001attempt. All right, we'd like to welcome everybody to our meeting tonight, uh, June 10th, 2025. Uh, we're going to start off with a public hearing, uh, to discuss Mosquet ASU experience, the Mosquet ASU experience instructional time model um, amendment. Dr. record. Thank you, Mr. President. Governing board members, if I could have who's presenting for sure, Christa and Margarite Christa Cox, our director of secondary CIA, and Margarite Brown, an assistant principal at Mosquite High School. They're going to talk to you about not just time model, but what this is all about. And so, all secrets will be revealed here shortly. Thank you guys for being here with us tonight. We appreciate it. All right. Good evening, Mr. President, governing board members, and Dr. McCord. Uh, we are really excited to just jump in and share everything
002about the Arizona State University experience that we are going to be um hosting out of Mosquet High School. So, Margarit's going to kick us off with giving some background um knowledge on what that uh is as an overview and then we'll dive into the logistics and details. Hi there. Thanks so much for having me out. Um, so we're really excited. Mosquite High School is uh going to be partnering up with ASU Preparatory and also ASU Polytechnic to provide our students with a pretty amazing experience um in regards to being able to take university courses at the mic a little closer. You bet. Does that work better? [Laughter] I do. Thank you, Dr. McCord. Um, so yes, we're we're going to be able to provide our students with in-person experiences at ASU Polytenic um daily. We're
003really excited about them being able our our juniors and our seniors will be um provided this opportunity. A select few they will be able to then go and attend uh ASU polytenic courses for half day at ASU um and then return back to our campus um around 11:00 uh and enough time to be able to have lunch and then attend a few courses at Mosquite High School. They'll ultimately, if they start their junior year, they'll be able to walk away with around 42 credit hours of university credit. Um, which is pretty amazing in that time frame. So, yeah, we're pretty excited. All right. And we were just getting the presentation pulled up there uh for our community. Nope, it is coming. got so excited to get started. I wasn't even looking up at the screen.
004My apologies. Like something is not right. All right. So, um there's just a quick overview. Um everything Margarite just hit on. And really uh what we just want to hit on is back in February uh Global Academy uh came to the board and did a presentation on the ITM model that um our online school uh did approve and everything we're going to be sharing with you today is within that. The logistics when we say it's an amendment the logistics just look a little bit different uh to meet the needs of Mosquite High School and obviously the the experience for the learner is is different. So, uh, within that, um, on this slide, we just outlined what that, uh, statute is for, uh, when you do change the the ITM model, which just is really looking
005at ADM and determining our daily attendance, um, and what the instruction looks like and assuring that our instructional model does comply with what we have board approved through our instructional model. And then with that uh to be transparent um the GPS instructional time model accounts for the learning experience through our global uh modality. Um but we wanted to outline the pieces of the um amendment that is going to look different at Mosquite High School from what you guys from what our board has previously heard with Global Academy. And those areas include the instructional location as Margarite shared that um our students are going to get to go and enjoy being on the ASU campus and taking college level university classes. Uh there is a shift with tuition and fee collection which we will go into.
006Uh there is a change in the instructional calendar and then the way that we track attendance does look different. So, we're going to go into those four categories just so our governing board and community are aware of the different changes that um our students will have to juggle with this experience. So through uh the Mosqu ASU experience, our students will be uh essentially attending what is considered a multiacampus instruction model um where they're able to receive instruction not only online but on uh multiple different campus sites to include the brickandmortar site of Mosquet High School and then also the ASU Polytechnic campus. Um they'll start as I said at um in the last time I spoke um they'll start their day at Mosquite High School. They'll then be transported uh via uh GPS uh transportation
007to ASU Polytechnic um where they will be meeting one of our um our staff there. um there is a site location that they'll be able to meet every morning at 8:00 um with those students where they'll be able to basically get support whatever that is um for their ASU University courses. Then they'll begin uh attending those courses approximately um at around 9:00 um and they'll be following university um course schedule. So on um Monday, Wednesday, Friday they'll have particular set of courses and then on Tuesday, Thursday they will have an alternate set of courses. Um from there they'll return back to our campus. They'll have a little bit of lunch and then they'll be able to attend at minimum two other courses with us. Um as well as be able to receive some online instruction
008through a university um level platform through ASU called universal learning courses. um where they'll be able to achieve a little bit more university level courses in that time frame. The um sorry ULC stands for universal learning course. What does CFS stand for? So CFS is what we um we consider our uh it's center for success um within our master schedule. really it's just an on-site within uh Mosquite High School where kids are able to take online courses through global but there's an actual physical classroom that they attend. Um so while attending or taking these ULC courses they'll actually be going to Mosquite High School campus to be able to achieve those credits. So it's not like they're necessarily they can work on it at home. It is an online course, but there will be um
009a location on the actual campus for them to report to um and receive any kind of support that they might need as they navigate that universal learning course. So, I do have a question about this schedule cuz I can see that Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they're pretty much going to class from um after advisory from 9:10 to 11:00. Correct. But on Tuesday, Thursday, it's only 9 to 10:15. So what that's an hour and 15 minutes before they take the bus back. What are your visions for what they're doing with that hour and 15 minutes? That's a a long time during a school day to not have a course. Yeah, I which is one of the reasons why we have um we'll have the universal learning course. um they can take and be involved in that course
010all the way from the very beginning of the school year. Um they can actually be engaged in that course for an entire school year if needed to be able to work on it. So, they'll be able to have a spot on campus um at ASU to be able to go return back to um during that off time to be able to continue to engage in that ULC if needed or continue to work on I think I need a little bit more details about what that uh ULC course would look like. Yeah. So, the universal learning course is essentially just ASU online. So, it is a univers it's a university level course. um they are we're going to pair down um how much is available just so that they they're not taking on too much. We
011recognize that taking university level classes is a big bite to to take. I mean honestly at the university um taking a full-time load is 12 credit hours, right? We're asking them to take three uh courses and that equates to nine credit hours. So nearly a full load of universal university level classes. Um and then from there during that off time that kind of comes to our calendar differential. We recognize that ASU's calendar versus our instructional calendar there is a a bit of a difference. Um thank you. Yeah, you're good. that um that's where those ULC's really come into play because we recognize that that in-person during that time frame in which our instructional calendar and their instructional calendar doesn't quite align that we still want them to be progressing and moving forward. The nice thing
012about the universal learning course is that they could be taking a particular course that is anywhere between one credit hour to three credit hours and they are given a full school year to complete it. So there's not their time frame in order to get it get it done isn't quite as stringent as what we're used to seeing at um a normal pace given global as our example, right? Um, so the idea is is that the universal learning courses are going to allow our kiddos to still progress at uh achieving university course credit, hopefully going towards what their potential major is um once they are done with us, right? Um but at the same time still keep them engaged in work uh during the time frame such as those particular time frames. The other thing to
013make notice or to take note is we in our partnership with ASU, we didn't get quite onto the uh their master schedule yet. So, because we're just starting this partnership, as we move forward, like going into the spring, we're going to be able to have much closer communication with what courses are offered and when, so that our students have a little bit better advantage, right? Um, during the really prescribed time that we're able to get kids there. So, our hope is that by the spring semester and our partnership with ASU that we will be able to increase the level of uh course offerings. The biggest thing is that Tuesdays and Thursdays, you'll see if you go and you take a look at ASU's um course offerings, their Tuesday and Thursday um instructional time frames are
014a little bit longer to account for science and math courses. Um, and so it's not going to quite always align between the Mon Monday and W Monday, Wednesday, Friday courses versus the Tuesday and Thursday courses just because of the course offerings. And with that, I think to help answer that a little bit and then kind of I know you started talking calendar, so I'm going to bounce around in the presentation just briefly, but the importance with those classes right now is that our calendars, which we're going to talk about, don't quite line up. So to be able to offer the online ASU courses gives the flexibility in their schedule to where that calendar difference doesn't have a negative impact on our students. Okay. Whereas, excuse me, whereas if we were trying to push with the
015Tuesday, Thursday courses that are currently available at ASU during those times, they'd either be there longer than we can afford in time to get them back for our GPS bell schedule uh to meet the um ITM that they need to take for us um and or because of the lack of offerings, but they have voiced that they are willing to work with us during their kind of course book and master scheduling to make sure that um those offerings are available in the future to give more of an option. Okay. So just let me clarify a little bit. So maybe psychology 101 would might be one of those classes where they might take it online. They work on it at the beginning of the year when they haven't started their other classes. Then maybe they put
016it aside while they if they have a heavy homework load and then they pick it up, you know, during spring break or correct or whatever. Yes. Okay. That is the idea behind it. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Sometimes I understand the words but I have to get the concept I appreciate the questions. So um staying on this slide with the calendar because there is a bit of differential there's going to be times where they are still going to have to attend the ASU courses um when we're not actually in session. And so up there is what you see is those dates. Um and they consist of the breaks uh with fall break and then also spring break. Um and then one day right next to Thanksgiving. Um so they'll just need to make sure that
017they continue to attend those courses uh on those dates. Um which so if we're on break, will they still have access to Gilbert Public Schools transportation on those days? So my understanding is yes that they will. Uh similarly to what we do for um our students who attend EVIT. Um their schedule also does not match ours. We do provide transportation for them as well. So we would be doing the same for our students attending the Mosqu ASU experience. And if that wasn't possible, they'd be notified well ahead of time to provide their own transportation. Correct. Okay. and the families are being made aware um of these uh calendar shifts similar to how we communicate with our students that take EBIT. So uh the tuition and fees uh in you'll notice on the slide that we
018reference our intergovernmental agreement with ASU uh as Mrs. Bonnie Betts has done a lot of work with uh this financial piece and we are moving more toward anou. So you'll see that terminology and acronym change as we uh fine-tune these pieces with our legal team. But currently right now, Mosquite High School will be responsible for the full coverage of the tuition. And so uh to offset that, we are going to be charging our students $110 per credit, which is the equivalent to what we currently charge for dual enrollment. Uh that's what our community is used to and uh we felt that that was a fair assessment and it covers uh that that cost. So, we're going to move on to attendance. So, so do they have you said 12 credits or sorry, nine credits per
019semester for the in-person? Yes. If they choose to do well, they're going to have to do at least one ULC. Their very first one is um one credit hour. If they do more than that, then then they'll uh obviously um have to pay a little bit more in adjustment to that credit hour. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. So, for attendance, um quite frankly, the what it comes down to is that there will be in-person attendance taken daily. Um whether that is on the Mosquite High School campus for the time frames in which ASU is not in session or if that is at ASU um upon their arrival there to be meeting with our um support uh our academic our student academic support adviser that we will have there. um she will be the one who
020will be um designated to take that attendance, but she's so much more than just the attendance taker at uh ASU. She's going to be there to be helping support them um navigate this really exciting experience through ASU. But if you all have kids that attend university, you know that universities only tend to speak to the students themselves and not anybody else. and that can be kind of scary to navigate on their own. So that support system is meant to be there to be able to help provide advice and navigation through those systems at ASU Poly. All right. And then that leads us to our next steps uh and currently where we're at in the timeline. So uh our district leadership team is going to be submitting an ITM description to the Arizona Department of Education.
021At this time, there's no rep uh approval that is needed from the Arizona Department of Ed because our ITM uh models are already approved. Again, this is just kind of the amendment uh to inform our board and community with the logistical changes on Mosquet High for these particular students. Uh in addition to that, we we've already started this, but it's going to be a continuous effort with our leadership team and the administrative team at Mosquite High to make sure that all of the courses that the students will be taking through ASU are aligned to our course offerings and that we're giving uh correct high school credit as well toward their graduation diploma. Um so if we just have to dive into that from a curricular standpoint. Um and then the the last piece um so
022that's state level, district level, and then our our last piece is the site administration. So I just want to give a shout out. We were really excited the entire uh well minus Mr. Lynch, our MHS admin team came to support, but there's been a lot of work that's gone into this. We were just uh reminiscing um before the meeting about how we started this as an idea uh like at the beginning of the school year. So there's been a lot that's gone into it uh but the work is never done. So our mosquite high team um really it's taken the vision and all the logistics and all the legal and all the board and now putting it into action. So they they have been um working uh endlessly on uh handbooks and materials for our
023websites and material for our parents and communication. Uh really proud of that. They are in draft form right now. Um and we were uh we are as soon as we have those finalized we will uh absolutely share copies of those with the governing board as well. Um but that's that's the next step is just how do we actually implement this onto the campus and and learn and grow um as we're kind of building this as a first-time opportunity in Gilbert public schools. So we are we are really excited. Um that concludes what we have prepared and uh we know there were a few questions already but would love to just kind of hear your thoughts and any questions that the governing board may have. Go ahead. Um I just have a question. So it says
024select juniors and seniors from Mosqu High School. So is there it's going to show like you know is it for like students who've had a lot of academic success? Is this kind of an application as well as um is there a cap on the program? Absolutely. So, um, this first round, uh, in conversation with ASU, uh, we determined that they were able to reserve around 15 seats for us just to like kind of hold off to the side. So, to answer that question, that gave us our cap. 15 is where we landed. Um, from that point, we then went through and determined, okay, this this isn't for every kid. Um, and it it this student has to be able to handle this type of level of academic rigor. As I've identified, there is just a
025distinct difference between what university level courses do and offer and the level of support versus what a high school level support looks like. Um, and so we really wanted to uh have that at the forefront as we were beginning to decide which students would be eligible for this. So we did um end up identifying a uh application process for students needed need to turn in an application. They had needed to have um a GPA no lower than a 3.7 um unweighted. And then from there, um, they then turned in that application and then went to an in-person interview with, um, the principal and I, uh, to just really solidify that this was the right kiddo. And our intention is to continue to refine that, um, as the years go on and hopefully we grow our
026numbers. But we wanted to make sure we were starting with the right kids to make sure that this program is as successful as we are hoping and intending it to be. Thank you. You're welcome. Uh what happens if students start to fall behind in the program? If you're mid year and all of a sudden they're just not able to keep up. Is there process to get them back just at Mosquite? That's a excellent question and the answer to that is yes. Um so we have a couple of different uh things that we're prepared for. We're prepared for if the family isn't able to make the tuition deadline, right? Um, and we've provided a very hardf fast deadline so that we can make that adjustment in their schedule and that they don't lose any true ground
027um, when it comes to being able to come back and get into a class soon enough and still achieve credit at Mosquite High School. Um, now at the university level, obviously a D doesn't make for them, but it does make for us. We have written um at least in our draft handbook at this moment in time if at all they receive a D during their first any semester time frame that we will remove them from the program. That is uh showing a level of that they're not going to be academically successful within that environment. So therefore we will revert them back the next semester into uh Mosquite High School's campus. And just to piggyback on that, part of that um and I know I some of the things we're hitting on are a little bit
028surface level. Uh but when we talked about the work with the curriculum department, um through course book and um handbooks and things like that, that is part of the work that we have to make sure that we have uh a kind of an exit plan um with the hope that we're identifying the right students to go in to begin with. But um yeah, we we that won't just fall on the uh shoulders of the Mosquite High team. Our district uh secondary leadership team is uh working toward those same uh pieces. Thank you. So my question is that um you know often we're putting out our course book in January and and students are selecting the spring. So what what was the timeline? Do we have students selected have already applied and they're waiting for us
029to approve this amendment to the time model. Um and so so we do have students who are interested. They are interested. Yes. And we were pretty upfront about it with our families that we we are trying to build this while potentially flying as well as long as um we receive board approval. um we were our engagement with them um really started with ASU um not until the spring and so by that point in time ASU Paul's um master schedule for the fall was already created um and in order for them to save the seats they gave me a deadline of June 1st so that did mean that I needed to at least identify students uh to figure out who would have interest in it to be able to then um obtain those seats before they
030got released to the public. So um what was our timeline then of advertising or at least talking to students and getting their input and getting them to submit an application? So when did we start that process? So um I started that process almost immediately after spring break. Okay. Um and ended up holding I want two for sure. um parent meetings prior um and then a third meeting afterwards. We also um created a website uh to for parents to be able to go and submit in for interest saying that they're interested in that program. We then immediately called them and gave them information that maybe they missed because they weren't able to attend um the parent information nights that we had held. So we we tried to hit um as many avenues as we could including
031social media to help promote and then uh draw attraction in and and it worked because we did get some students outside of our own campus who were interested. Thank you. I I think this is amazing. I appreciate all the work that's gone into it. It's a great opportunity for students. Um, I do have a few questions about just the I guess just the logistics. So, is the is the board has this come before the board before like in the fall? Is this been discussed with the board at all? So, is is the program itself something that doesn't wouldn't come before the board if if the amendment didn't need to be approved? I'm just wondering on the timing of this coming to the board when we've already had parent meetings and advertised it and interviewed students
032and and and so I'm just wondering kind of the timing with all that. Uh honestly with it being the first year that this is um taking place, I don't believe necessarily that it would have um mainly because the taking college classes and uh being enrolled here would be concurrent enrollment which we already allow and it's already approved. So all of that already exists within our system. Um it truly is more of the ITM and making sure that it came kind of back to the funding and the ADM and making sure that we really we wanted to communicate to the board that we've been moving forward. Logistically, we know it's the first year. So um we are trying to go a little slower with a smaller group of students uh to make sure that we do
033it right. Um but realistically it we just wanted to reassure the board and our community that we are following these pieces correctly and it isn't going to negatively in affect our school district when it comes to funding or anything like that. So a a student could in theory choose to uh do concurrent enrollment just like this. And we do have some students that do similar things on their own. The the positive to this is that it allows all the supports um and for them to be cohorted together um as a mosqu team, right? Okay, that makes sense. And then the way and this may it sounds to me like this wasn't correct. The way it was explained to me is that this was maybe more of a patch and in that we we already do
034have that system in place to offer dual enrollment, but maybe we don't have enough teachers that are able to fulfill the need or or to grow it as as much as we would want to in this program as more of a patch. But this seems pretty extensive as a patch. Is is this is this viewed as a patch or as a ongoing program? It's an ongoing program. I will say when we have done uh our district improvement planning and we have really started to look at our different pathways and when we look at our feeder school programs uh for years Mosquite High has really worked hard and you can chime in. I'm going to speak for you guys right now but Mosquet High has worked really hard to um find their identity and who they
035are and uh you'll see uh some of our other schools have uh programs that they're known for. um and Mosquite High, this isn't the first year that they were entertaining something like this. Um I think that when you hear the things like the dual enrollment, uh teacher shortage and things like that, that was one more supporting piece that they were like, "Hey, but this also helps that problem." So, um truly I I feel that this I again we're starting small with 15 students. However, if it were up to Mosquet High's admin team and teaching staff, this would be every single student. We know that that's not realistic, but in three to four, five years, we're hoping um not even hoping I I believe in you guys that um they'll have those systems in place that
036it'll become uh more of a a draw. So, some of the other problems that we were hoping to solve as they were trying to figure out their identity was enrollment. Uh not just dual enrollment, but enrollment in general. They've had a a dip in enrollment and they want to attract more students and what does that mean for them? So, we have a lot of uh Mosquite High students that were interested in concurrent enrollment and were interested in starting college earlier uh and or careers and we felt that this was an opportunity to give them that to where they're able to walk away graduating high school with all of these credits under their belt as well. So, I hope that helps and I hope I did justice, but that's how I view you guys. So, yeah.
037And we uh Mrs. Brown mentioned uh the number of students that had inquiries once she they did start promoting this. Um that has already in this spring um been more than just the handful of outside. We my office particularly has received phone calls and we've even had um students from other schools that are like but is Campo going to do this? But is Highland going to do this? So, I really think if we were able to get the little bit of momentum we had just this spring um in the next few years, it it is going to draw students students across our district and out of our district are going to be interested in getting this ASU experience at Mosqu High. So, yeah, definitely shifting their identity and and what they provide for our students.
038Thank you. I I have one more question. Um how many applicants did you have when you went through this process? How many applicants for the 15 seats that you you were able to reserve? Yeah, absolutely. So, we um we ended up with 12 applications. Um we ended up accepting 10. Um so, we did do a little weeding through. Um obviously, I wanted all 15 to begin with, but I knew that our timeline was a bit more crunched than I would have hoped. Um, now the good news is is that if we uh continue on through the summer, we've got a good relationship with ASU Preparatory and ASU Poly. If we find the right students um as we begin to enroll or as we continue the enrollment process for the 2526 school year, we do have
039um some spots that we can potentially um shift them over to. But for right now, our uh cohort of 10, I think, is going to be a really good beginning start for us um to allow us to work out obviously some of the bugs that transparently we most likely will have um and be able to work through those so that by the time we are um uh going into the next school years, uh we will have a really refined process that will allow um ample opportunity for students to have success at Mosquite High School through this experience. So my understanding in talking to Mr. Ryan about this earlier today was that these students from Mosquite High will be joining ASU preparatory students in the same class. So it's not just a class of 10, it
040will be there will be additional students. Correct. The idea here is is um especially in the conversations with ASU Preparatory is they wanted to be able and ASU Poly, the instructors at ASU Poly were like, "Okay, if we're going to have some high school students coming onto our campus via ASU Preparatory, it'd be nice to be able to have courses that are designated for the high schoolers at the campus." And so our partnership with ASU uh Preparatory allows ASU Poly now to begin to designate particular courses. This is what I was talking about with going forward in their master schedule. They'll be able to start really designating specific uh sections that will be devoted to high schoolers both through uh ASU Preparatory and Mosquite High. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, I' I've got a few
041thoughts that I want to share with you. Um, and some questions. First of all, thanks for all your hard work. I can tell that this is you guys have have put a lot into this. Um, but I want to and I don't know if devil's advocate is the right way to to to phrase it, but I've got some reservations. And let me let me explain what I mean. Um the first of those is that this is going to take this upcoming semester 10 kids. The following semester pro maybe more. The next semester maybe more until potentially the whole school is doing this. And I don't know if I'm I'm I'm not a fan of kids of our students kind of skipping the high school experience. Um and spending half their day for two years not
042at the high school. Um I also have some concerns about uh you know you'd mentioned the identity of mosquite and I think it would one of my concerns is that is is is hey come to Mosquite and you don't have to be here for half the day. Is that the identity that we want for Mosquite? Um and so my my understanding of and and Dr. Robersonson um mentioned this. Uh my understanding is that one of the reasons and you acknowledge that one of the reasons that we're we're doing this is because there was a change in how teachers are eligible to teach how our high school teachers are eligible to teach these dual credit courses. and Mosquite was the hardest hit by that change, taking taking the most teachers out of circulation available to teach
043those dual credit courses. Is that right? Yes. Okay. But we have other high schools where that's not the case. And so Mosqu is the only high school taking part in this. And so I guess my question that kind of goes along with kids not, you know, not being in such a hurry to skip the high school experience. And um one of my I guess one of my questions is why not just send them to the other high schools that do have enough teachers to teach the dual credit courses, especially if it's only 10 kids. Why are we going through jumping through these hoops and and and having the expense of say sending these kids to ASU when there are eligible teachers at our other high schools that could accommodate these students. So I will again
044put emphasis on the fact that that was um something that they viewed we viewed as a positive that it would also combat this problem but that is not the core reason why we uh started this initiative. So, we do currently during master scheduling uh season, if a campus has a shortage for any of our classes, if it's dual enrollment, AP, it doesn't matter. Um sometimes our languages, there's only one teacher in the district, uh we work, Mrs. Taylor and myself work with all of our schools to make sure that they kind of shuffle students around. They may offer that first hour so that students can take advantage and do exactly what what you're um uh kind of commenting on. Now I I will share that this there's a few other variables. So for example um
045there are uh other school districts and other schools that attempt to do something similar like this and the students it really starts from their freshman year because they're not viewed maybe they don't like school or uh they are truly looking to kind of just start that next phase of their life. That actually has not been a part of our uh thinking or um process at all. Um truly it was more through the lens of identifying and focusing on our juniors and seniors where that is very similar to what our EVIT students currently do. They leave for half the day and they're they're taking things that are going to allow them to walk out of high school and enter into maybe a career or profession. Um and we're seeing those numbers increase with students wanting to
046be able to walk into kind of those jobs and be ready outside of high school. Um I do agree with you. I I don't want to take away from our students high school experience, but I will say that when you think about what is offered through EVIT and those experiences that we have some students that that is solely the reason why they want to come to school. EVIT is a part of their experience. ASU experience will be a part of their experience. They will be cohorted. They'll have their student success advisor that is a part of MHS that is with them throughout uh the day. Um, and I also think that it's important um to put emphasis on the fact that that is one of the reasons why we even looked at the universal learning
047courses to assure that this isn't just a we're turning them over to the college. We we believe that for that second half of the day that they are with us that they do get to participate in those pieces. Uh there were several different modalities and suggestions offered from uh we actually had met with another university prior to this and we felt um that this option with this uh partnership with ASU was the one that allowed us to kind of have the most control over what that's going to look like. So uh we're open to feedback. Uh but I I maybe it's the way that we set up the presentation and we are going through it rather quickly with everyone. uh but the the reservations that you did share uh I I I don't share those
048and I with the work that we have done I do believe that um we are meeting the needs of the students that are coming in and we are um again when you talk enrollment when you talk different pieces we're losing students to programs and to schools that offer uh similar things to uh not quite similar to the ASU experience but to where it's allowing them to walk away with those pieces but um the dual enrollment piece piece. Again, I think it's important. Yes, Mosquite High was hit hard, uh, but that has not been the centerpiece of um what's been driving this. And I'll also state that as far as our dual enrollment um offerings go, we have been able to stay competitive despite some of our losses when it comes to dual and credit. In
049fact, if you take a look at our dual credit uh course offering and our AP offerings over the past uh couple of years, we have had an intense increase in the number of offerings. um uh for each of our cohorts. Um and that I think is a credit to our institution's um drive to be able to provide the most excellent experience that we can for them um through M at at Mosquite High School and and just to kind of maybe help you see that we are seeing this not as oh just get them off of our campus at ASU Poly that is not it at all. Um, in fact, we have worked really, really hard to ensure that our kids are able to stay connected. In fact, a couple of our applicants are actual athletes
050on our campus that compete at the varsity level, right? They are very interwoven into our campus and the things that are going on there. we've been able to determine that we're still able to support them having that kind of level of engagement at the high school level while also attending ASU Poly and being able to provide that experience is unique. It is what is going to help drive a reason for why you know I just the chance to get into that ASU experience. I'm going to send my kid to Mosquite High School. They are making changes and being innovative. we take a a look at it from that standpoint, there are going to be families who are going to be highly attracted to this. I still think that it needs to be selective. It's not
051going to ever be a program that is open to all because it's not going to be successful for all. And to think otherwise would not be doing this program justice. But it would be a drive, I think, as a parent of a current seventh grader that knowing that my child would have the opportunity to walk out of their high school experience with 42 credit hours at a university with a university transcript already started. That's pretty enticing. I I do have a question just because I've had the experience of a child transferring from one university to another which is a painful painful process. One thing we could fix in this country is make it easier to transfer college credits. So when I mean obviously because they've gone to ASU it would seem easy for them to
052stay at ASU where they're getting those credits. But what what if they want to transfer to a different question. So often times what we see with our dual enrollment courses through CGCC which is a wonderful partnership by no means am I you know uh uh making waves on that. But there isn't always a onetoone transfer, especially when you're talking outofstate universities um taking community college credit. Um through the University of Arizona, those credits generally transfer much better to those out ofstate universities. Um, and so again, if I'm talking and I'm being a parent right now and I'm talking about a sure bet about where my kid is going to go maybe post uh high school, the credit from ASU is going to transfer much smoother um than a community college credit would. Okay. Thank you.
053So, I appreciate you bringing up the example of EVIT. that was uh I I didn't um I wasn't thinking about that and I think you that I think that's a that's a good point. I don't know if I would definitely or would necessarily put them on the on the same plane as far as um next steps after high school. But um but I that's a great point. Um, so my next question is in regards more to logistics and finance. Is this something that we could instead of doing every day half day, is this something that we could do like a some kind of supplement with with ASU's online capabilities where instead of our kids going to ASU and physically being there for half the day and spending a considerable amount of time traveling there, traveling
054back, um, Is this something that could save our is is attending is doing some of this through through ASU's online um options a way for us to accomplish have a similar result but something that maybe wouldn't cost the district as much. So, from my perspective, and feel free to piggyback, um I I know that we did entertain, uh some of the more online modalities versus in person, uh from a research standpoint, and statistically speaking, when students are in the brick-andmortar setting with the teacher, they have a higher success rate. So, we were opting to have them more in person because we are turning them over to a university setting um and it's going to be rigorous. And so we felt that for right now and and and that could be something we could evaluate and
055look at. Uh but for right now, we felt that by setting them up with our student success advisor and then having them in more brick and mortar um that it would set them up for more success because they're going to have that attention um on a more regular basis. Uh now they're still going to be doing a universal learning course with the online, but we felt like if we kept that at a minimum, then it's one online because then they they're stu they're they're students. So if they uh do get off track and they're not monitoring that it statistically, we've even seen it with our own online schooling. We've had to put a lot of things into place to support our students maintaining and successfully completing online courses. because we're then turning that over to
056ASU. We're still going to be supporting them with our student success advisor, but it is going to look a little different because it's their online courses. So, we that I mean we took more of the approach of the student success and learning. Uh, but it would be worth looking at from a financial standpoint as well. I know early on we also talked about like uh days of the week. uh and we kind of landed on the fact that the consistent schedule day overday was uh more effective for um student routine because that is what they're used to as opposed to truly letting them go kind of the high school schedule where maybe they can choose a couple days a week for classes. So in addition to that, you know, I I understand where some of
057your concerns are when it comes to fiscalness. We already have um a bus that goes to um Evet Poly Tech which is right next door to ASU Poly that um takes our EVIT students there in the morning and then back in the afternoon. So really we're hitching a ride um to be a part of that. Is that literally true? Yes. Like there's not going to be another route. They're going to be on the same I'm I'm fairly certain if I turn that over to Bonnie. Yes, that is in that case there would be zero cost. I'm just I'm just No, I understand. That's a big piece of this for me. Yes, 100%. I will say uh and Mrs. Betts feel free to chime in if I misspeak to this, but my understanding and what we've
058looked at currently is on our regular calendar days and when EBIT has the transportation that yes, it is the case. So, I don't know. Do you Right. So, I know that when we looked at the different calendar dates, u those like five that were up there, um I I don't know Evit's calendar off the top of my head, but those it would be the five days and but I do believe that they also attend. I just don't know if it's those same five days like the November one, I'm not sure. But like 95% of the time there, yes, there's not additional transportation for this program. This transportation is something that's already correct. Anything that isn't already being supported via that, we will be upfront with the families. they will have understand that there's not transportation
059on those particular days. Um, but as of right now from my own dive of it, they're pretty much in alignment. And when you say 95%, I feel more confident to say yes, but I didn't want to like come across for those few uh random scenarios that I'm sharing. I just am trying to be transparent that there might be a day or two off. Well, that that helps a lot. Okay. So, great. My my other question is I mean I think as far as designing a program that is as appealing as possible to students and and families, I mean you've done an incredible job. Um so so looking at the finances though, I'm just wondering if some of the things are necessary like is it is it really necessary to for Gilbert public schools to staff
060someone to be there on the campus? Like is that is that really necessary? And can we have a person who's at Mosquite that instead of being there for the whole time they're there, maybe they just have like a 30 minute session at Mosquite each day, so we're not tying that person up for half a day. The the GPS uh staff person, however that would be um to to serve that same function. So, excellent question. So, first and foremost, that that person um it's just this is just a portion of their role. They'll start off there in the morning for about an hour, but then after that they'll return back to our campus for the remainder of that time frame. One of the reasons why we elected to actually have our um support advisor go to
061ASU Poly was was twofold. A we knew our drop off time was earlier than when their actual classes started. We wanted to make sure they are juniors and seniors. We wanted to have a home base for them and somewhat of a comfort level at the campus um that they could go and at least start off their morning with to be able to get organized. So this was more with a student- centered thought process um of why we decided to place uh that academic adviser there in the morning. Um they'll then return back to our campus after that and they'll then uh go on with the remainder of the those days. In fact, the student success advisor is a representative um staff member on every single campus, not just Mosquite High Schools. This is just an
062addition to their role um as a part of this and and their role is to help make the connections to college and career. So, this is within the scope, but um I also feel that that's something that we're trying we're really going above and beyond to make sure that there's supports in place for this first year. Uh we we could be surprised. Maybe our students are great and we get great feedback and um we can revise that uh after a year uh or even a semester if we feel that it's unnecessary. We plan to collaborate with that individual to make sure that we get feedback ongoing. uh we just, you know, not doing it before, we're we're wanting to make sure that we have that support in place. Yeah. Well, I think it's great to
063have those support systems in place. I I think you're going to find it's not necessary. I mean, I I'd love to drop my senior off for the first day of school and hold his hand going in, but he doesn't want me to do that. And I don't think juniors remember, we won't let you. No, up to the door. Up to the door. So, kindergarten. But but I don't think that I I I don't think that they're going to need it. I really don't. I mean, for the first few times, get into class and things like that, I think. But after that, I And we can take that back like take that back to your team cuz it maybe it's just the first couple weeks of us each semester to make sure people know where they're
064going and things like that. Uh but again, we want we were trying to do our due diligence of going above and beyond. I think it's a piece of mind for the parents, too. That was, you know, and I think I think you're both of you are right in the sense that it could be like, okay, we're in our groove, right? We got we got it. You're okay to we fly. But it's also that connection, that familiar face. I do remember my first day at a university and walking around praying to God I found out where the class was. And so, I think that'll help them, but I think you're right, too, that it could be unnecessary after a certain point. I was going to say maybe my children are different than yours, but I went
065to college with them and prior to them being there, we walked the campus to help them find their classes. Yeah, I think it's it's to save both peace of mind. I will say that look, I am never one to say that the way I have my program set up right now is absolutely how it will end up being. There's going to be some eb and flow within this process. That is great feedback for us to be able to take back and definitely see how much that specific time in the morning is needed from that academic adviser. But I think for now I think it's best for us to set up just to ensure success as we move forward. I I appreciate the support that you're trying to provide these students because I think it it
066is a good way to help them gently ease into what can be a big transition. Right. So, thank you. Thank you. So, I am uh excited to have you come back in in spring and give us an update on how how this program is working and I hope that I hope that it is a huge success and I hope that I hope that it does drive more interest uh to Mosquite. So, thank you for your hard work. Can I ask one more quick question? I thought I saw somewhere in the cost that we're paying per credit. What was it? 600 or or what? 110. Well, that's what the parents are paying. So, what is what is GPS paying? Right. Um, I'm going to defer that to Bonnie. Um, Bonnie, no. Got to speak in the
067microphone. Chief, me too. Don't let her. So, I'd like a chance to um cl um to check, but my understanding is that for each three-hour credit course, we are being charged $600 total. And so, with the parents paying 110 per credit hour, that's about 330 and then Gilbert would pay the remainder for for each three credit course. And that would come out of our ADM that we receive for that for those students, right? Thank you, Miss Betts. You bet. never had to phone a friend during a board meeting before. That's all I do. Just so you know, I I will share as well uh Mr. Ryan is going to be doing a second session per our the statute. It does say that when you're changing the ITM model that you're you go to the governing
068board and allow uh public comment twice. Even though again, this is within the ITM that we have. We're just changing kind of the logistics. We wanted to follow suit with that same process out of uh just being transparent. So on Janu um I'm so sorry. On June 25th uh 24th, thank you. June 24th, Mr. Ryan will be presenting this uh on our behalf um again. So if from now until then there's other questions or um different variables that you would all like to see, uh please just let us know and we'll make sure to to come prepared with anything else that you guys would like to to look at. Perfect. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Well done. All right, Miss Wilson, were there there were no requests to speak? Okay,
069so we can go on to we can go ahead and adjourn this portion of our meeting. Call to order the work study. You're all leaving. What gives? It's just about to get exciting. Fine. Get out of here. Thank you. Thank you. Uh all right. Call to order our work study and uh 4.01 school to home communication. Dr. McCordon. Thank you, Mr. President. Governing board members. Uh tonight, Don Makai will be talking to you about a uh parent square and uh the process in which um we communicate or want to communicate moving forward with our our families and our students. And so I'll turn it over to Don. She's got a nice presentation for you. Thank you, Dr. McCord. Uh governing board president, members of the governing board, I'm hope Oh, there it appears. Okay, perfect.
070So, this presentation is titled schooltoome communication. Um, and as Dr. McCord alluded to there, it's really around a recommendation for a new tool for us to use districtwide for communicating with our parents, families, and students. I wanted to start this presentation by really highlighting why this is important. So to and also I think it's really important when we talk about communication, we're not talking just about us telling people information or giving people information. It's also very much about us engaging with our parents and families. And just three things to highlight on that. There's a lot of evidence out there, a lot of research into how impactful the engagement of our parents and families can be on the actual academic outcomes for our students. And not just on that, but of course on things like the
071campus culture, the involvement of parents and families and volunteer roles, and just I think it's hard to deny that the more information our parents and families have about what's happening in our school is a win-win for everyone. The other thing I wanted to highlight just as I was saying there is it's not just about us telling our parents and families information. It's that two-way communication piece so our parents feel involved that they feel empowered to ask questions and have a more engaged experience. Um and then also third but absolutely not least, it's so imperative that we have effective communication with our parents and families in any emergency or crisis situation and that the platform that we have to deliver that is reliable, robust, and secure. So along those lines, what we're hoping to achieve um
072is to kind of build on what we're doing already. as just mentioned, it's the tool that we have. I love technology. Um, but I would say that in any kind of crisis situation, we are so reliant on our technology platforms being secure and reliable in those moments. So, that's something that's really important. Also as a district I think we want to increase the opportunities that we provide for meaningful parent and family engagement because as I was suggesting that kind of builds trust um and helps with academ academic achievement at the individual and the campus level. We do have tools in place that we're using right now but the recommended tool that um we're presenting to you today really emphasizes these pieces and also reducing barriers to parent and family engagement. There's some obvious barriers, for
073example, translation into a parents and family's first language, accessibility issues. But I also think it's good to highlight that some of the barriers that we have right now is if we're using a multitude of different systems to communicate with our parents and families, that in itself is a barrier. If a parent has to download five different apps or find some information in the newsletter, some of it uh on the website, some of it in an email, some of it on a different platform, that in itself can reduce not only the parents ability to find the information, but their willingness to even go and look for it, which can of course ultimately affect engagement. So looking at these pieces then it's really incumbent upon us to identify potential products and vendors that can deliver what we're
074looking for as a district when it comes to communication and engagement with our parents and families. Um there are a limited number of products out there. Um so we were able to work with our purchasing department and look at different options and then we got together a stakeholder review group. So, I think it's important not to minimize when we're talking about communicating with our parents and families. It's a very large number of people. Um, we're talking about 31,000 students, uh, 42,000 plus parent and family contacts within our system. Um, we of course have our teachers, we have our coaches, uh, and of 4,000 plus members of staff. So it's a wide universe that we're trying to communicate effectively within and every stakeholder group has a different set of needs. Uh so we have a parent.
075So if we imagine a parent who perhaps has three children uh their grades range across elementary, junior high and high school. Maybe two of those kids are involved in clubs. Some of them go on field trips. Uh one of them in is in athletics. The other one's in a marching band. If you just imagine or maybe many of you probably experienced the multiple communication touch points just within that um and the different need for information. So with that you want to have that crisis communication for if anything should happen on one of your students campuses. You want to have that communication with the teacher and that interaction. uh you want to have the communication with okay you want to know when a field trip is coming up in a a significant amount of time so
076you can prepare for it you want to know okay where do I get the forms how do I sign them there are so many different components when we're talking about communication so our stakeholder group covered as many stakeholders as we could think of I think there was 25 people in the room so we had elementary teachers junior high secondary we had parents uh coaches, athletic directors, APS, principles, um everyone's coming at it from a different angle. So, we really wanted to ensure that we were getting feedback from people who might think to ask questions that I wouldn't necessarily think of. Um the recommendation from that experience was unanimously for the product parent square. And we do have a video now. Whether it will play or not is the whole other. Okay. If I just You
077want to add it? Oh, they might need to play it. It's just a quick video, but it kind of encapsulates and summarizes what the product offers. I was able to click on it and it just played. It's probably a setting presentation. It's not set to play. Okay. Well, it's not 100% necessary. I can cover it and really cover it in the next few slides. They just do it more succinctly, but I'll do my best. Um, this overview right here kind of encapsulates why parents wear. Um, I think it ticks the important boxes of it's safe and secure. And one piece of this that I think is very important and covers some areas for us that we could improve upon is there is administrator oversight. So every communication that goes through parent square whether it be
078a crisis communication or a message from a teacher to a parent the administrator at that site and administrators at district have a visibility to that. um so they can see those communications that are happening. It also protects our our teachers. Um it's a very secure platform and all of those messages are stored as well. Um it also is very the best way to say it is very 2025. Um so there the best way for a parent to utilize this if they so choose is to download it and use it as an app. Um we have spoken with our parent uh stakeholder groups about when we were designing the website etc. and they're always asking they just want all the information in one place that they can access through a user interface that is familiar to
079them. Uh so for most of our parents I was going to say mostly the younger ones but for most of our parents it's an app with very easy links and everything in one place. And with parent square rolling this out, it would go across all of our schools districtwide. It would be the one tool that our schools that our district, that our teachers, that our coaches, that our club sponsors are using to communicate. So for the parent that means everything is streamlined and coming to them in one destination. The great piece of this is we would we would have quite high expectations on ourselves to encourage our parents to download the app. However, they could also um it's very user- centered. So, if they choose that they just want to receive their communications through emails
080because that's what they prefer and they don't want another app on their phone, they can absolutely do that and still have the same functionality. For a teacher uh utilizing this, for a administrator utilizing this, they could do it through the app, but most likely they would do it through their uh through their desktop or through their laptop using a dashboard. Um, a huge piece of this as well is that right now as a district, the people who create the newsletters are the administrators um with support from their front office staff. But with Parent Square, teachers have the ability to put together newsletters. So, in just that one step, giving 2,000 new people in our district the opportunity to send newsletters directly to parents, we're um immediately increasing that engagement piece. It also has phenomenal built-in
081tools. So, for example, if um I'm a teacher and I'm wanting to communicate with my parents that there is a field trip coming up or a good example is parent conferences. They don't they no longer need to use signup genius. They can now have it all through parent square and the parent can actually just click some buttons and they can select when they want to do the conference and it's all then stored in one place for the teacher. Um from an accessibility point of view, that's really important for us. Signup Genius, Class Dojo, and a lot of the tools are currently being used specifically for teacher uh teacher parent communication. Those are not currently district endorsed. Um and they are not in many cases accessible for our parents uh particularly with visual impairments. Um the
082other piece is the two-way language. It's all automated. So if when um someone completes the annual a family member completes the annual update and their preferred language for communication is Spanish, when a teacher or administrator sends a message through parent square to that parent, it will be automated automatically translated into Spanish for that person. They can also select to toggle to see it in the original language. And if the parent chose to respond in Spanish, it's again auto translated for the teacher to receive. This slide was important to um now this does not mean that we're late to the game with adopting a a platform like this, but the majority of districts in Arizona and our surrounding districts are already utilizing parent square. Um those are some of the features I was just mentioning there
083that two-way communication piece. the they use the term posts uh for communicating with the parents. Um the next part of my presentation is really about how we would roll this out. So first of all, I just like to ask if anyone has any questions about the tool itself because that was a quick run through. So would we I guess my question is we still have our district emails but we would really um most of our communication would go through parent square rather than sending out a district email. For example, our Wednesday email that comes from the superintendent that would go through parent square from now on unless they chose email. Yes. So currently those emails like that um actually go through our mass communication tool which is called final site currently. Um so it would
084parent square as part of this process it was to replace what we already have. So we're not duplicating uh spend. So all the emails that you would receive like that they would yet come through parent square or appear as an email if that's how you selected to receive. Okay. So I I could get it in my email account or I could get it on parent square depending on what I wanted. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. Can I just ask too? So so essentially replace email I mean not replace but but as far as I I saw a slide somewhere as far as the the funding goes but as far as what we're currently using that we wouldn't need to use anymore is Yeah. So is there something Yeah. So it's not replacing Gmail email per se.
085Currently we do use um a tool called Final Site for mass notifications. The some examples of mass notifications would be when we send out the family newsletter or when um a school is communicating sending out a newsletter or a communication um and crisis communications. So, they all they appear in a parent's inbox as if they've just been sent by email, but they currently do go through a system. That's really important for us so that we can track those messages and we can um ensure that all of our uh parent contacts are accurate because they're brought in through um Infinite Campus. So, it would replace the existing tool we're using for that. Also, it would replace our use of more newsletters. So, that would be a saving. Um that's something that we took on as a
086district expense to support our schools to have the ability to send newsletters. Um so those would be the two. The other thing that it would replace is any cost that our schools are currently incurring for use of um tools like remind dojo. We don't as I mentioned it's not something that as a district we officially endorse but we do know that that those tools are used. Okay. So so those could go away 100%. Those would go away. Yep. And then I know several years ago, I mean, there was there was concerns or there was a desire for more communication from Gilbert Public Schools. And I I think that all those who have been involved uh in changing that have done a great job. I think sometimes now people say like we overcommunicate, which is a
087good place to be. Um so I'm I'm just wondering are there still concerns and are I haven't heard any of that. We're getting that hey, we're not communicating enough. we're not getting the communication like is getting in in an email not sufficient? I mean that this looks great and there's a lot of great features. I'm just wondering is is there an actual problem? So I guess there's three reasons why we felt as a department and started having discussions that it was important. Um one of them is accessibility. So knowing that some of the tools being used like class dojo et etc are not accessible for our parents is an issue that once we're aware of that as well as of course it being important we need to do something about that. The other piece is
088the uh importance I think for teachers to feel that they have a district endorsed tool um for that communication piece with um their parents so they're not having to go out and find something. So, for example, right now, if a teacher was to use Remind or class dojo, they're having to manually import the uh contacts for their parent um for each class, etc. Whereas with a tool like this, we're doing all that for them. It's automatically updated. So, then if a family leaves that class, then that will be brought over in the nightly feed. Um, also, I think it's just important for us to give them peace of mind that they're not out on a limb with this communication piece. there's a lot of legislation around um how uh teachers should communicate. So we want
089to make sure that they have a tool um and that they feel confident using that and supported in that. Um so that for was a gap um that I think needed addressed. Um and then the other piece is just hearing from parents that it's not necessarily that they're not receiving. It's just the ease of use is important and they want to be able to keep up to date. Um and having all that information in one place. I will say that a tool like this is only as good as the implementation. So for me um it's not just a case of oh we found this great tool we've heard it's really great here you go. It's going to be really important to support our teachers, to support our coaches, to support um our campus, our campuses,
090and our parents to understand how they can best leverage this to make their lives easier um and to make sure that they have the support in place because in my mind, we want everyone to be using it. I don't want people to go rogue and find other solutions if this isn't working for them. Um, so having our stakeholder group was really helpful with that cuz we started to get that buy in because we're trying to understand through the lens of all the different stakeholders what their needs are for communication too. Um, so yes, I think I think it's not necessarily because we're not in a good place with communication. It's just it can be better and it can address the accessibility issue and that parent. Yeah. And just Yeah. That our uniform. Yep. So one
091of the things I have noticed in a difference between my generation and my children's generation who are becoming parents is that I'm okay with the phone call but they are terrified to make a phone call. Is there a texting capability so that they can text the teacher and then that is also preserved and those conversations take place? Yes, there's like a direct messaging feature and the parent can put office hours on. Not the parent, the teacher can put office hours in place so they're not being bombarded with those communications, but the parents can feel that if that is their easiest way to communicate, they have that ability. Yes. And it's all through here. So, it's also got that oversight. So, it still keeps the teacher's like cell phone number private. Yes. So, the way the
092teacher would see those direct messages is not like a text message, but on their dashboard, but from the teacher perspective, it's like they're texting. Um, but that would be part of the education piece. Parents, you're not texting your teacher at like 2 a.m. and expecting a response. It's a it's an ease of process so they can reach out with a question. Yeah. Um, but that there's office hours built in and that the teacher will get back to them. So, a little bit of an education piece, but it kind of it's a that's a really good example because it shows how it's designed for how the parent wants to communicate, but there's those controls in place to make a positive experience for the teacher in communicating, too. Well, it it sounds like a very fantastic tool.
093I mean, it really does sound like we finally have the technology to really put everything in one place. Yeah. I had a question. Currently, I heard this from some parents that we during like crisis, we sometimes send text messages out for that. So, we'd get rid of that function and it would only be available in the app. Correct. So, we would probably do something very similar, which is we would h text to notify them to check for an email with more detailed information. Um, that's the process we have at the moment. Um the benefit of bringing on a new tool is it's a it's a a new chance to re-educate everyone on those processes and also to review and refine those processes. Um it's we've been quite busy this year so it's we'll be looking
094back and being like how can we we improve upon this and we and crisis communication is all the communication is important but really that's the sometimes for me the most important part to make sure that we have a system that works. Um, but yeah, it would be similar. They would receive a text message and the way that works with this tool and all tools is even if a parent has opted out from receiving communications from us, we would have a text capability that the message goes through on an emergency notification so that they receive it. Great. Thank you. Uh, what other platforms did you look at besides this one with your group? there wasn't the only other one that actually met our scope of work and our requirements was the new version of final site.
095Um so what we currently have uh is with final site but they are about to launch a new version of that and that was the only other um vendor out there that fulfilled that scope of work that was on a I'm going to get this wrong but was on a specific type of contract that we could then um set up this review process with. So, is the big concern with the free ones that you just you can't get the buyin from all of the campuses to use those and everybody the teachers are all choosing which ones they want to use? Uh, yes. And a lot of the free ones then we don't have any oversight. So, we don't see any of the messaging going back and forth. Um, so then if there is a scenario
096where it's requested to see that we don't have access to any of those messages. um with isn't there a law that if your student's name is being put into any kind of writing that the parent can request that and if there's records on a free app wouldn't they just have to have those turned over from the person who owns the app not from us. So a system like because it's not a district endorsed tool. So when it's a tool like this we would pick a tool that we have that visibility and we have those records so we can address that exact question. But when it's a free app um we we Yes, they would have to turn it over, but we have no control over that. So, one of two things would happen. Either that
097person voluntarily turns that over, which we would hope they would, or the person requested would have to get a subpoena. Okay? So, if it's coming through ours, that's subject to Freedom of Information Act. And if we have control over that, then we take we take everybody out of the equation and we have that information. We turn it over. Okay. Did you have you heard of school status connect? No. Okay. So, that's the one I use and it pretty much does everything that you just listed, including the dual language and the email feature if you don't want the app. Um, things like that. And to my knowledge, gonna go on the record of I could be wrong. That one is free. So, um, just before I would before I would be comfortable saying, oh yeah, absolutely.
098Like I do love a lot of those features, especially I work heavily in Hispanic population, so the dual language thing super helpful, right? Um, and being able to get it either an email or an app. Um, the only major benefit that I heard is the not having to import having the district import all of the things because I do spend a good amount of time at the beginning of the year putting all my information in. But just from a budget standpoint, you know, if if that one does everything that this one does. Um, and we can find a way, I don't know if this is possible, but to actually, you know, tell schools this is the form of that we're using. So I could look into I would think it would be unlikely that it
099would necess if it would be free to deliver what we need from a district point of view. So um when we're sending out that integration with um I visions for staff contacts and also IC for parent contacts is essential in a crisis situation. So we need it. So there's elements that I would think it would be very unlikely to be free especially for a district our size um would be having that integration. So every night it's updated so that we can be sure and our front office staff spend a lot of time making sure that um they they can then run reports. So say they have like 30. So an example would be like Highland High this year when they were dealing with a situation and they needed to communicate with all of their parents.
100They do their due diligence weekly on running a report of any broken um links to uh emails. So they then go back and they fix them in IC. Maybe the parents accidentally unsubscribed or whatever. So they're doing that weekly to minimize the number of uh parents that are uncontactable in a scenario where we really need to contact them. Relocation would be another example. AC goes out at Neie. we need to know that we can contact every single parent to let them know that we've had to to take their kid to Gilbert High and that they're going to need to be picked up from that spot. So that integration with that up to date is absolutely essential. And then the other piece is being able to track and view and have access to um those communications
101for foy requests etc. Now, if there is a free tool that offers that for a district, we would normally be enterprise size for the majority of software tools. Um, I'm a big believer as well and that we use the same tool district wide. Um, so it may be that they offer and I don't know if they but I don't know the answer to that but no just yeah I just wanted to present that as an idea because as you were saying it I'm sitting here going that I I use a tool that does all of those things and so just wanted to throw it out there and there's always the issue of not being able to reach parents. they, you know, if we don't have a correct email or they've changed their cell phone number,
102not set up inboxes, you name it. But Mesa Mesa Public Schools is on this list that they have given us of other districts that are using this this tool public school. Yeah. I think there's so we're so large. Yes. That we are we get to do a little more picking and choosing based on a conversation I had with my principal. It sounded like cuz he presented us with uh school status connect and dojo and he said as a school we're all going to make sure we use the same tool. Which one do you want? And then we all went and researched it and we picked Mhm. that one. So I I think that's probably why Mesa is on the list cuz there are probably there's some schools that are using it. My my campus just
103doesn't happen to be one of them. I thought you had to purchase it districtwide when I looked it up. So I I'm not sure how that worked out for Mesa, but Yes. And the way that you're describing your principal talking about it is the way I think about it districtwide. Like if we're going to ensure best practices with communication, if we're going to meet legislation with regard to communication, it has to be a robust tool that is implemented districtwide. And then if we're also going to give a the highest level of experience for our parents, I think it has to be supported by district. That's the way that we that we kind of do it. Whereas when you have multiple different options, it's easy sometimes to lose lose track of those best practices. It's really
104then dependent on uh the teacher doing that. So kind of similar to what you're saying about like picking one tool for the school. Um my recommendation was we would use one tool for the districtwide and support the schools with that. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that's great. I just didn't know if we could do that same practice with something that make not cost us as much money. That's all. Which would be Yeah. Just Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. So, I've got two questions. One, how easy is it to log in because I I for one hate having to put in my credentials every single time. And if you tell me that this is something that that we're that every parent's going to have to do that or they're going to have to
105go through a multiffactor authentication to to log in every time, I'm out. Okay. Um uh do you know I would have to check on that. I do know from a staff point of view it would be incorporated into our single sign on. Um, so it would be the same process that we use for logging into everything, but I would need to check with regard to um I should imagine once you're logged into the app, the app is there, but I would need to check. I don't know about the multia. It might do a face ID or something like that, but I I would imagine to have to be secure to some degree. Yeah. Um, but I I don't know to what. Yeah, I'd be interested to see Yeah, I'd be interested to play around with
106it a little bit. Um, also I'm curious how how robust of a tool is it? And what I mean is how how many different form how many different ways can parents communicate or can this can this tool allow us to communicate? Some examples are, would it allow a parent to reach out to a student's counselor to make an appointment? Would it allow parents and teachers to schedule their parent teacher conferences through the tool? Um, can we integrate our grad tracker into this tool? Can we integrate grades into this tool? Because I know that this is I I I'm getting the sense that this is a one-stop shop for communication. Mhm. Can it be used as more of a one-stop shop for some of these other things? It can be used for a number of things,
107but then there are limitations. Um, so I don't know about the grading piece because that is so integrated into our infinite campus system. However, for things like field trips and also um signing up for parent conferences, absolutely um those features are really built in um and we can do things another example of why I love to do things at a district level is we would set up okay here are the forms so we could have our agreed like field trip forms etc. um in there. So we would we would we would say don't create your own forms. If you come across a need for a form that doesn't already exist, reach out to us and we can work with you and create that and have templates etc. But there's a lot of uh opportunity for
108us to have um forms that are in existence and being used currently across our schools um preloaded in there for them to just put together. Oh, we're having a field trip. attach forms, send it off, and we can um digitize some of them for um signing and such. So, I I imagine with uh with a tool like this, cuz you we'll be an enterprise client with um with parent square, um I would imagine that because of our size, they would send out a deployment team that would would kind of custom build this product for us. Not there would they would there would be quite a bit of customization that they would allow us to do and that's those are a couple things that I would that I would love to see integrated especially the communication
109with our school counselors. Yes. where a school counselor has all of the students under their purview, all of their information, and they can go through and scroll and say, "I want to meet with this student's parents, and I'm going to send them a a parent square." Yes, thank you for reminding me. That was the other piece you mentioned. The other great piece of this is that we um can customize users. So, if a user is a counselor, then we can set it up so that they can build lists, just like you're saying, of their students uh and their parent contacts for that year. And then we can really drill down to what they have access to and what they don't have access to. So um they would have perhaps access as a counselor to communicate
110directly with and set appointments or whatever it might be but they don't have the ability to send out you know a crisis communication or whatever. So it is quite flexible with those custom users that we can create which is helpful when we have a parent who is also a coach and not a parent a teacher who's also a coach for example and they might need to use it for different purposes. Is there is there a group chat feature in this tool? And and I guess if there is I'm wondering can parents communicate with other parents? And I could see a number of ways that that could go very bad. Yeah. So there are some features that the coaches who are involved in the stakeholder group wanted to explore a bit more and see how they
111would work. Um for example, because you can do almost like a group chat where like the coach would send, you know, to the parents practice practice. Yeah, exactly. Practice tomorrow at 3. They can either set it to allow for responses or not allow for responses. and they could set it just to allow for people to just like thumbs it up and then that's it. Um, so there's there there are nuances like that that as part of the roll out we would look at like well what do we want it to do and what do we want it not to do so it serves the purpose for the coaches but it also doesn't inadvertently create scenarios we don't want to happen. Um and when we spoke about it, we did talk about for our pilot cuz
112we would do a pilot uh with a high school, a junior high and um for elementaryaries just for the first part to uh make sure that our training materials are working to roll out any kinks. And we talked about having the coaches as a kind of specialist group to be a part of that pilot as well. um because I think there would be lots of opportunities for them to be brought into a district approved tool like this. So there's there's no um there's no intent for this to become any sort of like social media tool. No. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Good question. Well, thank you for all the hard work put in on that. I think that it sounds amazing. Oh, sorry. So, there's more just really about the roll out. You
113were taking a a break from questions. Yeah, I'd love to hear more about the roll out and the the next couple slides. So, as I mentioned, I truly believe that the only way the tool is only going to be successful as the implementation. Um, so we did talk about the pilot would be in quarter two of the upcoming school year. Um and we were suggesting that Mosquite High, Mosquite Junior, Burke, Gilbert L, Islands, and Playa would be the schools that we would do that with. Um and that's really because we want to make sure that the each piece of the stakeholder training is working, that we're informing the parents, that we're checking on how many people are downloading the app. Is there a problem with that? And also really kind of connecting back with what
114you were saying about making sure there's teacher buy in because teachers have been using tools that they presumably love and I don't want to underestimate or disrespect the fact that we're asking our teachers to move over to a new tool. So it's going to be really important to have those conversations and make sure that everything is set up to actually make it something positive that the teachers are going to want to use. I truly believe they will. But I just wanted to acknowledge that that's a change and it's a large group of our staff. Um so we would have for example our ties on campus. Um and we would make sure that everyone is well supported with it from a technology point of view and also from a really from a behavior change. Um and
115similar to what you were saying Mr. Thompson we would also work directly with the we would be given a dedicated person from parents square to support us. Um and we do have um those the experience of surrounding districts to help us as well. Um and that communication piece of course communicating about communication um is going to be important for us. That's why quarter 2 I think works well as well because it's the beginning of the school year. A lot's happening and we want to make sure that we have time to get our parents and families involved in that as well. and and we want our tech services department involved. And at the beginning of the year, they're pretty bombarded with a lot of other initiatives that don't take precedent, but yet have already been in
116the shoot to to roll out. So, we want their attention to be able to be fully on this when time comes. Absolutely. Um and then really it's about that monitoring and the feedback. So the beauty of a tool like this is we'll be able to gather feedback from our stakeholders, but we'll also be able to see actual factual data on how much it's been used, have teachers been sending messages, etc. And just to really um analyze all of that and um address any concerns before we roll it out districtwide. Um and then once we would roll it out districtwide, that would not be the end. I think that is sometimes a temptation is is like okay now we've done the pilot here's the platform everyone go we would continue to monitor because I do I
117don't want to underestimate that it is a behavior change particularly for our teachers who haven't been using a tool like this well and it's a big expense yeah of absolutely need for you know to it to be wasted absolutely um so on that on those lines um this is just the budget slide going over what the total cost for year one would be um and then the annual cost going forward and then identifying under there some of the savings from the current annual spend on our mass communication tools. So then the total ongoing increase annually once we hit the year two uh would be the 84,000. So why is the ongoing annual cost more than the year one annual cost? I would think it'd be the other way around. So, okay. Well, let me It's
118half the I was having It's half the year because Oh, okay. Rolling it out and then it's really January to June we're paying. Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. Pro-rated. Got it. So, we're not double spending on things. Um, from my experience, do and this is just Do you think January is really the best time to roll it out though? I know mid year we get in our groove and so just food for thought, you know, if we go with this, it's may maybe we might want to pilot for we can pilot this year, but we might want to reconsider the roll out time just because I know for campuses sometimes it January might be a weird even for parents just trying to get them set up. I know maybe parent teacher conferences might be a good
119time to get parents on the app because I do that with parents who don't aren't on the the school status I'll be like, "Hey, you're not on here yet. Can you when they're sitting with me?" But I just Yeah, I think definitely that's something we can consider. That's why we'll look at that pilot and see how it even starts to roll out and then if we're cuz originally we were looking at July 22nd. Yeah. And we need some time. So, as we encounter this initial pilot, we'll step back and we'll look and we think if we're ready to go, we'll go. If not, then we'll pull back the reins. Yeah. Um and then and I January as well and like that's not traditionally when you would do a dishw roll out. Um the only two
120pieces of that is one it leaves us vulnerable for accessibility issues with the continued use of class dojo and other tools. Um, so that's just something to be aware of. And then the other piece is what you've heard them surrounding districts, as soon as they hear the value of it at the pilot schools, the other schools want it and they don't want to wait longer. Um, that's we've particularly heard that from Chandler um, and think Scottsdale and they moved their roll out up actually. Um, so that but 100% like January would not be the usual good time to do a district-wide roll out. But yeah, that's those are kind of the pieces that went into that. Sorry, I can ask you. I think you've probably already answered, but but tell me again what's the vulnerability
121that we have of using those other. So like class dojo for example is not accessible for people with visual impairments. So if we have a school that's currently using Class Dojo and we know um of a parent who has a visual impairment, that teacher then has to provide that information in other ways. So through email and arguably it's not as quick as it would be. Um that would be an example of one uh vulnerability. So when so part of this is to address that. Yeah. And I'll just uh just double on the the January even if I think if if the the pilot is successful and as a district we feel ready. I feel like adoption by parents is going to be less in January. So I think it's not just if the district's ready.
122I think I do think that they've gone through one semester and they're in the groove and I think they just want to continue being in the groove. I think adoption would be hard in January. It would take a additional initiative and like a special launch I believe to um I would be hopeful that if we were to go with that that we would have received um testimonials and feedback from parents from the pilot that we would then be able to roll over and share with the other schools and to do it in a way that's really engaging. um you know events that happen in January encouraging our schools to you know get your parents get your phones out and that kind of a thing but I and I agree yes we would need to do
123something a little bit spe more special than usual to get that adoption for sure I think it would almost be a good time because um people it's a little more quiet people have a little more time to you know actually get on their phone download it and see how it works whereas you know prior to that in December is so busy and then we get into the spring and that gets busy and so I think I think personally I think it's a quiet time where people might have more time and not be so rushed that they they can actually do what they need to do. I think it just needs a a promotion by the school and a reason for them to get on. Um I would say that I feel like we're up for
124the challenge of doing this when we've really built um our marketing communications teams have re team has really built positive working relationships with all of our campuses our because of the accessibility issues our it's been over a year now that I've been in front of the principles talking with them about this is how we need to make sure that if you're adding a graphic or if you're using class dojo that you know these are the things that you need to additional things you need to do to address accessibility. So, I'm hopeful that this is a continuation of that conversation and that um it would be very much a joint effort uh with um not just expecting it to be easy, but putting really getting ahead of it and making sure that we're um keeping an
125eye and making sure that it's happening. Yeah. If that helps. Well, I have no doubt that you can do it for for sure. And and I don't think it's necessarily just that whether parents have time or not. I think it's more just most parents are on a if it's if it's not broke, don't fix it. And so if things are already rolling along during the year, um sure, we could put more effort into it, but but why? And and we could save 82,000 also. So, well, and the other thing to think about too as far as routine is concerned, a lot of parent or a lot of teachers use class dojo for behavior management as well. So something that we as a team should consider is making sure that we know how many teachers are
126using Class Dojo for the points for their behavior management system as well because that's going to disrupt the entire classroom management system that the teacher just spent half a year putting in place. So that's a big one that I really wouldn't want to discredit because I've had Bryce's teachers have used it three out of the four years. Brinley's teacher used it last year. And if it's January and the kids are used to getting their points on Class Dojo and that goes away, yeah, it's gonna be interesting. It absolutely. And it's funny you should mention that because that's one of the first pieces of feedback we gave to parent square was that could they start building a point system because we know that is a often the reason that some people choose to use Glass Dojo
127purely because of that and they were receptive because they'd heard it from other districts too. No, that's good. Love that. Yeah, I've come a long way. I've sent home grade sheets every week with the parent signature and comments at the bottom. So, technology is a great thing. I think these the next slide, the what will success look like? I think that's that's a fantastic goal. I think these these are fantastic goals. Thank you. Yep. But I think as I said like firmly believe we got to aim for the stars with this kind of thing and just really there's no point in putting all this work in unless it's going to make people's lives easier. So this is this is fantastic. Um and we'll have an opportunity to discuss this more during our uh brief board
128meeting, but this is great. Are there does anybody have any other questions for Don? Well, can can I ask a question in relation to what's coming up later when we're voting on it? So, is it possible to look into the program that Miss Murray has used? And if if for for me, I I would like to look at one of two options. Either either tableabling the vote later in the meeting. And I guess I don't know what the next two weeks look like for you and what kind of kink that would throw in there. Or at least um just know that you're going to look into that program and report back to us. I Yeah, go ahead, Don. I mean I mean yes, I can be here at the 24th meeting if we wanted to
129and now that we're talking about the roll out being quarter 2, I'm looking to Bonnie, but I don't know what the different finance um deadlines might be. But I could absolutely be back here on the 24th and have answers to those questions if that's helpful. And and anything that you look into though, I I want to make sure it meets your parameters and not just because it's free, right? Yeah. free means that there are other things attached to that that we probably won't get. So if you look into that, I want to I want to make sure you do that comparison all the way down the road because yeah, because we have an ex existing scope of work so we can run through that with then that tool and then we can look at specifically
130you were talking about the different rollout models and then how that would impact the pro rata and the different agreements we could have. Yes, I can look into all that. And like I said, I mean, when I did my research on it, you know how a lot of times the websites, they don't necessarily very forthcoming on how much it would cost a district. You know, you can look at it from parents, families, and all that perspective. And I know what the information I've gotten from my principal. So, you may look at it on the back end and be like, "Whoa, wait a second." You know, but um I just figured because it does do a lot of the it doesn't do the class dojo points, but I mean, for the most part, it and here
131from my perspective, if if if that was out there for free, I would see other districts doing it fully implemented because we love free. But 99% of the time, it's based on how many students do you have, how many staff do you have, and how many do you serve? that becomes your pay structure. And so that's that's kind of my point. That's that's why I I I I mean, we can investigate this for a long time, but if you're not willing to approve it, then she'll go through the paces to get it done, I guess, is the point. And I do I'm going to phone a friend, too, and just check that that's not out. That's okay. That that was my question. I don't want to um make it a problem because we've postponed making
132a decision. It sounds all good. So glad that we can do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Before we move on, uh let's go ahead and take a five minute break. I like to call them bio breaks, but I know you guys make fun of me when I do that. So, uh let's go ahead and take a fivem minute break and then we'll come back and uh talk about finances. Good. You guys can maybe All All right, let's go ahead and resume our meeting. We've got the I don't know if it's the three musketeers or the three amigos or just our Oh, it's the amigos. That's all right. Good. We got our crack finance team here in front of us and we appreciate you being here. Um 4.02 presentation of the revision number four of
133the fiscal year 2025 expenditure budget under ARS 15-915. Dr. McCordon. Thank you, Mr. President Gy board members, we have that Trace Amigos, the crackpot team. Trace amigos. I You said crack. Did you say crackpot? Not crackpot. I said crackpot. Sorry. I know him a little bit better than you. Um, sharp. We'll turn over this over to uh the finance team for revision number four presentation. And I'm happy to turn this over to both um Miss Matin and Miss Lauren Torska uh to present this um revised budget number four for the current year. Great. Thank you, Miss Pets. This will be very short, short and sweet. So this um pursuant to ARS15-915, we are allowed to revise our budget outside of the statutory deadlines. Um the deadline for revising uh the final budget is May 15th.
134we presented to you on May 6th. As we were uploading it to the state, we did one final review of the reports from the state and we found that uh we could increase our budget balance carry forward by about $370,000. So, we are here to present the hopefully final final budget revision for FY 2025. How how many times can we revise this budget? Just wonder. This will be four. No, but how many can we unlimited? Unlimited. Unlimited. Unlimited, right? Don't worry. That doesn't mean Just kidding. Well, the reason it's so important as well is that if we don't revise the bud budget, we lose it. They they the Department of Ed does not give it to us. So, we have to revise our budget to to be able to adopt that that additional budget capacity.
135And we'll try to stay within single digits for revision numbers. So, this is a compar, right? comparison of M budget capacity. So you can see the FY2025 revised number four column compared to adopted. And this is where we um increased our budget balance carry forward by $370,000. And this will require your signatures and action item 8.02. That is it for me. Any questions? Can I just Yeah, ask where. I mean, we'll take found money anywhere, but but yeah, where did this come from? Why was it not on the last one? We didn't find it. Orthodontics. Sorry. We We realized it. It was there all along. So, so why why didn't we have it on the Oh, so sorry. So um each month the state issues um various reports as far as our M and capital
136and other and other funding sources as well. Um some some of those data points change month over month. Um and quite honestly we we were focused on other other pieces of the budget at that time for the final revision. Uh so we missed the fact that the budget balance carry forward changed slightly. So, we brought it back to you. Does anybody have any questions? Well, I would say I imagine that keeping track of our budget is very complex and so we appreciate that you were able to catch this in a timely fashion so that we could do the revision and obtain that higher budget limit. All right, we'll move on to 4.03 03 fiscal year 2026 proposed budget presentation. Dr. McCord. Thank you, Mr. President. Governing board members. Um, now we have the big one
137for upcoming school year. They put together a nice presentation. Bonnie went over it with us the other day and uh, always impressed with what they do. [Applause] Maybe slightly less impressed at the moment. Got it. So, good evening, governing board members. Dr. McCord. So, um, as you know, um, Jackie Matine and Lauren Torsk are really in charge of the budget, but whenever we propose and then ask you to adopt a budget, it's really representing the work of the leadership team. So, Dr. McCord and his leadership team, which is why generally speaking, you will see me uh present on behalf of all of us. So, I wanted to remind everyone that the proposed budget is being offered to you uh without having the legislation um to support it. We're just basing it on on estimates. However,
138we believe that this is a a very conservative baseline budget and fairly confident that it represents the worst case scenario. So, I just wanted to make sure that you're aware of that. Okay. That's called managing expectations, right? I like it. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So, go through an introduction. uh purposely uh are offering proposed budgets because we're sharing the maintenance and operations budget which is our largely our general fund unrestricted capital classroom site fund as well as five representative four or five representative budgets that have some notable story associated with them. So um and then we'll present the average teacher salary which is still required by statute uh as well as the estimated tax rate for next year which we set uh by the 15th of August. And then finally because we do not have
139legislation right now supporting this budget there are um several budget risks but there are also several opportunities. So, um, showing you the budget development timeline, you can see that we did reflect the final revised budget number four. Um, hopefully to have you approved later, uh, on the top. So, the top represents the current year. That's all the activity we've gone through in the current year. And then you can see in the budget year uh, for 2026, it actually starts in November as we begin talking to um, my peers and schools, etc., what their needs are for the 2026 school year. and then um on target to uh adopt the budget prior to July 15th and so we are going to adopt by um June 24th. So proposed budget alignment to the strategic operating plan and
140override commitments. Um, so as always, every time we present any increases in spend to you, uh, we go and make sure that it is, uh, definitely consistent with our strategic plan goals. And so all of the increases that are presented to you such as the salary increases um the additional FTE for English language learners and gifted as well as um a little bit of a new new request to move all of the deans uh to um assistant principles. We are hopeful that that particular um that particular recommendation to you will make a difference in terms of our recruitment and retention of administrators and allow uh an appropriate uh pathway for our administrators to move into upper uh administration. So uh strategic priority employee excellence. So this has been shared with you uh for the last
141since we opened the strategic operating plan. But remember that all functions of of the school district contribute to achieving achieving that inspiring excellence in every learner and all employees regardless of their role contribute to that uh achievement of the vision. The operating plan employee goal is to retain and attract highquality employees in positions throughout the school district and then compensation increases when possible shall be consistent across all employee groups. So we don't have the they have more than we have etc. so that everyone understands that we're trying to do the best thing for everyone across the board. And then student success, I shared with you the FTE ads for both gifted and English language learner uh teacher FTEE. So we have seen an increase um of about 40 to 50 students over the last uh
142few years in our English language learner. In addition, our English language learners contribute greatly to those accountability points. um 10% of the of the accountability points which are um up 10 10 points out of 100 uh contribute to our great success we actually had um for the 24 school year where we had uh all of our schools were either an A or a B which was quite an achievement. So it indicates um the importance of having that additional teacher FTE and then uh in addition the gifted teacher FTE is in response to the identification of a thousand new gifted students. A couple of um board meetings ago, you were um given a presentation regarding the gifted language learners here, gifted learners here in Gilbert public schools. And um giving that that information, uh we opted
143to go ahead and add FTE and gifted plus the fact that we had a thousand new learners that needed to be uh served. Again, uh we also have to make sure that we are consistent with the M override. And as you know, we were not successful in 2023 with the renewal of the 15% override, but we were successful in November of 2024. We do maintain salary competitiveness. We're maintaining safety and security to include social workers and behavioral health counselors. And we also are maintaining that $2 million annual allocation to class size reduction. So this is the meat of the ba or the basis I guess of of our budget uh proposed budget to you. So note at the end that the 2026 budget includes a very conservative estimate of a loss of 1,300 students. When
144I say conservative, I'm I'm saying that through all of the conversations, with the commun um communications department, with our um student accounting department, they they felt like that uh a loss of 1,300 students would be the worst case scenario. And so, um we opted to use that uh student count loss to build this budget. And this is just a graphical representation. You can see it has declined um over the last four years. So where um just real quick? No, please. So it may be just that it's the conservative estimate and that's why we did 1300. It looks like we were about 600 or so the last two years. Is there reason to project more or we were actually a thousand as it ended up? Um, so you're looking at those are the revisions though. So
145remember the revised budget represents what we actually saved, not the actual um, yeah, let's let's see how do I how do I explain that? So um, revise number four to revise number five to yeah, revise number two to revise number four. Um well you can see the 145 though has to be included as well. Um we're also not done with 2025 I think. Let me let me answer that this way. So this is average daily membership. It represents the average daily membership through 100 days. The 100 days. So we know to date that from the 100th day to theundth and 180th day we have continued to lose students. So based upon that and then cohort movement, we're also not considering the cohort movement. So we know that the number of seniors that are leaving is
146greater than the number of juniors going into the senior class. So those two things in combination are leading to that 1,300 um projection. Um, I think based upon the most recent information from our student accounting team, they said it's probably likely we would lose a,000 to to,00 but not sure. But not sure. This one's 24. So, Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So the proposed K12 budget parameters again um this is based on the governor's part of the part of this is based upon the governor's budget part of it is based upon our own circumstances here in Gilbert public schools. So the governor recommended a base level amount increase of 2% 2% presuming that the inflationary increase will be at least 2%. Um, also the transportation support level, um, that dollar amount
147per mile was increased by 2% based upon the governor's budget. That has not been realized in the forms. So, we have made those adjustments manually in the forms. Um, the student count, again, we're decreasing that by 1,300 students, splitting it equally between elementary and uh, elementary being K8 and 912. And then the teacher experience index, we did see an increase um of that. So it did give us a little bit more budget capacity. So this is our M budget capacity with the budget balance carry forward based upon all those parameters as well as the $1,300 ADM loss. We are starting with a negative $130,000 in our budget going into next year. Was that with the increased budget ballet balance carried forward that we we did do it from revision number four? Yep. So classroom site
148fund uh based upon our prior conversation regarding pay increases classroom site fund is making a large contribution to balancing our budget this year. So you can see that over time our um our dollar amount per student uh continues to increase. Also, it's important to note that we know what this is right now because the uh dollar amount per student is set by the JBC in the spring and it's based upon prior year student count. So, it was based upon the information they had for 2025 that establishes what the funding level is for 2026. So, you can see that based upon that our dollar amount per student, you can go ahead and hit the next slide. I think there's a Oh, there's no slide in there. Okay, go back. Go back. I'm sorry. Um, so you
149can see from here that the um that the dollar amount uh increased by about $50 per student. Um, but we did see a slight decrease in our uh actual allocation. So going from 30.1 million down to 29.8. So we lost about $200,000 or so. Not a significant decrease. That's because of the student count. Because of the student count decrease. Yeah. So remember that student count decrease is reflective of what happened between 24 and 25. So a year prior. And then that's just showing the how the graph changes over time. And you can see that we are always very conservative as well with classroom site fund because it's it potentially can go severely up and down. And when we put all of it into salaries, it's putting our budget at risk over time if there should
150be a precipitous loss in the dollar amount per student. So let's go into our recommended um cost increases then for next year. So these are non-discretionary budgetary increases. These are increases that we really do not have any control over. Um the medical insurance premium increase you have already approved. we have some control over it because we can pass on different amounts to our um to our employees. We can make different decisions within that. Um but we presented uh those recommendations to you um last this this past spring. So right now that premium increase is going to be $1.3 million. Loss of IDA, this is new. We did receive information from the from Department of Ed indicating that our allocation for IDA is going to drop by by a million dollars. So therefore, maintenance and operations
151will have to pick up that additional million dollar. So we're budgeting for that. The estimated inflationary increases with fuel and utilities is a half a million dollars. And then estimated hourly minimum wage increase in January of 2026 is 570,000. that is obligated if the inflationary increase um justifies it. So, we always have that as a placeholder. We were fortunate in January of 2025 that we did not have to pull that trigger and spend that additional dollars because we our minimum wage was already above the um statutoily required one. So, fuel, unless I'm wrong, fuel prices were higher a year ago than they are right now. And we when do we make our agreements because we get we get we get a contract price on fuel for a year. Is that right? No. Uh generally it's
152by um the cost of the load. So it does fluctuate throughout the year. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We could um invest in futures and take a chance that we've never done that, but bury some big tanks in the air. We just do that. Actually, I don't I don't think we're allowed statutoily to do that. But but that's how some some companies hedge the cost of fuel, right, to keep it the same. Um I had a question for the um idea money. So why is there that uh decrease in a million dollars? Is it because of the amount of students who are covered under that? Um, no. It's a good question. It really is a reduction of our allocation from the Department of Ed. So, and I don't know if it's a pass through from
153the federal grant. So, the federal grant has reduced it significantly and so it impacts all the school districts in the state of Arizona. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And then these are the teacher FTE increases that we shared with you earlier. And then the deans to assistant principles. That's about a $320,000 cost increase. Again, just a reminder that all those costs are fully loaded, so they include all the payroll benefits. And then this is the pay increase recommendation. Um, that is the same. You can see the classroom site fund portion, the enterprise portion. We use enterprise to talk about community schools as well as nutrition services. And then you can see the M portion. So the total is 5.66 million. Note the change to the recommendation. So, you are not voting on this proposed budget tonight.
154You are voting on our ability to um publicize the proposed budget for the uh required public hearing in two weeks. Uh so we we will when we finally adopt the budget, we we are recommend recommending that we include this language that Proposition 123 funding um that we only would be able to add the additional 1% if the Prop 123 funding is included in the budget. Right now on the budget forms, it is not it it is silent in the budget forms whether Prop 123 will will continue. And so, um, we are being conservative and not budgeting for that additional money. I'm sorry, I've seen some news stories suggesting that school districts may not receive as much money as they were expecting next year in the budget. Can you tell me if you have any understanding
155of that or not? Are you talking about the Maricopa County? No, no, it's just been a um with the runup in uh the empowerment scholarship accounts. So, there's a couple of things going on right now. There is a uh there's been a lot of press about the fact that we will not receive all of our funding for the current year until the end of July or early August um or until the legislature um approves a supplemental funding bill. So that is part of it. There's 300 millionish that are that's short and so they would hold that back until the legislature acts for the current year for 2025. Okay. But but remember just a reminder that we are budgetarily controlled on our budget. So in the event that we don't receive the cash, we do register
156warrants with Maricopa County and we do incur interest. Um but we are able to meet payroll. So there's not a concern about not being able to meet our obligations. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. So, and then we do have budgetary savings. So, the decrease of personnel. If we are going to truly lose 1,300 students, we truly um do not need 44 FTE of teachers. Again, a reminder, we are not going through a reduction in force. we are going we've we've been able to achieve that loss through normal attrition. Uh in addition, department discretionary budget savings uh the leadership team uh scrutinized all of our discretionary budget lines as departments here in the district office and we were be we were able to close a gap of $1.3 million of additional savings. And then finally, the Arizona
157State retirement savings uh due to the decrease from 12.27 27 to 12%. That saves us nearly $500,000 which was a great gift. So we are basically through that we're coming out even with the pay increase recommendation. We're close. Close. Yeah. Great segue. I just saw Chad doing some quick math. Hold on. Wait. Man, you just you just burst my bubble, man. So, as always, we end by talking about balancing the budget. So, we've got a bunch of minuses, we've got some pluses. So, what is our final budget deficit? So, there's our ongoing available budget. Remember, I'm including the budget balance carry forward. So, we are starting at a negative $130,000. Then we have total non-discretionary increases of 3 3.37 the gifted teacher FTE add-ons and the deans to APs 1.42 million pay increase recommendations and
158then the projected ongoing savings of 5.79 million that leaves us with a total budgetary deficit of 4.8 just about 4.8 million. So then the question from all of you will well how you going to balance that budget if you're short 4.8 million. Um we shared that the classroom site fund has a significant contribution as well as remember that pay increases and the minimum wage increases are largely funded by our enterprise our enterprises which means they are obligated to fund their own pay increases. They are expected to be uh self- sustaining and not to have an impact on the um the district budget. So that's about $430,000 with the classroom site fund contribution. we have a plus again of 4.91 million. So that leaves us with $120,000 in M. And keep in mind that's with the
159budget balance carry forward that we shared with you that's on the budget. But recall that back in um back in April February we made a was it February? The first one, the first one we made a recommendation to you to move $12.5 million of M into unrestricted capital. So, um, and I should have gone through this a little bit slower, but on the budget grid for the maintenance and operations budget, we are budgeting to only move back into M from district additional assistance 3 million, not the full 12.5 million. So, that's going to leave $9.5 million held in unrestricted capital that is intended for M. So, if you add those two together, really, we have uh budget balance savings of $9,620,000. And the reason that we're not moving it all back again is what we
160shared before. Want to make sure that while we have these fairly significant interest rates uh for our savings, we want to take advantage of that as long as we can. Of course, we will move the money if we need to, depending upon what happens in September. we have until December 15th to be able to um change the budget to move that money back. Okay? And that and again remind um reminding you that we we believe that that is the the worst case budget that we're looking at right now. Okay. So now what's really important is to go through more at length um with the proposed unrestricted capital budget as I've shared with you. Now we're in that time frame in which we are really using both M and unrestricted capital in conjunction with one another.
161Those are our only resources that are available to meet our on ongoing capital needs. So as we're going through the unders capital budget uh capacity, you can see that that year-over-year the district additional assistance formula. So that's the formula that's based upon prior year student counts. Again, you can see that the formula results in about um $520,000 less and that is directly because of um the the loss of students between 2024 and 2025. Projected projected well actually it's almost it's actually almost realized. Yeah. That between those two though we're not done with 2025 until they do the statewide recalc. Um but right now uh we are calculating just under 18 million. Then you can see the maintenance and operations to district additional assistance that's in revised number four but you can see that we don't
162have that in the fiscal year 2026 projection. And then you can see the next line which is the district additional assistance to M. That reflects that $3 million that I talked about that's going out of unrestricted capital back into M. And then there's our budget balance carry forward that $31.72 million um which is what we're anticipating based upon the most recent monthly report that we've shared with all of you. We're projecting that as well. And then um finally the interest earned. Again, due to these strategies of trying to keep as much cash into unrestricted capital, we're hoping that our interest earnings would increase by about $130,000 year-over-year. So that's really $1.3 million of new money that we've generated throughout the year. 130,000. 130,000. Okay. But but the 130 I mean the 1.3 million is real.
163That's the additional money that we're that we expect to earn. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Yep. Again, of that $31.72 million in the budget balance carry forward in unrestricted capital, $9.5 million is held for M. Just wanted to remind you it's a little bit of a confusing thing, but just wanted to make sure that that you're aware of that. So now, what is our strategy and how much are we going to spend of that unrestricted capital? We've been working at trying to manage our needs in the current year and trying to plan for the future so that we're able to meet unexpected capital needs in the future. Um, so and the reason is this. So in Gilbert public schools our unrestricted capital funding history you can see that it was dropped precipitously in
1642016 based upon the formula. Um the legislature had to they had to balance the budget and so they reduced the unrestricted capital for school districts um in this manner and we did not uh see the full funding of the formula until you can see where the blue bar and the yellow bar match in 2022. That was when the legislature brought back the unrestricted capital to the funding formula level. So now, and this is only a note, um it's just an indicator of um the struggle that school districts have in meeting their capital needs. Uh so again, I just wanted to share the funding comparison for Arizona school districts versus um versus our charter school funding and and now the uh empowerment scholarship accounts as well. So you can see at the bottom if you look
165at that yellow bar, our K8 students are funded $345 per student less than our charter school counterparts or the um empowerment scholarship accounts. And then for our 912 students, it's about $555 per student less. So based upon that, we just thought, well, let's go ahead and put that into our our um graphical representation and fig so that you can see it graphically how that could have impacted us had we had the same level of capital funding um that was provided to our employee, our um empowerment scholarship accounts or our charter schools. And so on the next slide, you can see that the orange represents what we actually received during those school years and the blue represents what we what we would have had had we been a charter school. It's what we would have had
166had we been a charter school. So based upon all of that, so how are how are we going to spend it? So remember that. Um can you just zoom back a little bit, Jackie? I know this is when my peers absolutely go crazy because I go backwards on the presentation. I want to go back to the final budget capacity on unrestricted capital. So there you can see that our full budget capacity in unrestricted capital is let's just call it $48 million there at the bottom. The total budget limit $48 million. Okay. Now go ahead and go forward to that pie chart. So So of that $48 million we are budgeting in fiscal 2026 to spend 30.6 million. So that's going to leave us roughly $18 million, but I said 9 and a half is held
167on behalf of M. So that leaves us a little over $8 million to move into the 2027 school year to make sure that we have available um uh available capital to meet some unknown need that could occur two two years from now trying to plan for the future. So the biggest takeaway um from this particular graph is that when you look at that 30.62 million and you see the facility renewal. So this is the conversation that Albert and I have had and he's here behind me in case you have some um questions specifically about the planned spend for facility renewal. But we've had a conversation. He said, "Okay, Albert, that's all you got. You only have you only have 15 mill. You only have 15 million. That's it." And then he reminded me, well, Bonnie,
168you know, honestly, back in 2017 when I took over the operations because of that big reduction in unrestricted capital, he said, I was given $500,000 back in 2017. That was pretty remarkable. So, he said, I I think I can do it with 15 million. Um, in addition, remember those hard times? Yeah, it was very hard. Um, in addition, note the $5 million in contingency. Uh the planned spend is $15 million, but we still are we still need to hold money back that we shouldn't plan to spend because again um we had an issue just this week in which one of our um our air conditioning units the um the the pan overflowed and went right into one of our um uh technology network um switches. and the replacement of that was $30,000. So, there are
169stuff that can happen um that would um that we need to make sure that we have money available to be able to meet that in the event of a worst case scenario. So, of that $30.62 million, 20 million is designated for facilities basically. So, leaving about um let's see about about $10 million left for all the other needs. So that $10 million really represents almost nondiscretionary needs. So you can see we've got curriculum and athletics. These are associated with ongoing like I I put athletics and curriculum together because it's about instructional materials to our schools and to the classroom. So that's about two $2.1 million, just under $2.1 million. Uh note that our software, non-instructional software, our student teacher device refresh. Note that those two things together is over 77 $7 million. So roughly 24%
170of the budget. We did uh decide to change our allocation to our schools this year. We had provided an allocation by school of $50,000 for elementary, 100 for junior high, and 150 for high school. We are dropping down that entire budget to $500,000 and are asking our schools to now go ahead and submit what their needs are. They need to be more careful, but we will vet all the needs across the leadership team so that we're prioritizing our capital even at our school level. And then um finally, another reminder about that. So, um, Albert about four or five years ago took over the responsibility of, uh, replacing all the custodial equipment at all of our schools in the event of failure so that our schools didn't have to take on that burden of an unexpected
171failure of a of a floor machine or a scrubber or something of that nature. And so, um, he has a budget of about $60,000 for those as well. So, before I go any further, are there any questions on any of that? Can I just ask? So, so most of those are general funds, but then there's the specific for Greenfield Junior. Oh, yes. Um, so I I purposely put that in there because I wanted to remind you all that we have two pools here in the in Gilbert and they're both um part of the town of Gilbert. So, they are shared facilities. One's at Mosquet Jr., the other's at Greenfield Jr. as part of our IGA with the town of Gilbert, we are obligated to fund one half of all of the repairs associated with both
172of those pools. And so I was notified um in the February time frame that there is a $1.6 million need at Greenfield Jr. and so that means that we have to pay $800,000 on it. And I said, "Holy cow, I'm planning our on street capital budget and we don't have that. Will you allow me to to pay that over over three years? Um, they're hedging hedging a little bit. Um, but um uh they'll they'll at least give us two, but but right now I'm presuming that that the one-third will prevail. And so we're budgeting $300,000 for the Greenfield Junior pool for next year. It's specific to the pool. Is is that IGA something that we look at? Is that something that's just that's negotiated or is is it um Yes. And it's it's not up
173for renewal yet. Um but I will definitely bring that that back to the um to the leadership team as we go through that. Just one note about that. So we do have an IGA that's on the consent tonight with the town of Gilbert and that's related to our trash disposal. So because of and that's an M expense, but because of the um because of the the loss of of revenue, etc. with a potential student loss. So Albert scrutinized all of those trash collections. And so we did go through a right sizing process where we're looking at all of our elementarymentaries, how many pickups and drop offs do they really need? How many at the junior high? How many at the high school? Um so we're we've imposed that then on all of the schools and
174we're going to wait and see what happens. If there is a problem then we will just revisit that but we were able to um take a significant amount of money out of that cost. Okay. So the facility renewal pot. So you can see that that I I severely told um Mr. Dutch over that he all he has is $15 million. But he says but Bonnie I need 15.2. So, my point is that he's already gone into the contingency, right, that $5 million contingency of budget by $200,000. But there's another part of the story as well. Um Albert is working with his team um in the operations department and they're they're identifying uh all of the potential building renewal grant projects. So, of that $15.2 2 million in building renewal. About 12 million is in roofs,
175which depending upon the level of disrepair, depending upon an assessment by an architect. Um it's possible we will be eligible for some funding from from the um SFD, now they're called the school facilities department. And um so so I'm not concerned about the 15.2 million because I do believe that we'll get some of that back. So, um, so here are the the details. And again, I I did ask, um, Mr. Dutch over to be here this evening. So, if you have any any, uh, questions about any of these, but you can see that this is very detailed about what he plans on spending uh, for all of those schools. And you can see the age of the elements. Um, and you can see that many of them are original. Uh, and so if you look
176at 2000, I mean, we're at we're at 25 years later now. So roofs are generally 20 to 22 years of life. Um you can see some of the HVAC equipment that's up at the top. Uh interesting at Spectrum Elementary they have 70 package units on on their roof. Um so that's a $1.5 million cost just just to keep the building cool or warm depending upon the time of year. Mostly needing it to be cool in Arizona. But you can see the dollars that are going to roofs. So, um, Albert is starting with Desert Ridge High to make that the first, um, the first request for funding from the build, from the BRG. Any questions about any of that? Move my microphone. What's the miscellaneous projects district-wise? Really? Those are tiny little things that are Oh
177my gosh. Yeah. A very, very peacemeal across the board. I don't know, Albert, do you know what all those were? I group them all together. It's about a million dollars. We have some like roofing fascia, town metal. Oh, yeah. Stuff like that. Bearing replacements, things like that towers. We have uh we have a situation that we identified by using our asset planner. It's our database. And um there's hatches that go up to the roof that are on um uh they're roof maintenance access. The maintenance access hydraulics, but they're hydraulics. Thank you. But they're on hydraulic lifts and those have failed. And so actually part of that uh miscellaneous projects includes assessing all those which ones do we need to replace wholesale which ones do we just need to replace the um the hydraulics on it.
178Um so that's one of those projects. So this is going to be oddly specific but as a board member I have the privilege of asking oddly specific questions. So, at Ashlin Ranch Elementary, they haven't had water on their field for months, and it's just a giant dirt field. Is that one of those miscellaneous projects? And when what's the update on that? We actually talked about that today. I owe it to I owe it to Yeah, I owe it to Miss Carlson to ask. I've actually spoke to Suzanne and actually spoke to a couple uh community members. So, all it it's been about the last year has been a group of unfortunate events. So it went from we lost the pump, a booster pump which obviously feeds uh pressure to the facility, it's on about 13
179acres. So as you as you continue to open up zones, that pressure drops. So we use a booster pump to increase that water pressure. Booster pump went out. Secondary, the VFD that controls that booster pump went out as well. Okay. So we got well with the long lead time on the pump was one of the biggest issues. So we had to isolate water. We really couldn't water. Um, and then we had a line break. Then we had an issue with a it's a it's called a clay valve, which was an old device that was part of the system. So, as of last Friday, we're 100% we're back on. We're fired up. The leaks been the the brake up front has been repaired. Um, all the other issues have been resolved. Pressure is back. So, we're
180back 100% there. And we're pumping. We're pushing water. and we're going to airate, fertilize, and add additional seeds. So, we're in that process right now. So, we're we're back live there. So, no, no, I I mean, I I've spoken to Suzanne constantly and I've given her kudos for her patience and I mean, she she's been great. So, So, tell us what the total cost of that is for you to get that going. You put me on the spot right now. Um, well, the at least the booster pump. Yeah, the booster pump and the VFD were we're probably looking at uh probably close to60 to $70,000 between those two. Um fortunately, the leak was repaired by through our contract with uh Bright View, so that was already taken care of in house. Um and then we
181also take took care of the um uh the faulty clay valve inhouse as well with our in-house plumber. So that that came other than labor, it came at no cost. So thank you. So all of that story is why we need to maintain some contingency in our capital budget. And you should know that all of those repairs are on the current year's budget. So it's already encumbered and so it's not included here because this is 2026. We've already spent it. I had a question on that la that last slide. So, are these like the total amount cost for these repairs and maintenance? Are they have we already gone through the bid process for that or is this our expected cost for those improvements? Um, yes and no. Um, something like the Spectrum, we're actually going
182through the bid process right now. That's a rough estimate based on comparables that we've done um replacements we've done in the past. Uh, roofing, yes, that's those are solid numbers. um other than just just um updated quotes, those numbers will still stand. So, a good majority of these we've already went through the process of getting uh true dollar amounts associated with them. And then we like to do that just for that purpose just to have an idea of what that exact cost will look like so we don't shortfall ourselves. Thank you. Well, and I'd like to share too that all of these projects are consistently identified in our asset planning software that we that we purchased um associated with our master capital planning process. So, all of these ca rose to the top in terms
183of a critical need or a high need. Um, and so we're we're being consistent with our prioritization uh as we're continuing to scrutinize the database and making sure that it is representing what we what we expect it to. And there's some costs in theirs too to answer your question that are based upon the experience of our consultant and how they assess the costs of various things throughout the state of Arizona and they update those annually. Um so those some of the costs are directly out of our asset planning software as well. Thank you. Okay. And then finally um other fund budgets I shared with you. So our community schools and nutrition services those are what we fondly refer to as our enterprise funds. Uh the instructional improvement funds that is largely our fund that goes
184towards supporting the professional development of our teachers. We took um a big chunk of those monies in the current year as we were implementing the new math um curriculum. Uh then the state and federal grants, you can see the the the dollar amount decrease there of overall about $4 million. I shared with you that IDA was um decreased by a million. We have seen decreases in title one, title two and title four as well. uh but those those particular funds they have to rightsize the spend in IDEIDA were obligated to meet the needs of those students. So the costs have to be transferred into the maintenance operations budget. So just so that that's clear. Um and in addition uh the the carryover is not included in the 2026 proposed budget for those state and federal
185grants. That has been our practice. We know what the allocation is today. We don't know for sure how much is going to be awarded uh to allocate next year but as soon as that as soon as we know that we will update the budget accordingly. And then oh I'm sorry go back one more um Jackie and then finally you can see that our other cash funds and these are largely at our schools but tax credit auxiliary and donations you can see that that remains fairly consistent year-over-year uh about $22 million. And then average teacher salary. This is just a calculation. We just took the 2025 actual average salary and increased it by 2% to reflect um that $68,870. And that again is on it's on the front page on the front page of the budget.
186And then finally, estimated tax rates. So our um you can see that that uh our primary tax rate has decreased uh from 3.2 down to 3.16 primarily due to the decline of the qualifying levy. We have received that information from the joint legislate joint legislative budget committee. So we know what that is. The other item that's in the primary is the um the difference between the transportation revenue control limit and the Transportation support level is funded by the state of Arizona. The transportation revenue control limit is a calculation and the difference is funded by the local taxpayer on the primary tax rate. And then finally you can see the secondary which is our M override and class B bonds. And overall we're estimating our tax rate would go down about 19 cents in to in
187total. Um that also is a conservative estimate. Uh we don't have all of the cash available uh in the debt service fund which has to go towards funding the debt service next year. Um so we we believe that once we set that tax rate in um August it will be it'll be a larger savings than that 19 cents that's shown up there. A risk and opportunity shared this with you. So AAL is still looming. So in 2024 it was $48.2 million. I'm using 2024 because it was a non-event in the current year because the the budget was um that was included to override it in the budget negotiations. There could be a further loss of students. We believe that we are ultra-conservative but we could lose more. Um legislature reduces funding from the governor's budget.
188Uh in associated with that the inflationary increase to the base could be less. So if inflation comes back at 1.8% 8% um for the year legislation or um the law says that the base level amount shall be increased by the lesser of actual inflation or 2%. So we have 2% increase in the budget. Um and then minimum wage increases more than projected. We do believe that we're pretty good with that $500,000 or so. and then unexpected large inflationary increases which we're monitoring which is one of the other reasons why we went through that trash grid um so closely um that's presented to you tonight in in consent there are opportunities as well we've seen opportunities to your point um Dr. Robison, we have beat our uh projection. Uh so we did we did budget for
189a 1,200 student loss um for the current year and we ended up with just over a,000 and that's to date. That's not a,000 ADM that's a,000 enrollment. Okay. So um so we beat that by 200 ADM which is consistent uh pretty pretty um significant. And then it's possible the legislature could approve additional funding. Uh legislature restores Prop 123. That would add about $2.2 million to our budget and then costs could stabilize or decrease. We possibly could see a decrease in some of the costs associated with our special education students. We don't know. So we're just making our best projection at this point in time. And that is just a reminder that you're approving the notice of a public hearing in action item 8.03. And do we have any questions? I think we're done. I I
190have a question. So, um, your budget projections have left all Prop 123 monies out. They have for for the budget capacity. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's very conservative, but we'll see what happens. Any other questions? Well done. Fantastic job. Thank you very much. Very good explanation. Thank you. All right. [Music] We're going to go ahead and adjourn our work study uh meeting and move right into our brief board business meeting. I'll call this meeting to order and ask Miss Wilson to uh perform roll call it on here Murray here Dr. Blake here here Mr. Jess here Mr. President. All board members are present. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Uh we'll move right into our consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as outlined on our agenda? So moved. Thank you,
191Dr. Robersonson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Murray. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda as outlined on our agenda tonight, say I. I any opposed? Thank you very much. Moving on to our action items. Uh 8.01 superintendent performance pay for fiscal year 2024 to 2025. Is there a motion? I move that we approve Dr. McCord's performance pay for FY 2024 2025. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Mr. Briner. Uh we'll now go ahead and there any discussion? Is there any anybody have any comments in regards to 8.01? Well, I I would like to make a comment. I think that um in reviewing all that we have accomplished. I think it's quite quite incredible. I feel like we've really put a lot into um increasing our
192academics and really looking at the data to help our students do better. And obviously we're coming up with some really innovative programs to um challenge students and give parents choice uh just as the one we heard about tonight with Mosquite High School. And I just um I've just been really impressed with all that we've been able to accomplish. And I know that it's a team effort and there are a lot of people working on it, but Dr. McCord is the leader of that team and I appreciate all that he's done. Yeah, I would just echo the same thing and and looking particularly in the past year, but but even back several years as where we were as a district and and where we are now. And I think um we made great strides in in
193all areas. So really really impressive to look through all the different strategic plan and goals the districts had and and that we're hitting them. And so I think Dr. McCord to, you know, his credit is the first one to pass the credit on to his his his team and and he has a a great team and and um and we we appreciate all that work. Um and and definitely appreciate Dr. McCord as the leader of them and and and deserves recognition for that. I think you've done a pretty good job. I work with good people. I think you've earned yourself another year. Well, thanks. Um, I just want to say thank you to Dr. McCord for all of your hard work. I think a lot of people don't understand the scale of your position. Uh,
194with the number of staff that uh are in the district, you're essentially at the helm of a what would be the equivalent of a Fortune 500 company. And uh it is truly a 24/7 job. Uh we get emails all hours of the day and sometimes uh at night on weekends and uh you are uh always always the first one to respond and to also let us know what's going on. Keep us in the loop. um always available to each one of us, which is hugely important. I know it's not like that in all school districts. And so um I think that uh in in my opinion, you've set the standard for a superintendent and we're uh truly fortunate to have you uh steering this ship. Thank you. So, thank you. And this is a welldeserved
195uh performance pay. Um, is there are there any other comments? I can echo a little bit of that as well. And I only worked with you for a short amount of time, but just um getting to know you. I've really appreciated your support and it is great that we it feels like a team right away. And I think that's one of the most important things and so appreciate you for all that you do and I'm looking forward to working another year with you and thank you for everything. All right, if there's nothing else, we'll go ahead and call for a vote. Uh all those in favor of approving Dr. McCord's superintendence performance pay for fiscal year 2024 2025 say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Well done. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much. I
196appreciate it. 8.02, revision number four of the fiscal year 2025 expenditure budget under ARS15-915. Is there a motion to approve revision number four? Uh, which one of you want that? I'll second it. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Briner and Dr. Robersonson. Uh, Mr. Briner for making the motion and Dr. uh, Mr. Briner for making the motion and Dr. Robersonson for seconding. Uh, is there any discussion on revision number four? Okay, then we'll go ahead and vote. Uh, all those in favor of approving revision number four of the fiscal year 2025 expenditure budget under ARS15-915, say I. I. I. Any opposed? And that passes. 8.03. Advertisement for fiscal year 2026. Proposed budget summary and public hearing notice. That's the presentation that we just had. Not to approve the budget, but to approve the advertisement of the budget
197for a meeting that's coming up in a couple weeks. Uh, is there a motion to approve the advertisement for fiscal year 2026 proposed budget summary and public hearing notice? So moved. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Murray. Is there any discussion? Is there is this this is uh do we have to sign something for this after the meeting for this one or the revision? Yep. Okay. So stick so stick around. All right. Go ahead and call for a vote on 8.03. All those in favor of approving the advertisement for fiscal year 2026 proposed budget summary and public hearing notice say I. I. I. Any opposed? And that passes. 8.04 Mass communication system parent family student and staff engagement parent square. Is there a motion? Okay. Motion that we table
198okay this till the next meeting to give the opportunity to look into another possibility. Okay. And I'll second that. Um is there any discussion that anyone would like to have right now regarding this? I I really um feel like due diligence has already been done. I I appreciate um you know looking into this, but I think when we do look into it, we'll just um realize that this parent square is the one we want. I mean, there's a number of districts that have already adopted it, but um because of concerns, I'm willing to table it for now. Okay. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Anything else? I'll go ahead and call for a vote then. All those in favor of tableabling uh the approval of the mass communication system parent family student and staff engagement parent square
199uh until two weeks from now um say I I any opposed all right that's done uh 8.05 05 uh policy development first read of policy 3-403 technology and policy 5-305 student code of conduct. Is there a motion? I'll go ahead and move that we uh approve the first read of policy 3-403 technology and policy 5-305 student code of conduct. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there any discussion on this? Okay, then I'll call for a vote. All those in favor of approving the uh first read of policy 3-403. Just a point of order. We didn't allow Dr. McCord to talk about what the policy change is on a Thank you, Miss Humphre. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Dr. from a court. Is there anything you'd like to discuss regarding the policy uh
200the first read? So, uh technology 3-403 basically uh this says the district shall restrict student use of district provided and personal wireless communication devices during the school day. Students shall be permitted to use wireless communication devices during the school day only as specifically authorized by the district in accordance with the ARS15-120.05. 05. Um, and it goes on to basically say the district shall restrict student access to social media platforms other than as authorized by a staff member uh for approved educational purposes. And uh again, this is wrapped into legislation that was passed and signed by the governor uh recently. And as we brought this up at our policy committee meetings, uh that legislation is reflected in this policy. And then for policy uh 5-305, so policies related to uh wireless communication devices for students is
201held within our student code of conduct and that is uh reflected all the way down in number 30 uh of things that are restricted and it's cellular phone and other wireless communication devices. A student shall not use a cellular telephone or electronic wireless communication device during the school day, including meals, passing periods, uh, and recess, except is expressly permiss permitted by the district. Uh, restrictions are listed in the procedure 3 or 5-305.A, the district's technology use agreement, uh, and ARS 15-120.05. Um, again it goes down to 33 under the inappropriate use of technology. A student shall not use their personal wireless communication devices during the school day unless permitted by the district. Policy 34 3-403. A student shall not access the internet, including social media platforms, unless permitted by a supervising teacher for educational purposes.
202Now, I think it's worth uh pointing out that in Boom boom uh procedure 5-305.8 as a policy committee as a governing board. We've outlined what those restrictions are and for K through eight, uh, kindergarten through sixth grade, elementary, 7th and eighth grade, junior high, um, we have outlined that students are, and I'll use this term, cell phone devices are away for the day, which means they are not allowed to pull them out during the school day. That includes passing periods as well as uh, lunchtime. uh with the exceptions of emergency reasons. Uh um medical medical yeah medical reasons as well as permitted by teachers in the classroom uh for educational purposes. For grades 9 through 12, they are permitted to use those during passing periods as well as lunchtime. And again, but in the classroom,
203those cellular phones should be away during the class period unless uh for emergency purposes, for educational purposes, or for medical purposes. And so that has been outlined in those areas. The change here is essentially touches on the junior high um where students are allowed to have their cellular phones out for passing periods and lunches. And so this will no longer be permitted at the junior high based on what we're about to discuss and approve for the first read. All right. Thank you. Did I sum that up? Okay. Based on Okay. Just wanted to make sure if I missed something. Is there any discussion? Well, I I think I would like to um first the governor has passed a law that that um specifically talks about students and wireless um communication devices and cell phones. So,
204we're trying to be in line with what the legislature has given us and um also trying to address the um concerns and issues that arise with um cell phone usage and providing a maybe a safe space for our students so that hopefully they will learn to interact more face to face and maybe you know there's Facebook and then there's face to face. So we want to focus on face to face and and helping students to engage and hope that our campuses can do that. Yeah, I echo echo that. I think the uh the face-to-face engagement among students is is important especially during these years when they're developing their brains are developing these interpersonal skills are developing. I think this is a uh a good step in the right direction for helping our students uh learn
205how to function in uh life after after GPS. So thank you Miss Humphre. You're welcome. Is there any other discussion? Okay. As with any first read, this will this won't go back to a policy committee meeting. Um because we don't have one scheduled before the next board meeting, but um if there are any changes or any board members like to discuss me their thoughts individually, I'd be happy to listen and and if there are changes to this for the second read, I that's where you would discuss it and make those changes. So, thank you, Dr. McCord. Uh I'll call for a vote. Uh, all those in favor of approving the first read of policy 3-403, technology and policy 5-305, student code of conduct, say I. I. I. Any opposed? And that passes. Thank you. 8.06
206discussion on the renewal of membership with Arizona Board School Board Association. Uh, is there a motion? I'll go ahead and make the motion that we have a discussion on the renewal of membership with Arizona School Board Association. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. So, I asked that uh this item be put on uh our agenda this evening. And I would like to uh propose and move that we do not renew our membership with the Arizona School Board Association uh for a number of reasons. Um some of those being we don't use the ASBA for policy anymore, which was the primary reason that we use them in the past, which is uh anyway. Um some other reasons are that uh there are opportunities for I know that they provide trainings for board members
207um and those opportunities are still available through the ASBA um on an individual basis if anybody would like to participate in those. Also, the association has uh become more political and uh with an increased um difference in in philosophical views that don't align uh that don't align with that. Some of some of them don't align with our district goals and values. Um, and so for those reasons, I would move that we do not renew our membership with the Arizona School Board Association. Um, does anybody else have any comment on this? Well, I I just want to say um if we if we do this, it won't the training won't be available to all board members. You know, there's there's a cost associated to these trainings and for someone like me who's going to starting up,
208I won't be able to afford those trainings anymore. And so, I I think that in our oath of office, we talk about serving to the best of our ability. And these trainings so far have been able to really, I think, help me understand how to be fiscally minded um with our budgets. This past weekend, we had trainings with the Arizona Department of Education as well as the Auditor General's office on some of the mistakes that boards in our state have made with financial mismanagement. So, I believe what I've learned through those trainings have been extremely beneficial and will be beneficial for us to be good stewards of taxpayer money. And I think again if we take away this training, you know, we could end up in, you know, bad positions other school districts that have
209not received training. Um, we've been part of ASBA for I don't know when we exactly started since, um, but I think it was the 7 late7s. Um, and we left in 2012 for two years. And during that time, um there was a lot of legal issues with the district, maybe unrelated. Uh we had at least three investigations by the attorney general's office on open meeting law. Um ASBA, every event I've attended, uh we've gone over that in detail. And I think that's that training, that professional development has been so huge in being able to advocate for our families, for our taxpayers, and for our students. And so I think us leaving would be very detrimental. Thank you, Mr. Briner. Any other comments? Yeah, I I really um seeing this item has given me a lot
210of angst this week because I I just want to share a little bit of my story. Um some of you are new board members, so you may not be aware, but um some people who are in the audience may not be aware, but I was elected to the board and I took a vacancy. So my um service started in December of 2012. In January of 2013 um two other new board members were also seated and there began um some very difficult times for our district. We had four superintendent in one year. or um one superintendent was um left or left and then we had an interimm superintendent that only lasted 9 months. And then we had an interim interimm superintendent who took over for the last 3 months and was able to add some calm
211to our district. And then um we had a permanent superintendent who was here for 3 years. We lost our entire superintendency. Every superintendent left, including Dr. McCord, who went to Mesa for three years. We lost eight principles. We lost many teachers and staff. And that was an extremely hard time to be a new board member. I was fortunate in that I had a mentor board member, Lily Tram, who was um working with me and helping me through that. Uh but I found that attending ASBA trainings was critical to my understanding and trying to make things work better under difficult circumstances. Um I would have to very much disagree with the picture that you've painted of ASBA, Mr. Thompson. I put in the words Arizona and associations and there are a number of associations including um
212if you'll just let me Arizona Arizona Association of Realators, Arizona State Orthodontic Association, Arizona Airports Association, Arizona Association of School Business Officials, Arizona Association of School Psychologists. Um having an association is the the mechanism that we have for professionals to do two things include training and advocate for their profession. And um I have found I feel like there's a misperception of what ASBA is all about. I I am a very altruistic person and I think it's really important that everybody does well. We are one of the um most affluent districts in our state and we're also one of the biggest districts in our state. So we are at the cap of what is paid in membership. So our membership in ASBA not only helps us, it supports the smaller and rural districts around us because
213ASBA membership is um according to your budget and number of students. So when we have very small districts, they have a small budget. So they have to pay proportionally. Um but I think the training uh is very very important to me and the networking with other board members. Um Jesse and I both attended the summer leadership institute. Um, I was sitting at a a board t uh table with other board members and on my one hand was a lady who was the um executive director for a senior center in Tuba City and across from me was a gentleman who was serving on the Mingus Union High School board and he is a 30-year veteran of the military and teaches um graduate level courses on conflict resolution. So I thought that was a a broad diversity
214of views and um I f I found for myself that even though there was a lot of learning in the classes that I took um the learning from being able to talk to other school board members who also care about public education was incredibly um important to me. Um I just want to share I happen to throw in my uh agenda. So I just want to share some of the classes that were provided. Um and as well there were two wonderful keynote speakers but I just want to mention one Matt Lurman um of social prosperity partners. I had a chance to talk with him individually because I signed up for a focus group and he has been working with the Gilbert Town Council in the last two years to help them facilitate and work better
215together. Um and and we got to hear from him and get training from him and I thought it was extremely helpful. I mean, I came home from this conference feeling, okay, we may have differences of opinion, but that's okay. It's okay to have a difference of opinion. It's important to work together and to um work towards helping students do better and helping our public education system function better. Um it there was a lot of talk about building trust and relationships. Some of the other um breakout sessions that we had was um storytelling and the impact of personal leadership. Uh let's see what's been happening at the capital. So we got a summary of what's happening down at the legislature. Um I went to the breakout session of uh a community of possibilities visioning with courage
216by Matt Lurman. Um there was a breakout session on furpa. I wasn't able to attend that one. One of the challenges is there's so many good classes to take that I wish they would repeat a couple because I would have liked to attend that class but I went to a different one which was also really good. Um I let me go to on Saturday uh we had some more breakout sessions. I went to one on because I had suggested this one on the book how not to be a terrible school board member by Richard E mayor which I know I've given you each a copy and so that was very helpful it was um the Florence school board they used it for a book study and so they were discussing it um there was another
217breakout session on from outreach to impact strengthen family involvement through communication Um and then I did attend a breakout session on public speaking. What you say matters and that was a very effective helpful I mean I did a lot of public speaking in high schools. So I don't know that I learned something new but it was just a good reminder which is what I find all of my ASBA trainings is that it helps me to do better and improve myself as a board member. It helps me to see the big picture of what's happening and it also um helps me to connect and network with other people. But I I did want to share um these are some things that I have brought back from my ASBA training to our district that has been I
218think beneficial. Um, first was a superintendent search. Um, because of this dysfunctional board, right away we had to do a superintendent search and um, talking to other board members and working through that process was very helpful. Um, second was Chromebooks. This was something brought up by a previous superintendent. Um, I wasn't all on board with it at first. I was really worried about kids having this technology and access and what would they get into and um but I think it's provided real benefits for our students in that they've learned technology they've learned I mean let's just admit that if you're not technologically proficient you're a real disadvantage in this age and I would say we have a great technology department that's really locked that down so kids don't get to websites that they shouldn't get
219to. So, a lot of concerns that parents had at the time were addressed and and have not been an issue. Um, but I think what was really important about this was we put those we started to to go down that road of having Chromebooks. So then when I think it was about 6 years before the pandemic when the pandemic happened then we were not scrambling to get Chromebooks for our kids. We had 7 through 12 everybody had a Chromebook and we had a lot that we had passed down to the elementary schools. So I think that was a huge initi initiative. It wasn't that it was my idea, but it was that because I learned about it through ASBA, I was better able to support what was done and it turned out to be a
220real advantage for us. Um, another one was uh one conference I went to was probably the annual conference. There was a session by the Daart school district and they were talking about a program that they have to train administrators. Um I I thought that sounded like something that we could use. I brought it back to the the person who was superintendent at the time and I just expressed what I had learned. Um that superintendent called the superintendent of Daart learned about the program and that's our current Aspire program. that was put into place and I am grateful to Dr. McCord for continuing that program. Um, another thing that ASBA has been really helpful to me. Um, we had Gilbert Junior High closed it and I think it was the first meeting I was a board
221member. Um, that vote was um, we reopened it or I mean we voted not to close it at that first board meeting. I was able to talk to um a board member who had who was in Paradise Valley and they had gone through a successful school closure for two of their elementary schools. And it was helpful to me um because we did have challenges that I think not only impacted our board and our district, but it led I also think to many of the charter schools that now are in Gilbert in our area. But um just talking to someone else and hearing their process and then working towards a better process, which I say it took about 5 years to get a better process to where we actually made a tough and hard decision to
222close Gilbert Junior High, move GCA onto that campus. But that decision, as hard as it was, was beneficial for all kids in our district. and find fiscally responsible. Um, just one last one that I picked out was um it was kind of uh Mike Davis was the p the principal of Pioneer Elementary and he shared with me about how he was using data as his school to improve student achievement and um I really appreciate that. But I attended some conferences at ASBA where they really helped me to understand the need for data more and why it was important and how we can use the um standardized testing and look at that data to improve student achievement. So those are just some of the things I've brought home from ASBA and I am very very concerned
223having served on a dysfunctional board that there if there is not an opportunity for board members to get training that there will be challenges. There will be challenges that this functional board did we did hire someone who came from Texas and trained us and we did come up with the first um core beliefs and commitments that are in the front of our um policy manual that every can everyone can look at that um it has statements regarding student achievement staff families and community. Um, so I'm proud of that and we did that with some help and some training, but I know that the training of flying someone in from Texas costs a lot more than anything that that ASBA would charge. Um just just so you know um if with the ASBA membership as it
224currently stands um attending the conferences and pre-conferences comes out to about $2,625 a year. That's what it was for this year. um in with a non-member status attending the pre-conferences and the conferences would cost a board member $7,875. So that's out of reach possibly for I mean I know it's out of reach for Jesse, but it's probably out of reach for me too because that's that's a lot of money. And I I really I think our membership in ASBA is really important. I think training and learning it's something we're an educational institution. So training and learning should be an important value for us and considering um that that training can be beneficial to all of us and I would love all of us to go to the legal conference together. I know as a teacher
225that uh you may not be able to be there but um the legal conference is one of the highlights of the year and there's a lot to learn there. Um, so I am very opposed to removing our membership from ASBA and I would like to to make a substitute motion that we table this until we the next board meeting where ASBA could come and present to us because I haven't talked about everything that they offer or do. that um I think before we remove oursel from membership, we consider um tableabling so that we can study the issue more because again I lived in that dysfunctional board and lived with that for two years. It was an extremely hard time to be a board member and I appreciate how well we have all worked together, but
226I would like to continue getting training and I I would say I would hope that others would also want to go get training through ASBA. It's I I know um you know there it is a member-driven organization. The people who run that are elected. I mean, I've run for office there. Um, and I think that they're they've been around for 70 years, and it's just like any other association. There may be differences of opinion, but we're coming together to support our values, which is school board service and having great school boards that are effective and capable in making locally controlled decisions for their community. Thank you, Miss Humphre. Is there Dr. Robinson, do you have any comments? Yeah. So, so there was a motion to table. There's a motion to table. Did I Are we
227just Are we doing the discussion or are we discussing the motion to not renew right now? So, I I made a motion to not renew and that's what we're discussing. And that's what we're I I'll withdraw my motion to table until we finish discussing. I would like to I withdraw my motion. Okay. Thank you. Um, Dr. Ward, can you do you know how much we spend annually for Well, I think the for the membership it's around $14,600. I checked on that. That's $14,930. Okay. So, just just about $15,000 and then another amount on meetings. Just depends on how many people go to any conference related to that. Uh but um it could be if if you attended all of the conferences and pre-conferences this year, that's $2,625, right? Okay. And and without the membership, you
228said it was $7,000. $7,875 per board member. Um so somewhere in excess of of $20,000. Um so I I agree. I I feel that training and collaboration is super important for for board members. So, it's it's really important that I re receive uh training. Um it's important to to me and I've sought out a lot of training, a lot of opportunities with a lot of different organizations both through Zoom calls as well as in person. So, I think there is an abundance of opportunities that are out there. I do think with that funding as well, we could even bring someone in for like retreats and things like that for our district and do do training. So, I I feel like I value training just as much. I feel like there's there's other ways to get
229that for collaboration. I think we're fortunate that uh we we have several opportunities throughout the year to collaborate with other school districts um through the meetings that we have with them and and so I've appreciated those opportunities and I I agree. I think that those are important opportunities um that that we have outside of the ASBA to do and I mean I really do appreciate everything that with Miss Humphre. I know it's heartfelt. I know this isn't really important to you. Um and and I respect that and I'm sensitive to that. Um, I did ask several other board members, um, recent board members, um, who I I think were part of a very functional board who who didn't feel that way and didn't get that benefit from it. And so I I I think that
230I think that your experience would be in the minority of of Gilbert Public School board members. Um and and so in talking with them and and even talking with district leaders, um it it seems like the reason we were still members of ASBA was for for policy. And now that we get that through the trust that there's there's not that need. And so for me, I I'm basing it solely just off physical fiscal responsibility that we have and and not to other districts um but to our GPS district to our GPS taxpayers and to our GPS students. And and for that reason, I think it's it's always so hard to to get emails from parents or have students that like spoke to us at the previous meeting about programs that we're having to cut at
231schools. And those are super hard choices. And so we're making hard choices. And so for me, this is this is one of those choices that I think the value is not there. And so for that reason, I I do support not renewing. I have a question. What board members have attended ASBA events to see what it's all about and see the value of the training? I attended one training my first month as a board member. I haven't attended ASBA, but after the list that I was just presented, I've attended countless trainings at this point as a teacher and as an administrative assistant for my internship. Um, so I do I understand the value of it because I have sat in rooms with people for those trainings many times. I think also we should, you know,
232maybe there are some foreign board members who didn't like ASBA, but I think one thing is we've been in it since it originated except two years. We did have board member involvement, especially during the early 2000s. In 2000, MNA Shepard, our board president, was the president of the Arizona School Board Association. During that time, we're having issues getting state dollars um to improve, you know, to build more school campuses. And so what ASBA and her advocacy was to get more funding umh for our school as a growing district. And so I think there's a lot of parts of ASBA. And I think I think it'd be beneficial especially, you know, for myself since, you know, you're hearing just my perspective of going to trainings to have someone from ASBA speak to us to explain what
233do we get as members. And I think, you know, I think maybe we could utilize that. I'm not sure what other trainings are out there that kind of provide that variety as well as the member, you know, how many other schoolboard members are there. When we left in 2012, uh we were one of two districts who weren't in ASBA. I'm not sure what that status would be now, but it's part of our history. Um especially with our former board members, and I really think it, you know, I oppose leaving the membership Okay. So, there's a motion on the floor to not renew our membership with the Arizona School Board Association. Is there a second? No, he he seconded it previously. Oh, he did? Okay. Yes. So, right, I was offering the I was amending to
234the motion to table it so we could have a presentation from ASBA. That has not been seconded at this point because I withdrew my motion and now I'm putting it back on the table. Okay. So, we've got Thank you, Mr. Briner, for seconding that. Um, so I I guess procedural vote on the submotion. Yes. and then go back to the original motion. Okay. Depending depending on what if the submotion passes then we're done. If it fails, then we go back to the original motion. Okay. So, all those in favor, can we speak to the submotion? Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. We can discuss this. I just and and I and I mean this sincerely, Jill, I I don't think that anyone could deliver a more passion and sincere plea than you did. I I don't need
235to hear from the ASBA. Um, I I think you did a very good job. I know how passionate you are. You did a great job representing what ASBA can do. With that said, I I I still support not renewing and and I I don't feel the need to table to hear from the SBA. You know, I I appreciate the motion. I think, you know, it's important for our public to know as well what ASBA um provides. And making sure that we have someone from ASBA talk to not only us, but to our constituents to know what ASBA is all about from that professional standpoint, I think would be beneficial to us to make the right decision uh for our taxpayers and and our our students. And so I think more information is always good and,
236you know, I think it'd be best for um for our community. Is there any other comment on the submotion? Okay. Then I'll call for a vote on the submotion. Uh all those in favor of tableabling uh the motion to renew or to not renew our membership. Make sure I'm saying this right. All those in favor of the sub motion to table this discussion until the ASBA has a chance to come out and make a presentation say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Nay. Nay. All right. So that motion does not pass. Call a question. What's that? Call to question or call for a vote. What's our No, now now we just move back to the original motion. Right. And I'm I'm I'm trying to close the discussion and vote. Okay. So, all those
237in favor of of not renewing our membership with the Arizona School Board Association, say I. I. I. Any opposed? Nay. Nay. That passes. Thank you very much. And that brings us to the end of our brief board business meeting. Is there a motion to adjurnn our meeting this evening? So moved. Thank you, Dr. Robersonson. Is there a second? Second. Thank you, Miss Murray. All those in favor of adjournment, say I. I. Any opposed? And that's it. Thank you very much.