Gilbert Public Schools Board Meeting 11/19/2024

001e for e e e we would like to welcome all of you to our governing board meeting tonight Tuesday November 19th 2024 regular board business meeting I will call this meeting to order and we will begin with a moment of silence and then I will lead the Pledge of Allegiance if you'll all stand and join me for a moment of silence please please join me for the pledge I pledge aliance 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 so much Mrs Wilson could you please have roll call Mrs Lorry wood here Mrs Ronda Paige here Mrs Jill humph here Mr Chad Thompson is not present Miss Wood you have a Cora thank you

002that will take us to the approval of agenda item 2.01 board members is there a motion I move that we approve the agenda as presented thank you Miss humph it's been moved as there second second thank you Mrs Paige it's been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda as presented all those in favor please vote by saying I I I any oppose with nay thank you that will take us to superintendent recognition Awards 3.01 Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members if you join me in front of the Das for tonight's recognitions [Music] they didn't have the mic set for us less vertically challenged so good evening everyone how are you this is a celebration not Church let's go you guys doing good all right well tonight we're going to honor a

003couple of schools and uh we're very proud to be doing this the first I would uh the first group I'd like to recognize is Gilbert Classical Academy's uh boys swiming dive division three if you guys could come up and Coach come on [Applause] up oh is that heavy no good it's worth it hi guys hello yeah coach I I need coach over here there you go look at you guys yep unroll that thing let us see it and there you have it state champions boys swim and dive division 3 Gilbert Classical Academy give him another hand if I'm not mistaken this is the first championship uh for Gilbert Classical Academy so we wanted to make sure we got all of you here to honor you I'd like to introduce their coach Jordan Bruff Gilbert Public

004Schools alumni went through Gilbert Elementary mosqu Jr mosqu High somebody do research there you go and now now now we employ him now he get you get a check for working good job congratulations why don't you talk a little bit about the season and let uh let these guys introduce themselves okay sounds like a plan yeah um well let's start by having these guys introduce themselves guys go ahead and tell your name your grade and what you swam at State my name is zok Hutchins I swam the 100 fly the 100 back the 200 medley relay and the 200 free relay at State uh my name is Aiden Fier I swam the 100 fly the 100 breast the two medley relay and the 400 free relay at State my name is Max fessi and I

005swam the 100 free the 200 free the 200 free relay and the 400 free relay my name is Charlie BMI I swam the 100 breast 2 IM 200 medley relay and the 400 free relay um my name is Gabe Marshall and to not swim Gabe Gabe's one of our divers who got fourth place and medled oh yeah um yeah U my name is Michael waying and I SW the 200 IM and 100 back at state I'm Jose fenes I swam to 200 free and 100 free here you guys just you can pass that down my name is jayen yat I would have swim the 100 free but I got sick so Carter carmichel sophomore I dove at State Max Drew I swim the 200 I oh go you got all right I'm Brian feierstein I'm

006the volunteer coach for the team I'm Sarah Munos I'm the girls head coach I'm Terry Lee I'm currently a senior but I swam the 100 brush joke the 200 IM the two medle relay and the two free relay I'm Aiden Hall I'm a senior i s the 200 freestyle uh 100 freestyle 200 freestyle relay and the 400 freestyle relay awesome job guys yeah just a little bit about our season um at the end of last season uh we had the most returning uh Point scorers so we knew there was a good chance uh but then uh one of our top kids transferred away and one of our top divers who had scored a lot of points actually had to step away for personal reasons so uh it got a little hairy there for a second

007but um all credit goes to these guys they uh did every single thing we asked all season long and uh when we got to the state championship meet I scored it out before I don't even know if I told the guys this uh and we were fourth place um pretty distant fourth place uh and so I told them hey guys at prelims you just got to go out and you got to try to improve your seeds and um we definitely saw that happen uh Aiden Hall here Max fessi and Aiden feierstein all went from being in the bfal uh in the lower scoring tier up into the ainal which is the higher scoring tier and then our relays all either maintained their position or improved so our medley relay uh broke a School record and

008uh got fourth place and then our 200 free relay uh went went the third fastest time in school history and got third place at the meet and our uh 400 free relay got went the third fastest time in school history and got uh third place in the meet so we got a few medal winners um I think the most impressive thing about this group of guys is we didn't have a single state champion uh on a state championship team uh it was actually kind of fun for me to sit and watch the paradise honors and Notre Dame coach pull out their hair as they kept winning event after event after event and not understanding how we were staying ahead of them and and at pulling away from them so um these guys uh did all

009the work they did everything they asked and then they showed up when the moment mattered most a huge shout out to our divers I don't think we give them enough recognition uh diving is such a huge key to it and they kind of get forgotten because they have to go in earlier they're not even at the meat that night as as we're swimming and scoring it um but they went and did their did their job uh Gabe there's a freshman who had never dove before except for just off like the backyard diving boards he got fourth place in state Carter joined the team last year having never dove before except for backyard diving boards um narrowly missed qualifying for State last year and then went out and just a did it this year so uh

010we're super excited and and very grateful for you guys to have us here today thank you so give him a hand so Jordan what I what I hear you saying when it comes to dive is that almost 54 years old I still got a chance got a chance man I got some eligibility left still let's do it well we're really really proud proud of you guys um even at our administrator meeting we had your athletic director Casey frotton and your uh principal Dan Hood standup and we recognize them because we know that when we started Athletics at GCA it was a long time ago and you guys come out every season in every sport and give your very best and this is what happens uh when good things happen to good kids so we're very

011proud of you congratulations if you guys would shake hands with the board and um we will oh gosh you guys look like a picture Bor why don't you guys go through and just shake their hands and or we'll take a picture first and then Shake Your Hands afterwards how's that work I mean you guys are Set uh cross country take note they got it all set up parents everybody get get your cameras we good congratulations again B will come through and shake your guys's hand look at that Sarah made it cheaper than cheaper than Rings ah thank you guys again for being here congratulations once again thank you thank [Applause] you coach mty come on [Applause] up so coach congratulations this this is I don't know if you guys if if you've been coming to

012the board meetings for as long as I have this has become a yearly event for Highland High cross country um this year the boys cross country they were state Runners up give them a hand and if I was told correctly you weren't they weren't projected to finish that high so you outperformed yourself and everybody else's projections and uh we'll get you guys up here in a second and then also also the girls cross country this is the fifth year four fourth year fourth year in a row that they have become state champions in Cross Country give them a hand so if all of our athletes in Cross Country would come on up please don't be shy some of you rolled your eyes it's okay I get it coach you want to let the the runners

013introduce themselves and then you can have have your thoughts thank you and tell what grade you're in grade grade a name hi I'm Natalia Morris and I'm a freshman I'm Brooklyn joose I'm a sophomore Stella Halland I'm a senior Cameron Delany Jr Audra Hefner and I'm a junior Charlotte Greer I'm a senior LJ Jor Sam Jr uh Bren Crockett Jr uh Tristan freshman Jude sophomore Brendan Delany freshman Brady Moore Senior coach Tera Hall girls Cross Country Coach Monty senior citizen I was hoping one of you would do something like that well these guys yeah this is uh been incredible really the girls to go for Pete is just and really they dominated all four years they've just dominated and it's just been really special to watch them and you can see we have all different

014grade levels and these kids show up all these guys show up at 5:00 a.m. I know the swim they they can relate 5:00 a.m. 6 days a week since June you know training crazy workouts you know and it's just um it's just the uh manifestation of hard work basically and obviously they're talented but they do work hard and I don't people don't realize how hard it is to win a state championship whatever level you are it's so hard um but our girls dominated they were winning meets by like invitationals by 100 points um the only loss they had was to nyatt out of Colorado and they were ranked eighth in the nation and that was at a meet on that toga Sticks golf course in williamsfield and power and um they were second that's the

015highest finish any Arizona school has ever finished so pretty pretty impressive then the guys were ranked eighth uh before the season started and didn't get a lot of attention you know they kind of ignored uh little bit of Instagram uh nastiness that we ignored but um you know it just fueled the fire and at State Mountain View who we get along with great guys and the great coaching uh they were beating us at the beginning of the Season by 30 then 20 and then we got to sectionals and it was eight points and so we're like okay well you know you know State meets the time to do it well our guys beat Mountain View by 38 points now Hamilton won but our boys beat you know H by Mountain View with quite a few

016points so it was pretty special and with the when cross country you one through five score sixth and seventh are like displacers so our boys one through five the Gap was 32 seconds that's really close so the closer you are to your number one Runner the better you're going to score the better you're going to be the girls was a minute five which is still very good and um the girls average 605 pace for all seven girls and the boys average 5 minutes and 19 seconds per mile and the course at state is very hilly and we run hilly courses we don't get ranked very well because I run coach Hall and I we go to these courses that are hilly because It prepares us for State because that's our goal and so you know

017we get kind of go under the radar we try and uh but anyway it's been it's been incredible uh the last few years at Highland if you would have told me after Co we'd be winning state championship I would said you're crazy but it's happened and it's just because these kids they're dedicated and they just give it their all so appreciate appreciate you guys thank you coach uh any predictions for next year I'm retiring so I don't know but coach Hall sticking around and her and I work together she coaches the girls and I coach the guys but we work together and she's going to hang on we got got some people in the wings we're talking to that will be a good fit for her and their kids and U so we're working on

018them well well I I asked that question to see if he would actually say that out loud that he's retiring my wife's in the back on you're reti you're going to I was I wasn't I I'm not here to wreck a marriage that's for sure buddy well and and it's important that we recognize everything that you've done how many years well 27 at Highland 36 total so give him a hand coach it is an honor to to honor you honor your your student athletes we know that when it comes to Athletics it it just doesn't take Superior athletes it takes Superior coaching and we just want to thank you guys for putting forth all the effort and you guys for definitely making your coaches look good right this is what it's about this is what

019team is about this is what uh making uh good decisions in your life is all about and this is what it leads to so just on behalf of myself the governing board and the rest of Gilbert Public Schools congratulations to you congratulations to our boys and girls and we look forward to seeing you back up here next year give them one more hand thank you if you guys want to shake hands that'd be great just kind of turn [Applause] and there you go to Tennessee for mons I appreciate you [Music] man set up and we'll we'll uh form in around you can we all fit Nock they're pretty [Laughter] narrow that's what I look like and I three no no no I'm going to stand by jail I'm going to stand by jail yeah we're

020good we're good no I've got it I've got it yeah I tried to you guys are we good ladies and gentlemen Highland High cross [Applause] country governing board members that concludes my recognitions for this evening thank you you guys don't have to stay here just somebody said someone's buying ice cream over here I don't know who it was well thank you so much and congratulations again great work to those students and their coaches Dr McCord um now it's the superintendent report 4.01 yes thank you Miss Woods governing board members uh just some announcements here um a huge thank you to the Gilbert Public School Community for passing our override and authorizing the sale of pieces of property owned by Gilbert public schools and a huge thank you to our pack for and other community members

021who took the time to educate the community about all the great things that occur in Gilbert public schools and how we are excellent caretakers of our taxpayers money we're blessed to live in a community that truly values public education also congratulations to Blake Robison Shaina Murray and Jesse Brainard for being elected to the governing board for Gilbert Public Schools the Maricopa County Superintendent will swear in each board member before our first meeting and their first meeting starts the beginning of January we look forward to working with you as we serve the students staff and community of GPS hey guess what this Saturday is the Gilbert Days parade and if you know me you know I love a good parade and our job is to make sure that we have all 39 of our schools repres

022presented in this and we will have that and three of our marching bands will be there uh a big thank you to GCA they are the ones uh constructing the float this year and the theme for this year is decades and so each section of our students and our schools will be dressed up in some specific decade and I hear the float is going to be phenomenal so thank you to them if you're looking for a good time and you want to watch uh 39 of our schools March down the street um come on Saturday I don't know if you know but the parade started over 40 years ago as a celebration of the paving of Gilbert Road and so thank goodness it's still paved today but again come on out and celebrate last Wednesday

023we had uh celebrated individuals who have made a difference in the lives of those associated with Gilbert public schools and in our community at the annual community excellence awards this year's recipients were for the Walter J Dei educator of the year for elementary Harry Webb of Ashlin Ranch and the Walter J Dei secondary educator of the year went to Mr Austin McIntosh from Camp overie the Sharon or support staff of the Year award went to Mr Troy seamster in our warehouse and the Sheila U jetti volunteer of the year went to miss China jet Tina Jud from mosquit elementary Tina puts on fabulous plays and does countless hours of volunteerism over at mosquite and so uh we wanted to make sure we honored all of them we are very thankful for them and all they

024do for Gilbert public schools and our students and lastly next week is Thanksgiving and it's an excellent time to reflect on the family and friends who make our lives complete we're blessed to live work and learn in a community like Gilbert and East Mesa our students families teachers support staff and administrators form a cohesive bond that is better for our community and I hope everyone realizes how lucky we are are I know I do and I sincerely hope everyone eats a little too much takes an extra nap and let's go of things that bug you and celebrate the great things that this life has to offer I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving and Miss Woods that concludes my report for this evening thank you Dr McCord we appreciate that oh one last

025thing oh yes sorry ladies stand up you too so we have some representatives from our superintendent student Senate Leila Josie and Holly Fox they are part of our uh superintendent Senate and they are phenomenal from Gilbert High School correct uh please give them a hand and thank them for being here thank you [Applause] guys thank you Dr McCord that will take us to request to speak to the governing board and we have two requests here tonight I will read the admonition request to speak to the governing board pursuant to ARS 38-43 1.02 the governing board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body after an

026open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the governing board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda however members of the governing board shall only discuss or take legal action on the issues raised during an open call to the public if the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during an open call the governing board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or anyone connected to the district as it may impact due process rights please contact the office of talent management if you have specific concerns about any individual employee and we have Bridget Vega first thank you for coming tonight to speak to us you have 3 minutes

027oh pardon me so you're Are You Bridget yeah okay Bridget okay thanks Bethany is gonna speak she was she ended up parking and did make it okay great we'll start with You Bridget you'll have three minutes um and you'll see a timer go off on these things to let you know thank you teen violence in schools is a critical issue that affects student safety the well-being of a child but it also impacts their ability to learn in a safe environment it can manifest in various forms including bullying physical fights drug or alcohol abuse suicidal ideation and more severe incidents like shootings as children are looking for a place of belonging being seen and heard addressing this problem requires a multifaceted programs schools we need you to implement the programs that can promote conflict resolution social

028emotional learning and anti-bullying and drug abuse initiatives these programs can help the students develop better interpersonal skills and reduce aggression also mental health support is important it can help provide not only resources but identify the at risk students and offer them support clear policies are needed to be enforced not only on violence but bullying along with consistent enforcement it can create and adopt a safer environment for the children schools must engage with Community Town leadership and Community Advocates it's important to engage the parents and the community in order to Foster again a safer environment around the students safety measures we're asking that those be enforced not just physical but also surveillance systems and controlled access to school buildings as they can help deter violence but with the guns on the campuses has increased as well

029as in as well as current threats adding metal metal detectors is necessary education and awareness must happen by raising awareness about the consequences of violence and promoting a culture of respect transparency of what is going on not only in our communities but within our schools it again will help adopt a safer environment for the children if you see something say something do something taking this effective collaboration amongst Educators parents and law enforcement it is essential to creating a safer environment and nurturing atmosphere for all the students to learn in a productive environment vers in fear or in survival mode I would also like to provide a copy of C usd's uh random drug testing program for drug abuse and alcohol abuse as we see many many students are using the Vapes on campus social media

030plays a major role in this um as well as kids are just looking again for a place of belonging and it's sad that the validation is coming from a heart on social media so we must take the prevention approach and again fostering and adopting a safe environment for the children so this mostly does talk about um how the students in C USD is mostly athletes but we would like to see this across especially for the at risk kids because we see a lot of kids using the alcohols and drugs thank you so much we appreciate that thanks Dr mord Thank You Bridget next we will have Chrissa Arnold and you'll have three minutes thank you good evening thank you for your time so I want to address the whole social media issue I don't know

031if you guys are aware but your kids on your high school campuses are being allowed to use social media and their phones in the classroom I know that that policy was implemented at the beginning of the year um I've seen multiple videos from students students have actually um directly told me that teachers have given them permission to use them in the classroom as long as they get them put away prior to an admin walking into the room so just so you guys are aware um and I say that because you guys had another incident on Mosk yesterday I was here four weeks ago talking about the gun incident um and the that was on the campus and then you guys had another threat had a threat against multiple students yesterday just to continue to come

032in as I have shared before in what happened with my daughter's situation these kids are escalating our boys are not doing well they are mentally not doing well and it is getting more and more violent and as a school district we are asking you to start implementing direct policies and having your admin and your teachers enforce these policies because if kids are not like being told like if they're not having consequences for the boundaries that they are given they will ignore them and they will continue to do their own things over the weekend a teen boy was stabbed and killed in auki they were from rival schools in that area this is the kind of behavior that we are repeatedly seeing the boy that died was only 15 years old I hope that sinks in

033because this is the reality of what is going on in our community and it needs to be taken seriously or we are going to see more and more kids die thank you thank you very much and finally we have Bethany Brenton Bethany if you'll come to the podium and you'll have three minutes as well thank you thank you hi um this is my first time coming to a Schoolboard meeting um I was here a few weeks ago and I'm here today um as a parent I have a child that attends mosqu high school and it's been really scary uh the last not just the last few weeks but those have been worse um it's scary sending your kid to school now and I grew up in Mesa I went to Mountain View um I remember

034when Kino Junior High got metal detectors and thinking maybe it was kind of silly or just that needed in that area um my thoughts on metal detectors have completely changed in the last few years I used to not think they were necessary and now I would love to see them in there um I just don't want to get these texts and emails anymore um they're just really scary and it seems like the next one is always a little bit worse um I voted yes on the school funding prop and I would like the school board to air mark some of those funds for the metal detectors I just found out recently that Mesa put in metal detectors all their high schools and I would love to see Gilbert do that for our kids as well

035um so we can feel safe sending our kids there and my child she talks about these things and it's it's scary for them too that's all thank you thank you very much we appreciate I just want to let you know um we have had um we've had a company come in and do a demonstration for us and we're actively looking at metal detectors for our high schools that makes me feel so so just so you know moving in that direction thank you thank you so much thank you to those who have come to speak to us tonight and also those who sent in online comments on the public online comment periods we appreciate your input and your time that will conclude our request to speak to the governing board tonight that will take us to

036our reports and we'll have our 6.01 monthly financial report for month ended October 31st 2024 Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members I will turn this over to Miss Bonnie Betts our associate superintend Atta of Business Services good evening governing board members Mrs wood Dr McCord um this is a fairly short report this evening uh this reflects activity through October 31st 20 2024 um so uh as usual we always share our district operating funds of course there is activity going on in in maintenance and operations as well as um unrestricted Capital but our available balance is staying roughly the same um you'll see that there's a little a little bit more um available balance in unrestricted Capital due to uh an encumbrance of P purchase order encumbrance that was a little bit less

037than expected so there was an un encumbrance that occurred but you will see um this activity uh stay pretty much the same through the remainder of the year uh one other note um however in unrestricted Capital due to the passage of the override we did uh release the um same amount of unrestricted capital allocations to our schools that they received last year so to date we had only allocated out half of what they received last year so we just allocated out the remainder so we are expecting to see some more activity in unrestricted Capital uh for the next 3 or four months um under the federal grants we just always share this because you can see that our available balance is negative um on the other Federal projects again this is associated with the fact

038that in our adopted budget we did not anticipate additional revenues when we receive those additional revenues we are able to spend those um but this will be cleared up when we uh bring the revised budget to you the first meeting in February our Enterprise funds as you know you've approved the annual financial report on October 15th and so we've now reflected our beginning balances our beginning cash balances on the Enterprise funds uh that represent the same information that was shared on the annual financial report the beginning balance for nutrition services increased by a little bit over a million dollars and Community School beginning balance increased by a little bit over a 100,000 so you'll see that the AA available balances increased by about those same amounts um providing additional resources for those Enterprises to spend

039through the remainder of this year and then other funds this is the same sit situation again we're showing beginning balances so these are cash balances uh joint technical education fund did see a lot of um purchase orders being unencumbered so that increased their available beginning balance advanced placement summer Institute also increased slightly um a note about the employee benefit trust it did decrease slightly we did have a payment um basically a repayment of bunnies to the Arizona State Retirement that we were not due of about a half million dollar so therefore the um beginning balance decreased by that about that same amount and then finally our school-based funds um we don't spend a lot of time usually on the school based funds but as is true for the for the other grids that I just

040shared with you the beginning balances have all changed due to the results of the annual financial report and at this point in time if there are no questions I am through with my report thank you board members are there any questions thank you Miss fetz we really appreciate that thank you that will take us to our consent agenda items 7.01 board members is there a motion for the approval of consent agenda items so moved thank you m paage it's been moved is there second second thank you Miss humph it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items as as list all those in favor please vote by saying I I any oppose with nay thank you that passes 30 that will take us to our action items tonight we'll begin with 8.01

0412025 2026 course description books for high schools and Junior highs Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members tonight we bring to you um something we bring to you annually and that is your approval of the course description book um this is something that has uh is a long process uh but a very good process and a lot of people and a lot of stakeholders are involved in this process uh I'd like to turn this over to um Miss Cox Dr Cox to uh our uh director of secondary CIA and she will kind of go over the highlights the changes for both uh high school and Junior High is that correct correct all right Christa good evening governing board Dr McCord we uh right now on the screen you'll just see the cover of

042the book since it's uh hundreds of pages uh that's what will be presented but I'll just verbally go through some of those summaries uh you'll be able to see um as shared with you the documents have a red strikeout for anything that we were proposing be removed and anything that we are looking to add is reflected in Blue uh print and then um rather than kind of go page by page I'm just going to go ahead and summarize all of the changes within the categories that they apply so to start with the high school book uh organizationally the last few years we have spent quite a bit of time uh making sure that it is currently up toate with uh if it's current statutes or District Vision uh opportunities for all students and so um

043we've we've done a lot of work and we're really proud of where it's at but it does take uh annual review as Dr McCord had mentioned so we have multiple course description book committee meetings those are comprised of Administrators uh counselors our classified um and certified Master schedulers we have representation from every one of our schools but prior to even engaging in the committee work uh all of our staff are able to make recommendations to their campus lead and then all of those recommendations get brought to the committee so all of our teachers have an opportunity to make recommendations or suggestions and uh we also at the table include our counselors as well so we're we're really pleased uh with the group that comes together uh the expertise and the knowledge that the the group

044and committee are made of um allows us to produce high quality work for our students and families so within the high school committee um I'll start with that group The organizational changes include reor or I'm sorry reorganizing each section uh to make sure that they flow uh in a meaningful way historically we used to organize by the code but that didn't necessarily put things in alphabetical order by the section and so it might have made sense for the technical person but when we talk about our students and our parents the course code really doesn't mean much to them so we wanted to make sure that within each section uh it's an alphabetical order and make sense to them we also tried to when I mentioned that we align things to our our district uh Improvement

045plan and our goals if we are saying that we want to encourage all students into the more rigorous pathway we want to make sure that that's what we're putting Forefront and at the beginning of a section as opposed to maybe the easier option we want them to see the more rigorous option and then weigh their options from there with that uh our honors definition we worked together this has been something that has been worked on over the last several years and I think is Revis visited often we've done a lot of work K12 with accelerated schools our giftedness uh gifted programs uh at our Junior High with the GTC and so we wanted to make sure that our honors description was the same no matter what school you go to and that all of the

046descriptions if it be a prere a course description um or even um additional criteria that it all matched the same description of Honor so you'll see that there's little strikeouts and tweaking in the verbiage when it comes to a lot of your advanced placement your honors and this is true in the Junior High book as well so a lot of uh intentional work done there to make sure that it's in alignment we also when looking at honors and uh Advanced opportunities there were several dual enrollment classes that cgcc which is the college that we um have our largest IGA with we weren't necessarily offering or even putting it in our book that it could be offered because either a campus hasn't proposed it and so we wanted to make sure that there are more opportunities

047written in the book so that if we do hire a teacher or if a campus does want to provide that opportunity that we're not stuck waiting a year or two for it to be proposed so we did add several which I'll get into in a moment to make sure that they're just in there to be proactive and uh have those opportunities ready for our students we added uh verbage our special education department we noticed in the beginning of the book we had little sections that called out different groups of students if that be the Honors that I just spoke of we revamped the description that outlines what our CTE students look like and so the proposal from our special education department was to have a section that outlined kind of our student services for them

048and uh again CTE introduction you're going to notice that with a lot of our groups that we made it a point to just be more robust and uh explain a little bit more in detail uh sometimes I think we tend to as educ ators think things make sense cuz it's our world all of the time so we did seek parent and student feedback to make sure that the verbiage that we're using within our book really speaks to our community because that's what the book is for ultimately it's not I mean it is for us it helps us do our job but more importantly it helps our students know of all the opportunities that are there for them throughout the entire book one of The the bigger changes that you can note is that the terminology

049and accuracy uh we made sure in the past we felt like there was a lot of changes with programs or alignment and this was a a fun year because we were able to look at course descriptions that maybe haven't been revamped in several years so there were some that when we read them were like man that hasn't maybe been true for several years now and so we want our book to truly reflect what we know is happening in there and sometimes that's program changes or college board changes something and so we really tried to be extremely thorough with that and uh make an most of those are more minor changes or maybe a little sentence here and there so uh you'll notice those changes throughout there was also when I talk about the section changes

050uh one of the changes that you'll notice is that our summer reading in the back of the high school book there's been a section summer reading has been uh around for forever and in our AP classes historically there has been a required AP reading and then when students uh start the school year there's graded assignments what we found over the last several years uh truly postco was that and even with a lot of school choice and open enrollment is if students didn't know about that assignment if they knew about it going into summer they did great they came back they were ready uh but a lot of our students that um joined us after uh the end of the school year maybe in the middle of the summer the start of the year were not

051prepared for those assignments so our teachers have actually gone away from mandating those assignments and making it more uh exposure and then more thematic and so what we found was that having those listed out was no longer in alignment with the accuracy of what is happening so you'll notice that there is a little paragraph that kind of explains that in the book because ultimately the the purpose of Summer re reading is to expose our students to more literature and just get them reading and loving to read and so a lot of our AP students are doing that already so we are deferring them to where they can find recommended lists from college board and or um where they can find good books to read that are going to help um them do better on their

052AP exams Dr Cox can we ask a questions okay I meant to ask this earlier too so so where are the lists of approved reading books then going to be so for summer reading specifically and just for the coursework was that just the summer reading ones that we Chang that's just summer reading so all of the approved novels are still listed in that same section to make sure that there okay thank you and thank you I apologize if that was confusing um in addition uh the I'm going to talk about class fees we only have a couple that I'll get to in just a moment but I was excited to share that for junior high and high school our technology fees have all been reduced so Mr costano had uh worked with the company and

053shared that with me so you'll see that the expense to our our families has uh declined which was nice all right so those are some of the organizational and larger changes that I didn't feel like I needed to hit on every single time you see them um I'm going to move into the new courses and again I'm going to go through them more in uh themes as opposed to every individual one and then each section if there's any questions please uh don't hesitate to ask so the first one in new courses is we are really pleased to announce the addition of an entire CTE program called digital animation this digital animation is a threeyear program that will be offered at multiple high schools and will count towards CTE credit completers and they can get certification

054through that as well in our uh CTE we also added a new culinary 2 grilling and outdoor cooking course so in year two of culinary uh right now it's like your traditional restaurant style and so uh Highland High has requested this their facilities now can accommodate this and they were looking at being strategic to capture more students and keeping them as completers in CTE and we find that uh sometimes when they drop off after that year one we thought that offering a a grilling and outdoor cooking class would capture an audience that uh is unique and we hope that maybe it will even be a magnet to to draw some students in for that in addition to uh the CTE classes that I Rec I shared we do have two new IB classes that are

055being added to the growth of Gilbert High School in the world those are IB psychology and an IB film class in the world of uh advanced placement we worked really hard the last few years to add all college board AP classes into our coursebook so that what we are offering uh is comprehensive of all of those classes so to date all of the AP classes that are offered through college board are in our course catalog we are proposing to add the two newest ones that have just been added to college board which are the AP African-American studies and AP business principles um and then in addition to that you'll see that there are several uh essential classes which just a reminder from a couple of years ago these are the special education version of these

056classes so a lot of them are science and social studies a couple of years ago we did a lot of work with the English and math components we wanted to see how they went we had to remove uh special education and sped codes from the titles um and they've they've been really well done and so we wanted to make sure that we match that in our other core areas for our special education students so that they're being exposed to the same curriculum and standards and not something different uh just because they're in a special education classroom Dr cuck yes a question about the so you said all the AP college board classes are in the coursebook are they actually offered or we just have the potential to offer them if we can find a teacher

057for it uh um not all of them are offered but I will say that the more we've been intentional to add them our schools have been doing a phenomenal job with using AP potential data which comes from us uh being uh proactive with providing the PSAT nmsqt exam which the board has approved and we have paid for all 10th graders to take that that gives us data that we actually just received this past week and it highlights which AP sections and classes could be capitalized on a campus so for example mosquite High School to year uh last year looked at that data and it showed that there were 189 students that showed potential for AP research at the time they were not an AP Capstone school so they couldn't offer it uh margarite Brown is

058a rock star and she emailed me that night and was like can I apply for this and the deadline was like 24 hours from then I said let's do it and they got accepted so this current year they have placed over I want to say it's like um 70 something students for their first year with adding that so using that AP potential and having the courses in the book were able to capitalize on offering them but there are a handful that have not made and we track that data um we're not we don't want to force it uh when it organically happens on a campus and there's decisions that they have to make within their schedule but they're at least there if they have a group that's what I thought you were saying I just

059wanted to make sure that's what I was understanding absolutely thank you so much so that is all the new courses in the change in course credit you'll notice that there are several within the um CTE area we are adding a weighted option to some of our engineering and biomed programs those are extremely rigorous classes we are going to keep the unweighted option because we don't want to intimidate students in not wanting to try the class but if students want a weighted option for that and knowing how rigorous those pathways are for engineering and biomed we wanted to provide an opportunity that if they do some additional lessons through the pltw curriculum that they can then um earn that weighted credit toward their GPA in addition there were um I mentioned it earlier and I won't

060go into too much unless if you guys want to hear more several classes that we added in that could be offered for dual enrollment that we historically have maybe only offered for AP or haven't and that was with looking through the Community College coursebook to see where we had some alignment so similar to the AP conversation if we get a certified teacher and they have students that have that request they then can now offer it that way and work with the Community College going on to the grade level changes the two changes here we have a couple within our CTE program with the engineering the eligibility requirement from the program kind of dictates when we have to make adjustments so there were a couple that we were given to change there and then the other

061two changes are to eliminate restrictions for some of our grade levels so for example the engineering designing and development we want to allow for more grade levels to take advantage of that class so opening up more more doors for students to be able to take advantage of these amazing opportunities the next up is the change in course descriptions uh the the first that I would like to talk about is within our science our physics and our earth science class those are two that we are changing descriptions to align to our state standards the science standards through the state are different than any of our core areas we kind of pick and choose they fall so we've worked really hard to have a biochem physics pathway what we have found is a majority of our students

062have been successful and have done a great job but if a student ends up taking a different science if it doesn't have those standards of the physics or of the chem technically they could be missing some standards and so we we questioned that we did a deep dive and what we found was that our earth science needed to become more of a robust science class so we have increased the rigor the title is now going to be Earth and space science because it's including some of those space standards and it's going to be a more rigorous uh class for the students so that they can if they take that in lie of the camer the physics we know that we are graduating them uh ready to go on to uh what whatever their future holds

063for them there are several changes to our AP math classes and those are just description changes in alignment with college board and then we when I said that we were were excited to kind of nerd out over some of the descriptions there's several that are within CTE that we just took the time to read make sure that it's truly still accurate to the students um some of them we questioned like if they weren't uh maybe written well like are we inadvertently maybe not selling it to the students knowing what really happens in the classroom so we took the time to do that and then our reading lab class in the junior high and high school book it used to be truly more of a lab where people came in and could be used more of

064as in intervention we have Rewritten that description to be more standards aligned for students who are minimally proficient in reading so it is more uh true to the reading standards as it is to more of a vague Open Lab moving on we have several course name changes uh they are all in our world language classes we got feedback from the NCAA that our classes that did not have honors on the title were not recognized through the NCAA and so we wanted to be in compliance with that ironically only some of our campuses got that feedback and others were told it was fine so we decided to make the change districtwide so that none of our students get to college and feel like their classes maybe don't count toward what we needed to and uh we

065were able to get that approved through NCAA as well districtwide change in prerequisites ultimately what we have done is we uh made sure that they are all um set up to allow for vertical alignment and that the class that is required of it is more accurate to that class so for example in math we have AP pre-cal and so the prere prior was a more rigorous class when in reality they just need Algebra 2 so again we just want to make sure that we're not making the prere more difficult because we feel a certain way that if a student really does complete the standards of say Algebra 2 we know that they can be successful they've proven that before and you'll see that there's a few in there for like reasons and then moving on

066to the change in fees you'll notice that uh these are um all new fees they're not adjustments to fees so the first one is our technical theater program uh over the years they are our only performing arts class that we haven't historically had fees associated with and with the um change in our economy and the cost increasing our Performing Arts teachers really felt that this was an area that they we should be assessing a feed to our students so it's very minimal and it's in alignment with the rest of the performing arts classes and then the two other fees you'll see in there are for the grilling and cooking class and the digital animation program so two new programs in classes and then um with that I mentioned the technology fees are going down yes

067that's all the fees and then the final uh changes for our high school book that I want to share is just courses to be eliminated so each year one of the things that we have focused on the last few years is our book starts to get very long and cumbersome and we started looking at data so each year we look at the data and if a class hasn't made for three or more years we have a conversation about it and so we are proposing to remove several classes that uh the numbers support that they're not being used but we also talk through so for example um if there's an AP class we kind of decide that's in alignment with our vision we want to keep it um some of them come from a change in

068requirement so for example our Junior Roc program their Commander sent us updates and so there are classes that we're no longer allowed to offer so all of the classes that are being recommended to be removed Are all uh out of date with a program and or no longer in use in Gilbert Public Schools so for the high school that summarizes all of the changes am I good to move to Junior High or are there any questions for high school I had two questions for high school so when we offer these college board um AP classes um do we get the curriculum through college board when we offer the class or how do we get that curriculum yeah we um they give a recommendation of curriculum and we purchase from the list that they give and

069and um in addition we they have uh AP classrooms where there's additional resources uh supplemental pieces and things like that so ultimately they're they're recommending the curriculum and then we choose from the list and purchase that from our department okay thank you and then my other question um I just want to say that Dr Cox and I were on the phone for a long time going all over all my questions and I really appreciated it um one that I forgot to ask was about the English language Learners and I noticed that we're um giving them different classes with different types of vocabulary like science learning and so forth is this to help them to keep on track for graduation with their um learning and the standards yes everything within our e part of the course

070book has not changed all of that is the same those were all changed last year and it is all directly attached to uh what the state requires ultimately to answer um what I believe your question is is with those other core areas that yes those can count toward graduation requirements the state has gone back and forth with the definition of what counts for English but for the others they do count in those core areas okay thank you you're very welcome um just one or maybe a couple questions first of all can adults take the outdoor grilling culinary that sounds amazing um I just had a question about the AP courses that you put into the book that aren't necessarily going to be offered if you do have a couple of students that sign up for

071that do the counselors work with them to seamlessly get them moved over to a different course that might feel somewhat of the same requirement absolutely and one of the things that Marcy Miss Taylor has put into place is that uh we kind of oversee parts of the scheduling process with our high schools so several years ago what uh Miss Taylor has had us do is we bring our requests in so the students request classes and before they can even move students out like if they only have five for a class and they're like we know we can't make that happen on our campus all of the registration APS now share their data and we then make decisions on okay there might only be five at your campus but maybe there's five at each campus who's

072willing to host it and then how do we get those students there sometimes that's through our distance learning sometimes that's through accommodating the students schedule if they're upper classmen to to uh or be transported we have come up with very unique ways to accommodate those types of things and what we have found is that um once that interest starts if we can make that happen even for five students on a campus those programs actually take off and after a couple of years they're sustaining them on their campus on their own or it becomes where they're offered at maybe two campuses okay thank you you're very welcome all right moving on to Junior High I am going to skip through on some of the organizational changes that I know um I already hit on some of

073those are true for the junior high so I'm going to go a little bit quicker uh please don't hesitate to interrupt if you have questions so again a lot of reorganization one of the things that I will say is a little different with the junior high course book is with the committee um historically the process looked very different for our Junior High book so we had a few um master schedulers that there were three of them that kind of ran all things for the junior high and they would make recommendations and so with counselors principles would sign off but we didn't really ever have meetings or an actual committee it was just make the proposals and then they got presented to the board what we found what I have found is The more I've learned

074about uh the Junior High book is that when you do it that way you don't ever really have anyone cleaning it up so there's stuff that has been really outdated that needed to be looked at and the organization of it started to not make as much sense so we started with a very clear Vision uh and this came from our counselors and our m schedulers we we would not be where we are this has been 2 years in the making last year if you remember when I shared uh I thought I'd be able to accomplish a lot more and we spent like eight hours for multiple days and realized that this is like a two to threee plan and just have to make small improvements but um the group that came together this year we

075started with the thought that we want our Junior High course book to support and align to what is happening at our high schools so if it doesn't then we might really love a class and really be attached to something but if it's not in alignment to what's happening in our bigger vision of a district and leading to success at the high school then it probably doesn't need to be there and I thought that was going to be more difficult but the more we dove in and held each other to that it it went seamless and I think it was really neat to see everybody kind of consistently on that same page it's not something I've necessarily seen um in a in a while so we started with reorganizing the sections everything I had said earlier

076about redefining Honors that was true 7 through 12 uh we spent a lot of time there's a page that's been added on supporting the career in college Pathways 712 that was a page that was in the high school book that somebody just had the idea like really if they don't start having those conversations in junior high they're probably a little bit late their nth and 10th grade year so uh our College and Career um coordinator and our new counseling coordinator uh worked on that with our CTE Department to make sure that it truly aligned and that we had all of that mapped out for our families we added the special education verbiage there as well um updated all the terminology and accuracy to be more concise throughout as well uh this book did not have

077an introduction to the book and we thought that that was an important thing so there's a a paragraph at the very start that just explains what the book is for um let's see are when you get to the elective part of the book there was a lot of conversation and we had to come up with a system for the naming schemes so um if there are minis which are quarter long classes Duos which are your semester classes and year-long classes we wanted all the titles to be uniformed so if there is a mini or a duo or a year-long class and it is just that's the only class and there's no program to it you just do the one and there's nothing else then it's just the title of the class if there is a

078mini or a Duo um for example use a language class we're going to call it introduction to Spanish because we know then there's a Spanish one and a Spanish 2 so whenever there's a program what happened was we had classes that had very similar titles but it wasn't really clear that it was like a program or kind of a a sequence of classes so you'll notice that that was changed throughout um the book as well and so those are the the overall summary of organizational changes and I'm going to go ahead now and get into the other category stories so the first one is the new courses so the new courses that are being added to the Junior High book include a robotics class currently there's been an advanced robotics that is offered at one

079campus and other campuses were wanting to add it but didn't feel that their students were maybe to that advanced level so now we'll have a Robotics and an advanced robotics looking at adding an aerospace science class which actually supports and feeds right into the Aerospace program at the high schools uh it is a high school class but they don't earn high school credit for it um we are adding you'll notice that we're removing I'm going to talk about it in a moment the world exploration class historically we had created this class with the uh best intentions that hey they can get a sampling of all the different world languages what we have found when we were monitoring and checking in with teachers is that teachers always seem to gravitate to the content of the language

080that they feel more comfortable with so really if the teacher has a background in Spanish they were leading leaning toward teaching more Spanish and then trying their best to like expose to French and maybe so what we the feedback in the um suggestion was just to allow for those introductions to the languages that they know that their campus is offering uh it allows it to be more authentic as much as we loved the idea of kind of a sampling of languages uh it wasn't being done consistently um and therefore we had students that maybe were getting one exposure and opportunity at one campus and at another they weren't getting really exposed so we wanted to make sure that there was consistency there for our students if they switched around from schools so at this point

081you'll have an introduction to Spanish German and French um they're adding a 3D art class to add just some additional art classes and then you'll notice French was in the Junior High book at one point French 1 and two we removed it last year because it hadn't made in four years but now that we've had a push to really promote the high school level languages at the junior highs um Desert Ridge Junior they're working with the high school right there and they want to move forward with bringing that back and French was a one of the languages that we felt was um enrollment was declining a little bit so we just absolutely loved the idea and we are also adding German 1 and two with the junior high level as well there's a campus that

082is entertaining wants to see how many students they get signed up for it um I think that covers the new classes so a lot of CTE World Language and Fine Arts is the best way to summarize those uh moving on to the change in course description we you'll notice everything that I was saying about uniforming the title so year one year two and intro uh we we had a couple meetings with uh all of our music um and Performing Arts teachers at the Junior High um and high school to make sure that we got feedback and then uh worked with different groups to just make sure that they were aware of the why usually when you talk about changing classes people take it really personal and in their area and their program it sometimes even

083their justification does make sense but when you look at it from the big picture of all of Gilbert public schools and when parents are looking at this to make things more uniform it makes it more userfriendly and there hasn't been a group that we have changed at this point that we haven't talked with and I feel truly like even if they maybe don't 100% agree they're like we get we get what you're trying to do so we feel like we've done our due diligence there um and now again we did half last year and now we feel we've gotten them all this year year so we're we're kind of happy there and then uh reading lab I discussed how that was changing but one of the things I do want to share with the reading

084class is that we are also proposing that for our seventh grade students that if they are minimally proficient in reading that they in lie of taking the required PE class that they take a reading class that that's required and if they still want to take PE as their elective absolutely we would encourage that but what we're finding is that our seventh and eth grade students reading scores um are declining and not where we want them to not declining I shouldn't say declining they're not where we want them to be and so at some point we have to take a different approach and and do something to see what we can do to support that we just recently celebrated a lot of amazing School letter grade data and uh Mr berer had um disaggregated the data

085and came across the fact that our sixth grade ELA reading data is among the highest like in the East Valley and I would even say um within the state and so at the seventh and eighth grade when we see that there's that dip in the data we we have to do something about it and so uh we're working with um a group of people that have a heavy background in reading and um targeting some of those students and so that that's what we think will help we've done a lot of research on that and uh look forward to kind of monitoring that and hoping that that improves our students reading skills and then the last page on here uh includes all of the classes to be removed and the justification how we chose to remove

086those is exactly the same as the high school so if you are curious about any of those I can speak to them but I don't know that I need to kind of go one by one on those so that concludes the junior high summary may I answer some questions for you guys yes I'll start I on the reading um I'm wondering would that be would that be something where if at the end of a semester they had shown a significant Improvement or something that then they could take PE or a different elective the second semester or is that going to be programmed basically for the whole year right now uh the idea is to program it for the year uh because when I say that we're targeting students that have extremely low reading skills uh

087we're talking students that unfortunately um are at high risk and their reading skills are showing at a third and fourth grade reading level so um we believe that they need the year of that support however we have a lot of really great diagnostic tools now that if we were to show that a student sometimes there is significant uh Improvement and if we can show that those skills and those gaps lesson in a semester then I think we'd be entertained but I want to make sure that it's supported by data and that the Diagnostics and that the tools that evaluate those reading skills that the student really is ready because we want to be able to capture that and close that Gap in Junior High um before they get school and what what teachers are we

088thinking like what certification will those teachers have that will teach that yeah we just had a conversation about this so we really want to have uh certified reading Specialists run each of those sections similar to what our elementaries do our elementaries do a really great job with this and it's something that um at secondary it kind of drops off and uh and it shouldn't so we're we're Marcy in her principal meeting just last week we were having conversations with otm and the principles just to start talking about um maybe you have a teacher that has that certification or that you feel would be a good fit um and we're going to have to get going in that direction just to make sure if we if we put them in that I'm I hope that it's

089I know it will be but just really deliberate and pointed at those skills that are so critical and there may be people at the elementary level that want to come up with reading certifications okay and we I know that that one is uh probably a bigger conversation as well and Marcy and Jared I don't know if you guys want to add to that but um there's been a lot of work and conversations behind the scenes and we have a little I was just telling Mr Ryan we have a little task force uh where we are including our elementary people to try to help lead that because they in my opinion are more of the experts because it's what they were trained to do a lot of our secondary people that wasn't a part of their

090schooling and they get intimidated by that and so to Dr McCord's Point um it might be advantageous to bring in find right people important to make that a successful class if require that then it needs to be successful and I think what you find out is over time a lot of elementary teachers move up to the junior high rarely do you see high school moving down to the junior high so the odds of somebody having one of those certifications is probably higher at the junior high absolutely that's good any further questions no was that yeah go ahead that was a lot of work and thank you for all of that well I mean looking through that catalog was like okay I know I didn't really enjoy it as a child but all day learning and

091and getting to take classes I hope our kids appreciate it because it's a a very special time in your life adulting is not as fun as going to school I'll just tell you that all the Thanks goes to the committee they they put in a lot of hours uh I know it's a lot to summarize and go down the list so if there are any questions that come even after this uh don't hesitate to reach out but I just appreciate the board's support so thank you thank you thank you thank you all right board members um this is an action item so I would like to call for a motion to approve 2025 26 course description books for high schools and Junior highs is there a motion so moved thank you Miss humre is there

092a second second thank you is there any further discussion no okay I I hope parents will take time to read it to to help their kids see the possibilities and really there is a lot there yeah and I I think you worked really hard to make sure that it's concise and in a place where we can off where they can see all that's offered and have those possibilities so yeah and those will be on the on the website that's where you can access them so okay seeing no further discussion I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the 2025 26 course description books for high schools and Junior highs please vote by saying I I any oppose with nay thank you that passes 30 we'll now move to 8.02 rate increase to

093Community Education and preschool programming 2025 2026 Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members um if you remember at our last work study uh the director of Community Education Mr Rod Houston and the director of early learning Don koberstein presented to you about their programs as well as uh potential rate increases and we said we'd bring those to you tonight those rate increases are uh contained there within boarddocs and they are available if you have any questions let's start with a motion and then during discussion we can ask any questions that we have if that's okay board members is there a motion for 8.02 rate increase to Community Education and preschool programming 2526 so moved thank you Mrs Paige is there second second thank you Miss humre and now for any discussion or questions

094um I did have one question just about um I think it was the um prechool and then they're going to go to vik and I had a question about the Staffing for that because that will be a bigger range of students in vik than we've had previously with having those preschool kids there so is there someone that wants to talk about that um so one of the things that that we've SE in the past we've had the building blocks where they have stay for an extended low cost it was throwing our number that's why weed to separate it out to keep that that way to keep the the numbers where they need to be so when you drop from a six-year-old down it goes from 1 to 20 to 1 to 13 and then 1

095to 12 so that's why we've kind of separated them um is so that we can make sure that we're meeting those and we know who's coming when as opposed to well you can sign up for this but you don't have to tell us you're going to show up and then we're we're Staffing and we don't have those numbers okay all right thank you if I can if I can add to that as well um you'll notice that in the mornings we will be picking up the kiddos at 7:45 while other students go out to the playground our building block students will be picked up by the building block staff and that's for their safety um the other thing is at the end of the day when the rest of the campus would release at 255

096p.m. um we would not release until 3:15 so we've got that time that vik can get up and running um at before building block students and those families that need that extended day would arrive to vik okay all right thank you I appreciate that I don't know if you guys or Dr Martin maybe want to just give kind of a little overview or sure maybe just a just a couple kind of we what we talked about it last week but yeah absolutely so rationale y absolutely so two weeks ago as Dr McCord shared um they gave a thorough presentation of um our Community Education and our preschool programs and how important they are to our district we have each day over 2,700 students on average accessing one of the numerous Community Education and preschool programs

097in our district um one of the things we have to be very cognizant of is These funds um it has to be self um it has to be self- sustaining we don't use M funds for our Community Education and our preschool programs and so as with anything the costs have gone up with everything in this world the last couple of years and so we looked very carefully at the uh rate increases that we're proposing tonight it's been 2 years since we have passed on a rate increase but we do need to make sure that these programs are sustainable but I can tell you uh Mrs Cobin and Mr Houston along with our finance department have broken out our programs even further um than we ever have so we can really truly see the costs of

098each program to ensure that they are we are meeting the needs of the students and families but also meeting the financial obligations that we have to run these Community Education and school programs is there any further discussion board members no I think it's always hard to raise rates but I think with um a lot of it is to hire employees and to keep good employees there there's cost increase every year with that and then also just the supplies just like you said the price of just continue to increase and so I think we're mindful of how that impacts our families and know that this is a service that we provide to them and are again mindful as we do this and I think you guys showed us the last couple that last presentation that you've

099been really thoughtful and mindful at making sure the quality matches the costs and that we're using it wisely and making the best impacts that we can for our students and our families so all right anything further no okay um with that I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving proving the rate increase to Community Education and preschool programming for 2025 2026 please vote by saying I I and any opposed please vote by saying nay thank you that will pass 3 8.03 recommended pace typ in for all employees Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members on April 9th of 2024 the governing board approved a one-time pay stiens for um hourly staff members and exempt employees at the rate of 600 for hourly 800 for exempt PR rated based on

100their full-time equivalency uh due to the passage of the 15% uh budget continuation override the recommendation is to increase the all increase the all hourly staff member stien from um from 800 or 600 to 1,000 uh pro rated base on FTE increase the all exempt staff dipen from 1,000 to 12200 pro rated base on FTE e in addition the recommendation is is to pay these two stiens in half payments half on December 17th of 2024 and the other half on January 14th 2025 uh all Personnel who are an active employee on December 17th 2024 will be paid one half of that stien based on their hourly or exempt FTE status and all Personnel who are active employees on January 14th 2025 we played the second half of the stien based on their their hourly or

101exempt uh FTE status the total estimated cost for the new recommended amounts of 1,200 per FTE dependent upon hourly and exempt status is uh estimated to be about 6.2 or 6.7 million an increase of 2.5 million over the previous approved stiens most of the cost of the stiens will be funded from either mno or classroom site fund and if you need Bonnie to go into the numbers a little bit more she can uh but um again when we uh proposed this in April we knew that this would be the bare minimum that we could do based on what we know at that time and if we have available funds we want to make sure that we can uh get those to our staff and um say thank you for working for Gilbert Public Schools thank

102you Dr McCord board members if we could start with a motion and then we can have discussion is there a motion I move that we approve the pace typen for all employees as recommended thank you Miss SRE it's been moved as our second second thank you m page is there any discussion or further questions well I think um I want to thank everyone for their hard work and the more I learn about what we do in our classrooms every day for students the more I feel like um we're we're asking very high high skills of people um that they could take elsewhere and make a lot more money but they stay here in education because they want to work with students and so I think it's very appropriate to to give them a little boost

103when we can um you know we don't we don't have end of year bonuses or anything like that um this is a one little way of showing our appreciation because a classroom full of students is a very you have to be highly skilled to manage that either as a teacher or as a staff member who's helping with that so I really appreciate all that they do thank you Miss I just wanted to add I am super excited that these hardworking employees of Gilbert Public Schools even though it might not seem like a lot of money it is a lot of money and they richly deserve probably even more so I wish we had more to give but thank you to all our dedicated Gilbert Public Schools Employees I wanted to add my thanks as well

104and and excitement for this I wanted to ask Miss Betts um so the reason we think we can increase the pay the stien from what we originally approved was one we did we did receive the override our voters approved that so we know now that kind of helps us be able to predict a little more for next year and just kind of settle in our finance which we're so grateful for and then secondly our um carry over came in a little higher and our we we didn't dip as low on our students is that right okay all that's correct okay that's are all three good things so those three things give that we know now that we didn't know when we approved this in April now we can say okay how can we compensate which

105is one of our top goals to always compensate our staff and teachers all of them who work so hard every day to take care of our students and this is a little thing that we can do just a one time STP in okay well I feel I feel good about that thank you so much if there's no further discussion no okay um seeing no further discussion I'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving the recommended pay stien for all employees as described please vote by saying I I I and any oppose with nay thank you that passes 30 and then 8.04 asba asba byaw change proposal Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members the asba governance committee with unanimous approval from the asba board of directors has proposed changes to

106the bylaws to enhance governance practices within uh the association these updates uh are designed to improve transparency accountability and member engagement ensuring that asba continues to oper operate with the highest standards of integrity and Effectiveness the proposed changes also aim to strengthen the association's ability to adapt uh to emerging challenges and better serve our diverse membership uh the bylaw proposal by the asba board of directors must be approved by two-thirds of the asba member boards to be effective and they have a onepage bylaw um kind of like a cheat sheet of what the changes they make if you want me to go through those I can if you just want to look at them or if you've already seen them uh just let me know what you want me to do oh I think I

107I looked through them okay did you need anything further I I did um have a conversation with Chris King that was the um chair of the committee this morning so if you have any um questions about any of the changes then I can I can hopefully address those um I did talk to him extensively about what the changes were and what they were trying to do so um I think it's just basically um the bylaws were created in 1975 and hadn't really been updated in all of this time and so they've really looked at it closely to update it and make it more clear and just um provide um more guidance for the organization so that it can be a member driven organization and do the things that are needed for school board members across

108our state um I'll call for the motion and then we can have some discussion is there a motion I move that we approve the asba bylaw change proposal thank you Miss hre is there second second thank you Miss pige um I I looked in it I thought that there had been a change at 2014 on the bottom of that oh well there have been some changes yes there's been um minor Chang es but not a um revamping of not going in depth as this has okay so there have been there is a list at the back so it showed every time that the bylaws have been amended um and there was a change in 2021 but not it was just a little thing here or there it wasn't a complete rewrite and I mean this

109isn't a complete rewrite it's just an updating and making sure that language is clear and that um terminology is is clear mhm did you miss Paige did you want anything specific no I just it's very well known I have some issues with asba um I was going to have Dr McCord put up those the byas up but that's okay okay um I don't have any discussion other than the only thing I would add is I hope asba continues to depoliticize their um what they stand for that's that's the only thing I want to say yeah I struggle as well I don't I don't feel like like I don't trust them anymore they've lost my trust so but you they can try and we can going forward I mean the board coming in going for can

110decide if we want to continue to be part of this or not so well I'd love to have a conversation with you at another time where you can help me understand your feelings better that would be great um at this time so Lori I sorry I just had one question If This Were not to pass tonight what does that mean well it just means that so we have one vote as a board either a yes or a no vote um which um our assistant Mrs Wilson will enter electronically before the date which I believe is December 7th if um it needs two3 2/3 yes it's a high bar of all membership to pass it um that's one reason why there have been not many bylaw changes I mean there was one in 2021 which I

111myself worked very hard on the next one before that was 2012 so it's been very difficult to reach that bar there's been several attempts um in the time that I was on the board of directors we we tried two or three times and only met that bar once um but I think I think changing the bylaws and helping the organization to run better is just a positive fr for everybody um so what if it doesn't pass here tonight what is if it doesn't pass here then we're we're a no vote and then we we register our no vote with the organization but that doesn't mean that the bylaws would not actually go into effect correct it depends yes it depends on whether there are still achieve the two3 with throughout the district then it still

112could go into right so a no vote might not mean anything or a yes vote might not mean anything on this I I think it a vote always means something um but it's not like a direct it's not directly going it's not in directly impacting our district if they we say no tonight it it it's just like everything else it it depends on whether it passes or not yeah okay okay um is there any further discussion I thought it did clarify things and add in things that probably have needed to be updated and specified yes as far as if it's going to be if you know to to explain what they're doing so um if there's any further discussion I'll call for the vote unless I I think the only thing that I want to

113say is I mean I will go ahead and vote Yes tonight but I also want to go on record with my opposition to this organization just so that the bylaws can go forward I will call for the vote then um sorry in light of what uh Mrs Paige said then i' I'd like to go on record that I have found that myself going and getting training through ASB has been very helpful um and I've met a lot of other board members and had a lot of good discussions um while at those events and um feel like that has helped my service as a board member and I think that's that's you know one thing I'd like to leave available to other board members in the future is that opportunity to go get training and to

114be able to make those connections I appreciate that thank you the last thing I'll add is since we live in a state where we have nonpartisan governing boards throughout the state um politics in my opinion right left Center wherever you want to land need to stay out of the schools period so and I think a lot of people at asba would definitely agree with that okay good thank you Miss Miss Humphries all right I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the asba bylaw change proposal please vote by saying I I any oppos with nay thank you that passes 30 requests for future agenda if there's any future agenda items please let Dr McCord know uh board committee reports 10.01 Mr Thompson is not here 10.02 city of Mesa leaz on

115I didn't have anything from my city of Mesa tonight 10.03 town of Gilbert and audit committee Miss Humphries um the two items for the town of Gilbert passed um on the ballot and the audit committee will be meeting next week so I will have a report next month thank you and Mrs page 10.04 Gilbert Education Foundation thank you um I have a few items The Varsity letter in volunteerism application for all high school students is now open this letter is for achievement in volunteerism the requirement for the scholarship is a minimum completion of 200 volunteer hours and the application deadline will be March 3rd of 2025 I am super excited to announce this next item um Gilbert Education Foundation has formed a new scholarship in memory of our late board president Sheila Rogers eetti the

116scholarship has been named the Sheila Rogers eug jetti Memorial Scholarship as we know Sheila was a 40-year district employee who served as a teacher an HR Director a principal and at the time of her death a few months ago was serving as the president of our governing School Board the following are the qualifications for this scholarship pursuing a degree in education at any accredited Community College or 4-year University must have an unweighted cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher and must have volunteered for community service the amount of the scholarship is $2,000 and the application deadline is March 3rd of 2025 Gilbert Education Foundation is partner partnering with Gilbert Public Schools community ed for the annual run for fun on February 22nd of 2025 this race will feature the 5K 1 M walk race in addition

117the event will host Field Day activities in which students and families can participate it will also highlight Community Connection programs like Youth Sports stem clinics and summer camps and then the next business leader breakfast will be on February 19th 2025 at 8:00 a.m. in the district office governing boardroom thank you thank you Miss Paige that will take us to Future meeting dates Dr McCord thank you Miss Woods governing board members December 3rd we have a board work study and brief board business meeting December 10th a board policy committee meeting and December 17th is a board business meeting thank you very much we appreciate the attendance and the business that's been taken care of tonight and that will take us to our adjournment is there a motion so moved thank you Miss humph is there second

118second thank you Miss paig it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please vote by saying I I I we are adjourned thank you thank you