and execute summer school for all of our junior high and high school students who want to participate. um specifically the work that we've done with the curriculum instruction and assessment department and the work that uh Trisha has done this last year specifically around teacher and instructional development which has been a new addition for us this year the culture shifts that we've seen as a result of the work that we've done as well as a little bit of historical data for you and then our goals specific to what's next for summer school. So this past year we
054split our campuses for secondary in-person summer school. Our junior high students were housed at Mosquite Jr. and our high school students were housed at Gilbert High School. So we had a dean of students specific to each campus. The role of those folks is to deal with the student specific uh issues that come up whether it's behavior, attendance, parent communication, um being present in classrooms, all the daytoday functions of summer school. And then myself and Trisha shared uh campuses. We would switch off campuses so that um the responsibilities that we had would be shared between the campuses. So, as Miss Taylor shared, all of the planning and preparation for summer school falls under um my responsibilities. And then in the new position as dean of instruction, Trisha's responsibilities really were specific to teacher development and professional
055development for staff. So, she's going to share more of that in just a moment. Let's see if my Here we go. Um, our mission in summer school specifically is to make sure that we are providing opportunities for students throughout the district, not just for academic remediation, but also to recover credits and to proactively earn firsttime credit um, in a very rigorous and condensed environment. Um, and for those of you that haven't had a student go through summer school, the structure is very, very condensed. So, summer school is housed through the month of June. We have two weeks of instruction for first semester courses and two weeks of instruction for second semester courses. So what students would typically learn in 20 weeks in a regular semester, they then learn in two condensed weeks. Our junior high
056students are with us 4 days a week for 4 hours. And our high school students are with us 5 and a half hours a day for 10 days. Did I say that right? >> Yes. >> Four days a week for four hours. Yes. Thank you. And so we really condense the material that is um that is uh offered and wh hold on they're working on it for us. And so that's really where the collaboration across the district becomes so so important. Um our work like Miss Taylor mentioned starts really September October is where the planning starts but where we start to collaborate with the sites site administrators and especially site counselors is in the month of December. So, we provide a pretty extensive training for our counselors um so that they have all the information
057that they need to properly advise students because in January they start the process of meeting one- on-one with students to select courses for the next school year. And we really want summer school to be part of that conversation so that it's included as a major option as they develop their graduation plan over the four years that they're in high school. So, we collaborate with the counseling departments and the on-site administration. We also work very closely with the curriculum department, which I'll speak more to in just a moment. Nutritional services, special education, transportation, finance, technology, all of the main um departments in the district are included in the planning and execution of summer school. Um, not just communication with our sites, but also communication with our families. Uh the process for summer school begins with a
058counselor recommendation so that we ensure that students who are taking classes during the summer are taking a class that they indeed need for graduation. And since the counselor is the holder of that process, we want to make sure that whatever students are taking during the summer is aligned with their graduate plan. And then we start to communicate with families about registration in the middle of spring break so they have all of fourth quarter to enroll and register for summer school. So there's plenty of opportunity for every junior high and high school student in the district to benefit from summer school. All right. And like I mentioned, the curriculum department has done a heavy lift. So um last year was my second year in this position. My first year in the position, curriculum was really the
059focus of any improvements that we were going to do. And it it was very important that as we developed the curriculum and pacing guides and such for our regular school year that we developed the same resources for our summer school program. So it wasn't teachers deciding how they utilize the time. It was our curriculum coordinators who said this is what we are going to focus on primarily the priority standards because of our condensed timeline. And then our teachers could really focus on how they wanted to bring that instruction to life for students. And that's really what Trish's uh focus has been. So our curriculum department developed those curriculum maps, developed those pacing guides. We worked with Dr. Cox and her team to ensure that our courses aligned with what was in the course instruction or
060course uh description book. And then in the last couple of years as we've adopted new curriculum for both English with my perspectives and math with I Ready and HMH, we've also incorporated those online resources in the summer school instruction as well. So there's been a lot of work around that and then of course to align the curriculum with our summer school final exams which in turn align with the common exams that students are taking during the summer school. So or during the regular school year. So so much of the work we've done is to bridge that gap and ensure that there's uh continuity between the expectations of summer school curriculum and the expectations during the regular school year. Um so I'm going to pass it on to Trisha. She's going to talk about the instruction
061and assessment with regard to all of those developments. Hi everyone. Thanks for letting me talk about something I'm really passionate about, which is instruction. Um, the benefit of all of the work that Danielle has done since she became the site principal for secondary summer school, I feel like really came to fruition this summer when we were able to address the instructional piece for summer school. when you begin to speak to teachers about what's happening in the classroom, the most important question for teachers that they need answered is what am I teaching? And so our curriculum d uh coordinators have done a really good job of articulating for summer school what the pacing guides look like. Without that work, it would be almost impossible to talk to teachers about then how do we teach it? So
062really having those in place this summer and being able to speak to teachers about this is the what, now let's talk about the how. That was kind of the power of the position that I held with summer school this summer. So with instruction, we really made an effort throughout all of the planning that happened throughout second semester last year. We really put a lot of intention into thinking about how are we going to address the GPS instructional framework and how we speak to teachers about what summer school should look like. The challenge of summer school is always time. Okay, like Danielle said, we literally have semesterl long courses happening in two weeks. So, the teachers feel it just as much as we do that every instructional minute that we spend with students is precious. So,
063it's really important to be intentional and strategic in how things are being taught to students so that we can make sure students are taking away the most from the summer school experience. And also just sort of shifting the way that we view instruction in summer school as summer school is not a separate entity that operates outside of our regular school year and our comprehensive schools, but that as a summer school team, it's really our responsibility to send students back to their campus in the fall with gained confidence in their academic abilities, feeling like they're, you know, excited about the progress that they've made, not just that they participated in sort of a compliance program where they earned back credits, but that they've really filled in skill gaps and are ready to go back and participate
064with their peers in their comprehensive programs. So, some of the things that we did to address instruction and teacher development over this summer is that I did develop a two-part professional development for teachers that articulated what the instructional goals were for summer school and for their practice over the summer. We started by kind of examining the why and talking about how summer learning is really important for students, especially the population that we typically see in summer school. That it's very important that we are addressing learning gaps and skill deficiencies, not just checking off boxes and having students participate in a program that's based on compliance. Um, so we had teachers reflect on that why. We had them look at some data about summer school and the importance of summer programs and how learning gaps affect
065the regular school year. And then we also really placed a high focus on building positive relationships with kids and creating a positive learning environment. I feel like this is going to be really important for summer school moving forward because we do know that a lot of our neighboring districts are doing away with in-person summer school programs and focusing more on online programs. So, I feel like that's an opportunity for Gilbert Public Schools to kind of say we are offering summer school in person, which we know is a more enriching uh experience for students than just taking a summer school class online. Um, again, we also really worked to align our practices with the instructional framework. Uh, GPS teachers have done so much work over the past four years on just developing their professional practice. And
066so, we want the instruction that students are seeing in summer school to mirror the same kind of instruction that we have expectation-wise for our teachers during the school year. We had teachers working with teacher clarity. We had them developing success criteria, looking at learning goals. We also had them doing a lot of work with formal and informal formative assessment because again my emphasis with teachers was really to mentor them and help coach them and how to best use the very limited instructional time that we have with students. So we did a lot of work on assessment and talking about what data was yielding to us as far as the students that were participating in summer school. I really cautioned teachers to be reflective about the fact that just because a student has to take a
067summer school class because they failed. That doesn't mean that they didn't get take anything away from the classroom during the regular school year. We have a lot of students that come to summer school because they did fail a course, but it has to do with a lot of other reasons just other than that they didn't engage. So, we emphasized preassessment. We emphasized formative assessment. let's really figure out what our students took away from the regular school year and not retach those things if they've mastered. So there was an emphasis on being very reflective about what do we need to focus on based on the student needs of the kids that are sitting in front of us right now. Okay. We also did um a new piece to summer school this year and weekly I met
068with the different departments in summer school to have many PLC conversations where we talked about what they were seeing as far as student needs, student mastery, how students were progressing through the curriculum, what were the challenges that teachers were seeing and then I played the role of a thought partner for those teachers and how they could address those things in the classroom without losing any instructional time. Okay. We looked at data from the teachers assessments from the CUA CUA assessments that were being given in ELA and just kind of had some really great conversation about how we could best utilize the instructional time that we had students for. Even though it is limited in summer school, we want to make sure that we were making the most out of the students time and filling in
069those skill gaps as needed. Yep. So you can see why Trisha was super powerful in the position that we uh we gave her this year because her passion and her focus on instruction and ensuring that students really get the best out of their teachers is really a gift I think and the work she did with our teachers. We saw a difference in how students were engaging in the classroom, how teachers felt at the end of the day because as you can imagine to teach summer school for five hour five and a half hours a day is not just a heavy lift for the students. It's also a heavy lift for the teachers. And so to have that level of support and encouragement and someone who can really think alongside them and work with them to
070design uh lessons and activities that get students excited about learning and engaging, it just makes it a fulfilling experience for everybody that's in the room. And that really speaks to our culture. So, one of the challenges to uh overseeing summer school and leading summer school is that we have students from every secondary campus come together on a campus that for most is not their campus. They're sitting next to peers that they've never met before, that they've never had class before, that don't look familiar to them. Some of our students, like I said, are coming from out of district. And so how do we create an environment that is welcoming and gives students the best opportunity to do their best because they feel comfortable and like they have a sense of belonging where they are. So
071that's where that culture came into play. So that starts with openhouse. We have our own little openhouse evening where students and parents come, they meet their teachers. Um they receive a welcome email from each of their teachers or from their teacher for summer programs and they get to meet them and see where their classroom is. So on the first day of school, just like you know a freshman might be, they're not as nervous and they know exactly where they're going and have a familiar face. So that's been very popular. We get a really great attendance at that event. Um we also spoil our staff a little bit and every Friday we have a little something for them to celebrate the work that's been done for the week. But what it has also become is kind
072of that water cooler area where teachers can stand around and talk about the week and talk about their wins, talk about things that they've tried for the first time and that worked or challenges they had. And what we found is that people would stand around and visit and share practices informally and smile and laugh and enjoy the end of a very long demanding week which was a nice way to end the week. We have college day Wednesdays just like we do on the comprehensive campuses. We encourage students to and staff to represent their home campuses on Fridays with what they wore. Um, and then we always have just a small handful, very, very few students who through summer school finish that last credit or that last half a credit that they need to graduate. And
073so when we have students in that position, we make a big deal out of it. We announce them on the announcements. We play pomp and circumstance as they go out the door. So all of those little pieces to make sure that students feel that sense of belonging and staff as well. And then the last piece is like Trisha's saying there is such limited time and I think typical to teachers they have this sense of responsibility to get through every piece of curriculum and to get through every little thing. Part of what we encourage them and give them explicit permission to do is to spend time a little bit every day, especially the first week of each session, to build community in their classroom, to do getting to know you activities, to get to know their
074students, but also give their students an opportunity to get to know each other. And what we've seen as a result of that very intentional work is that when we do collaborative work and we do team work, which we do quite a bit now, students are more open to it. They're more collaborative. They dialogue more with each other. They're just overall more comfortable. And all of those things, I think, have made a big difference for the culture of our summer school program. Here we go. I did provide a little bit of just the the last two summers worth of data for you that um is linked in there when you um when you have time. But some of the just basic information, you can see in summer school 2024, we served 974 students who took a
075semester course. So some of those 974 are students who took a course both sessions and then our enrollment did go down a little bit in 2025 to 854 students uh served but I think there were a couple reasons for that and some of that is the work that's being done at the comprehensive campuses during the school year to help students really demonstrate mastery and not need to take credit recovery in many cases. Um, our passing rate of summer school is very, very high because we tell our students, you come with us. Come with us on the journey. Walk with us along, walk alongside with us for the instruction. We're going to work with you, you work with us, and we'll make sure that you're successful. So, students are successful. They know that we have their
076back. We partner with parents to make sure that anytime a student falls below 70% there's an immediate call home which you can imagine in two weeks we don't want to give them an opportunity to fall below and have to dig themselves out. We want to catch them right as they're starting to go down and students and parents are really responsive to that because in many cases these parents have made it an investment for their student to take summer school and want to see their student succeed as well. So that's just a little bit of information. >> Can I ask on this real quick >> please? Yeah. So the the last line, last bullet point on each of those. Yes. The students who don't successfully finish aren't computed into the passing rate obviously. So do they
077they get a W or an I or like what what happens? >> That's a very good question. So students who are dropped before the last day of the session, it's like the class never existed. They don't earn a grade. Nothing shows up on the transcript. The only time students will rece receive a WF or a failing grade is if they don't show up on that last day or they're they don't take the final exam and that can knock them down to a failing grade. But typically if students show up, they're earning that passing grade. Those students who don't finish are either two second day drops because our attendance policy is students are dropped on the second day because we've only got 10 days of instruction or students who are removed from summer school due to
078pretty intensive discipline. and we work with students and work with students. So, if a student is removed because of discipline, it's because other opportunities didn't uh didn't pan out. We did see a higher rate of student non-attendance this year than we saw of last year as you can see in that percentage. So, more students were dropped, but that is also tied to the goals that we have for this year so we can address some of that. >> Do you know offhand the percentage of second day drops? That seems like a big difference like a second day drop versus second week. Yes. So, second day drops and I can I can look and see specifically, but we were under 30 in 2024 and we were in the 50s in 2025. A lot of those students we
079noticed are students who didn't need the class but didn't withdraw ahead of time. So, when we would contact them, oh, I thought I had withdrawn or oh, you know, so they maybe didn't need the class or had made other arrangements to take the class at a later time but didn't communicate that to us. So, but they are included in that drop percentage. Daniel, would that be because maybe in the spring when they were signing up, they might have been on the edge of whether or not they were passing a class and then correct >> they passed. We were so exhilarated and then they forgot to >> they forgot to let us know that they passed. Yes. And we are putting systems in place so we can identify those students rather than waiting for them to
080selfidentify. >> Yep. Absolutely. And then the last thing we wanted to share with you are the improvements that we're already looking at. So even though it's barely not even September of 2025, we're talking about summer school 2026 and we're really excited about it. So um some of those drop rates we saw were tied to our students who receive support through McKenna Vento and a lot of those students we just needed to have more timely communication. So we've got some goals in place to make sure that we're serving those students better and removing barriers that kept them from attending. Special education has been on our radar from the beginning and so we will continue to focus on ensuring that students are properly placed in classes. As I said that summer school is so condensed and so
081intense even some of the strongest students that we have in the district will struggle to get all of that work done and to really focus in. So we want to make sure if we are referring students or recommending students for summer school that we are indeed setting them up for success. and if we don't think that summer school is going to be successful for them, what are some of the other options that we can look into outside of that? So, that's part of the conversation. Also, our data team who are building these phenomenal dashboards for all of us, it seems are going to be working on a dashboard for us for summer school so that we can not only see the data that I've already provided to you, but more importantly, so that we can
082see what are those learning outcomes beyond summer school. So when we have a student who say failed algebra 1 and comes to us retakes algebra 1, what is their success rate when they move on to geometry or to algebra 2, are we seeing a lot of repeat students in summer school or are we really equipping them with the skills and and knowledge of concepts that they need to be successful moving forward? So, as that dashboard is created, I think that's going to give us a ton of very valuable information and also inform how we train our teachers and how we approach the curriculum in those cases. Um, junior high is going to be my big focus for 2026 because I see a wonderful opportunity for us to really expand the offerings that we have for
083incoming seventh, eighth, and even incoming nth graders as they transition out of junior high. So for junior high courses, students can take them if they want to, even if they didn't fail. But primarily the junior high students that we've seen in in summer school are students who have previously failed English or math and are retaking it so that they're better equipped for the following year. However, we know that we have students in classrooms who are earning a passing grade but still not measuring up to standards and are still in that deficiency bracket. And we want to make sure we offer opportunities for remediation for all junior high students. So, we're going to be we are in the process of modifying our seventh and eighth grade course offerings so that we have an opportunity for any
084student who wants to take advantage of a math program or an English program. We're going to call them math or English prep. So, you're prepping for seventh grade or you're prepping for eighth grade or even prepping for ninth grade so that as you go into that next grade level, you have had time to focus and practice on those essential skills and concepts. And in addition to that, um the math bridge, the honors program that has previously been offered at the elementary for students who are in onle sixth grade math but want to take on the challenge of moving to honors seventh grade math. Those are what we've called bridge programs to help those students um really strengthen their skills and be ready to essentially skip a grade level of math. Those programs are also going
085to be moving to the junior highse secondary program. So, we're inheriting those. Um, but I'm excited about what we're going to be offering for junior high students for next year because I just see so much opportunity to really support them. And ultimately then the goal is to see them experience higher levels of success at high school and then be more confident in their skills and ready to be successful there. And then um like Trisha had mentioned, we have we are one of the few districts in the area that's still offering in-person summer school. Most districts can't afford to do it anymore. Their programs are very small. um they've moved to online classes only. We want to scoop up those students as well if they're interested in having an in-person experience. Um we've seen over the
086last few years our enrollment from outofd district students increase. We want to continue to see that increase as long as we have the capacity to meet the needs of our in district students and welcome out of district students as well. Um and then for teacher and instructional development to continue the work that Trisha has done in equipping our our teachers um refining the curriculum, refining instructional strategies so that both students and teachers are enjoying an interactive experience that really helps to build not just their skill set and their understanding of concepts but also their confidence moving into whatever they have planned for themselves for the next year coming up. And that is all that we have for you. Do you have any questions for us? >> You've covered so many amazing things and I think
087we've done a really great job of revamping summer school and um I'm really excited about that math bridge program. I wish that had been around for my kids back in the day. I think it would have been very helpful. Um so I just want to touch on some basics. So when kids sign up for these summer school classes, that's a lot of material to cover in two weeks. Are they expected to go home and do homework or are we trying to get it done there in the class? Because homework has kind of fallen out of favor. >> So, in summer school, we do not assign homework. If students don't finish what was given to them or don't utilize their time in class, they may have some things that they need to finish when they get
088home, but for the most part, all of the work is done in class. And a big part of that is because so much of it is collaborative and not necessarily something that they can do in isolation. >> That's that's awesome. And then my second question was about meals. I presume that at Mosquite Junior High and at Gilbert High School, we have the the summer lunch program, the nutrition program, and then they're able to get breakfast and lunch. >> Half true. So, at Mosquite Junior, we are able to partner with nutritional services. Unfortunately, Gilbert High School and none of our high schools qualify for the free and reduced lunch program for summer, but that has been a huge piece of feedback we've gotten from our students and our families. So we are partnering with nutritional services
089this next year to make sure that our families know where they can go to pick up breakfast and lunch before and after summer >> because I that is important. I mean 5 and a half hours I'm sorry I would have to stop to eat. My brain would be fried if I didn't have a break. So that's >> we do encourage our family our students to bring stuff with them and we provide snacks that they can >> pick off of during the breaks if they would like as well. >> Good good to know. And then the last question was um do we offer any transportation from centralized areas? How does that work? >> Yes, we do. So part of the registration process if families need district transportation to access the sites, we have regional stops and
090we work with the transportation department to we've already identified sites throughout the district that are pretty centralized. So no matter where students might live in the district, there is a regional site that they can get to and get to campus. >> That's wonderful. Well, I really appreciate it. Sounds amazing and I'd really encourage people to to seek that out for their students, especially if they need that little extra boost. >> Absolutely. >> That's awesome. >> Thank you. >> Any other comments or questions from the board? >> I got some. >> All right. Um, yeah, I just want to echo uh thank you so much for all your work and all the improvement exciting things. Uh, really love the cultural culture building culture shift. I think that makes a huge difference and has really paid off.
091Um, that's terrific. Also love the plans for junior high course offerings. Think that's great. I think that's a real growth opportunity for our district, not just summer school, but but junior high in general. So, that's great to see. Um, a few questions. I I guess one question off of uh what Miss Humphre had asked, you know, what percentage take uh advantage of transportation? you know, of our students who took classes this last year, I I want to say we had under 50 students who requested transportation. >> Okay, >> mo many of our students are um at least at the high school level drive themselves. We have a lot of student drivers, but we also have a lot of parents who drop off and pick up. >> So, in talking with parents who require transportation in
092order for their student to participate, I haven't heard too much information, too much feedback that tells me that lack of opportunity is a barrier. Typically, they can find a regional stop that works for them, >> which is great. That's the whole point of doing that. >> Well, that's good. And so, is that a is that a single bus or multiple buses? >> Multiple buses. Okay. >> Um All right. Terrific. And then have we always been a four well two two week semester four-week or did that change when we changed the school calendar? Were we were we six weeks before and we went to four or >> years ago? We went a little bit longer into July, but we've been four weeks for several years now. Is that correct, Marcia? >> Okay. Um, and then honors
093classes. Is is the thought that there aren't honors classes offered? Is that correct? >> Correct. Our summer school classes are all on level. The only honors opportunity would be that bridge program. >> And is that um Well, and that's that's like an honors prep, right? That's that's an actual honors class, right? So, um, is that because there's not a demand or we just think the format isn't appropriate for an honors class? >> I think probably a little bit of both. So, keeping in mind that we only run the in-person program, honors courses are still offered through um, global, which is runs at the same time that we do. So, because we're staffing teachers and space, we want to make sure that the classes we do offer are of enough demand that we can fill a
094class um, that can fund itself. And so we always will do the onle English on level math. Biology we offered my first summer but not this last summer. There wasn't a demand for it. Um and social studies is always a big one because that's a course that students can take for first time credit. >> Right. Yeah. I think those first-time credits are I think we're doing such a great job with the re uh remediation and retake, but I think those new course credits are an opportunity that a lot of students want who want to be able to take advantage of everything GPS offers during the year. um some want to be involved in fine arts and athletics and and or want to take additional challenging classes and so I think those first-time class offerings are
095really important. Um with that are what are the plans for marketing to out of district students? >> Still to be determined I'll be meeting with Don next week. >> Great. Thank you so much. >> Absolutely. >> Anything else from the board? >> A few questions. Uh first, thank you for all that you do. when I was at Gil Public Schools, I went to at least two summer schools and it's a game changer. Um, so my my one question is what is the teacher retention like for the summer schools? You know, is it the same teachers usually staying on uh since you guys have made a lot of changes? >> Yes. And I appreciate the I appreciate that question because we have seen since year one and year two, we retained a lot of our teachers.
096We did some pretty significant turnover of teachers my first year and some of that was intentional. Some of that was also in response to, hey, these are the changes we're making with the curriculum. We want to make sure that you're on board with those changes and are clear on the expect expectations coming in. Most of our teachers returned this last year, which was fantastic. For whatever reason, we have a couple of retirees or people planning to travel. So, we'll probably have some pretty decent turnover into next year, but I don't think that's because people don't want to come back. I think it's because of their circumstance. >> Is it hard fill in those positions usually or? uh not as hard as you would think. I think now that teachers are getting excited about what we're
097doing. Um I'm getting calls early like I I got calls early when I hadn't reached out to them by, you know, the middle of August. So I think they're excited to come back, those of that have that have had that experience want to come back and work with kids and they're telling their colleagues, which makes me really happy because to me that's the best compliment that we could get, you know, is that they're enjoying the teaching experience that they're getting as well with the kids. >> That's great. And and then I know you kind of touched on this a little bit uh for students who who failed a a class and they have to take you know summer school for that. >> Um I know you're kind of looking towards the data of what happens
098when they go back to school, but >> are the students really understanding why they failed the class initially? Is there like a conversation or interventions um to kind of help them understand why, you know, they may have to retake the class? >> Yeah. Uh, and you know, I don't know that I can speak to that because that would happen at the regular site. But I do know that we have teachers that are constantly working with students. The counselors that I work closely with, they're part of conversations with students who are at risk of failing classes and conversations with parents to say, "Hey, you know, here are your options. Here are the uh resources that are available to you on campus to help you." So, students do have, I believe, many opportunities on campus during the
099regular school year to help their situation and increase their grades. Some students just need at that second go around to really help that information click um or need it from a different voice. And some of our students don't necessarily fail. Some of our students are taking it for grade replacement because they're not satisfied with the grade that they earned the first time. So even though they're taking it for grade replacement, it's not always to replace an F. >> That makes sense. Well, thank you. >> Absolutely. >> Can I just real quick that that was a great question. Um Miss Taylor or Mr. Ryan, do you do you know the answer to that? if that what is happening on the their main campus if they fail a class are they having conversations with a counselor or
100someone else because I think it's not just summer school is great at remediating that class that they failed and catch up on that class but we want to make sure they're getting the tools and the skills they need to not fail future classes of different content areas. So that is happening. >> Yeah. >> Yes. frequent frequently whether it be teachers, whether it be advisory periods, individual teachers before and after school, whether it be inter sessions and students um going in order to increase their grade going into the second portion of a semester. Um academic interventions are happening continuously. Counselors are meeting with students, calling uh parents. I think they end up on a list. And to Dr. Accord's uh point earlier, there are students that we'll find that are on a bubble, right? And so
101we want to intervene and we want them to be successful early on um or during their initial attempt, but if we see a student who might be in trouble as a semester progresses, they may enroll and and they'll complete the enrollment paperwork, they'll register for the class, and um thankfully many of them end up doing well in the course the first time around. But um I mean I think there are a variety of ways that this is going to uh grow and develop with with time. I think this year and the last two years have been so important to build a foundation. I know our coordinators have been really excited about their work and grateful that um some eyes have been there and some efforts have been there to really formalize some things. But to
102your point regarding um honors, to your point regarding um transition from one level to another, I just think that the junior high piece coming on next year and being expanded, it it just the foundation had to be developed first and now I think the sky's is the limit. And so these ladies have done an excellent job along with those that they're working with and um so we're just we're grateful for their work. >> Anything else? [Music] My only question is, can we get it shorter than two weeks? >> You're not the only one asking that question. >> Only if we go 6 hours a day or 7 hours a day. >> Why stop there? >> Let's have the kids camp out overnight. We'll just we'll do a 48 hour course. >> Yeah, >> staffing might
103be an issue. I was just going to say, how many teachers are going to be on board? That would be fun. Thank you very much for that presentation. I I enjoyed learning about it. My I think my only question is financial related. Um you'd mentioned that other districts don't offer in-person uh summer school options and I I think either you said because they can't afford it or because just for financial reasons. I is are the cost of transportation and teachers and and uh the the buildings and util I mean everything that goes into summer school is that being absorbed 100% by the district or are students and their families paying for these summer courses? >> So these are tuition based courses and the goal is for summer school to be self-funded. So uh students do
104pay a tuition of $200 per semester course. that fee is automatically reduced by 50% if they've already qualified for free and reduced lunch for the school year. So, that's a huge help to our families. Um, one of the needs that we saw in the first year was uh parents who needed in the past there have been some scholarship opportunities and things like that, but without certain funding sources, those scholarships weren't available. But what we did do is offer um payment plan options to help break down that expense. And that's been a really popular option for families. So, we continued doing that into year two. and that was a big um improvement. Um we work in partnership with our McKenna Vento office um and our and we have a social worker that works with us as
105well for summer school so that parents who are in a really bad financial situation there are resources for them as well. So ultimately the goal that we we look at is we don't want to turn any student away because of financial hardship. We will find a way for them to attend if that's what they need and that's what their family wants to to uh to take care of. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Can I ask how are we doing with that goal? So, the goal is to be budget >> neutral funded. Yep. >> Are are we are we meeting that goal? >> I think we will get there. We've poured I think some extra resources in the last couple years if we as we've done some of these intentional building pieces. And I think when we
106get not that we will ever stop looking for ways to make it better, but as we get to a place where we're really satisfied that we're where we want to be with instruction, we can look at staffing. Um there are certain areas where we choose to make a strategic decision because we know students will need that that area or that content. Um and so those are conversations that Miss Taylor and I have about what what do we want to do here and to ensure that we're meeting the needs of kids. >> Overall secondary summer school is selffunded and I think she's talking more specifically about whether we choose to have a class make because a kid needs that. So we might lower and say it's what 16 in order to make break even on that
107teacher. >> So anything over that which most of the classes have 2530. So then that offsets some of the other costs but to pay for that teacher in that course is 16 students and we figure out that that break even amount uh and then go from there. If it's a class that's really needed, then some of those other social studies sections she was talking about that are for first-time credit are packed to the hilt. So that offsets some of the ones that we let go because a student really needs English one or biology or whatever. >> Okay. Okay. >> Well, terrific. So, I mean, so that's important on the micro level, but on the macro level that we are meeting that goal. Yeah. >> Good job. >> Great. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you
108very much. All right, that takes us to agenda item number eight, our consent agenda. Uh, is there a motion to approve our consent agenda as outlined tonight? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Brainer. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda as outlined, say I. >> I. Any opposed? That passes. Thank you. Moving on to our action items. 9.01, Policy Development, First Read of Policy 5-203, Students with Disabilities, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDA. Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Governing board members, tonight we bring uh the first read. And when we say that, it has already gone through the policy committee. And so, we bring it out here for our first read. So you guys have seen a look at
109this once already. Um essentially this is this is a very I would call it thick policy in the sense that um there's a lot of information in it and most of or all the changes come from um the trust in the sense of attorneys have taken statutes or taking policies and any changes that have occurred we bring those to the policy committee and they're reflected in any changes that uh we bring forth to you as a governing board. So, I'm just going to highlight some of the ones in this one. Uh, for example, in evaluation procedures, uh, the section, uh, one says the district must publish on its website and make available to parents legal guardians its procedures related to requesting an evaluation for special education, including the district's district's point of contact. Sorry. Number
110two, if a parent or legal guardian requests an evaluation, district will within 15 school days either begin the evaluation by reviewing existing data, provide a prior written notice refusing to conduct the evaluations. The 60-day evaluation period commences on uh receipt of the signed informed consent. And then in number three, in addition to the paragraph, it says, "A consent for the evaluation and prior written notice may be simultaneously provided to the parent legal guardian following the determination that additional data are needed as part of the review of existing data procedures. And then going through the policy, a another and there are throughout um just little grammatical things that are changed, but nothing significant. And then another one. Um um sorry I had him dogeared somewhere along the line. Here it is. This thing's like 27 pages
111long, so please bear with me. Um, under educational placements, the district must ensure that parent legal guardian of a child with a disability are members of any group that makes decisions on the educational placement of their child. Then in another section says private placements by the district. One, before the district places a child with the disability in a private school or facility, the district must initiate a and conduct a meeting to develop an IEP for the child and ensure that a representative from the private school or facility attends the meeting in person or by conference call. Number two, subsequent IEP reviews may be initiated and conducted by the private school at the direction of the district. However, the district must ensure that the parental guardian and the district representative A are involved in any decisions
112about the child's IEP and B agree to any proposed changes in the IP before those changes are implemented. And number three, the district remains responsible for uh responsible to ensure that FAPE uh is provided to a child placed by the district in a private school or facility. And that with the very last section is it. One more piece under P regarding records. The district shall maintain a record of parties who have obtained access to the educational records collected under IDEIDA other than parents legal guardians and district employees to include the name of the accessing party, the date access was given, and the purpose. Upon receipt, the district shall provide parents, legal guardians with information regarding educational records. The district shall comply with requisite provisions uh of the IDEIDA and federal regulations regarding the destruction of
113student records once no longer needed to provide educational services and then all the statutes related to that are updated and that is this policy. >> Is there any discussion regarding policy 5-203? Again, this will go then after all first reads will go back to the policy committee for one more look and then they'll come back here for a second read. >> I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of approving first read of policy 5-203 have a motion. Have we had a motion? >> Yeah. >> Okay. We did. Yeah, >> we did. Yeah. >> Okay. Uh, all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-203, Students with Disabilities, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDA, say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Thank you very much. 9.02, uh, the first read
114of policy 5-104, homebound or hospitalized students and students with chronic health problems. Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Murray. Uh, is there any discussion or I'm sorry, Dr. McCord? >> Thank you, Mr. President, governing board members. The title, it's all right. The title has a change. instead of um it says homebound instruction or students with chronic health problems. And the significant change in this policy is an addition and it is says the licensed health care provider or licensed registered nurse practitioner who completes the chronic illness certificate will be the provider who is actively treating the student for said chronic illness. And then I think that's it on that. Yes, that's it. Trying to read what it was before. Oh,
115it was it was homebound or hospitalized students and students with chronic health problems. Now it is homebound instruction and uh >> or students with chronic health problems. I'm I'm referring to the red line portion. What? >> I'm sorry. >> So, this is saying >> it it what was red line was health care professional means a licensed podiatrist, chiropractor, medical doctor, uh naturopathic physician, chiropractor, osteopathic uh physician, physician assistant or licensed registered nurse practitioner as those terms are defined by ARS title 32. So >> basically they just condensed >> summed it up. Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Is there any discussion regarding policy 5-104 and how it's presented here? Okay. We'll call for a vote. All those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-104. Uh homebound instruction or students with chronic health
116problems. >> Say I. I >> I any opposed and that passes 9.03 first read of policy 5-404 administration of medication Dr. McCord. >> All right. Do you want to do a motion or did you Okay, never mind. >> You can do it afterwards. >> Okay. Um this is administration medicine number 5-404. Uh in the first page uh they've redlined auto injectable epinephrine means a disposable drug delivery device that is easily transportable and contains a pre-measured single dose of epinephrine used to treat anaphylactic shock. uh that has been changed to epinephrine delivery system means a single-use device or product that contains a pre-measured dose of epinephrine that is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to prevent or treat life-threatening allergic reaction. And then what you will see throughout the policy is um portions that
117are instead of the phrase auto injectable um they will use the term the delivery system. And then also uh for example on our page three uh number one determine the symptoms of symptoms indicate possible anaphylactic shock. And then there's always an addition after anaphylactic shock. It says or life-threatening allergic reaction. And so those are the major changes and and um throughout this policy. And let me see if there's anything other that is and again just some grammatical things. Um and I believe that's it. >> All right. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the first read of policy 5-04? >> Go ahead. >> So move. >> Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Briner. >> Is there any discussion? So, this just changed auto injectable to delivery
118system. Has something changed in the technology that prompted this? >> Not that I know of. I it might just be standard uh language that's used within the medical field. I don't I didn't get any explanation on it. >> Okay. >> I think she brought it up in the policy meeting and there's certain auto inject auto injectables that don't fall into the same system as epinephrine. So that's why they're they're separating the two. >> I think you're correct. >> 99.8%. Don't 100% quote me on that. >> That's cool. >> I do remember saying >> it's on tape quoting you. All right. Is there any further discussion on this policy? Okay, I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of approving the first read of policy 5-404, administration of medications, say I. >> I. Any opposed.
119Thank you very much. That passes. Moving on to agenda item number 10. Items for future agenda. Does anybody uh any board members have anything they'd like to add to a future agenda? Okay, moving on to our board reports. Our Town of Gilbert liaison, Dr. Blake Robersonson. >> Nothing to report. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh, audit committee, Mr. Chad Thompson, I don't have anything tonight. Uh, Gilbert Education Foundation. Mr. Briner, >> I I got a few things. So, uh, the Gilbert Education Foundation is now running its power of one campaign, which goes until September 30th. The idea is that even $1 can make a big difference. Their goals this year is to raise 37,000. All the money will go to things like innovation grants for teachers, steam programs, and others other ways to support GPS.
120Um, let's see. Sorry. There's also a challenge. Uh, the top three schools that raise the most money will receive a,750 and $500. Also, if you donate $50 or more, you get a t-shirt. This morning, I made my donation. I encourage others to consider supporting the cause. And that's all from me. Thank you, Mr. Briner. Uh, city of Mesa liaison, Miss Shaina Murray. >> Nothing to report tonight. >> Thank you, Miss Murray. Legislative representative and employee ben. >> Did you need to get that? >> My auto delivery system. >> Was that it? >> Uh, legislative representative and employee benefit trust, Miss Jill Humphre. >> Well, the tr the benefit trust committee will be meeting tomorrow. So, I can't report on that yet, but next time. And then I just wanted to share I think the biggest
121news uh in education funding in August was that a um okay there's a lawsuit that's been in the courts for about the past seven years and Judge Dwayne Fox ruled on that lawsuit which was brought by um ASBA uh ASA and AEA and it was about the lack of school capital funding and the problems with the uh school facilities board and that um the schools, public schools, district public schools haven't received enough funding to meet their needs. And so the ruling was uh the judge ruled that uh the they're not meeting the standards set by the general and uniform funding clause of the Arizona con constitution. Um, there'll be more information coming out. That means that by this ruling, the legislature will have to do something, but it's going to be appealed. So, it might
122be another couple of years before we hear more. So, but that was pretty big news for uh finance education geeks. >> Thank you, Miss Humphre. Uh, agenda item number 12, meeting dates. Dr. McCord. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Governing board members, September 9th, we have a board work study and brief board business meeting. September 15th is a board policy committee meeting at 4:30 p.m. And September 22nd is a regular board business meeting. >> All right. Thank you very much. We're going to have some motions to move into executive session. And after that, there's an action item number 14. Uh what we'll do is we will make those motions to move into executive session. And then when those executive sessions are complete, we'll open the door and anybody from the public that wants to come in
123and uh view uh the board's decision on action item number 14 is welcome to and we'll adjourn from uh from the conference room as well. And so after uh after the motions are made for the executive sessions, anybody that's not participating in those, have a good evening. Uh so let's go ahead and we'll make motions. Let's make motions for both of these. Is there a motion to move into executive session pursuant to ARS 38-431.03A1 discussion or consideration of superintendent search firm candidates for the district's superintendent search and executive session uh under the same ARS. Uh actually no, I'm sorry. ARS 38-431.03A3 and 4 discussion or consultation for legal advice with its attorney and or to consider its position and instruct its attorney regarding its attorney regarding the superintendent search search firms and related matters. >>
124So moved. >> Thank you, Mr. Brainer. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss Humphre. Uh I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of moving into executive sessions for both 13.01 and 13.02 say I. >> I. Any opposed? And we are moving to executive session. Thank you everybody.