Gilbert Public Schools Board Meeting 2/4/2025

001e their spot e look all right we'll go ahead and get started um like to welcome everybody to tonight's work study it's Tuesday February 4th I'm going to call this meeting to order and uh we will jump right into agenda item number two uh fiscal year 2025 revised budget number one presentation Dr McCord thank you Mr President governing board members we will also probably throw in just segue right into Maybe I'm Wrong 2.02 FY 2025 monthly financial report and second qual financials blah blah blah blah right that sound right yes sir cuz I've got Lauren and Jackie captured roll well Miss Betts uh go ahead and introduce Our Guest thank you U president Thompson Dr McCord board members I'm very happy to turn this present ation over to Miss Jackie Matman our Director of Finance

002as well as Lauren toska who most of the time is our budget manager but to date she's been doing lots of different things um however they're the ones who worked on the revised budget and so I will just be providing support tonight so with that I'm going to hand it over to M Matman great thank you Miss bets so we are presenting the fiscal 2025 revised budget number one we are not required to revise the budet budg at this time however uh after the final recalculation of fy4 we find it beneficial to um capture some of those new numbers so we'll share that exciting uh information with you now so tonight's report will include student student counts and ADM FY 2025 revised M and unrestricted Capital budgets we'll talk a little bit about other funds

003and finally average teacher salary so this is their ADM comparison FY 24 to fy2 Revis number one uh that top that top row is the inperson attendance so FY 24 revised number two was 30672 this the second column um as we work through the adopted budget the proposed and the adopted we're working from estimations only so because that work is done in July so we estimated uh 20 a TW sorry 1,200 student loss for the adop opted budget so that brought us down to 29707 uh now after the final recalculation of the fy4 um we are back up to 3,65 so there's an increase of 358 which is really um something to celebrate also uh Arizona online uh last year they were counted separately this year in fy2 they are counted as part of their

004uh brick and mortar schools this is a graphical representation of our ADM comparison year-over-year um you'll notice that we go back to FY 2019 as that was kind of our first quote unquote or last sorry normal year uh preco so you can see the um the differences year-over-year and again we're at 3,65 today okay all right a little bit about m&o um there's a lot happening here so bear with me um so similar setup as the previous um table we've got FY 2024 Revis number two all the way over to this revision I did want to point out that that um farri column is the difference between adopted and revise number one so when you're checking my math that's the math that we should be checking um so we did student count from adopted to

005Revis number one you'll see that we did increase um our weighted student count by 487 now this is different than ADM so average daily membership is a straight count whereas this is weighted so um just as a little bit of background all of our students are weighted based on different things so our K8 students have a weight of 1.158 whereas our 9 through 12 students have a weight of 1. 1268 right um additionally we've got Group B weights so those are special education kiddos gifted free and reduced um various weight applied to those kiddos as well so that's the difference between ADM and weighted student count I just wanted to point that out cu those numbers aren't going to be the same um so with that um we do have an increase in our M

006Revenue control limit of about $2.7 million um which is great news so the third um row there is during uh when we proposed and then adopted the budget in order to balance ml budget we did take $2 million of District additional assistance out of the capital column in our budget and put it into M with the increase of our weighted student count and consequently our Revenue control limit going up we do not have to make that transfer anymore so it has been removed um from revision one um our override is based on those um previous ADM numbers as Jackie mentioned so the 15% did go up a little bit for our m&o override um additionally budget balance carry forward um those numbers are estimated at proposal and adoption and then finalized with our AFR that

007we submit in October so we had $3.9 6 million more in budget balance carry for than we proposed um and adopted with the original budget so all of that kind of together um got us an increase in budget limit for M of$ 5.57 million which is great okay oh back to me now we'll talk about the revised um unrestricted capital budget capacity so same grid here uh it's just District additional assistance rather than M so that first row uh you'll see the fy2 24 Revis number two versus adopted which was an estimation uh and then 25 revised one so the 39 the $390,000 difference we made a judgment call during there during proposal and adoption um we in we increased our um formula by $390,000 uh when the budget sheets came out it was on

008a different line so you'll see it on line three the $390,000 so it does wash um it's not a decrease necessarily and then the daa to M as Lauren mentioned um that transfer is no longer uh and then the budget balance carry forward we adopt in July and we still have uh um the fiscal year ends June 30 but we still have July and August to pay bills and then we wrap up that work and do the AFR um that's due October 15th and with that increases our budget balance carry forward because of purchase orders that were not spent or um projects that weren't finished so that increased our uh budget balance carry forward by 3.4 million and then interest earned this is exciting we can earn interest on Capital last year 420,000 versus um

009estimated million but it's actually 1.17 million and this particular issue is is very important to us we we created a strategy where all of the revenue we we received from the state and the local um taxpayer first goes into unrestricted Capital so that we're maximizing that interest earnings because as you know in ml we do not receive we receive interest but we can't spend it in unrestricted Capital we receive interest and we can spend it it absolutely increases our budget capacity so that's why we're doing this so it's part of our strategy to make sure that we're maximizing resources great thank you for that so from adopted to revised one an increase of 5.58 million any questions before we move on it's awesome to see an increase instead of a decrease okay some notes on

010other funds um M and unrestricted Capital are the big ones but um as we kind of go through the year and you see the monthly reports you'll notice some other kind of categories that we talk about so that's what we want to talk about right now um instructional Improvement fund classroom site fund state and federal grants CTE specifically fund 596 and then nutrition services and Community Schools um we wanted to point out the three that are circled here um state and federal grants from adopted to revised did increase by 8 almost 8.7 million um majority of that is because of the completion reports that were done and submitted and then approved by ad um remaining funds that were not spent in previous projects are able to be carried forward with some exceptions of course um

011but that's the majority of that 8.6 million in state and federal grants and then nutrition services and Community Schools um increased because of that budget balance carry forward estimation so at adopted uh we were pretty conservative in what we thought we might carry forward those funds um and we ended up carrying forward more than we expected which is um always good news so um those are the the big ones that we want to hit on and again you'll see these um in the monthly reports and the quarterly report that we're going to talk about next so thank you one question on that sorry if you mentioned so under state and federal grants yeah can you talk just about the process why and from the revise number two to adopted did you drop 10 million so

012that is going to be due to that same carry forward thing so carry forward process for the grants so most of our grants end 6:30 um and then we have 90 days to submit the completion report to ad with that process um whatever money that we don't spend is then carried forward into the new Grant term or the new project we don't like to necessarily anticipate that carry forward at adoption because none of it is guaranteed until we get that um completion report process all the way through ad so we like to be um we like to hold that back and then when we revise we include all of those numbers hope that answers your question funds too oh that's the other thing yeah so in FY 2024 we had Sesser 3 funds still um

013about 12 9 10 9 10 million um in Esser funds um and those have since been been spent um so that's another big piece as well I wanted to point out too before we go further into the average teacher salary we are not obligated to present to you a revised budget at this point in time um we're only required to revise the budget if we have overstated our budget um and we have to do that by December 15th but fortunately we're adding but we we believe philosophically that we should make sure that you guys are up to date throughout the year so you know how much money we do have available and that when we're doing our projections for next year we're St starting from the base that you already know about versus and as

014as you can see our budget across the board has increased substantially and so that you all should be aware of that so I just wanted to share that yeah and we like revising the budget we do it's fun right so next we'll talk about uh FY 2025 average teacher salary so this grid was from the adopted budget and this is because again in July we we don't know who's filling the seats yet uh this is straight just a straight data so fy4 67052 was the average salary of all teachers um we added the 2% that was awarded by you all for the compensation increase moving into 25 that brings us to 68 393 and that is just data now we use the revised budget average teacher salary uh we use the October data after everybody's

015kind of in their seats and the dust has settled a little bit um and with that we can see that it has decreased over over the um adoption uh because uh of attrition um teachers are retiring and we're hiring in newer teachers uh so even though the 2% was awarded um the the increase on this grid is 7% uh this also includes the 67 520 for the current year includes $750 of pay for performance the $1,200 appreciation stien that you awarded and an average of about $1,600 in additional stiens that they are eligible to earn for extra various duties and then if I could add so um since we awarded a 2% but what we actually realized was 7 so that difference is all going to fall to um budget balance forward when we complete

016this current year and then we're preparing for next year so I wanted you to know that we have two turnover savings here that we will be able to use as ongoing money that will help us balance the budget for the um 25 26 school year so keep that in mind that's it's it's worth about a million dollars of ongoing money that we will definitely assign to ongoing uh against ongoing expense okay just to give you an idea [Music] and just as a reminder this is an action item 7.01 and we do require your signatures on the actual budget document so stay in your seats uh and that concludes our presentation are there any questions okay I've got um a question um it Al it all looks very positive right money where we more money than

017than we thought money where we thought we wouldn't have money so that the I don't say the pessimist in me but are there any areas of concern that we as a board should be aware of or areas of concern that you as uh the uh accounting folks are are concerned about something that maybe I don't know it just seems like everything's so positive and I'm just kind of like okay when's the other shoe going to fall is there are there any areas of concern that we are we should be we should be uh aware of yes yes maybe not in our budget but we're always concerned this time of year when the legislature rolls through because we just working off of a of when we calculate for the following year and we budget we working

018off the governor's budget and we know it's [Music] it's it's a wish list more than anything but then it has to go all the way through the state legislature so we don't know where it going to come out at the end so when you hear these folks talk about next year we're always going to probably plan for the worst and hope for the best I guess is the best way to put it that's why when we're looking at projections for uh student loss when we're looking at possible salary increases we will be on the conservative side and contracts will be going out you know I think it's March 24th is is that around because remember state law says now they can't go out until March 15th but we're on spring break and so we have

019to wait until they actually come back um we don't know if there'll be any increases on that we've done this in years past saying based on what the legislature does will determine what we can give for an increase and that's unsettling for all employees but it's also probably the best way to utilize the information we have and not overextend ourselves so as Jackie and Lauren said coming back we're not revising a budget that um we overshot our dreams I guess the best way to put it so when it comes to budget that's always my major concern this time of year um but in terms of the current budget I don't see anything but these folks might well and I I will say that right now the news is very good with our revised budget and

020all the money that we just shared with you is in our pocket so right now we know this is what we have and we can anticipate that we'll have probably comparable to that same budget balance carry forward of around $20 million so for us that's good news because that gives us even more more flexibility going into the next year versus having to reduce $10 million now and then like oh my gosh and then if the legislature doesn't come through oh my gosh what are we going to do so at least it sets us up in as in as great of a positive way as it possibly can as we move into the unknown and then we'll just share the unknowns with you as we go through the next few months thank you does anybody have

021any other questions for well I have one thought about you're saying and that is just that our timeline is that we're working on our budget we're adopting our budget before the legislature makes those final decisions and so it's just I mean conservative assumptions I these three have always done a wonderful job of um being very accurate in their uh predictions of what will happen and and so you know it's it's it's just the way our timeline works is that we're going to get our budget together and then we're going to find out how much money we get from the legislature so it's a little a little backwards I would say well thank you very much for your presentation are we moving into 2.02 yes sir all right 2.02 fiscal year 2025 monthly financial report thank

022you and second quarter Financial year-to date ending December 31st 2024 did it kick you out okay good see see she they they have to verify her security too it's not just me yes sometimes they your right so um the through December 31st not only represents the end of a month but also represents the end of the quarter we made a commitment a couple of years ago that we would also give you information about Revenue as well as expenditures and comparing them to the prior year at the same time so we're adding a few slides to this presentation that represent that quarterly um look back uh for for our financial information so as always with the monthly report we share the grids so you you notice these are for those of you that are new you

023notied on the board agenda item you have two items one is the presentation and the other is actually the report so the report always includes all of the categories of funds whether we're going to talk about them or not here in the board meeting whereas generally we only include the specific grids on the presentation that we're going to say something about for tonight because this is the first time that we've presented to all of you as a new board we went ahead and put all of the grids into the presentation but we're not going to to talk about them all we're only going to talk about the one that we have the ones that we have yellow highlights on so I just wanted to give you a heads up on that so you will you

024will expect to see changes every month where we think there was something notable that changed month over month that we thought we should share with you so just wanted to give you an idea of how we're going to move forward so today we're sharing the district operating funds which we always share with you uh the Federal grant funds the state Grant funds as well as the bond funds um fund 630 and then the first quarter I mean the second quarter we made an error we made an error sorry about that the second quarter Financial so that's your to date December 31st we'll share the year-over-year comparisons of revenues and then the year-over-year expend uh expend expenditure comparisons thank you for putting that out so this is the district operating funds and you can see from

025M and unrestricted Capital you see the pending budget revision number one which is really what you're going to approve tonight it's still pending though until you actually approve it so we'll change that to Revis number one for the next monthly report but we always share maintenance operations and unrestricted Capital because those two uh funds change every month as our schools are spending down their discretionary allocations Etc but you can see that all of the available balances for both M and unrestricted Capital have increased because of course our revised budget has increased the one new one that we've highlighted is e- rates so every few years we do receive reimbursement from rate that's for something that's not our annual or regular connectivity costs associated with the Internet or with phones or something like that so every

026few years we actually go out and spend money on stuff so it's considered like Category 2 so um uh technology Services last year completed the network refresh so that's equipment and additional cabling and stuff and so we just received a $2.2 million reimbursement for those expenditures that occurred out of bond it's great news for us because it gives us some flexibility we have a lot of discretion on spending our e- rate monies and So speaking with technology services with John Castellano we are um considering a proposal on how we would be spending that additional money over the next couple of years so I just wanted to share that and then this is just the details of some of the stuff that I already shared with you so we generally do that we give you the

027grid then we give you a note page so um this is the federal grants just wanted to share the sr3 as you you can see um it's totally spent um and we only noted it because we did complete the completion report by the deadline which was December 31st and we actually have received the reimbursement of over $9 million um to date so we're just wanted to point that out and then the the other Federal projects so a note about this we were awarded H sort of informally I guess an additional $40,000 Grant associated with um nursing equipment and uh we received notification on Friday that we probably will not receive any of those money so we didn't change it though we decided to leave it in there and that of course we'll have to revise

028that down for the final budget revision which must be r no later than May 15th okay and then State Grant funds um so there isn't anything highlighted on there so then uh and then the Enterprise funds there's nothing to share here uh but the other funds just wanted to share the employee benefit trust funds I shared this a little bit with you on Friday which is one of our other areas of concern to answer your question uh Mr Thompson the fact that we've had a couple of bad years in terms of of our employee benefit Trust claims um so you can um we're highlighting that just so that we can give you a heads up that we are expecting to draw down fund balance in the current year by somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.5

029million we are deliberating we had a meeting today with the employee benefit trust committee they will be meeting again next week and making a recommendation to the formal trust board on the 13th of February and then that will come to you for final determination of what the premium rate will be going into next year as well as the impact on the district's budget okay so school-based funds again we're not going to share anything there and the only reason that we're sharing a little bit on the bond fund is that in December and this was before the three new board members took their seats but in December we did approve a purchase um of Transportation Vehicles so statute was changed two years ago I think allowing School districts to buy a yellow bus that's smaller that

030doesn't require a CDL bus driver so um our uh director of Transportation Mr Trace tolby he wanted to take advantage of that it's actually much easier to find drivers that do not have a CDL and so he's been he's already purchased a couple and he he's purchasing three more and so we expect to have those added to The Fleets by the end of this year so that they can be utilized next year giving us again a little bit more flexibility Transportation what's the difference in capacity oh my gosh it has it's um they're 10 10 passenger buses versus 54 or 68 or 80 so they're quite a bit smaller yeah they're on the they're on the side of our size of our activity buses which generally hold 12 um generally we're using them for smaller

031smaller runs though for special education Etc so thank you for that and then that's it for the monthly Financial are there any questions before I move on to the second quarter financial report okay if you could go back to page three there's a line item fund number advertisement could you talk about that and the difference between the adopted budget and the revision and what what are we using what what do we attribute the increase in in those funds from do you guys know what the increas is from I'm assuming it's budget balance carry forward but it is when we adopted we used an estimated number so when we brought in the revision as Lauren and I talked about um the 27 is inclusive of what was left over last year um and possibly some new

032Revenue I don't not sure it was interest an interest yeah there was interest earned in that fund last year um and so that's most of honestly most of the the difference we were estimating based off of um what we anticipate um year toe but we had a a sizable interest earnings in that fund last year so and what sort of things is the money in that fund used for so I can give you the example so we had a meeting in cabinet and we all deliberated over this and um um Miss maai she Don she said hey I could really use some resources to continue our efforts to Market our schools and try to make sure that we're increasing enrollment and so that's why you see that uh $20,000 encumbrance it's actually all in in

033her budget right now thank you okay back to the second the second quarter Financial so again year-to date revenues again just wanted to make sure that we're sharing we never share revenues except when we share the quarterly report and the revenue story is always very interesting interesting in the state of Arizona because the state with withholds a significant amount of money from us until the end of the year in which we call it the $30 million rollover um they use that as a budget balancing measure oh my gosh 2015 16 something earlier 2012 yeah so this is born out by looking at the operating Revenue by source so you can see if you look at December 31st 2023 versus December 31st 2024 the revenue picture looks very much the same year-over-year but but note that

034um to date we have received a toal total of 151 million in the current year which is only 47% of what is expected so why is that oh my gosh we're half we should already have half of our Revenue well that's the reason is because of the fact of that that rollover so for Gilbert public schools that rollover is there are two pots the rollover is worth about $34 million to us so we get that on January 2nd I mean July 2nd I mean July 2nd right after the fiscal year is over so that's really the story on the revenue and this just shows it by the sources um one thing that you wouldn't necessarily expect is that we do have Federal monies into in our um maintenance in our operating funds uh that's the

035other one one thing I wanted to clarify we're not talking about all of our funds districtwide we're only talking about the operating funds so that's that first grid that we share with you every month um but we do have federal funds that go into operating funds which means we have a great deal of flexibility over those monies so those two funds are eate I just shared about the extra $2.2 million and then also Medicaid so we receive Medicaid reimbursement from our special education services that we provide to special education students when they are U Medicare Medicaid eligible okay so um this is the operating Revenue by fund you can see as you would expect that M would be the largest amount but note that year-over-year a year ago we had most most of it in

036M whereas in the current year we have more of it in unrestricted capital and M splitting that so that again is that same strategy I shared with you earlier every revenue or cash amount of money that we get we're putting it into the unrestricted Capital fund so that interest that's earned on that cash we will be able to increase budget capacity accordingly so that's the big difference between the two years there and then that just shows it by fund and then finally the year-to date expenditures so you can see again that our expenditures look very very comparable to how they looked um a year ago note the expended encumbered a year ago was 338 and this year the expended encumbered is 358 so that's primarily due to salary increases um as well as in unrestricted

037Capital so you can see and then the benefits the benefits have increased a little bit there was a slight increase in um in the uh Arizona State Retirement contribution um just a slight increase because a year ago we had a year ago was when we uh prefunding pre fund yeah so it looks looks about the same but you you should expect to see salary increases because you did award a pay increase going into 2025 okay and that's all we have for today and we're here to answer any questions you might have I have to ask question I have to ask this question I don't want to get too deep in the weed so if you say Jill that's too complicated um okay we can earn interest on our unrestricted Capital funds if we earn interest

038on our maintenance and operation funds we can ever spend that is it does it just sit there if we earn interest on that money or so we're definitely earning interest on it and um a couple of things I'll say about that so if you recall we had the Quasar judgment that hit us because of cash the Quasar issue is a cash issue because we had the cash we did not have to increase our our tax levy to our taxpayer we had excess cash and we used that excess cash to pay that that judgment so that's how we can spend it if those types of things occur in the future um but no generally we do earn interest and yes it just sits there there okay that which is craziness yes I was going to say

039the legislature needs to address that but I'm glad it was there when we needed it so we didn't have to uh seems like that would be an easy thing for them to fix to and they they allowed the charter schools to spend it so it seems only fair that we should be able to spend any interest earnings so well I I personally feel they don't really understand how public schools are funded very well that's my bias okay can I just real quick I just wanted to thank you for all your work and I I think the lack of questions just speaks to the preparation and the great job you're doing and so appreciate all the work thank you thank you very much well done all right thank you very much moving on to 2.03 secondary

040grading practices feedback planning and communication Dr McCord thank you president Thompson governing board members we're bringing up a team I'll let Dr Cox introduce all of our friends and and the subject matter Dr Cox is the director of secondary CIA now she the running joke is that she actually thinks she's a CIA but she's not culum instruction and assessment and um does a fantastic job but they're going to talk talk to you today about secondary grading practices the feedback planning and communication and where we're at today and we'll list at those same things from you guys Dr Cox thank you good evening Dr mcord president Thompson and governing board members uh the CIA does have a nice ring to it I get more interest when I uh introduce myself that way so um I would

041like to introduce the team that we have here this evening so I'll just kind of go down this is Shannon haigi she is an an English teacher in department chair at Highland High School and then we have Shannon Carter who is an instructional coach for mosqu junior high school and recent math instructor and then we have Mr Tyler Dumis who is our principal at campy high school so we are really excited uh the four of us also were members of the grading committee that we have reconvened for the third time in the last four years um to continue the work and so we're going to spend this evening going over the history uh we recognize with three new board members we were just excited to kind of share some of the work we've done with

042the the new team and then um really the the core purpose of this presentation is to really get into what this year's committee has done and um what steps we've identified to take action on to just continuously improve our practices here in Gilbert Public Schools so getting us started uh when I talk about the historical context uh just put a little bit bit of context up there but this work does go back probably even further but um for my knowledge 2018 2019 I know that there was a lot of work going on in regard to mindset and best practices and um what I would consider um the traditional conversations annually around grading that happen in the classrooms and so as we were having that conversation and mindset work um obviously we led into that next

043year 2020 2021 um which was an interesting year uh with covid and during that year we learned a lot and um it uncovered a lot of things that we may have thought some of our best practices were in place and when uh teachers were expected to teach in grade digitally and students it really uh forced us to look at things through a different lens and uncover some things that were happening uh that we probably wouldn't have noticed um prior to that just because it kind of put it right in front of us so that led to um we were seeing different data points and evidence of things we recognized that we needed to do something about it and take action so in 201122 uh we created our first secondary um grading committee actually at that

044time it was a K12 committee uh but our elementaries um handle things a little bit differently and uh when we looked at that from a K12 standpoint that was when we created our Gilbert public school's grading beliefs and practices uh handbook and um um prior to that in probably 2017 18 we had started the work with our instructional framework and um we realized that a lot of the things we were pushing out to teachers were maybe in silos and that was around the time that we realized we needed to look at everything our evaluation our teaching and learning Maps our instructional framework they needed to be aligned and so grading is a part of that we wanted to make sure our grading practices aligned to everything else so that teachers um can operate at their

045classroom more efficiently and um that the training all is aligned so that they don't feel like they're getting hit with different tasks that don't um work together so then into 2223 we recognized that it okay so we created this handbook now what and so the 2223 year we really worked with our secondary schools um every school was in a different place so there was a lot of training a lot of focus on building up our administrators and our leaders to make sure that we all understood and that we were leading the training and then we really trusted our campuses from 22 and 23 into 23 and 24 to evaluate where they felt they were at with the different practices and meet the needs of their teachers because all of our campuses are very unique and

046where they're at and um that continued on for uh the last 3 years and so each year um we have continuously developed the teacher training and in 2223 what we learned after a year of trying to implement was that the handbook was a great guide but it didn't really include what to do how to do it and we needed to really hone in on what that training looked like so you'll notice that um we then created an appendix guide and I will make reference as I'm going through each of you this evening were provided with a folder in there when I mentioned the handbook that is included and then the separate appendix and resource guide that was created after we learned that we needed to have better training that's been included um and that was

047through the lens of having a common vision and then creating consistent and common training to make sure that all of our schools and teachers were having the same understanding so when we started with rolling it out we wanted our schools to identify where they felt they were at and um after a couple of years of that we went from teacher understanding and then we wanted to make sure our plc's were consistent and on the same page so if you had two nth grade English teachers they were on the same page so if a if a student switched from one class to the next they're not vastly changing the way that their grades are being reported so then into uh this school year the change that occurred was that we went from just plc's being consistent

048to wanting our campuses to be on the same page because the same thing is true if you have your English Department doing one thing and your math department is doing a different thing so again we have spent the last 3 to four years really ID identifying that this work can't be done overnight so we had to start on building the teacher knowledge admin knowledge then it turned into that consistency development so this year uh a few a few of our schools have gone schoolwide um a few of our schools are at the place where they are really trying to get departmental and so this was the year that we recognized we're probably one more year from having that districtwide consistency cuz that is our end goal and where we want to be because what we

049found is that every time we think we've created consistency what happened this year is that then we have some schools that maybe schoolwide have the consistency but then we get phone calls because we're like well what are they doing over at Campo or how come this campus is doing it this way we want our students to have it that way and so we recognize we're at a point where um we needed to kind of go districtwide with some of those bigger um best practices so we reconvened the grading committee again for the third time which is this school year and um one thing that we did differently this time around is we invited uh just about 20 parents into being a part of that committee there was more parent representation than there actually was faculty

050um representation which was interesting cuz we learned a lot from it so we're going to go into that in just a moment um it seems when you look at the trajectory of the historical context that I'm sharing um we really started from like a leadership best practices research like let's learn what we can and we knew we spend a lot of time with our admin because they're leading this work on the campuses and then after that we realized we needed to do more with teachers what has really surfaced as the theme this year and um we're proud of what we're going to be sharing with everybody this evening is really the um need to make sure that we include our parents in our community as a stakeholder in that so we've done a good job

051of mainstreaming that with admin teachers and now we're to the point where we really need to make sure all of our students and our families understand this and are a part of that conversation as well because all of everything that we do is for our community and our students so uh you'll notice I did put at the bottom there next school year because it is our goal that we will be rolling out everything you're going to hear tonight um as districtwide uh required um consistent pieces so some of these slides uh I already shared a little bit about so I'm going to go through some of them a little bit more quickly um because I did talk about them you're welcome to ask questions as we go and then each of the uh members with

052me this evening are going to kind of share from their perspective just so you can kind of hear like from a teacher perspective an admin how it's gone for them uh with um moving forward with these pieces so the grading committee this year I talked about what that looks like but to go back to the beginning of the grading committee I just listed out again we started big picture what do we believe in um what are the responsibilities of the different groups what's the responsibility of the building principal our admin our teachers um and then that goes into what do we believe a grade represents so in Gilbert Public Schools we have really four commitments and I don't need to read them verbatim uh but really the idea is to make sure that our grading

053practices are consistent so that again if the student is going from one teacher to another or from one school to another we can all speak the same language because I truly and firmly believe that that will help with communication to our um parents and students none of this should be a secret our students should know what's expected and what the learning expectations are um and the grades should be aligned to Student Learning not Behavior Uh another one up there is that uh we the biggest piece is talking about communication grades are a piece of communication and they are feedback so are our grades um communicating feedback and how students are doing and so that is an expectation that we have that we want our grades to communicate to students and Families how their students are

054doing and where their proficiency levels are with the class and then um that leads to what the grading practices that were outlined with our committee work um again retests and redos these are topics these five practices are research-based and best practices there's others these are the ones that are um committee four years ago um recognized that we have to put in to place consistent measures on a campus when it comes to these topics that's all that this means so when you look at some of the pieces up there you'll notice that some of what I'm going to share with you tonight when we say districtwide that doesn't necessarily include all of these things we're not prescribing and um uh outlining what a teacher does with every single step we're going to share with you what

055we are creating consistently at the district level and then in some of these areas we are outlining and helping schools come up with for their school what do some of these practices look like in um making sure that teachers have the training to understand how to adhere to different pieces so when it comes to homework making sure that they understand um how to use that in the classroom and use it as a a guiding piece in the learning and not kind of like a check off uh we we want to make sure that again we're giving feedback on things that we're um entering into the grade book so that leads me into I know I mentioned the grading handbook and the append document I'm going to turn things over um and let Shannon just share

056with you a little bit about how the handbook and the appendix tools have been used uh when it comes from a teacher perspective hi um thanks for having me tonight I don't know if you wanted to hit on this or just I'll put that on there okay um so this has been really helpful in what Christa was talking about with just consistency so as the English department chair at Highland um I have had between 27 and 22 teachers um in my department and as you can imagine getting 22 people to do the same thing at the same time is difficult so it's really helpful to have the grading beliefs and practices to kind of fall back to um one of the questions that we consistently say within our plc's and within my department is is

057that supported by our beliefs right so we always come back to what do we believe a grade should be and is what we're doing and what we're saying what we're grading how we're grading it um how we're giving it to students is it supported by that um and that's kind of our like grounding question um in addition we have if you look through this um like the recommended and not recommended side um what I have found especially with new teachers coming in who um maybe didn't go to school to become a teacher haven't um done a lot of practice with grading right and even even I would say in getting my degree in education there isn't necessarily a class you take in grading um you take some assessment classes um but there isn't a lot

058of Education surrounding within a program grading philosophy and so having this to kind of talk through grading with teachers is really really helpful because what our default is for many teachers myself included when I first started teaching was well how did I get graded I'll just do that right and because we fall back to what we're used to and not necessarily the best practice so this has been really helpful in driving those conversations with our new teachers about um what's recommended what's not recommended and why and getting them to understand that and then getting them on the same page uh with the rest of the department or within their PLC um and you'll see that it goes through all the different categories that were on the last uh page or the last slide there um

059in the appendix um and this came out right at the right time uh like Christa said we started getting a lot of questions right about like but what about this and what about this and what does the research say and so this came out and we were able to put together like an FAQ so this is in the hands of all the teachers as well both veteran and new teachers and so you can go to this and go okay well I want to I know I need to give a retest but like how long do I give a kid to do a retest right if they need to retake something from August um and it's May should I do that what does that mean right and so they can kind of come to this first

060and get some help here and then if they need it they have their PLC leads they have their Department chairs instructional coaches admin to further explore those questions with in addition there is research in here there's some things cited from um different places that help them explain like what the research is behind that um philosophy or that FAQ um you'll see like the formative and summative assessment page kind of helps new teachers understand like where those things cross over um and just helping them continue with having um solid pedagogy for teaching their classrooms because we can talk about instruction um and we can talk about assessment but grading is like that third piece that is is just as important um for our students this is going to create consistency like uh Christa was talking about

061um one of the things that I I know is frustrating for parents and for students is okay well in this class these are the rules and in this class this is the this is how this gets graded and in this class I'm not allowed to do like a retake you know things like that and um so getting the consistency for our plc's for me and at Highland in our English Department making sure that 9th 10th 11th and 12th at least within that grade level all n9th grade English teachers are are doing the same thing in terms of grading um and their policy surrounding grading and then 10th grade 11th grade and 12th grade all of that is in everybody's syllabus that is something that I check as a department chair to make sure that it

062is there and also goes to Administration they check off on that as well and then at parent night one of the things that I've done over the last um five 5 years at Highland is making sure that I have um that information in my slideshow for parents that night of like here's kind of the Baseline of how grading Works in my classroom what I did for my department is I shared that slide out so that they could just take it and use it um with their parents but I was um clear about like make sure that you go through this stuff because parents need to have an understanding and so that's kind of where we are now is is continuing that communication with parents and making sure that um there is an understanding for both

063parents and students surrounding the grading um uh beliefs and philosophies that we're we have and moving to more of a comprehensive consistency so it's not just like okay well this department is doing it but what about our other departments kind of helping get everybody on the same page so sing into a lot of the things that uh Mrs Howe just shared um we talking the beliefs and the practices and how teachers do the grading but that leads into the grade reporting which is actually what is an infant campus and it's what's associated to a student's transcript so for our secondary schools all of what we just shared we do use achievement letter grades and so they're numerical and this helps when it comes to scholarships and college admittance like this is just what we have

064used um for the reporting in Gilbert public schools for forever so um when we talk about those consistencies and kind of some of the shifts that have to happen it really comes down to and I shared with you all and I want to be transparent that these are drafts we have one more uh working committee meeting that's going to be next week but we were excited to share these with you as a draft and if there's any feedback that you guys have we thought it would be a great opportunity to get that but you'll see on the presentation the two things that came out of the committee and moving toward consistency it is not all the intrical little pieces that are in this handbook it is simply this one pager for junior high High School

065which you guys can look at those are the pieces that we feel as a district that we do need to have consistency everything else can happen at the school level department PLC level and the second piece to that is the syllabus what we have found through this work is um and I did also include the template of where we're moving toward with the syllabus in the folder for you guys to see some of the areas the committee outlined what these different topics and categories are on here and this again a very driven these one pagers by parent and Community feedback of what they would love and what would make their jobs as parents easier if they just had a quick snapshot as opposed to all these packets of paper so um then that led in

066when we got into the syllabus conversation you can't fit everything on a one-page document so the syllabus is almost like the expansion where you can refer to handbooks and policies and like the written explanation of some of those pieces so they are going to go hand inand um but the more that we kind of went down the rabbit hole of what issues and concerns we've run into when parents reach out um and maybe have some frustrations it comes back to in full transparency the lack of communication which these are all forms of communication so teach your syllabus similar to what Shannon had shared um often times when you're a new teacher you maybe have a department shair that gives you a copy or you remember what your syllabus looked like in college and you kind

067of copy it and I'll be honest that historically it's like you have that and then you push it out and you think it's great and you maybe don't get feedback on it and then you forget about it until summertime and then it's the first week back when you have two days to prep your classroom and your principal is like oh we want to see the syllabus we want to get and you just kind of copy and paste the same thing and so what we have found when we're dealing with um uh topics when they come up is often times we look back at the syllabus and there's something in there that's like from 10 years ago and the teachers are like oh yeah we didn't realize that was still in there we didn't and it's

068not it's not ill intent it's not that anybody meant to do it it's just there's a lot that goes into a syllabus and it's almost like this growing document that teachers um they they put a lot there there's a lot of time put into it and they're trying to put all the rules and practices so we want to help teachers and take that away from them and help with creating it so when you see this template of the syllabus that looks like this one um each teacher in the spring we're going to roll it out a little earlier this year but in the future it'll probably uh be right toward the end of the school year they will get a Google form they will get to put in their bio they'll get to put in

069their teacher information and then they press submit on the Google form and it's going to generate the rest of the stuff that we want common and consistent for the district so for example if we're talking um absences or if we're talking the configurations if we know that it is the same across the board why are we having teachers draft that in a syllabus when every teacher's voice and their terminology could be different and so we're almost setting teachers up for that push back by not just giving them the same consistent verbage so we have a student handbook we have a course description book um even down to the course description when you look at teachers syllabi they often are creating their version of what the description should be really it should just be copy and

070pasted from our course description book because that's what's approved by the governing board so any of those pieces that we know we've created and worked on it will autogenerate into the syllabus and then the teacher gets a pdf version that they can attach to their Google classroom and then it will generate a signature page to go home to parents so again when we say we're open to that feedback again the committee has driven what you'll see here but we're not finalizing it for another week or so to make sure that um we have time to get that feedback so when you look at the um configurations part uh I did put a screenshot in the slideshow but I just want to kind of verbally say it for the junior high it will be 60% assessment

071which is the summative and 40% the assignment which is the formative and at the junior high any class that is a high school class which tends to be math algebra and geometry and World Language if they're high school level they would then stick to the high school configurations which are listed on the high school document so all of our schools when it comes to those categories and percentages will be consistent moving forward and then um again I mean I know everybody can kind of read through it so I don't want to kind of go through it uh word by word but um with that I want to that's just kind of what the committee LED but I do want to turn things over to Mr Dumis to kind of just share uh from a principal

072and um a site administrator lens how some of these things have gone um and how he has rolled these things out to his campus because a few of our schools this year started the year with this as kind of a practice and so Mr Dumis has spent the year already doing this and so we're trying to learn from those few principles to get ahead of those things for next year year when we go districtwide so Mr dumes if if we could pause real quick I just have one question so what's the philosophy behind um Junior High not having any portion of their grade attributed to the final a final exam yeah just curious um right now we do not have District final exams at our junior high level okay so since they are campus and

073teacher created and there's not consistency we didn't feel that uh it was an appropriate time to add that in uh we do have a few departments at our junior high level math is one of them that have been uh begging for those final exams and if we get to a point where we push those out districtwide we would consider changing these configurations to match so for those those teachers that those Junior High teachers that do give their students final exams do those just have no bearing on their grade or do those fall into the assessment block they would fall into the assessment block okay thank you but currently they probably fall all over the place correct correct okay um thank you for having me tonight I wanted to kind of come in and just say

074straight off that this is a been a process for us to get to we started rolling things out in the fall we've I have had personally and I know that we've had as a group number of conversations several conversations with parents with students with staff as to the direction that we're heading and I'm actually really happy with where we've landed uh We've been implementing this since the second quarter with the 50410 as a campus uh and it has quelled many of the concerns that we had from when we started and and I'll take you back to the the differences so in my math department at the start of the school year we were 80% uh we were 80% uh Summit of assessment 15% uh formative assessment and 5% final uh in our English classes were

075more like 50410 or like it set up here our social studies was in wanting to be in that 6 40 and including it uh we get into science and they were six or they were 70 uh 255 so there was just a variety of different numbers just from that without looking at the definitions without looking at the the way to define what happens in each of these categories and what come out of all of our conversations in particular with our parents is they didn't know some of these school terms they really didn't understand what we meant when we said summative informative and that was a very fair piece of feedback so moving on to the assessment and the assignment and then providing parents with a list of some some example or sample items that could

076fall into those categories not Exclusive by any means and then coming back in and through so we could start to Define what it looked like and communication is 100% where we were uh as we worked our way through it uh and parents appreciated the one pager that we came up with and it made sense and much of the concerns that we had at that time um were related to two things and one was the fact that we were doing also at the same time that we were doing some grading adjustments and and working on uh getting ourselves more aligned as a school we're also working with an instructional model that had a different way for us to deliver instruction and they bled into each other a little bit so some of those terms got a

077little bit confusing over time our students have responded well our teachers responded phenomenally and our parents and and my site counsel in particular been very very very supportive so we're in a good spot the data that we've collected and we've analyzed it looks very very good there isn't a change in the number of uh students that are being successful at A and B's we had a as our campus alone had a 1.98% failure rate which I would like to get rid of the 1.98 but that is lower than it has been over time uh we're seeing changes in instruction for all groups of our students uh and changes in results so I've been very happy with that the challenge has just been what we didn't know really that that for me um I I like

078to barbecue so I thought about this on the way over and it's kind of like now people are getting to know what it's like when the sausage is made we're getting to dive in and understand exactly how ugly that can be sometimes and we don't really want to know we just want to know that it tastes good and we don't get sick from it sometimes that's how it is until we do and then we want to dive back into it because I I understand and parents were very honest I want my kid to have this this grade because of the impact it has down the road with my scholarships or my opportunities and that's very understandable um but at the same time when that doesn't happen and we don't have some kind of structures and

079standards and expectations that we can have as a as a school uh that are similar we are going to run into the same problem when you know that sausage isn't going to taste so good so we have to work our way backwards in in that and and set things up so that we have a way to communicate um and it just continued to be set up and I would say that as a campus we were further further along than most of the other campuses we've been putting things in place already as a whole uh we have a syab template that we use we had all the departments on board with their specific grading but you can still see the variances that we had uh and then we had variances even in between our plc's or

080our different groups between Algebra 1 they're just different processes kids won't know and parents don't know how to go about making up tests or replacing scores that needs to be consistent and parents shouldn't have to fight uh to look for it and try to try to make sure that they ensure it the phone calls that we get and the and the frustrations we've had in the past is a lack of knowledge as well and trying to figure out what that process looks like because we will know where that syllabus is on the first day but we're not going to know where it is come February 4th so those are all things that we just had to work our way through um I feel good about where we're at right now I don't think that we're

081done and I think that uh we have work to do with our staff I think we have work to do with our with our students U the feedback I've received from our student leaders so far has been I get it now we're seeing a higher level of Engagement with the work that we're doing uh and we're beyond the higher level of Engagement students aren't thinking of what they need to do to re just turn something in they're looking at what they need to do to make sure that they're learning and that's the that that's what the feedback has been from our staff as well that they appreciate that aspect of of the work we've done thank you so that that's a perfect segue into what came out of really yes this year's committee but over

082the last four years that our secondary schools have been going in this direction because we've learned a lot along the way and it really breaks down into two categories uh communication and training and professional development and you'll notice that um on the training and professional development side uh we we recognize that to Mr dumas's point that each of our schools they're still in different places like I mentioned that we started that way but at some point if we want to be able to kind of Monitor and inspect and help we have to have some consistency or else it's like way too much to try to figure out where everybody is at to support them where they're at so we believe that moving in this direction will help us to be able to quickly identify those

083Pockets that do need support and help and then we can provide more personalized professional development training um our instructional coaches they're asking for this we didn't have that position before so now if our coaches know X Y and Z they can just go right and work with the teachers um immediately we recognize that the training extends even to our parents so working with um and under the communication plan I tried to include the pieces that are for our parents and students but some of the feedback that we got was um even parents not really knowing or understanding how to use infinite campus or wanting to have training on how to access their students Google classrooms cuz we had teachers in the room that would share what they did and we would have parents that were

084like well not all of our teachers do it that way or um we really haven't ever been shown how to do that and so that was really good feedback for us um and we've already worked with uh different teams uh to maybe put together some some like screen recorded videos to help and um are going to provide that to each of our principles to do as site Council presentations with the expectation that it kind of trickles down in addition to a whole list of things that we want to share with our PR department to get into Shane or Dr McCord's um newsletters that go out each month um so I mean you can read the list up there but these are these are all pieces that we know we can improve and they all come

085back to training and communication every problem or issue or concern or lack of understanding has come back to these two things so I listed them up there but I would like to kind of remove myself from it and um I'm going to lean on Mrs Carter just for a moment um and then really all three of them to just share when it came to the committee work how they got feedback um how it this work has impacted where they're at in their campus perspective it's easy for me as in a director position to share with you like theoretically and all of these great documents that we've created but I feel like these three are in the field and they're dealing with these things at the site and in the classroom level so um if Shannon

086if I can put you on the spot to share like a little bit of how you collected feedback and what your journey has been yeah so um over at MOS Jr so after our first committee meeting in December we um got the one pager and at our time similar to Campo Verde we had Greenfield Jr who was also kind of piloting what this looked like so we went off a Greenfield Junior's one pager and I broke it down basically into a Google form for my staff and I laid out the big ideas and just kind of got their feedback on if they would buy into this or if this was something that was totally outlandish that they were like no we we don't want this and so of my staff the majority that came back

087were super positive I'd say about 75% were like I can get on board with this this looks good um the other percentage was they had feedback was more of the things that we um talked about that would be in the syllabus that it was things like um what about students with special needs that might need accommodations for turning in late work uh what about chronic absences so it wasn't so much the grading practice side it was more of a what is the site going to do to make sure that those things are fair across every subject and so that was the feedback that we got there um the biggest thing too is I really appreciate it under the assessment and the assignment categories there's a lot of things that teachers do that are marked and

088um on my site teachers didn't have any other things that they wanted to add to it they said that they felt like that definitely takes care of everything that they work on and um you have your little departments like you know PE has feedback that they might look different than the other core subjects and that's understandable but I think it just comes down to everybody being aware of this especially before we leave for summer so that when the training does get implemented right before we come back um when the instructional coaches maybe have um that kind of plan of what that's going to look like um we can already address those questions that they had and so I was really pleased with the feedback that the staff gave and they were very um happy with

089um how things were laying out yeah um so for us in the English Department at Highland I'm obviously I'm not working schoolwide on this so I can only give you the lens of my department but um we we've kind of been moving in this direction for about four years um because we had a grading committee going on our campus about 5 years ago and then we were testing out some different things in our department specifically and what I can say is that um what I did once we got the grading um beliefs and practices like in our hands the first thing I did um on my department shair day we get like two hours that we're allowed to like meet with our department when we come back to school and I train them so I

090put together my own PD um for my department in helping them understand the different pieces of this I gave them um all of the research that I could find I um I got a book I put it in the Teachers Lounge and said like this is my copy feel free to take it um and so um you know it's it's kind of like what they say like if you build it they will come right and so like just having it out there for them and in an accessible way they ran with that um I think the the one of the books that we have on grading has gone around our department a few times um and then that inspires conversations um for people to come in and talk to me be like I read this

091here's what I got out of it here's what I'm going to try um the 50401 percentages that you're seeing here actually is is fairly close to what our department did um all the way across um like you were saying there were there's some tweaks here and there within the PLC so it's that we're going to be able to have some consistency for parents so that it's not well in nth grade it was this and 10th grade it was this and 11th grade it was this it's just going to be the same but the these uh percentages are really really close um the other thing that I did with my department like I said is providing them some language for talking to parents um because I think that a lot of times that's uh what both

092the parents and the teachers need right is the teachers need to know like how do I explain this to a parent and then parents need to have that in um in a language that they understand too and so providing them with my syllabus and saying here's how it is you can copy and paste this section right out of it and put into your syllabus so we have some consistency there and then the paren ey information I think has also been really really helpful um I also will say that um in doing this we have seen um a really exciting uh uh increase in our data so um for The English Department one of the things that just came out we just examined this data is that the proficiency levels of uh our students on a

093final exam in 9 10 and 11 12th grade English are almost identical within a couple percentage points of the grade they earned in the class um and that's huge that's a new trend that yeah all of this work that is new um so that is amazing and that was shared out in a um department chair meeting on my campus from my Administration looking at that and looking at what the other proficiency scales are in comparison to from the final exam to letter grades for other departments caused other departments to come to me and so other department chairs now are going okay what did you do in your department because we need that data too and so that has opened up some communication and me being able to just work on one one-onone with some other

094teacher leaders and helping them figure out some things that have worked in my department and things that haven't worked then I'm like don't do this cuz I said that and it wasn't it didn't help you know um and so that's helping us move along as well thank you I have a question real quick so in regards to the trend of the final exam grade being within a few percentage points of the overall grade what's the what's the significance of that so what that communicates um our final exam is going to show what the skill levels are for that semester for that grade level right it's it's assessing them on the standards and skills that they should know for that semester so um when you're talking about a proficiency scale it's going to show like the

095student is proficient in the standards and skills for 10th grade they're approaching proficiency or they have um not met proficiency at all or they have like a Mastery level of proficiency and what we saw is that the letter grade and the proficiency we matching so a student who is proficient is not getting a failing grade um or a student who maybe um is showing Mastery level proficiency probably should have a around an A in that class because that's about like the uh parallel we're seeing that those numbers are matching up and I mean she did share there it's within a percentage point which is statistically appropriate uh what we don't want to see and what we unfortunately have seen um historically and I think happens everywhere this is not a Gilbert Public Schools thing is

096if a student is showing that they are passing their final exams and even State assessments say they're highly proficient and they're getting an F in the classroom it just warrants the question of why like what's going on and it can happen the other way around there could be a student getting an a in a classroom and maybe they're minimally proficient on everything so then we get parent calls in the summer when they get their test scores they're like my students gotten an a all year long and they're minimally proficient on the test what's going on and so we have to do better and when there is a closer alignment it's showing that the grade again is communicating the feedback that hey this is where you're at in learning um so it is really neat when

097you see that alignment um happen and I I know Mr Dumis that's something that you have seen some of that correlation as well I don't know if you were going to hit on that but maybe you can share just another example in addition to anything else for this slide so I'm a little bit of a data person sometimes um so I did a comparison between the uh the final score and then I did grade distribution so looking at how that went for every core subject for all of our high schools so I just pulled all the data and did it myself cuz I just needed to see um what that looked like in the areas that what what I've seen is a bump from from I would say the bottom up from the minimally proficient

098into the partially and the partially into the other Prof uh to to the proficient level and then a bump all the way up where that hasn't happened I can tell a story as to why that didn't take place or if it there are a couple of instances where I didn't see the growth that I thought I did and now I've got to go dive into what's going on there then again we're asking the question why so I did that for all of those and then I also looked at year-over-year finals data to try to see any trends that went along with that along with looking at grade distribution from all schools um I did it for the 4 and A2 9 13 and A2 uh and semester to look and compare how we did and

099because as an educator and as a leader if there was something that this was doing that was going to hurt kids we just i' just spun on it and we' have been going 180 uh it didn't show that at all our students are not only being successful uh they are we're we're pushing from an area that students that typically get a little bit ignored and they're having more success it's like built-in interventions for us um so that that's kind of the the comparisons that I go into but I kind of wanted to share the stakeholder piece for me uh what I would say I needed to do what we had to do we put this in a little faster than I would have liked to um and then when we came back we trained our

100teachers on it our teachers went and delivered it to our students our students then went home and delivered it to their parents and you can imagine that I had had a few myths to dispel um and I spent the first quarter which I think was the longest of my 32 years in education uh trying to work through those myths I believe I made four or five videos uh to kind of talking about this sending it out to the community every parent that called they had either a phone call back from me or when invited to come in for a meeting um my site Council amazingly blossomed to about 30 people um people were coming in and having conversations but we talked through it I guaranteed them and I showed them the data that show that

101I just talked about uh as data points over time uh that that was a lot to do to get us to the point um that we are as a campus and with our parents but I also went out and met with every leadership group of students uh I met with a variety of students any students that had questions I went to them um I was presenting to 40 I pulled uh all of our leadership teams our student council our link crew our radiate pulled them all into the auditorium and met with them talked to them across the board uh to answer questions to see what what they had concerns with um feedback from them and a very open door policy so they can come and and talk to me any time the concern was just

102what I didn't know and what I didn't understand and some of the language once that settled they're settled in and don't seem to be having any any kind of adverse issues right this at this point in time at least that's the feedback that I'm getting from them and then from my site counsel which is back to a more manageable number now um but it was good and it was good to hear back from them because what happened was that listening drove change so where we started isn't where We've Ended up and I think that being uh willing to listen to parents willing to listen to students willing to listen to staff and and legitimize the concerns that that they felt uh gave us a product that I think is good for us to move forward

103was so so with that I will just share um what Mr Dumis just was hitting on our parent group by the end of our third evening and we spent a lot of hours uh our parents when we showed the one pager that we ended up finalizing and that's in front of you um they were we asked is there anything on here we thought maybe there'd be like some and they were like no that is perfect they're very receptive to it they're excited about it and the quote that a parent had said that has stuck with me is um we didn't even know some of that stuff and if we would have just known we would have known how to better support and guide our students it would have eliminated some of those frustrations and then

104they go to admin and then they've got to include the te like there's all this runaround and by the time they like maybe did understand it you're two three weeks past something and it it is it still relevant and so uh the parents truly feel that having something like this in front of them where they know what the expectations are for the grading upfront is all they are asking for and so even with the fact that we had some schools that chose to do this at the start of the year the feedback that we got to from them and then also others were if we would have had it a little ahead of time it would have been nice so that's one of the reasons that we want to choose to push this out in

105the fourth quarter so that all of our families see it now and it does I mean the beginning of the year it's a lot for parents students a lot of information so we do have a plan to kick off that communication pretty short here so um that concludes the presentation that we have but we were really excited to share and um want to answer questions so please let us know um what we can answer for you all well thank you so much that's a tremendous amount of work over several years and so I think this is so great and I think that it really sets us up for student achievement and academic Excellence which you know our main focuses I I think philosophically that's fantastic appreciate you kind of taking the arrows on the implementation

106side and hopefully other schools can learn from that because I think that's the key and like you said that is um we can have like a a beautiful uh document and philosophy but it's it's how it's implemented um and so I do still have some questions on on that I guess as far as so so a few things so like when we go through and we have like the recommendations uh in in one of these presentations where there's like recommended not recommended so are these guiding principles and recommendations or these rules and and policies and and who's who's deciding that yeah so they are not rules and policies uh they truly are recommendations in um alignment to our beliefs and so um our administrators have been trained and have been put in a place to

107help guide their teachers to understand those pieces um some of them there are campus-wide decisions so I know some principles like they it makes their job easier if they do have a consistent practice but at the district level we don't we didn't feel it was necessary to to do that so depending on which practice there's five of them depending on which of those five um they they kind of take on a little bit of different direction and I will say each culture of each campus um changes some of that as well so truly uh guiding practices when it comes to that so is that campus to campus is it Department to department is it teacher to teacher like within Highland English Department if a teacher you meet and go over all these scen and the

108teacher's like yeah I don't want to do any of that and they they can do their own thing so I guess where I like academic freedom like what who decides bottom line like in a classroom what the policy is so we started it kind of goes back to the trajectory of where we've come from so it did start where it was kind of just putting it in the hands of teachers and hoping that they would all magically it would go great um and then we found with the lack of consistency that we did need to go PLC this year currently we have asked that those decisions be at the at least department and or campus so there are some of our schools right now I would say it's probably 50/50 that are departmental and they

109feel really good in supporting where the department chooses to be there are other campus that that feel their leadership is that they want that schoolwide we have asked them especially with going to a common syllabus because it's more to manage that way on our leaders um and some of it is like nuances so it's like let's get everybody together and see if we can agree kind of similar to what we did from the district lens um we are guiding the campuses to move toward a campus-wide decision on those practices uh just because again it it becomes a lot and if you allow for seven I mean our campuses have multiple departments so say you have seven different practices are you going to be able to Monitor and support that so we're we're to the point

110where we are going to that campus-wide um but right now I would say it's about 50/50 departmental and uh campus wide and then absolutely so what I did was I the recommended not recommended I changed that verbiage on our our stuff to say aligned and unaligned so that just became where we went but it takes time to get your staff there we started when I came back to Campo started having conversations to get ourselves to that point we will as a school I I kind of think that this is overarching in a way and then the the details is where we get caught up in it by department and every department is going to be a little different so our departments will have guiding documents that will say in this department This Is How We

111Do retake and redo this is how we go about dealing with missing assignments the parent feedback that came out of that was very very positive that they like the idea that they can just go look so that would be attached to what the syllabus is as well so it will be an expectation schoolwide but how a English teacher does a makeup of a paper is going to look a lot lot different than maybe how a chemistry teacher makes up a lab so we have to have some variance within there but but but it's a great point because it is going to be a little bit different but we have to have a standard that we do schoolwide so yeah if I I guess I should have led with this is this is the issue I've

112heard the most about since becoming a board member by the the the most number of parents was was concerned about about this and so you kind of touched on a little bit and I guess if if we feel really great about these uh principles and everything the work the committee's done and and I do and I I think you guys do and should be proud why not make it a district policy is that like too heavy-handed or or what's what's the reason to not make it a district policy and to let I think I think you have to the Buy in I think that when you go we have to go slow to go fast and when you say to everybody okay this is the way you're going to do it now you're going to

113have Kickback and if you work slowly and get people to buy in that they see that this is a better way I think you'll have more consistency and they they'll do it more happily that that may be true that that's not what happened this year though like that's not what happened and I will say that um one of the things that we have learned is that we have slightly shifted some of these documents year-over-year based on feedback that we get from all of our stakeholder groups and I think for the better um so we actually discussed in our committee that we are going to attach the one pager the syllabus and our grading uh all of the practices to course description books so that this is stuff that we continue the practice of reviewing it

114annually um there has been feedback that was given for example changing the terminology over and tweaking it and so we we don't if we don't have a process where we annually can maybe tweak some things or change up what we believe in um we'll lose sight of it and so now moving forward in November it will come to the board as a part of the coursebook process and the feedback we actually got from parents and teachers was could we even include this stuff in the coursebook so it's all together and I think that's great um I think right now uh when I share that it has been a journey even getting to the point where we are making these configurations consistent um these are I am a person I go like 110 mes an hour

115all the time and so when we first started this work I actually was like let's do that now I I think I probably would have been run out like we we really weren't at a place where um it was and that's kind of how I feel with some of these pieces right now I feel we are leaning on and trusting our teachers and because the training we have to do a better job of making sure that that training is there to build up and Foster our teachers uh and as professionals like they have a lot that they like this is one teacher who has made a huge impact on one campus and so to tap into that teacher leadership and we think it will be more authentic and then in a year's time if we

116feel like there's maybe uh two areas that we're like o we see the evidence is actually supporting that our grades are better aligned when we do it this way then we would maybe add some of those things more at the district level to the consistency page that we already have um but right now because we have so many different ways we're trying to hone in on what those practices are and within each of the ones that we do give the district autonom or the campus autonomy to there are if I'm being honest um multiple ways to do some of those things and so until we have evidence and data to maybe show why one way isn't working I don't know that we're at a place that I want to take that autonomy away from the

117campus teachers and and I know you're I know you're very aware of of of everything I think for me and and I think that teacher Buy in is super important and I think teachers should have input and teachers should have time to come to hopefully a consensus and there'll be some disagreement I think the the problem is from what I've heard and and kind of gathered is that there's not been alignment with amongst teachers there's not been alignment with the teacher and the principal um at certain campuses yet things were implemented and so I think when you have that misalignment but you go ahead and imple like I feel like the alignment should come first and then the implementation um and so I just knowing that this was implemented at a at a small number

118of campuses this year right and um you know I'm aware of one campus where there's um a lot of issues but I'm sure there was at at several um I'm just worried about implementing a districtwide and and minimizing those issues at every campus well and we we we learn so much as we go through so when I shared that several years ago uh we were excited to give the campuses and the teachers the autonomy to go about this at their own pace and choose which practices they wanted to phase in if I if I were to be honest like I that almost caused more pushback because the campuses and the parents did talk and then it looked like well why are we being expected to do it this way and we're not so again the

119reporting part of it and like what goes into the grade book and how we do it that is the part that I think we are able to manage and uh Monitor and again it's something we can take off teachers plates so all of this will be pushed out through Infinite Campus with our um technology department and then teachers will no longer have to set up their own grade book so even like there's human error when when we have individuals do that so we really were looking at like what can we do to save teachers time to take off their plate in times that like maybe there's some human error that happens inadvertently um and then we recognize that we could make decision to even push more districtwide but if the if the training and the

120understanding is not there then it's not authentic and so we really want to our focus is to take that approach of like we need to do a better job of the training so uh we have a leadership team that is made up of teaching and learning uh our other assistant superintendant and we just this last week threw it all out there and our entire PD plan next year we outlined like what are our three top priorities and because we do get a lot about the grading grading was the number one um topic on that so it will be interwoven into everything that we do uh which next year that'll be the first time that we are going about it the way that I'm describing so uh we have a lot of work to do we

121are really excited about where we've been and where we've come but we still have so much work to to be done so yeah you should be EXC I mean these documents are I mean they're amazing this is what Gober public school should be about so I think it's great um just if just one last because I think for for most most parents and most students they're they're not going to look at these documents right like their question is can I turn in homework late can I retake a quiz can I retake a test and so is there there's not there's there's not specifics about that is that is that still going to be different class to class or Department to Department um it will be consistent at the campus level and that will be in

122the syllabus so I know I just gave the template but these will expand to hit on all of those pieces that you just hit okay but it will be campus consistent correct Okay and like the principles are all bought into that and yes we did a whole activity with principles um a couple weeks ago uh based on how a committee meeting went with parents to just be real with the principles to say hey we wanted to make sure they were aware of what's going on and Mr Dumis actually is going to be running a leadership series for all of our secondary administrators um since he has kind of of led the way and has a lot of historical experience with this and so he's going to be taking that on that means well I found

123out today but um congratulations but yeah thank you um but at the same time I I think some of the things that were a little missteps were things that like I said as Educators these some of these terms some of the things that we assume um that led to some of the miscommunication was things that we'd been doing but parents didn't know I mean they're not going to they're going to look at the grade and they're going to look they're not going to see that we've been labeling formative and summative in the in the Gradebook and we've been making some of these changes that's all very understandable but at the same time um I think that we've learned so much that I think that our experiences can really help our peers at our other schools

124make this a lot smoother the ones that go through the wall first get the bloodiest and and the grayest air I hear you so I I do have a couple questions I I haven't heard as much about that this year because I think this is also something that students have to grow into and get used to because it's more I think our previous grading was more carrot and sticks and this is more you need to do this or you need to be engaged in this you need you they have to have a desire to do it so I want to I want to ask a few questions about things that have been that I've heard um and one was you know what if what if students don't finish work what what if they don't turn

125things in in that 50% how how do we handle that so we get students on the page of you got to get your work done and you got to do your best want me to answer that sure yes so the 50% and you're talking about the 50% F yes okay so that's a variance across campuses we were all allowed that we don't do that at Campo so under zero is a zero in our grade book okay um but on the other side and this this is a bad it sounds like a bad word it's really not it's a academic intervention but we started calling this is another thing we learned we started calling academic referral but it was a referral for assistance from the teacher to administrators and to teacher leaders that this student isn't

126engaging in their learning they're getting behind in their learning they're not coming in for help how do we start start there and then that administrator will take that referral maybe just a simple conversation with the student and then we see how they progress next so it's an intervention step for us if that student and we find out that there's something going on at home or there's a situation where they maybe they need some support outside from a behavioral health standpoint we can connect them with the right people on our campus so the academic referral allows I should we we'll rephrase it but it's working on our campus right now because we don't really share it out with students but we just say we're going to get you some academic support so that then comes in

127we're able to provide some some one-on-one support for that student and then get them on the radar and then check in with your other teachers to see if this is similar behavior in other classes so that's the that's the starting point and that wasn't where we started that was a byproduct of some of the concerns that came out of of what teachers were sharing with us and concerns that they had so okay thank you and so the this another question I had was um I have had some complaints that students don't they're like oh I if I don't do well on the test I can take it again so they don't really study and prepare for the test they take it and they don't do well but then they never come back having prepared to

128take it again they just it's it's water under the bridge and they move on so how do we address that issue so in in this case this is where we're getting different from we're going from grading to instructional model and instructional practice so on our campus we give an assessment they take it the first time we look at the score then we intervene and we work with building up whatever skills or deficits they have um students technically if they were doing really well and they got a 98% they could elect to go into some kind of enrichment activity we're not there to where we're really good with that that's not a skill set that we developed but that will come out of our professional development for next year so they take the first assessment we

129look at where they're at then they have some time to remediate and then they take a second so that is built in and it's done within classroom time um that's what we're starting to find that's why I believe we have the numbers at at the students that typically wouldn't opt in to retaking are kind of forced into the retake and they're forced into their own intervention so that's how we've done it on on our campus that would probably look different on different campuses but yes um I do think that that's a concern that every every campus is going to have to figure out how they're going to I mean I think really it's part of the student has to learn that yes I need to prepare I need to study before I take a test

130um and and if they've done the work they should be pretty well prepared but it doesn't hurt to to have a little review um my other question is um of course we've moved a far uh distance in what we tried to do so so what is the um how are we going to keep this going and helping students and teachers to be on this page of grading as we you know we are going to have turnover we have older teachers retiring and newer teachers coming in and so we do have and I'll defer to these ladies but we have included this is now a session when we onboard any new teacher into our district this is a part of their um onboarding so that every new teacher receives this but then again at the campus

131level that professional development and working with our pgd department again the all of our departments work together to make sure that we're meeting the needs based on what struggles or training that teacher needs that's kind of big picture but um the two as an instructional coach and even teacher you guys can add to that being an instructional coach I think not having this position before when all this was rolled out it gives me the flexibility to meet with teachers if they come on on fall break like they missed maybe the July PDS um having a hub that those teachers can then go back to look at those presentations but I would definitely say it would become the role of the instructional coach on that campus to be that person that then reaches out I know

132I meet with a lot of my teachers that are just new to the profession but also just new to your campus they come on they later um they don't have the background that we have so that just falls on then my responsibilities when working with those new teachers for sure okay okay I appreciate those answers thank than you I do think it's something where students are going to have to grow families are going to have to grow and we're going to have to really communicate to help them understand that you know this is a different kind of learning we're we're really focused on you learning and doing my turn um I have a couple questions too a couple of them kind of piggyback off what Jill just said have you received any um feedback or

133anything from parents Andor students about about the no zero policy because I know I've heard that um depending so I guess I should ask this first is 50% like the absolute lowest that students can get not necessarily so um when you when you look at that part of the grading beliefs it it is one suggestion uh that you can use a 50% when you think of like a rubric that makes each letter grade the same calculation so then they're each 10% so some campuses have chosen to change that setting in Infinite Campus whereas other campuses are focusing on like more of the Learning Cycle where it's embedded in and they do give zeros um and we have a lot of teachers that are I would consider it um uh or research set proficiency based grading

134so they grade everything off of a rubric so still zero to 100 but if they're using a rubric to grade it it helps to categorize kind of where they're at on like a proficiency scale right so I guess the question I have then is what happens if you have a student who say has earned a 26 did the work turned in everything and then the student who didn't do the work now you have nothing to give them and they get a 50% I guess that's where the confusion is cuz I've just heard that it's like okay well this kid put in the time and the effort but he got a way lower grade than the student who didn't do anything and I would say not necessar I mean I I think that it's a perception

135that that's what's happening but I actually I'm going to for to Shannon because she as a classroom teacher does use the 50% and I think her valid like real lived experience will help to kind of just share that from like a true teacher perspective so do you want to share yeah um okay so um the 50% Baseline like Christa said is just waiting the categories of the letter grade the same um in order to not like make a grade so um unrecoverable right so that's part of in the chart that you're looking at there's a video that's a screenshot from that video of that research that's done that shows if we're averaging a grade um and a student consistently is getting an 85 and 85 and 85 and 85 and then suddenly misses something for

136whatever reason that might be they were absent they were out sick with the flu you know something happened they just bombed a test whatever and they get a zero and how that disproportionately affects the grade right um so that's where that is coming from if a teacher is doing 50% um like for for my class for example where the floor is a 50% that that is the floor so there it every every grade that I give there there isn't any there isn't a 26% that doesn't exist right um and that comes from proficiency scale so that's that's doing all the math for like um multiple choice tests for example for like our our district cuas right um those are on proficient skills and um you can think of like the example I always use when

137I'm coaching my department in this is the act right and the ACT is a is a proficiency scale if you get a 36 on the ACT it doesn't mean you got every question right right that's even though that's 100% um and then the proficiency scale like for the AP exam right is um they they use a proficiency scale so a 50% is actually what you get for pass that's what passing is um and and so just understanding like the difference between um proficiency scale and then traditional grading reporting that is something that I realized right away in implementing these policies that my teachers needed a lot more education on so that is something that I focused on as a department share um just because I have a lot of knowledge in it um this is

138uh something that I've done other districts I've been in they they implemented this as well and so I had the some of the background knowledge already and so I've been working with teachers consistently to just educate them on the different types of grading and scales and the math that goes along with that for understanding that so I do think what chrisa said like if if that's happening where a teacher is giving a 50% because somebody didn't turn something in and then somebody else is getting a 26% on the same assignment that they did turned in that's a Mis that's a misconception okay yeah um so but then the question is if they are able to do something over and over and over again then that it the floor of 50% may not necessarily be necessary

139because if they got a zero and you say you can redo the assignment then they should be able to earn x amount of points so if you have the rules of assignments can be turned in as many times as needed or whatever the allotment is cuz it says right like regardless of how slowly they get there so I guess that's determined based on campus and syllabus um it's still just I don't know it was just very confusing because it I have had the experience where it has has been a little bit where it me it it messes with things it doesn't necessarily keep it even Keel so I was just curious as to why you know if you're allowed to turn things over turn things in many times over and it doesn't really you know

140doesn't matter then why bother with the 50% floor when if to me it sends the signal to students well I get 50% whether I put in the effort or not yeah if I can jump in here I I I think I agree so there's two two schools of thought one is a 26 is an F no credit and a 50 is f no credit so whatever your floor is if it's if a student's doing doing some work and getting a 26 or no work in getting a 50 they're still both failing right but I do agree that that this um that this grading method which includes retests and allowing students to turn in missing missing work missing work late work things like that kind of makes the the the the 50% floor obsolete there's no

141there's to me it doesn't really seem like there's a purpose in having both because like like uh like you said said if they can redo it then it's not going to be a zero it's going to be whatever the teacher the teacher allows and then um and then I I also understand the the perspective of you know it it it doesn't make it it makes it easier for a student that wants to to turn on the gas towards the end of the semester to catch up maybe they they had an epiphany and they're like oh man I need to get my life together I need to catch up and now I only have to catch up from a 50 from a 50 instead of a zero um I get that but then also our our

142teachers do have the the flexibility to offer those students whatever work they want to and grade those grade that work however they want to so it's it's yeah I see some some philosophical issues with 50% being the floor and when in when in when combined with with the the beliefs that we're trying to that we're trying to get all campuses to adopt so I am I anyway so I'm going to say that I agree with what both of you saying there not a there's not a difference and I think it's how we're going about getting there but we allow zeros but I also so when we started this I knew that my staff would probably really I they did and I knew that they would push back on the 50% off um so we went

143a different route and I said you're going to have to get to the point that now we're doing retakes now we're having extra opportunities so we did that in said very few times will you see a zero in the Gradebook because kids have multiple opportunities to do it the other part that we do have to worry about our teachers is and what I've found over the last couple years is that teachers were H having until the end of the semester to make up work and that's taxing on teachers so we do need some deadlines we do need to set some deadlines so we've moved this year through this process to when the unit is completed that's a last opportunity for you to make up that work so it just we just need some deadlines and

144and and they're I mean they're hard but if there's an situation they're soft so I don't think you're wrong I think that the way that they're doing it um at Highland and In Pockets at different places on different campuses it's not wrong necessarily it's just that philosophically to get my campus to move as fast as I wanted them to move we had to make this other aspect of what you're describing be prominent and be something that we all agreed upon and that's where our staff went right but if the goal is consistency across the board if there's 50% over here and zero is over there and your students are having a harder time being able to hit the gas and make up the difference and your students aren't doesn't that kind of kill the consistency

145coal I I would agree that it would if if we were in a situation where teachers weren't actively going back and we do test replacement too so we're looking at um how we did on that final unit exam and did I get a 40 or a 30 on an assessment that was covered the same standards down the road then we'll go back and replace that because that covered that standard and and at some point in time we ended up getting to that point so you know not everybody finishes the race at the same time we want to get to that end when that unit is completed whatever that final grade is can go back on our campus and replace grades so um there's just there is just a lot of intricacies I think that that's

146a conversation for us going back to Dr robison's question when there are some pieces that when I say where our different campuses in their culture are at I will say even with that there are some campuses where Campo it was very much like we're ready to like enforce the Learning Cycle and test retakes and they had uh Bank of extra tests and they were good we also have campuses that are more stressed about the test retake and have not had issues with the 50% because in their world they don't have extra tests and they're like well who's going to create these extra tests for us to do it so that's where with some of these pieces with having the recommendation and not and really trying to support to some extent where some of our campuses

147are it there when I say that there's different ways to get to some of those things from my perspective I care more about um being within those parameters of the best practices and again when we revisit in a year or maybe in two years from now maybe we get to a point where once we have some of those more tests created and um we are uh doing some work groups with teachers um um even our common uned assessments that we're creating there's a lot of work being created right now that we may be having a totally different conversation um in the future but for right now depending on where some of our campuses are some of them again are very passionate it's funny because I didn't even plan this but um Shannon would voice one

148way and Dumis would feel different and that just shows the differences with the different campuses um and and I think at the end of the day it is about like the grade reflecting the learning and the proficiency and truly depending on which um Avenue you take there are a few ways to get there what I think matters most in our for our stakeholders and our community is making sure that it's clearly communicated and that our practices aren't penalizing and hurting students and if we can get to where a whole campus is doing something um consistently and in the best interest of our students um then I think that that's a win and then I think we just continue to have that conversation so right now I still think there's work to be done to even

149get to where we're um adhering to the things that you even outlined as you were kind of debriefing on that page yeah no I I I definitely think you guys you know are on the right track in a lot of ways I love the fact that um I was talking with curriculum instruction the other day and just aligning things for teachers and having that one pager and having those guidelines so that everybody kind of knows parents know like putting all of the stakehold holders on the same page I think is fantastic so that's you know it's awesome so I was just noticing some nuances that I wanted to to ask that's and I I do appreciate it I wrote that down and I think too uh we did share with the parents uh that are

150very passionate I uh joked that if they well I wasn't joking but I shared with them that if they wanted to bring a friend to the last meeting and they brought friends to the last meeting so uh one of the things that we are going to continue moving forward is the committee work we are at a point where we do want to include parents and stakeholders in that ongoing and I'm going to kind of piggyback off to something Mr Duma said earlier we truly are proud and some of us have been involved in this work for years um I feel we have made more progress and have made this more meaningful and I'm personally more proud of it and I feel like that is because of the parent and Community feedback that we had at

151the table and my my only regret up to this point is maybe not including them sooner so moving forward we plan to have them in and I we have a a running agenda and I'm going to add some of the things that you shared on to that to just see uh where we're at so thank you for that feedback yeah I think I think just what you said I think that this um I mean these one page documents are so great and I think it is it just it's not just clarifying it's like substance and I think it really does focus on learning which is the overarching goal but clarifies on grades which are important as well so I think it's great that IT addresses both those things um I I think you know this

152but I'll just state it like you you can't overc communicate about this and so I I think to all stakeholders I think if just overc communicate and I think I expect more out of our high schoolers than our Junior highers I I don't think you know a couple days after curriculum night for parents we should tell the seventh grade students about a grading policy change but not tell parents so I think for our like seventh graders like and for our high school we should be communicating to parents as well um but I think if we can just really overc communicate over the next months before next school year I would agree so yeah like a chance I have question kind of kind of going back to to these forms so are these going to be

153you said like it's per campus per Department that may you know may want to use these recommendations so will this this be communicated to everyone and then the Departments or the campuses will decide whether they Implement those direct so everything that's on the one page and specifically the categories and percentages that will be pushed out and mandated districtwide to everybody so our Tech team is actually putting that into Infinite Campus so that people can't bypass it and change it like and the intention was to save teachers time and to eliminate the errors that just happened uh but also to be fully transparent it is for accountability uh as well and we all need that in all areas so it helps us to Monitor and track that to make sure that our what we're saying is

154actually accurately in there okay so I hope that helps anything else from anyone okay well thank you very much we know this was a real uh a real labor of love um and and pain and sweat and tears I'm sure they'll be presenting this tomorrow also to the parent Council teacher Council support staff counsil as well so great well good well thank you very much um if we have any questions as board members uh followup questions who should we reach out to myself please Dr Cox okay all right thank you again thank you thank you thank you for all your work well done guys thank you uh I don't believe so nope all right that with that uh we will adjourn our work study and we will now move into our brief board business meeting

155uh which I will call to order and we'll ask um Miss Wilson to uh for roll call Mr Chad Thompson here Mrs Shaina Murray here Dr Blake Robinson here miss Jill humph here Mr Jesse Brainard here Mr President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much uh agenda item number five Proclamation National School counseling week turn it over to Dr McCord thank you Mr President govering board members it is National School counseling week and um we really want to thank all of our counselors for all the hard work uh that they put in each and every day I think a lot of times um they think people just assume they're there just to change a schedule and they do so much more than that and we appreciate them and uh

156just want to read this Proclamation for them whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students reach their full potential and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interest and talents as these traits relate to Career awareness and development and whereas school counselors help families Focus on ways to further their academic career and social and their emotional development of their child and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other Educators to help students explore their potential and set forth their realistic goals for themselves and whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize Community Resources that can enhance and complement comprehensive School counseling programs and help students become productive members of society and whereas comprehensive School counseling programs are are considered an integral part of our

157educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school therefore I Shane McCord superintendent Gilbert Public Schools do Proclaim uh February 3rd through the 7th 2025 as National School counseling week again thank you to all of our school counselors thank you very much I feel like we should have after you made that Proclamation we should like cheer or something like that thank you yeah our school yeah let's do it again we'll reset uh yeah we'd like to thank all of our school counselors they uh help our students a tremendous amount uh moving on to consent agenda item number six I'm sorry agenda item number six our consent agenda is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda items as they are outlined on our uh as they are agend presented on our agenda so

158moved thank you Miss Hum is there a second second thank you Dr Robinson all those in favor of approving tonight's consent consent agenda items as outlined uh please say I I any opposed nay none okay then that passes thank you uh agenda item number seven uh fiscal year 2025 revised rised budget number one is there a motion to approve the fiscal year 2025 revised budget number one so moved thank you Mr brard is there a second second thank you Miss Humphries is there any discussion regarding the revised budget number one I I do want to say that um I really appreciate the attention that um we get so many reports and such detailed reports and we're on top of things and and I'm really grateful for that thank you Miss Humphries I think we all

159Echo that those sentiments uh any other any any other discussion on this agenda item okay and call for a vote all those in favor of approving the fiscal year 2025 revised budget number one say I I any opposed say nay and that passes 5 to zero great and last but not least adjournment is there a motion to adjourn our meeting tonight so moved thank you Dr Robinson is there a second second thank you Miss Murray all those in favor of adjournment please say I I me opposed all right thank you very much everyone e