Gilbert Public Schools Board Meeting 1/21/2025

001Vancouver M check 1 2 three e e e [Music] are you I'm fine thank [Music] you you're special just like everybody else so you're good with this [Music] you guys aren't waiting for me are you just finishing up our convers sttion up here we're so glad you're here we'd like to welcome everybody to our regular board business meeting Tuesday January 21st 20125 uh and I realized after our last meeting that I forgot to uh recognize and welcome our new board members I know that they will recognized later on but I personally just want to uh welcome uh all of our new board members we're excited that you've uh made the decision to uh serve the school district and your community and uh look forward to uh uh many great experiences with with each of you

002so thank you very much we're going to start off our meeting with a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by uh board member Shaina Murray thank you everyone please stand um I'd like to start with a moment of silence and tonight I'd also like to just ask all of you if you could keep in mind um Wally deluy and Ariel Thomas um unfortunately we lost both of them and I just want you to keep them in your thoughts I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you Miss Murray uh and if I didn't do it I officially call this meeting to order uh and now we'll go

003ahead and move on with with roll call Miss Wilson Mr Chad Thompson here miss Shana Murray here miss Jill humre here Dr Blake Robinson here Mr Jesse Brainard here Mr President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much moving on to agenda item number two approval of the agenda is there a motion to proove approve tonight's agenda as it is outlined so moved thank you Dr Robinson is there a second second thank you Mr Brainard uh all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda as outlined say I I any opposed thank you very much moving on to agenda item 3.01 our superintendent recognition Awards Dr McCord thank you Mr President board members if you could join me in front of the dis to recognize some people in our room tonight

004I'd appreciate it thank you good evening I always say it twice cuz the first one's like oh we're at church good evening thanks for being here so tonight we have um two people and a group to recognize and so we'll get going um first of all can Lynn jordanson please come up from Gilbert High School give her a hand you don't even know why yet than hi Lynn so Lynn has received the national ftec did I say that right ftec Teacher of the Year this award recognizes a teacher as an exemplary physics teacher by the American physical society and the American Association of physics teachers which is AAP these organizations jointly lead the physics teacher education Coalition which is ftec Project to meet the growing demand for highly qualified physics teachers in US School and

005guess what we got one of the very best right here L I'm going to ask you a question and I so it's question answer I'm not going to make you give a speech how long have you been teaching this is year 10 year 10 all of them at Gilbert High School at Gilbert High School are you from Gilbert uh no my husband my husband actually went to Mountain View I'm from California Bay Area well we' like to thank Lynn for coming tonight I was a Mesa highr tell your husband that I'm a jack rabbit so no that's all right we you know it's okay we're really really proud of you and really proud of the things that you've accomplished and more than anything we're proud of the skills you give our students at Gilbert High

006on a daily basis so please give Lynn a hand thank you ly if you come back to the middle we're going to get a group photo conratulations and Lynn congratulations to your daughter who's leaving tomorrow on her mission to Vancouver Washington congratulations to you give her a hand next up from mosquite high school we have Christy Peterson hi christe thanks for coming so chrisy has been awarded the presidential the presidential award for excellence in Math and Science teaching the P MST in education we love our acronyms this is the highest recognition a K12 teacher in the United States can receive for outstanding teacher in math or science considered the top honor for stem Educators at the primary and secondary level it is awarded by the White House and administered by the National Science Foundation give

007her another hand so christe and I were talking about this a little bit before the meeting it was almost a year and a half ago that Rod Houston the former principal of mosquite and here's the current principal Mr Sean Lynch thank you for being here um he tells me hey christe's up for this award and I just want you to know cuz she's got a really good shot at getting it right and then I saw Rod I don't know last week or somewhere around there he goes hey Christy got that award and I was like what award are you talking about cuz that was a year and a half ago this is how long that process is taken but it is awarded by the White House so you know a lot of things go on

008down there uh but we're glad they didn't forget about our good friend Christy would you like to say a couple words so I just want to say first of all I am very thankful that um I chose a career that is one of my two passions I have one passion is my family number one my second passion is helping and challenging students learn and that's through my students and other teachers that I impact and so I'm just been blessed to be in this profession but Dr McCord I want to make sure you all know um the history of this award in Gilbert public schools in 2019 every other year is secondary in 2019 Len balm from Camp verie who's now the current math um coordinator at The District 1 and in 2021 Karen Moss from

009GCA was a finalist and then me in 2023 um we are well represented in the math department in this community so and and the people she just named off including herself are not just well representatives of our district they're phenomenal Educators and so Christie you're obviously you always have been but now you're being formally recognized for being right there with them so congratulations again thank you [Music] awesome thank you and last but definitely not least if I could have the members of the Daughters of the American Revolution please come up Dar do you like your acronyms too yes give them a hand so I'm going to say a few words then I'm going to turn it over to an and she's going to give us some more information um this is a book donation from

010the Governor George WP hunt chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and this year in preparation for the America's 250th anniversary in 2026 The National Society is awarding Grants to each chapter that applies for a grant to promote their 250th birthday their chapter applied for a grant and received it to supply 100 books on the American Revolution to elementary schools in Gilbert public schools and an I'll let you talk but if everybody before I'll pass it down if you guys can introduce yourselves that would be great to everyone I'm an fiser and I am the vice Regent Diana Hines Regent Mara mckowski past Regent Judy Maris chap Kathy Panella Treasurer and chair of service for veterans and americanism Patty Zur and I'm the registar well an I know you got a prepared statement you

011can come up here and read it if you want or you can read it wherever you'd like all right well anyways I think you covered a lot of it so with the upcoming 250th anniversary um The National Society was awarding grants to any chap that applied for a grant that would um celebrate in our communities uh the anniversary so we did apply for a grant of uh it was $500 and we received it and then our chapter also donated some money um and we were our goal was 100 books we ended up with I think 126 books that we were able to donate so these books um are on the American Revolution there's uh they're grade appropriate for elementary schools and uh they will help educate children about our country's history the Patriots that fought

012for our freedom and we look forward to continuing our relationship with the Gilbert public schools and the town of Gilbert both thank you we give her a hand we truly appreciate the fact that you keep us in mind and that you want to make sure our students have great materials as it relates to the American Revolution the book titles I have here are guts and Glory the American Revolution history of the American Revolution black Heroes of the American Revolution I survived the American Revolution and Phoebe the Spy um so again these books will soon Dawn our bookshelves and for our students to enjoy so please give them one more hand if you guys would shake hands with the board and then we'll do a group photo F in I think you're supposed to be and

013you can take photos whenever you like everybody stand because Jonathan is only Roger you can see me I can see you we here three two one all right thank you governing board members that concludes our recognitions for this evening thank you so much thank you so much for Jo us all right thank you very much moving on to agenda item number four our superintendent report Dr McCord thank you Mr President governing board members good evening and Welcome to our meeting for this evening our well kind of our first full governing board meeting our last meeting was an organizational meeting and uh we're just glad to have like you said Mr Thompson all of our new board members we're ready to roll and take on this uh second semester of the 2425 school year coming up

014we have a spelling be we will hold our annual District spelling be this Thursday at 6 p.m. at Camp over verie high school students from elementary and junior high schools will gather to see who is the best speller this annual event is always very competitive and I wish all the participants the best of luck we look forward to seeing who will represent GPS in the regional spelling be comp competition Junior High orch uh honor Orchestra so this past Saturday I had the pleasure along with some other board members of attending the annual District junior high honor Orchestra performance students tried out and were selected for this honor and they truly represented all the great things about our GPS music programs they get together at 600 p.m. the Friday evening before the actual um concert and

015that is the very first time that they get to see each other and actually play together and they practice for a couple hours they come back the next day and continue practicing and get ready for that 2PM performance and when you hear them and they get together um it is it's truly unbelievable how well they gel and how well they play and they sounded phenomenal so um if you don't get the chance to to go see those it's every year right around the same time please check it out and again thank you to the governing board members that were able to attend uh tomorrow night everybody in here's got a job because I know most of you but if you don't and those online we have a job fair tomorrow night at Gilbert High School

016from 4:00 to 6: p.m. we are hiring for all positions certified and support staff so if you know somebody that's looking for a position who wants to work in the very best school district in the state of Arizona go to Highland High at 400 P p.m. tomorrow afternoon and we will definitely give you some great consideration to become part of our team so and thank you to otm for putting that all together all of our schools will be represented uh represented there and the principles and we'll we'll get ready to sign people up isn't that right Mr Macintosh correct I love it when you talk so much at a board meeting next we have a very special honor uh governing board member Jill humph has been chosen to receive the Arizona music educators associ assciation

017Raymond g van award at the upcoming AA Conference this award named for the longtime music consultant to the Arizona Department of Education is presented to someone outside of the music education profession for Extraordinary efforts made in the area of advocacy so that will be held uh Friday the 31st at 115 in Mesa at the Mesa Civic Center and Jill will be awarded then so congratulations to you Jill we're very happy for you and I know you definitely deserve that recognition so thank you well thank you I just want to say that's what started my journey for um Public School advocacy is getting involved in understanding the music program well we have phenomenal programs and I'm glad that um so many people enjoy it and I'm glad that you recognized because you show up and you

018support them as often as you can um on a on a Saturn note as you heard Miss Murray talk about a couple people to be remembered I want to talk about them uh briefly this past weekend we also experienced the loss of one of our students uh Ariel Thomas who was a third grader at Patterson Elementary she had been battling aplastic anemia and sadly on Saturday the battle came to an end uh we want to express our condolences for AR's family teachers support staff and friends please keep her family in your thoughts and prayers I know they will be putting out service information uh once that's available so uh please keep their family in your hearts additionally Gilbert public schools in the town of Gilbert lost one of the most amazing human beings to walk

019this planet and that is Dr Walter Dei Dr Dei passed away early Monday morning after spending a few days in the hospital Dr Dei came to GPS in 1978 as an assistant superintendent 3 years later he was named superintendent of Gilbert Public Schools he served as superintendent from 1981 to 2001 um leading the district through its most remarkable growth and successfully opening 20 plus schools in the Gilbert and Mesa areas in those 20 years in his years as superintendent and ever since Dr Dei positively influenced the district culture and students academic achievements in immeasurable ways always putting people first he'll be greatly missed and always remembered do Dr Dei represents everything that is great about Gilbert public schools there never has been or will be a better and more beloved superintendent than Wall-E he was

020the pride of GPS in the town of Gilbert and a dear friend that I love tremendously and we lost an icon that will never be matched so please keep his family and friends in your thoughts and prayers as they navigate this difficult time uh again we will very close to having Services Arrangements uh completed for for him and once that is out we will publish those so please be on the lookout for that Mr Thompson that is my report for this evening thank you thank you Dr McCord thank you for your words uh in regards to uh Dr deluy and also R Thomas thank you thank you uh moving on to agenda item number five request of the speak to the request to speak to the governing board which we don't have any this evening

021but I do want to mention that we received two comments online and we want to thank those uh folks for uh taking the time to do that and address the board so we will move on to agenda item number six uh 6.01 fiscal year 2024 annual comprehensive financial report Dr McCord thank you Mr President board members if you'll notice Miss Betts will be going down to the Podium to present the AER um and um she'll do a tremendous job but uh thank you Bonnie again I think it's working okay good just take just took a little while okay so good evening um president Thompson governing board members Dr McCord um this is our annual um report on how we did a year ago so we're talking about school year 23 24 and the financial results

022associated with 23 24 so um as we go through this you did know that it does say it's the draft annual comprehensive report and we did post a draft of the entire report um for you last Friday I want you to know that we're just finalizing typographical errors but the substance and the the financial statements are all complete and if we find something that is not um we will bring it back to you for your acceptance so we are asking for you to accept it at the end of the board meeting tonight during the action items okay okay good so just to begin uh this is what we're going to talk about today the audit process and results uh fiscal year 24 government-wide financials the governmental and proprietary fund financials other funds and then a

023few items to note so to begin I wanted to hand over the podium to um Miss Jennifer Shields from hfield meech and they are our external Auditors and she will share um information about the audit process and the results good evening um president Thompson Dr McCord governing board members um thank you for allowing me a few minutes to speak with you tonight I know um a few of you on the dis are um newer board members so this will be a little bit of an education session for you this evening um but I'm here just I don't have slides this time around um perhaps When I visit with you next time I might bring some slides but um my um my job is to um just present information to you from perspective as external Auditors

024so the way the audit process works is we are um contracted we go through the procurement process the district does you know an RFP and all of that kind of stuff so we are in fact um contracted to perform the audit Services every year um I don't know what year of the contract we're in but um we have worked with the district for quite a number of years and so the way the audit process begins is each year we start with an engagement letter so for your District that occurs usually in the spring sometime so usually in about the April time frame we issue an engagement letter and then that allows us to start performing audit procedures and we do in fact perform audit procedures from April all the way up until essentially right now

025when we are out here giving this report to um you all so the um the audit procedures are per performed in a series of events so some of our visits um are what we call remote visits where we work with um the business office and they kind of coordinate getting us a lot of information electronically through a secure portal that type of thing and um we perform some of those audit procedures remotely not on site and then other procedures we do come on site and perform those here so when we are on site you'll see us kind of running around the district as well as at your school sites there's a number of different um departments that we interact with um the business office is of course the largest um take the largest lift of

026coordinating all of the audit um there are some very specific things that as the independent Auditors that we communicate to you all you are in our world you are those charged with governance that's the sort of the terminology that we use in our world um and I'm going to go through some of those right now one um some of those involve going over the timeline which I went over with you um it's reporting whether or not we had any significant deficien I'm sorry significant difficulties that we encountered with Management in um the performance of our audit procedure procedures there's a lot of procedures um we I'm happy to report that we actually did not have any difficulties with Management in the performance of those procedures there were no significant audit adjustments that were required to

027be reported in order to get these financial statements in this draft um format that is before you this evening we also had no disagreements with management about accounting practices or principles so no disagreements and then of course as you're internal or I'm sorry as your external Auditors we are required to follow our um Professional Standards which require us to follow um various ethical responsibilities and to maintain our independence and we had no violations of any of those things on our side um in terms of the financial statements um Miss bets is going to go through them with you um I'm here also to answer any questions that she may have one of the services that our firm provides is it's actually not it's wrapped up with the audit but it's technically a non- audit service

028and that's the compilation of the report so what we do is we take um essentially all of the accounting records that are coming out of the district's Erp system and we make adjustments to convert um the the cash basis records into to both acrel and modified acral which again um Bonnie will go go through some of those adjustments with you and and kind of how you get from essentially the reports that you're used to seeing every month as a board member how you get from those reports into this um particular fashion so um when it comes to Preparing the financial statements um in the manner that's required by generally accepted accounting principles there are always estimates that occur with in the financial statements and so that that remains true with Gilbert Public Schools as well

029there are probably three main estimates um that have to do with your Capital assets generally in terms of depreciation expense so how long we expect to use our assets for there are um some estimates as they recur um as they relate to um what's called incurred but not reported expenses for claims which in your case is really like medical um claims for your self Insurance Fund so that is an estimate of how much we expect to have as a liability for future claims and then also um and I believe bnny will talk about it a little bit as well but there are um estimates as relate to um pensions so every District employee participates in Arizona State Retirement System Pension Plan and the pension information goes into this draft financials and ultimately it contains a

030lot of um estimates that are actuarially based that happen over at asrs um so there are some estimates while they are significant in terms of um dollar amounts perhaps um we we don't don't have any concerns with the application of the estimates um and then I think that concludes I like I said I will be coming back there's another part of the audit um that is not yet completed we're still working on that um and it relates to it's What's called the single audit and so it um it covers uh like the federal portion of the audit um probably one thing I should mention about the actual financial statements that are before you tonight although they are in draft form we have complete um completed enough of our procedures that we are expecting to issue

031an unmodified opinion so that's that's what we like to hear um you know it's called the clean opin it's a clean opinion but it's technically called unmodified so that is what we expect to issue when this report is issued um and I believe we're targeting for about you know in the next probably four or 5 days to finish up with all those typographical type double checks make sure all the eyes are dotted and the t's are crossed so with that um I will turn it back over to Bonnie but I will be here if or I can take any questions if you have questions now all right thank you thank you I was afraid she wasn't going to let us know what the audit audit opinion was okay um so to move on into the

032financial statements so first I wanted to share with you uh the government-wide financial so this is the highest level of how we report out to you and you're only going to see these one time a year because generally speaking when we present to you monthly we're showing budget to actuals which is really more of that cash basis that um Miss Shields mentioned so in this particular case this is what we would call a full acral so all of those adjusting entries that Miss Shields talk talked about are all within the government-wide financials the most important thing about the government-wide financials is it gives an indicator as to the financial stability and the status of Gilbert as a financial institution as it relates to our bond buyers and anyone who gives us a a credit rating

033and all those types of things so it does give the reader an idea of how we're doing so to share this is our government-wide net position so you can see year-over-year from 2023 to 2024 we've actually gained in net position by $28 million which is really good news so generally speaking um this net position indicates that if we have spent some money and so we've drawn down cash we've put it into say a capital asset which has increased its value and so therefore it's actually posted to the government wide the note that that we have at the bottom there um that ending uh net position of $45 million that is net of a six about a $ 61.3 million negative restricted um fund balance and that's a very odd thing that we have a negative

034fund balance but that's related directly to our Arizona State Retirement net pension liability and that liability only appears at the government-wide level so if we did not have that net pension liability we would not have that negative $61 million restricted fund balance so to get into a little bit more about that so this is our Arizona State Retirement and this is that net pension liability that Jennifer mentioned and I'm sharing with you now you can see that year-over-year our net pension liability has increased by about $2 million from 276 million up to 278 when this was first required back in 2012 all of us as Finance professionals throughout the nation were very upset by it because it's not really our liability G Public Schools does not own that $278 million that we have to pay

035Arizona State Retirement owns it gasby the government Accounting Standards Board really wanted to make sure though that the public knew the shape that our Arizona State Retirement Systems not Arizona but all State Retirement systems were in and so they needed to have something posted at the highest level at all the school districts and other municipalities throughout the nation so I don't want you to get confused that we're going to owe $278 million we don't this is the only point this only this is the only place in which it will appear throughout this entire financial report okay so before I go on are there any questions about that yes this just a requirement I do have a question um so when we're talking about the net pension liability this is taking um the people in our

036district who are working for our district and then figuring out in the future how much they might um draw a pension how how you know estimating how long people will live and how long they would draw a pension and that's what makes our liability and makes it such a large number that's an estimate act actuarially determined by Arizona State Retirement staff members um but it's not just Gilbert Public Schools it's all of the school districts in Arizona and our proportionate share is based upon our annual contribution so it's likely that our net pension liability went up because our contribution went up year-over-year leading to that increase in that net net pension liability right before or right after that table you can see that there is a sens a sensitivity analysis that that um our Auditors

037complete for us and you can see that that so much of the net pension liability is about the interest earnings that the Arizona State retirement fund can earn so generally speaking this actuary Actuarial determined number is based upon a current discount rate of 7% so expecting a 7% return on your investment if this was decreased by just 1% you can see that our net liability would go up gosh $140 million so significantly but conver verely if the discount rate went up by 1% our net pension liability would be sizeably decreased so it's very much dependent upon what is expect what the expected return on investment that these retirement uh pension systems are are going to get okay so also at the government wide sorry about that also at the government wide this is where we

038do a functional spend analysis and these are the numbers I'm going to show you a p here shortly but I wanted to to show you the numbers because between 23 and 24 we increased instruction spend this is directly in the classroom by over $18 million either in salary increases um later you'll you'll have um Len and Crystal talk about the implementation of the math uh and math adoption so um over $8 million was spent on the math adoption in 2024 all that is direct and construction expense uh same thing there's a little bit of an increase in Support Services students and staff that's generally um probably due to Arizona State Retirement and um our pay increases that were awarded last year and then finally one thing I wanted to point out and we'll talk a

039little bit more about this later but if you look at Support Services Administration you can see that there is a $9 million increase on support service Administration so that's your executive support that's all of you the superintendent's office all of the superintendent leadership team um so that is the the highest level Administration but it also includes all of our principles Etc at our schools but we had this Quasar uh judgment that was passed down to US during 2024 which was a judgment where um somebody basically sued the county assessor's office and said you overstated the value of my property and so that was back since I think 20 5 to 2022 so our proportionate share of that is just under $6 million which is part of that 9 million we were obligated to post that

040at the highest level now we're at the government wide we were required to post that here in this particular functional spend analysis so I wanted to make sure that that was clear with everyone okay yes sir why does that fall under Administration versus reflected somewhere else and I I think it's just because because it's it's not even a spend really we we had to well it's a spend but we didn't decrease our budget capacity um for it I I don't really know the answer to that but let me ask Jennifer maybe she can help us with that oh it's based upon the usfi chart of accounts so that's where any judgments like this have to be accounted for is under that 2300 function okay okay thank you okay so miss that'ss the the 6 million

041or so that was uh the Judgment in this lawsuit so you're saying so Gilbert Public Schools isn't responsible for the entire amount that's you're saying that's spread out between across the state or that is just Gilbert Public Schools that's just Gilbert Public Schools however as part of the legislation uh part of the legislative session last year um they required that the department of Ed recalculate the state aid calculation because that means also that state aid was under under allocated in all those years so right now we're expecting that of that up roughly $6 million that we're going to get back about four from the state of Arizona so the actual liability is just over a million doll for us but it's ours it's truly govern Public Schools not related to any other and this is

042specific to Maricopa County okay and when we receive 4 million or so of those funds back where will that go it's going to go into cash so right now we have a situation in in our maintenance and operations fund where if we are earning interest we're not allowed to spend it so it just grows and we don't have any spending Authority on that so because we had what we call excess cash we were able to easily let them take that $5 million or $6 million we didn't have to incur any debt service charges or anything with the county treasur measure they we had the cash available and they just took it but it did not impact our budget capacity or our budget limits that we are able to spend to it's a strange thing in

043Arizona thank you okay great so this is the expenses by function year-over-year comparison so you can see if you look at the big blue um piece of the pie it's a 57% and 57% so that is in in instru spend Jackie and I like to share this uh this graph because it gives us um an indicator of how our district spending report will come out so last year our instructional spend was 57% when the district spending report came out it ended up to be 58.7% it's not the same basis of how they're looking at it the the auditor general takes are are are spend on more of a cash basis not on this a cruel basis um but because we are at least at the same at the 57% we're expecting our district spending report

044will also be very favorable for go public schools and we plan on sharing that with you late March early April I think yeah okay okay any questions on that great okay the governmental fund financials so now we're going to take a step back and we're going to do a modified acrel treatment and again you're never going to hear me say these words again again throughout the remainder of the year until next year when we're presenting to you so it's very it's very different than how we normally present so governmental balance sheet these funds included in here are general fund federal and state grants Debt Service Bond building non- major governmental so if you look at these funding groupings we try to do that in our monthly report so that we're kind of um uh estimating

045what our AC for presentation might look like when we group them in the way that we do when we share the monthly report with you and then internal service funds the employee benefit trust is the largest there's about 28 $29 Million worth of activity in there annually so it's a very large internal service fund and then District services like The Print Shop there's a technology component and one other little component that I forgety just Tech mostly technology so internal service funds if you the reason that they're separated out we don't want to duplicate the to spend so as an example in maintenance operations our general fund we're putting premium we're we're charging premium benefits to both GT Public Schools as well as premiums to employees that becomes a revenue for the employee benefit trust and

046it doesn't matter what fund it comes out of it just kind of goes out of payroll and it's charged to the fund in which those employees are working and then it goes into the employee benefit trust as cash and that's our funding source so if we duplicated it you know we would be we'd be duplicating 30 $30 million of of activity every year so that's why it's an internal service fund so to go to the next uh summary so this is our balance sheet the governmental funds balance sheet in in in whole so all those funds are included within this summary but note at the bottom the fund balance you can see that the fund balance was drawn down year-over-year I just shared with you that the net position went up by $28 million but

047now you can see that when you look at the governmental fund summary we've actually drawn down fund balance so the largest component of that draw down and fund balance was the bond fund so we spent over $22 million out of the bond fund to put back into our facilities so that $22 million of spend went back into our facilities which increased our assets which went into the government the government wide so that's the the easiest way to consider how you can navigate from government government wide down to cover governmental okay that's just just one simple example so general fund definition so our general fund includes maintenance and operations unrestricted Capital the school plant School Plant is where when we sold Neely to the town of Gilbert we were able to put those proceeds into school

048plant eate Medicaid indirect auxiliary operations gifts and donations litigation insurance and advertising all that is in our general fund so the general fund that we share with you we call it an operating fund that we're that giving you an idea when we present that are these are the funds that we have the most discretion over that that the rules are not so stringent in all these funds we're very close to this um definition but not quite exactly the same so um in this particular case what am I looking at oh this is the general fund I'm sorry so this is the general fund summary now just that highest level just so the general fund that included all those little funds if you want to summarize it it's sort of like a balance sheet of our

049operating funds that we will be sharing with you monthly so you can see that um our fund balance has grown on on our general fund and that's that's mostly due to very careful spend um always trying to maximize fund balance at the end of the school year um by putting ex uh expense in the appropriate funds as an example when you look at our federal grants our federal grants are what we call reimbursement grants as an example we just got $9.1 million back from sr3 we spent all that money last year so we have to spend it out of Maintenance and operations first and then we get reimbursed so in this particular case um the um the fund the fund balance uh is is positive because all that money that we got are going to

050go back to offload maintenance operations expense which allows us to increase the fund balance in m so that's just an example of how all that works so you can see uh the other thing we wanted to point out here is that the restricted cash and Investments so I've shared with this in the in the governing board report for the last probably six months and of course you as new board members have not been privy to that but back in at the end of 2023 we actually prepaid our um Arizona State Retirement um contributions so we prepaid $20 million at that point in time when we prepay a dollar amount and it goes into Arizona State Retirement we cannot use that money for anything except for future contributions but at the same time we are able

051to take advantage of the investment policies at Theo State retirement and earn interest on that I just shared with you that in maintenance operations we can't earn interest but we were able to move $20 million into a prepay and you can see it was $20 million and now it's 22.3 million so we've gained about $2.3 million in that fund available to us to offset future Arizona State Retirement contributions so that's the biggest story on this one any questions before I move on okay great that's what I'm just pointing it out for you that I should have done that before I love those animations too darn okay and this is the operating fund grid that approximates the um the the um general fund in the aord this approximates the general fund in the AER the biggest

052difference is that the classroom site fund is not in the general fund in the AER we always include it under the operating fund because the classroom site fund contributes a great deal into our teacher salaries and benefits so that's why we include it but I just wanted to you guys will see this every month now um for the remainder of this fiscal year and so I just wanted to try to tie in a little bit with how we're presenting our monthlies to that general fund treatment in the Acer okay so internal service fund financials the only reason we're going into a little bit more detail on the internal service funds is because we're going to be talking about the employee benefit trust a great deal in the next month we have to set new medical

053premiums for next year and so wanted to make sure that you are aware of the status and how we're doing in the employee benefit trust so to start these are the two major internal service funds so the employee benefit trust you can see on the left and then you can see the district service so you can see that most of the internal service fund lies in the employee benefit trust you can also see from this that uh nope you can see it from the next slide so the next slide is just showing the employee benefit trust and the difference between last year and this year so you can see that at the end of 2023 when I say this year I mean last year two years ago versus last year right it's difficult um but

054at the end of 2023 our fund balance was $25.3 Million roughly and at the end of 2024 it was 24.1 so we definitely Drew Down fund balance in terms of that operating draw down it was over $2 million so our expenses were greater than the level of funding that we received into the employee benefit trust however fortunately when you look at this particular grid again this is looking at both employee benefit trust and the district Services trust but you can see the operating income loss let's look at 2400 the employee benefit trust you can see the operating loss of the 2.2 million but then you can see the nonoperating uh revenues so back in um 23 we also came to the governing board and redid the policy regarding investing our employee benefit trust funds and

055so we have been very conservative in how they're invested but we're taking advantage of the environment right now so we're earning five 5 a half% on the money that's just sitting there and so you can see that that 2.2 million uh operating loss was actually offset by just over a million dollar in that Revenue gain due to investment okay now other funds so are we okay there just keep going okay great thank you all very much um so the Food Services fund we always like to talk about Food Services the last three years um so back in 2021 and 2022 Food Services was under what they called a a universal free breakfast and lunch program at that point in time the nutrition services fund was doing really really well um at this point in time

056in in 23 and in 24 now you can see that we're drawing down fund balance you can see the $1.8 million draw down in 23 and the just about $1.3 million draw down in 24 want you wanted to share that that's a little bit per purposeful we have requested increases in meal prices the last two years but small increases in meal prices purposefully drawing down fund balance to try to to draw it down over time so that we're not um impacting our families too quickly by increasing the the meal prices in Gilbert we have a very we have a relatively low earth free and reduced lunch population so much of our revenue does come from families um buying our breakfast and lunch versus students that are on the national uh school lunch program for free

057and reduced so that's kind of why we've been trying to do that we have plenty of fund balance so we wanted to make sure that we're judiciously using it and helping out families at the same time as we draw it down so this is what happened on the Food Service AFR that's the annual financial report so you can see that the beginning cash balance was 8.76 million and then the ending cash balance was 7.37 Million so again doing that carefully um we we are not sure if we're going to request food price increase from you this spring uh we're deliberating over that right now but it it could happen but I will share all that information with you in a board report before we actually present it to you at a board meeting okay so

058before the national free and reduced breakfast and lunch program that we were the universal free thank you um did Food Service operate at a negative did they always have a negative balance at the end of the year or we did not in fact it's not not allowed so let me show you the next slide so you can see we always keep 2019 in there because that was the first or the the let's see that was the last real true year in nutrition services prior to covid so you can see that our total revenue was just above our total expenses in 2019 so therefore we were were navigating the cost of Labor the cost of food and supplies and keeping and keeping our um our spend below our Revenue so that we can always have a

059little bit of a positive fund balance and that was true since I've been here which was the year before so you can see in 2020 that was when we started drawing down a little bit of fund balance it's a little bit above but if you remember in 2020 we W in operating the last half of the uh the last quarter of the school year so that's what that impact was but then quickly um the federal government turned around and said okay we're going to do Universal free breakfast and lunch until we're out of this covid pandemic and you can see how in 2021 the revenues went quite a bit up above the expense and then in 20122 even higher the reason is is that when we get reimbursements from the federal government it's about $4

060and 30 a meal and we're charging about $3.80 so we get a greater reimbursement than what we're charging and so that's what happened in 21 and 22 and so during that time you can see that if you look at the graph you can see that in 23 our expenses did outpace our revenues and then again in 2024 so in talking with um Natalie Tenny our director we're constantly monitoring okay well we have to reduce staff make sure that we're feeding the kids we're watching our numbers um so that we can we can slowly get into balance um and without having a huge impact on our families so that's the goal so I notice um a big jump in total expenditures from 21 to 22 and then those expenditures stay I mean rough it looks like

061between four and5.5 million do we spent more in 22 23 and 24 than we did in 21 20 and 19 what what do you know what we can attribute the increase in expenditures to I mean it just seems like a a big year-to-year jump and then it stayed high after that do you know what that jump was so in 22 our participation rates at all of our schools were huge because nobody had to pay for it so everyone participated so there were many many more meals being served and so therefore the expenses were higher we had more staff we had more product more food product Etc in order to meet the demand now if you fast forward to um 23 inflation is hitting Us in 2023 where food prices begin to Skyrocket we were competing

062for Food Service Personnel bus drivers teachers so salaries were going up significantly those two things led to the increase in costs going in 23 and 24 even though our participation did significantly come down but I wonder if I have nope I don't have it here um we did share with you that the participation is a little bit above 2019 right now so our families are choosing to eat breakfast and lunch at go Republic schools even though they have to pay for it but not at the same level when we had Universal free breakfast and lunch y okay the bond fund uh this is notable as well uh this has been the largest component of the draw down in the governmental right because we spent over $22 million and we don't have any new Bond authority

063to sell bonds so there's no more Revenue coming in but you can see at the end of the year we ended up with $5.5 million but about 2 and A5 million of that $5.5 million was encumbered as we did the the year-end rollover so largely already spent so to date we are we had truly for new projects in the current year about $2.3 million all of which has been encumbered to date so um and then you can see at at the uh end of 2023 we had $27 million in fund balance but that was because we sold Bonds in May of 2013 which infused that bond fund with another about $18 million so that's the big change there and at this point in time as you know there's no more bonding Authority and no more

064Bond dollars so all of our future Capital spend will have to come out of unrestricted capital or out of the school plant other items to note I already shared a little bit about Quasar to you this is a a few other details a total GPS judgment 5.85 million estimated correction to state aid so getting about $4 million back a little bit higher than I said $1.8 million coming out of our cash again we were very fortunate we had the cash available we did we do not we are not going to have to increase our tax rate going into the next school year in order to compensate for that and then Capital assets same story regarding the bond fund versus Capital assets you can see where the value went up um in our Capital assets and

065then note though that the non- depreciable went down so we didn't have quite as many projects still outstanding at rollover June 30 than we did a year ago so um that so that that $10 million was just due to projects that they're called Construction in process or in in yeah Construction in process so they're not completed so when they're not completed they're not depreciated against so that's what that that story is and then outstanding Geo bonds this is also a positive we we are very fortunate here in G public schools because we're drawing down our debt very quickly so you can see um that our outstanding Bond principle to date is 131 so we dropped it down by $20 million we will continue to draw down unbalance and you can continue to see reductions in

066our tax rate because because of that at the same time our sist value is is still growing so we're still a very viable growing um area in the in Maricopa County and then finally uh compensated absences this is another item that goes at the government wide that various very high level so in Gilbert Public Schools as most school districts we have what we call compensated absences that means that if you don't don't use your sick leave it has a value because if you were to retire or or leave the district you are to get some money back so that calculation is done thanks to um Jackie and Lauren here my friends every year and transmitted to our Auditors to include in the government-wide level so you can see that to date our compensated absences does

067continue to grow largely because we have seen um uh salary increases over the last 3 or four years so it has been growing because of that so therefore the AB is has a higher value and then Arizona State Retirement this is the CPP this is the contribution prepayment that I was telling you about so the in 2024 the um weighted average return on investment at Arizona State Retirement was 9% remember that I said that the discount rate that's used to calculate what a net pension liability is was only 7% so they're doing better than their discount rate right now the reason that we wanted to sh share this with you is that before we invested um back in in 20 at the end of 23 we wanted to see their history and I did because

068we are we are actually putting our principle at risk because they have different um investment policies than we do so I wanted to make sure at any point in time in the last like 8 to 10 years have they lost any principle and so because of this record um we opted that it was a a very very good bet and it's Prov proven to be with a $2.3 million increase in that value since we invested a year and a half ago and then this is our contribution rate what's exciting about this is in 24 we contributed $27 million this is this is Gilbert's portion not our employees portion so we now have $22.3 million so we nearly have a Year's worth of contributions that are put aside to be used whenever we so need them

069you know one of Theon reasons that we did this was because we were unsure about whether we'd be successful on the override in November fortunately we were um and so now we have an ability to use that that prepayment dutifully over the next 3 to four years and that is all of my report so I'm so hopefully I went slow enough for those of you that are new but there's lot lot to grasp for sure okay do any board members have any questions for Miss bets I don't have any questions but I would like to um share appreciation to Miss Betts and the team for all the hard work I know there's a lot involved and I really appreciate that we're in on a good Financial footing and and we're earning interest and our audit

070was clean and I think those are all really positive things and our overright did past so we're in a very good shape and that that just feels really good y great thank you all very much thank you very much moving on to agenda item 6.02 teaching and learning academic Spotlight Dr McCord thank you Mr Thompson governing board members I will turn it over H to Mr Jared Ryan he will introduce his team who's going to give us a presentation this evening thank you so much Mr Thompson governing board members Dr McCord we appreciate the opportunity to present to you this evening uh just a quick background on academic spotlights and where they came from for those of you um uh joining the uh governing board um probably for the last two or three years there's

071been discussion about uh requests coming to the governing board uh approval is being given and then we go about our work and sometimes we don't hear back about how it's going how's the implementation look in this case a curriculum implementation uh but all types of topics and so on a monthly basis we break a a different group to present on the work that's going on on our campuses or in the district it's in some way shape or form and report back on what we're seeing in terms of student outcomes most importantly in in teaching and learning and so um I'm fortunate I'm surrounded by incredibly talented people uh four of which are here tonight two will be presenting um as Dr Cox likes to refer to herself as the director of the CIA at the

072secondary level curriculum instruction and assessment uh she is here this evening in the audience along with Mr Robert burer the Elementary uh CIA director um but presenting to us this evening are both of our coordinators from the secondary and Elementary level uh lene Bal who you heard about earlier and her uh Awards and recognitions and then Crystal Udall who's absolutely just an amazing asset working with all of our elementary campuses in the in the area of mathematics so turning over to you thank you good evening governing board and Dr McCord I want to start by saying C and I are excited to be here tonight to share with you the K12 math curriculum update um as the academic [Music] Spotlight it went it went there we go all right so at the elementary level we

073have implemented I ready which is a K8 curriculum so Elementary k6 we have have that implemented we um have implemented this curriculum with four different waves wave one began with our pilot teachers and looking at what they were um doing and implementing and how things were going that came through as an adoption wave two began in July that's where most of our teachers um were trained on the day before school began and we had lots of um teachers joining us we then went into December so wave three began in December we have a total of 435 teachers trained up through December and our fourth way save will be beginning in April May time period so we've kind of done a slow roll the biggest piece is that we wanted sixth grade tying in with Jinger

074high so you'll hear about J Jinger high in a minute but we're kind of assimilating them together in total today we have 83% of our elementary teachers trained and fully implementing I at this time we have 13 campuses that are fully implemented that means K through six the way their waves rolled out that they are fully implementing so it is an exciting time to have 24 of our campuses implementing this program and I have been out to visit every single one of them and there's so much excitement on those campuses for the junior high we did train all of our teachers on the day before school in July of 2024 um and we are fully implementing I at the 7eventh and eighth grade levels um in addition to the teacher trainings um I wanted to

075make sure that I mentioned that we've completed multiple leadership trainings on the IR curriculum and that's included our principles our math evaluators instructional Specialists and instructional coaches um our GPS Junior High teachers I'm happy to um tell you have done an excellent job of implementing the new resource and it is in our classrooms and in our students usage so all right all right so this is a district snapshot of how students are progressing toward towards typical growth we have assessed 16,000 students approximately and the graph on the left would line every single one of them up and you would hope to hit around 50% at the median GPS is hitting above that our median average is 55% so that is a trending that we are super excited about the graph on the right has some

076data that I want to um pinpoint on in the green sections we have growth that is happening at the on and above grade level percentages this happens after they have taken their second diagnostic which just finalized in December and we have an increase of the on grade level percent by 5% and the mid to above grade level percent as of 10% growth that means all the other areas were decreasing by 16% which is indic in indicative of the green growing larger and larger so we're super excited about that next we have our high performing and High um growth areas in schools question can we actually go back to the last slide please do thank you so much so can you tell me on the so progress to annual typical growth that's a lot of words

077is that we're expect like 100% would be the growth we're expecting throughout the whole year that's a full year yes 100% would be a full year in the middle of the Year being December time point we were looking at about that 50% out of 180 days about that 50 halfway point about 50% is what they the company had said was average to make and with us making it 55% meeting growth our trajectory is looking really good for that so that's exciting and then who sets The Benchmark as far as what's what's the expected annual growth like what what's 100% growth that is nationally normed by the company not us it's nationally normed throughout the company's uh program okay and on uh previous curriculum was that uh they have a similar measurement is this very A

078Lot Company by company um this last K5 curriculum was about 12 years old and didn't have this data to go into so um we're bringing this data to you now as we have it and can continue that forward look and progressing with this curriculum we did not have that in the last the 68 area that we um had adopted and just the changes and more data that is available these newer programs versus what we had back then terrific and are there are there National Norms like is there something we can compare it to as far as what the progress is yes this is nationally normed so the 55% yes and there is further data that can drill down into more National Norms yes but through the just from the company though is it people that

079are using the same curriculum or how's the company developing their it's Norms across all states and um all the different districts that are utilized it that us this curriculum correct so that gives me a question can you explain for our community when you say nationally normed what that means to someone who may not be familiar with that terminology it's putting all the nations um regardless of State regardless of District size regardless of income and those kind of things putting those communities together and looking at what that data says at grade level um composures to to then um know how much growth could be expected for the students correct okay thank you and if you're interested Mr Robinson we can further and give you further information if you need thank you so I've got a little

080bit of Confusion by the chart on the right is this the current placement distribution is this also on an annual basis because this is I mean this is showing if you add up one grade below two grades below three or more grades below we've got 58% of the of these 16,000 students that are one grade below or more and so is this also on an annual um is this compared to where they will be at the end of the year can you just explain that this is a snapshot in time of December it is not anything more it's not saying this is what the next um outcome will be by may this is just a snapshot like kind of C camera picture of what they what it looks like right now so yes do we

081know we have students who are struggling yes are we identifying them yes can we name names yes teachers can drill down with that data and there's some further um slides that will help indicate some of those needs for those tier instructions and teachers can identify who needs intervention and who needs enrichment with those composures so this is about 16,000 students right now and that's just their picture and time of what that looked like this can change as more and more students take um any Diagnostics so if we get brand new students in the district those Diagnostics also will be uh changing those percentages as well so it's just a snapshot in time okay that that makes sense so I I think the the thing that is is concerning is that this chart on the right

082includes only those students that are participating in the new I ready math curriculum and 58% of them are performing at this snapshot in time are performing one grade below or one one grade or more below um is that is that concerning it all is this is this what we would expect how does this compare to you know other math curriculums that that uh that we've used in the past I know you said we don't have this data in the past but this 58% seem like like it's on track with with implementing a new math curriculum we have known and over the past years that I've followed um aasa data and the other Summit of Assessments we have had gaps here in the district is this alarming what is celebrating is looking at the green growth

083we've been able to increase those um two categories a 5% growth and a 10% growth that means that came from those areas that were struggling into on and above grade level so that is exciting to see here at the December time Point versus where we started and the percentages down below at the bottom is where we started from that was our first diagnostic lens look so we have decreased the um more grade levels below than we have the above and beyond so we are super excited that those have increased I thought it would be a smaller increase just a brand new program kids getting used to it it is something else if you've never seen a kindergarten TR take a test online it is something else to try and work with that and see with

084those Dynamics our younger grade populations are doing a phenomenal job in getting them tested and working through that so there's some little kinks in there I know we're working through um waves just began here in January where they were trained in December the wave just began in January for those kids to take those Diagnostics that is a learning curve for the teacher and a learning curve for the students so do I know that we need to dive deep in this yes but also I want to be say that we're celebrating what can be happening by the time we start school next year too so the growth areas is where we want to take that lens and look and make sure those other areas are decreasing those are decreasing and by the um end of the

085year we really hope those are decreasing even more so so what what this chart is showing is that the kid the the students that are performing well are performing better on the IR curriculum and the students that are performing below gr there's there are start there are more students performing better on the I ready math curriculum and there are fewer students performing poorly on the I system is that that's kind of the snapshot here yes that have gone down okay thank you uh just one comment uh Mr Thompson is that this this is the first year that the teachers have gone through that curriculum so as they become more familiar with it and are able to teach it again next year you know hopefully they can focus and say well you know maybe I need

086to work on this section A little bit more CU last year we didn't quite cover it in the way that students needed or something because you know this is brand new and uh so I think that considering that it is a new curriculum that we're just implementing that these are very good results I'm super excited to say that our district has risen in those areas where we are at the on and above level so that is exciting and watching those scores grow means the other ones decrease so it is exciting to see what that third diagnostic will have for us in the uh end of the year if I can and I'll try to be brief and I I'll take you up on your offer I'd love to talk more in depth with this um

087outside of the meeting sure um but first I I did just want to say thank you so much for those numbers as far as the training 83% 100% in the last 6 months I mean that's amazing so I know implementing a new curriculum is is a huge undertaking so we appreciate all the work in doing that with this current placement distribution is this is this again based off I's Norms this is like the numbers this is like a test that I is giving us of what they think grade level would be and that's what these results are correct and so and that's the GPS lens on the right hand side correct so I I do think like the the trend is amazing but I I think it it is obviously concerning just the level so

088we want to keep seeing that Trend going that direction for sure thank you can I just ask how many students are not so 83% you said were are fully implemented with the math curriculum correct correct so how many other students in Gilbert Public Schools who are not using this math curriculum currently I think about 20,000 is our total so about 4,000 remember we still have W4 which is about 115 teachers and their class full classrooms have not gone through the training so they are not not even on the program yet they will start um next July when the school year starts so we also have eighth grade honors students who are taking the above so those numbers are in there because they're an eighth grade student however their mathematics is they're taking as higher mathematics

089okay so wave three those teachers will be done being trained by the end of May and then there's a the fourth one is after that wave four yeah is in April May time period okay so last wave is at the end of the year yeah just from my experience one of the things as a teacher um when it comes to new curriculums uh I'll second what what Blake said yes it's true you know the the trend is great um the concern I have is just when it comes to training teachers we have those 4,000 kids who are we're not quite sure what's going on with them where are their percentages how are they going to do on ASA so um it was just something to consider I don't know if there's a way we can

090look at that as far as training teachers is concerned and maybe helping them get up to speed and get it implemented faster so that we can maybe get really solid numbers come May on how this is well all of our testing um grade level areas are now implementing as of January third through sixth grade are fully implementing so it would be the grade levels below so our K12 is that wave four is kind of where that oh that's good yeah lack of students in it okay thank you for clarifying so yes we're preparing for testing this was this was the beginning of your test they took and then the middle of year test they correct and is there a cost to administer those tests it was all included in the math adoption okay so um

091one of the things that the pilot teachers heavily recommended was how much the diag itic helped support them it helped uh look delving into the standards for the units that the students were about to um go into what are the weaknesses what are the strengths how do we layer what the um interventions and scaffolds are that they need so that is a huge piece of what was suggested by the pilot teachers recommendations were and um I tell you what from the implementing of the wave two and three the teachers are super excited about both components because we do have the Hands-On components the workbooks the teacher additions as well as well as the um online components as well that's great to hear so we have so then we have our traditional student students as well

092who are using a different curriculum is that correct is it possible to have them take the same assessment so we can compare or do we're going to have like a different cohort that we can't really compare across the board the traditional students are working in the math and focus uh program and that is um done with a growth measure similar to this and it's on a their own platform so two different platforms compar we will be happy to bring a spotlight implementation um further in the springtime to share more about what that program looks like for the traditional students is it is it possible to have them take the same assessment so we can compare how they're performing um at this point in time that's the ASA mimics or Benchmark District benchmarks is the piece

093that they take that is most aligned so that everybody has like the similar components great versus the programmatic type pieces for the curriculum thank you we do do the district benchmarks and i' I've got one last question about this graph and then I promise we'll get past this slide so there's so wave four 115 or so teachers that are still waiting to be kind of onboarded right and that's going to happen April May could you just talk for a moment about what the what the plan or procedure will be for July when they returned to school after having a summer off and not having looked at this and not not having and having been trained a few months ago certainly what's it what's it going to be to get get those teachers since they haven't

094done it for a year already or for a number of months already I know that if it was me and I learned about it in April May and then you said you wanted me to implement it in July I would need a a refresher funny thing about teachers are teachers are always learning and always looking for ways to advocate for their students um principles are already asking instructional coaches are asking what can we do to help support our K12 teachers that are coming in that last wave what are some things that they're going to need um principles sometimes give the summertime hours to teachers to come in and plan and prepare and I'm highly advocating for that for the principles who have asked and are working towards that coaches sometimes want to sit with those

095teachers and help them prepare the unit overviews that have been created are making materials for students uh teachers available more readily for them as well so I'm doing things behind the scenes also to make them as close to their fingertips as possible and utilizing those resources so um there will be further trainings next year so even though this train onboarding is happening in April May time period there are continuing trainings that those teachers will be having so there is a recall to the memory of what are some of the components of it so we realize that the onboarding with number one training is not enough our teachers this year that started in July have had three touch points of those PDS and it has absolutely been fabulous to recall and remember a lot of those

096things that happened on that first day and so those will be provided for those teachers as well and and like with anything if we recognize that there's a need to retrain or refresh we just go to it we did the same thing with ready Jen we implemented ready Jen and then all of a sudden Co hit and people went in every direction so we had bring everybody back and retrain them to get everybody back on the same page so uh it's not a problem I was going to share what we learned in some other adoption processes and and kind of the rationale for the slow roll out and the phased approach um was to be able to support through implementation and so what um they've been able to do an incredible job of is coming

097back to and continually training a couple months later let's come back what did we learn what did we see a couple months later let's come back another training administrators involved evaluators walking in rooms what's the feedback and so I think one thing that's really stood out with this implementation that's made it a bit unique is kind of the all-encompassing planning of it um strategically so April May then they have materials and access before they go to summer historically we would train a couple days before a school a school year starts in some cases and teachers now who have planned all summer are left to kind of scramble and so we wanted to make sure that didn't happen um but they're never just left they're never just left to walk in their classroom the other thing

098is now phase four happens well phase one two and three teachers already on their campuses who have been trained can now be leaders in that area instructional coaches instructional Specialists and our coordinators supporting them um so I I feel like we're in a great spot as far as what teachers would need coming back and hopefully alleviate some of the anxiety nervousness of of something new so MH all right there we go it was it was a kind of test Char or anything all right here I'm excited to share with you um our Stu our schools that are highly perform our grade levels that are high performing you can see all grade levels are high performing and we have some exceptional with high growth as well we have sixth grade that kind of is standing out

099right now and they are the grade level that full districtwide has implemented this year so that was to align with what Junior High was doing the junior high was doing full implementation and we wanted them to be able to bridge from sixth grade to seventh grade and have a full year of the curriculum so that when they go to seventh grade they know what the system is and how it works and what the expectation for it is um we are super um pleased and optimistic at that 71% for sixth grade and are looking forward to what the next Benchmark will show what that looks like any questions on this slide all right so we were looking at red yellow and green earlier here is another example of red yellow green the triangle is a district

100representation of where those 16,000 students are and what are their needs for support and for intervention the Box on the right defines the tiers by grade level with the colors continuing to represent the same as they do in the Triangle the triangle tier one would be your classroom instruction tier two is support and tier three is additional support you'll notice that the sixth grade here has the highest percentage of students in tier one which is indicating that they are showing adequate growth and adequate performance it's really interesting the trend here that it seems like there are more more students struggling as it gets closer as as the grades continue on um is is that because there's a there was a a more ABR not abrupt that's maybe abrupt transition between the old curriculum and the

101new curriculum for those older grades or what do you attribute this to why is why are there so many more students that are one or more grade levels below in eighth grade than in third grade so I would like to address that because that that does stand out um that there are fewer in the tier one in eth grade and more in the tier three um for seven this diagnostic is given to entire student body in grade eight we have our highest performing eighth graders that are using another curriculum because they're taking a high school course that are not included in the data and so that to me is the reason the biggest reason for grade 8's data distribution to be so different and then we we will get the data at some point though

102do we have a again a districtwide test that will include those students that we can see these numbers yes thank you our district benchmarks perfect yes what when does that happen when do we see those three times a year we take them at beginning of the year middle of the year and end of the year so there three Benchmark points is that Benchmark fast Bridge um for 3 through six it's our aasa mimic is what we call them District bench marks at third grade up are called the mimic test so it's to assimilate like the actual Summit of assessment at the end of the year from ad right okay M um and just realize kindergarten is our starting point there is no below level so you will not see red on that so it does

103look really good right there if we could all be there right okay so that all to say that we have 18 High performing elementary schools and 17 high growth schools from that data for the junior highs five of our Junior Highs are high performing and two are high growth these results are super exciting to share with you at just a halfe implementation some teachers just a few weeks couple of weeks of implementation so we are still with that ball rolling this is super exciting and a result of the progressive I ready trainings for teachers and for leaders that we've had like I said we've had multiple this year for teachers to continually go to and leadership as well just one question on this when you're how do you define high performance schools versus high growth

104schools what are what is the there the um data is put onto a scatter plot instead of having all guessing points I pulled this information out from that and so it's done in high performing high growth so I just pulled those numbers from it so just a four quadrant squ scatter I know but I need a definition of what high performance Means versus high growth I I already has cut scor and so they cut the score that shows low growth versus high growth and the same thing for um performance they they are they're the ones who set that cut score okay okay thank you yes not us all right so that has been our I ready program with that we have also gone with the personalized instruction we're super excited to have the personalized instruction

105added on you might hear it be called my path that is the online component and this data reflects just the first week back and as a whole our district should look at that 30 to 49% or above of how many minutes the students are on it in order to in enhance their individualized learning the um as a district we are meeting and exceeding the number of minutes per week as well as we are completing at least two students are completing at least two lessons a week which is the encouragement of the company and they are passing 90% of their lessons that they take so that is super exciting data to show and that is K8 shown can I ask what why is such a variance in the time on task like why why do we

106have 8% of students that are 1 to N9 minutes it depends on how long the students the teachers have working into their program how many minutes the students are able to be on the program it suggested that green area is that area that they they suggest that way they get about two lessons done in that time period a week and that attributes to their growth and their um next diagnostic that they have the lower amount the students aren't really having as much time to work with their weak areas and enhance what those needs are in fact it was kind of neat I was talking with a teacher earlier this week a brand new teacher to our district and she said oh my gosh my path is amazing I had these two students and they been

107working all of a sudden I start teaching and they jump up and are super excited going I just learned that oh my gosh and I know what you're going to do next I know and so that excitement that they had just learned it but if a teacher had just given them a blanket assignment to do that would that a connection have been as great I don't know but the students had excitement with it and they were older students which means oh my goodness our kids who are in the 456 area are attributing learning those skills to classroom performance Dr Robison if I may um I was reminded to mention as well these classes and I think that's where you see distribution such as this this is every student so accelerated um honors level self-contained special

108education elll you name it so student schedules all look completely different and so the time that they may have built into that schedule specifically for specific enrichment or specific remediation may look different and so I know as we've talked with teachers how they're able to access it and some of them are still working through within a schedule when I have a student pulled for resource support and then I have a student pulled for EL support or something different how do I fit that into their schedule and so I think over the course of time I know over the course of time you'll start to see that balance out a bit more um but all the data that's being shared tonight remember it's every student and so where you may see some red students may be

109coming in in 3 years behind academically um as well as you may have some students starting two years ahead academically and so um I think that the growth measure um and Miss Humphrey to your point in your question earlier that growth number is so important for us because regardless of where each student begins when when they enter the building as a second grader third grader fourth grader where we take them becomes incredibly important some students are going to be proficient um regardless and how far can we take them and some students are as I said are going to be well behind uh when we begin U we believe all students eventually will will get to that performance level so just remember that as we're looking through this it's every student thank you and is this

110can you go back one second thank you is this um I just want to make sure I understand what we're looking at here is this only the amount of time spent in class on their Chromebooks in this personalized instruction area or is this out does this have nothing to do with the online portion of the this is the online portion okay and usually spent in the classroom so only about 30 to 49 minutes a week so okay and and at what grade do our students start working with Chromebooks isn't it fourth grade kindergarten kindergarten they start working remember that bench that diagnostic I said our kindergarteners were taking this program has kindergarten first grade second grade on up working on a computer okay so this this includes so maybe it's you know it's our our

111kindergarten and first and second grade that are not spending a lot of time online very much it could be and uh the situation as um Mr Ryan said absolutely applies to it's that depending on where those students schedules have and where they can pull that time to support them thank you MH okay we're going to transition and talk about the high school's uh math curriculum and this includes those eighth graders who are taking Algebra 1 um at the high school level we adopted the hooton Mifflin har courts into a we did train all teachers for full implementation beginning with the 2024 2025 school year we've also completed multip multiple leadership trainings on this curriculum and the data it has provided us so that those trainings have included principles math evaluators instructional Specialists and instructional coaches

112these charts that you're looking at are from the growth measure these show the grade level equiv equivalencies for students using the hmh into a resources as given by the growth measure assessment which is similar to the diagnostic assessment in I there has been from the beginning of the year to the middle of the Year an exciting 18.2% increase in above grade level students and 68% of our students are performing on or above grade level according to the middle of the Year growth measure AG is for Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 so it is the a large portion of our high school population that is using this curriculum we will have one more as you can see end of year that those are great Trends again um do we have so this is District test

113right is this this isn't this is the this is the hmh growth measure just like the I ready diagnostic okay but but this includes all of our did you say eth grade and above all of our eighth grade and beyond that are taking Algebra 1 geometry or Algebra 2 of any kind so our resource our honors our gened do we have and is this a test that they just took starting this year did they do these same tests last year they did not this is our first time okay okay no hisorical dat no histo yes we need historical data yes yes this graph shows student logins per week and so this is indicative of the usage by our students of just the digital platform okay this curriculum has more components than the digital platform but

114we are at or above 15,000 student logins per week for the majority of the weeks displayed so each bar is indicating on for a week how many student logins there were you can see fall break and winter holiday our students weren't getting on right um from November of 2024 to January of 2025 I was able to visit classrooms on all Junior High and high school campuses utilizing the hmh into a um program I observed that 89% of those um were obviously using the adopted resource I will say as a disclaimer there are teachers in our district who work very very hard and they like the the platforms and the worksheets and everything to look the way they like and so they're they're doing a lot of work they're taking the resource that we have and

115putting it into something that makes them happy and joyful so there are instances where I go in and it's not obvious they're using and I try to take every opportunity to say tell me about what I'm looking at um and in in most instances they said this is this is right out of hmh I just don't like to do it that way I want my kids to look at it this way um so it's not always obvious so that 89% number by the way is an increase from the beginning of the year where it was about 70% so there is a trend of utilizing it more and more which is very very positive and also teachers just need a little time when you implement something new and so we're getting there and and everything is

116is moving in the right direction and I believe this can be attributed to the consistent messaging from district and school leadership including instructional Specialists and instructional coaches about the importance of using the research based curriculum so those were student logins and now we're going to take a look at teacher logins and again this is just the digital platform logins um you can see initially in in that fifth week it was very very high I'm sure at that point we were all getting in to that and we were looking at it more as we got comfortable um with our students as the year was progressing so we are at our above 6,000 teacher logins for the majority of the weeks and you can see teachers are logging in over breaks so I want to say that

117our GPS Math teachers both Elementary and high school have worked very hard and persisted in getting more adept at using all of the components of the resources that they have been provided we Crystal and I would like to say thank you to all of them as we are aware that the student growth data we're seeing is in large part due to their efforts any questions I just want to thank you for um humoring me with all my questions I know I had a lot I just don't want to get lost like our appreciation I know how much work this was so I do applaud your team and like you said the teachers and students cuz the the the trends really are very promising so and I know that's a lot of hard work and um

118just we're grateful for for all the work that you and teachers are putting in to implement this thank you thank you I just want to say thank you I mean I think it's wonderful that we can afford a really good curriculum that um we're not using some of those free resources online some of those are okay but you know we have something that's really stellar and I know it's a lot of work to to help everybody to get that under their belt and and be able to use it well and I think um it's been a little hard work but looks very promising and I'm excited to see where we go from here so thank you just want to say excuse me thank you for the presentation um really informative I've heard from a lot

119of teachers about this program already and I think it's there's some really interesting stuff on finding out particular issues where students need to grow and the data that is provided to them through that and so I'm excited to see more data as it progresses and thank you for your time to present this to us thank you thank you very [Music] much take it easy back [Music] there all right that was a great presentation uh moving on to agenda item number seven our cons agenda uh items is there a motion to approve our consent agenda items as they are listed on tonight's agenda so moved thank you Mr Brainard is there a second second oh sorry thank you Miss Humphries all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items as outlined on our agenda tonight

120say I I opposed thank you very much moving on to uh agenda item number eight our action items uh 8.01 minutes for the December 17 2024 regular business meeting uh this says it you want me to explain this yes please in parentheses it says Mr Thompson and Mrs humph vote only the reason why is because you were the only board members that can approve those minutes that are still on the governing board and so this has happened in years past and so um it it actually hasn't happened since I've been superintendent um but Gabby informed me that it happened before I came so uh it is unusual but that's how it's supposed to be done okay so everybody else except uh Mr Thompson and Miss humph should vote okay uh would you like to so

121I'll make the motion that we approved the the regular business business meeting minutes for December 17th 2024 perfect and I'll second that um would you like to have a discussion no they were good I looked at them and um everything's fine so we can vote perfect uh then all those uh Miss humph and myself in favor of approving the minutes for the December 17th 202 for regular business meeting say I I I any opposed all right thank you very much 8.02 uh fiscal year 2024 AER I wanted to say that that's fun annual comprehensive financial report and this is a roll call vote and so I will ask uh uh we need a motion we need a motion we we have a motion to approve fiscal year 2024 annual comprehensive financial report so I move

122that we approve the annual comprehensive financial report excuse me can I just make a com um it's just an acceptance of it you're not approving it can you just if you could use the acceptance word that would be great I approve we accept the annual comprehensive financial report thank you very much Miss humph is there a second second thank you Dr Robinson uh at this time we will uh well is there any discussion regarding the fiscal year 2024 annual comprehensive financial report seeing that there is none we will call for a vote and I will ask Miss Wilson to help us out with the roll call vote Miss Jill humph how do you vote I Mr Chad Thompson how do you vote I Mr Jesse Brainard how do you vote I Dr Blake Robinson how

123do you vote I Mrs Shaya muray how do you vote I Mr President all board members voted unanimously thank you very much all right agenda item number nine request for future agenda items do any board members have any requests for future uh agenda items that we want to discuss or add to a future agenda of a future board meeting all right seeing that there are none we'll move forward to our board reports so at last month's board meeting we uh we volunteered and we uh took responsibility for these different areas um and so we'll go through these one at a time we'll start with the town of Gilbert leaon Dr Robinson anything to report tonight uh nothing on the town of Gilbert is this where did we we changed this is where you can report

124take yes well Tri I I just wanted to take a quick minute just to again congratulate and thank everyone from the 25 year anniversary um breakfast that was last week I thought that was just an amazing event it was uh so great to see people that have dedicated and and really a a a lifetime uh career of work dedicated to Gilbert public schools and I I think it spoke a lot to their dedication and also to Gilbert public schools and how it's a great place to to work and and also thank the administration and all the staff who did a great job putting on that event I think it's a great theme I will say that I have heard uh sugar raise every morning a couple um times on the radio and so now when

125whenever I hear that I will think of all of our 25y year uh employees so I'm grateful for that and and for the for for our audience out there uh who's in the press that was like one of the most popular songs back in 1999 she's like what is he talking about yes and uh and then in 25 years from now I look forward to celebrating everyone who attends the job fair tomorrow so thank you thank you very much Dr Robinson uh I don't have anything to report from for the audit committee tonight uh Gilbert Education Foundation Mr Brainard um I have nothing to report but you know just like Dr Robinson said um the 25 year breakfast was a really amazing event you know I got to see um some Educators who were at

126my high school and I attended Gil high school and you know I think a part of Gil Public Schools the hard of gu Public Schools is a staff we have and so I'm just extremely grateful for their dedication through the good time and bad and you know excited to keep you know growing as a district and uh you know being great to our employees making a good place to work all right thank you very much city of Mesa liazon uh Miss Murray um nothing to report on the city of Mesa I did get a chance to attend the orchestra concert on Saturday and that was a really great event I really enjoyed um listening to them and I thought it was really unique that they hadn't played together before that Friday night so um I

127was impressed with them to begin with and then knowing that fun fact I was really impressed so thank you very much and last and certainly not least uh legislative representative and employee benefit trust Miss humph so I did want to talk a little bit about the legislature because they have started they're in session the governor has put out her budget um and couple of issues that will be prominent in this legislative session is prop 123 it expires in July of 2025 um it adds $285 million to school districts across the state just to give a little background in case people don't know prop 123 was a settlement of a lawsuit filed by asba oh I think it was like in 2014 or 2015 because um school districts under proposition I think it's 201 um were

128supposed to receive inflation every year and during the Great Recession they didn't receive inflation um only on Transportation so that was um that was a settlement that Governor Ducey helped to move forward um but it does take more money from the state land trust uh so that is a big issue that we're going to be watching um if if they don't get a special election um the state is supposed to cover those expenses so we shouldn't have to cut our budget but we also have to think about renewal of the aggregate expenditure limit so those are kind of the things that are top of mind right now in the legislature and that is the end of my report but um I will say the breakfast was awesome and any opportunities we have to attend something

129in our schools it's always reward for um seeing how great our students and staff are doing thank you Miss humph uh let's talk about meeting dates Dr McCord thank you Mr President govering board members on January 31st in this room from 10 to 3 we will have a our very first board retreat so looking forward to seeing you all there February 4th is our board work study and brief board business meeting uh February 10th is our board policy committee meeting remember those start at 4:30 p.m. and February 24th is our board business meeting that's it thank you very much and moving on to our final agenda item for this evening is there a motion to adjourn tonight's meeting so moved thank you Miss humph is there a second second thank you Miss Murray all those

130in favor of adjourning our meeting tonight say I I any opposed and we are adjourned thank you very much