Gilbert Public Schools Board Meeting 11/06/2024

001e e e Miss Paige can you hear us yes perfect thank you thank you e e e Don paging Dr Don all right good evening everyone like to welcome everybody to tonight's uh work study and brief board business meeting want to uh welcome our guests from Community Education uh that are here tonight uh we're excited to uh for the presentation that's been uh that's been prepared uh I'll call this meeting to order and uh we'll just jump right into it uh agenda item number two Community Education Program overview and proposed tuition rates Dr mcord thank you Mr Thompson governing board members I'll turn this over and let uh our assistant superintendent of elementary schools and who's also over Community Ed Dr Jason Martin introduce his friends thank you Dr McCord governing board members we're pleased

002to be here tonight to go through a couple of things with Community Education First of all give you a program overview of what Community Education entails which a large part of that is also our preschool program and so tonight we have these two find administrators next to me and I want to just give a shout out to them you know 14 months ago um both all of us I had I have worked with Community Education but never uh supervising or the role I at and I've learned a lot myself over the last 14 to 16 months and these two having been um season veteran uh School administrators moving into their roles Rod Houston as our director of community ed and Don koberstein as our director of early learning I just want to give a shout

003out that they've done a fabulous job of building upon what Jared Ryan did for previous years before that uh leading Community Education and just a reminder that Community Education is uh is self-funded so all of the programs that we do and so all the expenses whether that's the payroll or the cost to run the programs we all have to make sure that we are covering those costs and then of course Community Education funds usually we end up with a net gain as you see when Bonnie bet shares each month where community education is so it helps also with some of our other um programs in areas in Gilbert Public Schools um by bringing in revenue for us as well so Community Education plays an important role um for our families in our community but also

004too an important Financial role for us as well too so these two are going to lead you through the presentation tonight please make sure you stop and ask questions along the way and and they're also going to introduce this fine group of Community Education staff in individuals um that came tonight that really are the ones that help run the various programs that we have here all right rod thank you Dr Martin and Dr mord and board and superintendency for having us um if you see here there's a there's a quick highlight video on here we're not going to play it in the interest of time you can certainly go back and look at it and it'll be there if the public wants to see it on the when it's posted um gber Public Schools Community

005Education Department um um the programs and the offerings that we have we have our before and after school care intercession holiday camps all of those that has run through our very important kids club and then we have our early childhood programming that Don runs um all of our preschools uh we have an enrichment our enrichment programs which are um after school programs that kind of go on top of that but it's also a place where kids can kind of go pique their interest and we'll talk a little bit more about that our Gilbert Youth Athletics program and then facility rentals also falls under Community Ed um and then we're going to talk to submit at the end about a little bit of the school connect stuff we're doing now too um our passion their future

006the The Motto or the vision is building connections through service oh building connections through service I can't see those on public building connections through service between Gilbert Public Schools our families and our community fostering care and Trust creating safe Innovative enriching opportunities and our classrooms our schools and our neighborhoods um and so our vik program I'll I'll through some stats and some of those things but before we do that I do want to introduce um Kristen stman is our program supervisor she was the original program supervisor um she was she was doing a great job of running camps on her own over the summer so we went out and hired her to come in and do a great job for us so she's been doing that she also this year was a finalist for the

007um Arizona Center for after school Excellence program leader of the Year award so congratulations and thanks to Kristan and then with her is Ray Martin is one of our Specialists and our Specialists oversee five to seven campuses for us of our after school programming and doing those things next to Kristen is Norma Herrera Ruben Sans Matthew Phillips and Ryan rordon they are the ones that really are at schools every day doing all the work and we're just grateful that that they show up every day so um just so you have an idea of the program and what it what it's like um so on 2122 we had 259,000 and22 and I said attendees we were trying to figure how it's contact relates how many times did we did kids come through to right so if

008a kid went to after school care every day of the year there would be 180 contacts in there for those kids if they're doing run Club an enrichment program and vik three days a week those would count for each week that would count as five um so that's the contacts that we would have um as you hear me say attendees and and do that 2023 we grew to 356,550 have to meet ratios but our staff also have to be accredited through different programs like to be a site leader you got to have I think it's two years experience and before you can even be considered that and you got to have one of those per so many kids along with a 1 to2 Staffing ratio and do those things so we struggled coming out of

009the kind of just the things and people not necessarily looking for jobs and wanting to work um we've picked that up this year we feel like we're doing really well I think we right now we have three schools that have some waiting list and we just got to find a few more kids to show up to help us and we'll be good to go there we're projecting about 360 2,000 um kids that will see us on on basis this year um of those kids that we see um there's 2009 contracts that families have signed with us for their kids to come and be a part of it um 980 of those are open enrollment kids um 528 of them are from out of boundary 320 of them have IEPs um and then we're still trying

010to get some of our stuff we just able to make a connection with ELO and Infinite Campus so we're going to be able to start getting some of the data that would really help us show how the program is affecting kids in school and those things we're excited to get rolling through that so one of the reasons we're here is to we want to talk a little bit just about raising our tuition um and I'll go through after I show you what we're looking at I'll explain the reasons that we want to do that so currently um if you come one day a week two days a week four days a week you pay $12.10 a day to come to am if you come if you're on a weekly contract or if you're if you

011sign a contract to go all year and you're going to show up every day five days a week you pay $10 75 cents a day for that um we're proposing the 10% would be 1331 and 1161 um around us as we talked to the school districts around us and we look at some of the private contractors that do this and do it for that time frame they're about $13.25 a day um after school we're running at 1754 if you're just coming certain days $495 if you're on a full-time contract with us looking to go to 1929 and 1645 and then 2713 is around us um you guys can do those I do want to talk just a minute about um the bottom two right now if we do a Wednesday early release day um we

012just charge them what where we charge a typical kid on a day but there's an extra hour in there um and our our numbers go up so we've got to then change our staffing to meet the ratios to continue to stay licensed it's very hard to find somebody that wants to work for 1 hour on a Wednesday so um so what we did was we went figure out how much we're paying for hour where the people are paying us per hour for the time that they would be there and then put that down as the proposed rate for a Wednesday we have some people that come up only on the early release Wednesdays their kids will come they'll only stay for a really brief time for that and then they're able to pick them up

013and go and and do their thing um half days is the other one that's the same way where we get an influx of kids because Mom and Dad don't get off on a half day like like the school does and so we did that same thing we just took the rate that they have and averaged that into the number of hours and chose that as as what we were doing to to to pay that rate um so ask question if they're coming to the s sure if they're coming to the Wednesday after school they're just paying ,750 for the whole time whether or not they leave early correct we do not do hourly right okay thank you um one of the big things with the schools around us that we found we we are way

014I don't want to say this we work harder to make sure that we're we're helping our families and can get it as best as we can there are multiple districts around us that say your only option is to pay for it all year long 5 days a week and you just pay that price and that's what is whether you come one day for two hours or you come 5 days for 3 hours every day after school it's $250 a week or whatever that is that they're charging um just for numers so that you kind of see what it is if if we made the raises for a student that would be attending Monday would be morning and afternoon doing the the year-long contract doing the whole thing it would be about a 5 uh excuse

015me a $57.40 per month increase which averages out to about $516 60 annually for a family's child to be there every day before and after school um if a was to hit us three afternoons a week that would help um the increase would be approximately $21 a month or $189 a year varying on if one of those days or some of those days were Wednesdays and half days um we also run our enrichment programs from 2 to three on Wednesdays which is um again it's programs where they might take Spanish or they're doing music or they're doing some of those um and they come in and they do an hour and we bring instructors in we work with companies that come in and actually run programs in our schools um through through us they they

016the money comes through us we it we pay them to come in and and run the classes they um they can get into one of those typically for about $125 for an 8 week session which runs those days at about $15.62 so if you really only need the hour there is an option there that would keep you off of that that higher rate um one of the things that we're super proud of and you have a your in the folders that I left for you you have a packet that looks like this I won't open it on the screen and do it but if you want to take time to look through it at some point um we spent a ton of time really trying to build our programs there's a million things things that

017we're required to do by the department of health services and Dees to run licensed programs um but our staff has done a phenomenal job of building weeks long sessions where there are things that we're doing at every site and our leaders are trained on how they're going to run them and what they're going to do um and then on top of that they're developed by our staff so it's not like we're buying it or we're doing that they're spending time they're coming into the office they're developing what we're doing um and doing all of those things with our Specialists and our site leads um it is aligned to the Arizona State curriculum if you look on the back of the first page um you will see one page that we shortened typically when we do

018a week's worth of stuff we get about three pages worth of um state standards that would meet K8 question yep so these uh the curriculum that's on the back of the first page of this packet that you gave us has things like mathematics science language arts um social studies I know that we were doing and and forgive me I don't recall the the names of the programs but to when kids when the kids came back from uh Co the co uh period um a number of kids were behind and so we would offer opportunities for them to come in um one of the two weeks over uh a fall or a spring break right um did they join these groups or were those separate from this they're separate yeah that that's run out of go

019ahead and those are yeah those are two separate type programs and what when you talk about DHS it's you have to be on a list I mean There Are Rules like if if they come in and spot check a site and we have 20 kids there um and there are you know one of those kids on the list is not registered with us we get deemed for that M and so you just it just can't be I guess for a better term willy-nilly no I'm just talking about difference between intercession and any kind of vik program that's licensed by DHS lots of rules so so if if parents wanted additional help beyond the intercession uh intercessions that we offer this is an option for them or are these I mean how how in-depth do these

020mathematics programs get and how in-depth are these science courses taken in this in this curriculum is it something that our students that might be struggling that parents of students that might be struggling could participate in or are these more um just fun stuff for these kids to do while they're in the in the program we hope that it's supplemental to what they're getting in their school day it's it's not it's not something that I would say would like hey it's going to come do this we do offer at the sites um homework time so we have time where they do that um and if we get schools that have a large number of kids whose parents are asking us to help them with their homework we will hire a teacher to stay after and we'll

021pay them to stay and those kids can go and spend an hour to an hour and a half with them I and we have three or four schools where we're doing that right now it just kind of depends on how many kids parents are asking for that um we do homework time everywhere every day but if we are having Neely is one of the ones where we get a lot of questions so we've got a teacher there that takes kids and she gets 25 to 30 kids every day after school that that are are coming in there so we do offer that but we don't have like a tutoring program that you could just come and just do that and just be a part of that no okay thank you okay but one thing I

022will say is that they have really standardized what you're going to see so when you go to a vik program after school they're all working off of this thematic lesson plan which several years ago there was more um site autonomy and it was based on um what the site leader was doing and as I walk through I see a lot more and they're trying doing include the Arizona State Standards in their activity it's more an enrichment type of way because it's an after school program but they're trying to be more um uh comprehensive of including the standards when they can we hope that as you go through here and you hear what we're talking about you're going to see that what we're really trying to do is partner with our with our schools we want

023what our kids are doing before and after school to help them with the process that they're going through some of that are the things where you know you just get a kid and you get them busy and you get them going and get their brain active when they get into class they're ready to sit for a minute and maybe take some of that information and do some of those things um so that's been a big part of as of the last couple years that we've really tried to do is is to do that but we want to make sure that the things that we are doing are hitting the standards that they would be expected to be getting in those times and you might have a kindergarten that's doing a project that has a sixth

024grade standard in it but um but then hopefully when they get there they've already seen a little bit of it and it clicks and it does some of that so um thank you for the question um PBIS um positive behavior intervention and support there's a program that the district uses um a lot of the schools in the district most of them I think are using it right now um and it's it's a way to positively help kids understand what they're supposed to be doing and positively reward them for doing the right thing um so when you go into a school you'll hear like the kids will have slogans I know it um settler Point Elementary Roar um and I just know that one because I was there last night because they had a parent that

025I went to talk to but um and so then that's they're so they use that they use the PBIS system to do that so what we did was we talked to all the schools and found out what they're what they're using what things they were seeing and we tried to pick the ones that were the most common and seen the most in the 25 schools that we're in right now and created a PBIS system that allows us and our staff to work with those kids and keep them in that same thing that they hear from 7:45 until school gets out now they're getting it from 6:30 in the morning until 6:00 at night the expectations are the same when we have conversations we talk about we're talking about if there's a safety issue we'll talk

026about spark and are are you are you following the spark are you being safe are you doing those things um and so those for us the ones that we really felt hit hard from the schools were safety positivity accountability responsibility and kindness um and then so those are just things that we really pay attention to and that our staff really work with our kids on there trying to make sure that we're following that same line as you might get with a respect or responsibility at um at one of the schools that you got an r and their and their thing so um there's a copy of the poster in here for you it's also posted up there just we post those fulls sizee posters at all the sites so that staff can refer to them

027and and point that out to the kids when they're in there VI accreditation this is one of the things that has been awesome for us um and you have a small packet that I a small fold out that I put in there that comes from um again I talked a little bit with Kristen about the Arizona Center for after school Excellence um which works with out of school time programs which is kind of the national it's called out of school time OST programming is kind of the national go-to words right now for after school before school um our youth Athletics programs all there after school how are we how are we supporting our families and our schools after school that out of school time so they work really hard to do that one of the

028things that they put in place are these standards um to help us make sure that everybody that everything's getting done everything's getting taken care of and we've found for us that it's really helped us again kind of get all of our staff on the same pages and and when we go from one site to another you see a lot more of it staying the same and they're talking the same and they're doing that um so there's the these are the standards that they talk about safe and healthy environments and if you look in here you can see what those how they refer to those and what those are positive relationships intentional programming and activities equity and inclusion family school and Community program management and program evaluation and data um so you go through that you

029go through a process of you you evaluate your site you get your parents to evaluate your site you do those they come in and help us look at it we put some things in place we create some stuff and then they get an outside entity once we feel like we've met that standard what they're doing they bring an outside entity in to come in and observe and see if meeting the standards of this if we get that um the members of our on our thing that are there one it just makes everybody look good right there's there's only about seven or eight different programs in the state right now that are accredited in terms of after school out of school time um if we were to get this and and we're pretty well on our

030way we've had our first visit um we got five schools we're in the middle of we think we can get through all 25 within the next year um and be accredited um we would be the largest school district in and or company they do it with private companies as well to have the most sites in Arizona to do that um so we're excited to be moving in that direction um one of the cool things about it one of the nice things about it is if a family receives Dees funding if we're an accredited site um we get one and a half times what thees would typically pay so that allows us to improve our programming and provide some extra things along with those kids and just all across the board help improve what we're doing

031with those so Mr Houston remind me how do we get funding from um Dees oh my goodness um it's it's a lot of paperwork in it's l process okay um families apply so really it's really a families apply if they meet the standard they apply um and then if they get approved then we have to go through some paperwork and a whole bunch of things that they sign and do um we spend we have we have a person in our office whose sole job is to do that and we have about 135 families okay um but their sole job is to make sure that we're meeting that paperwork and doing it last year um we brought in a little over $11 million from Dees so another half a million dollars will be coming in if

032we can make this happen um Dees has cut back as everybody knows they a little bit less money and um so we've got some families that have been on it before that are on a waiting list right now to get on um thanks did I yep did I hear you right that each each site has to be independently accredited or yes sir okay yes sir so um and Don will talk a little bit about her accreditation processes too but each site does it the nice thing is if if Don's preschools get accredited so does my after school program or our after school program sorry guys and if if we get it so to see so the money flows that way we still have to go through the process we want to get it our goal

033is to have everybody be a five star in our case accredited um we just feel like we're the best and we want to show it um professional development is one of the things that um as we came in and we came out of Co we knew we were struggling with staff and we felt like this was a way that we could really help our staff um so this these are just some of the things that we put in in the last year um and again it's a credit to to the team that that does it um I I kind of help figure out how we make it run but they do all the work um we do a back to we do two day back to school training session before school starts and one before

034we go into the summer Holiday Camp session um and we bring them over to the it building and they do active games in the multi-purpose room and they have classroom settings where they learn the licensing things and just all the different things you can do to how to talk to kids we go over spark dress code all of the things that we need them to know and make sure that our sites are being run we talk about the accreditation process and do that um they do one night trainings before every intersection they'll keep our staff after school and we'll go through and we move them into three sites or two sites and they come and get together and get to know each other and do that um we spent some time with playworks we spent

035we they do a really great active game stuff and they have some great programming things that we found really successful for us that our kids really enjoy um the other one that they do that we really that we found a lot of success with is when you're playing tag or you're playing whatever those things are and one kid says I was tagged or I wasn't or you do those things um we get those in there and our staff didn't really know how to stop that like you can't stop kids from arguing and they've learned now that we step in and we just play Rock Paper Scissors and they're like they're like nope we're not going to do this rock paper scissors oh you're out then nobody doesn't really matter whether you were you weren't we

036made the call you're out you lost you'll be back in as soon as we get you going and that has not completely changed but it's it's helped our staff just feel more comfortable and um and it keeps kids going all the time and they get out for a minute and they're back in there's no arguing it doesn't stop the game so it's just one of the things that we picked up from them that we really like um we just recently began to work with the alliance for a healthier generation and build more active skills and kids in our family programs um we took staff to the a case conference this year and last year um we had 28 total people go and just go in and take classes and learn about what we're doing and

037where we're going and how to get each site better um I was at I would told you I was at P last night she was working on a a junior counselor programming and making a list of things and so they pick kids and then they can come in and go here's the things I want to do I want to help lead game I want to do the art project I want to sweep the floors I want to help put the desk away I want to help with snack they come in they sign up for those if they're leaders they go out and do that it's part of their daily job it's just how we're starting to get their feedback and what they're doing um we took half of the leadership team last year to the

038National After School Association conference and we're going to take the other half this year in the spring um we took a lot of good stuff away from that again um and then we're working with a case as well they just started a pilot program for OST professionals um and they're going to do they're going to um accredit the not accredit that's the wrong word that certify people that are in that field um that they know what they're doing and how they're doing they have to build do a project through their through their certification process and do that um so here's kind of some of the tuition things those are the things that we've put in this is the money side of it more than anything current rates were last rates two years ago um we

039kind of been through some of these but the difference between us is we're licensed and more and more school districts are dropping their licensing Mesa is no longer licensed they were up until a few years ago higley's dropping their licensing this year um we're working on being accredited our hours that were available are longer than most um we include breakfast and snack um for everybody that comes to our programs that's in the cost um field trips if we're doing field trips on our intercessions or our summer camps we don't have an additional cost most places a lot of them do they'll they'll they'll go like they this is what your cost is and if you want to go on the field trip it's $25 more we don't do that we build it in we take

040everybody um the Staffing ratio is a big one for us um again it's 1 to 20 for k6 it's 1 to 13 for prek um and we try to keep our our our after school ratios about 1 to 15 because that helps us on those Wednesdays and half dayss when kids show that we don't have um and then we also include all supplies so like you don't sign up you pay to register and then you pay a supply and you pay field trip fees it's everything's included in the cost that you saw and a lot of a lot of organizations have start to go the other way like hey this is what we're going to do next week it's going to cost you an extra $25 if your kids's going to participate in the art

041project or they're going to do this program I I do have a question uh breakfast and snack included are we using using our our school breakfast program for that it's coming up y yep so one of the big reasons that we're we've got to pull some of this in and kind of get there is we don't we for the last several years we've had a lot of grant funding through Dees and through those and that's gone um as I said they're they're not even giving some families the money anymore let alone offering us we'd have millions of dollars that we were able to use to pay for some of the things that are that have come up some of the some of the raises and things like that we were able to take out of

042that and we're not able to do that it's also what we use to do um the the door codes and those things that we've done to really help safen our safen our programs up and do that um part is that part of the state budget cuts to make the state budget work better this next year because we were short I don't know I couldn't answer that I just most of those two were like Esser and other federal funds from Co time too that's what I was thinking okay thank you um but our staffing inre our staffing cost from 23 to 24 increased by about 14% um and we're projecting about an 8% % increase this year again that has to do with the cost like we were paying when we last couple years when we've

043given some of those nice raises that money we just didn't have to take it out of our typical budget we paid it we were able to pay that out of those grants well those grants aren't available anymore I got to figure out how I'm going to find that $2.80 or whatever it is per person per hour to get back in there um over this period um we've had increases in the state minimum wage and District increases for employees um currently half currently our staff most of our staff makes what they would or less than they would at a fast food restaurant to get started um and we're asking them to do split shifts um the good part is that they they don't have weekend hours um they get Saturdays and Sundays off and we do

044get a lot of college kids that enjoy the split shift because they can do something in the morning come back and get in the afternoon they can go to class do their homework or whatever college kids do when they're not not at work um supplies and cost increase 2223 to 2324 this is where you are B Jill little show a little bit about that 23 24 we had a 30% increase um it would have been about 42 had we not made some changes and moved over to our district nutrition services to supply some of this we were paying about $80,000 in delivery fees to get stuff delivered um we pulled that out and and we're able to do that that's been a huge help um and then we get stuff delivered from them and then

045if we have something that we need our our Specialists will take part of their time in their day and go grab those if a school needs something for a new project that they are going to do or do that um 23 24 to 24 25 we're thinking we're going to have right at about a 10% increase in in cost that's some of that's we've got more people more kidss coming um and then some of it is just the cost of inflation it's just kind of where we're at um our program evaluation which is part of this it was kind of one of those things that we were looking at um and we set the first one out right before um right right as we were going into fall break so we could get one and

046have it so that the schools that were coming in could share it with their evaluators um and these were the questions that we ask we we're going to do this through all of our programs we're the same questions plus ones that may be more specific but um I feel I have a clear understanding of the program's goals and objectives 89% of the respondents agreed um or higher so they either agreed to strongly agreed 40 40% of those were strongly agree the program is a safe place for my child to work learn and have fun 93% agreed or hire 63% strongly agreed uh program rules and procedures have been clearly communicated with me 94% agree or higher 55% strongly agree and then these are the ones that like when I looked at them I was super

047proud of right 97% report their child that Joys the time in the program 92% feel feel the staff are engaged with the kids 96% feel comfortable speaking with staff about their child um 97% of children feel comfortable with the staff in the program and 94% of the report the staff welcomes their suggestions when they come forward with something that they want to do um we did get 275 responses out of about 2,300 emails that we sent out asking people to respond and this is some new data coming from the national After School Association um and I talked just a little bit about earlier but big things that they're seeing from kids that are in after school programs is they're starting to see higher test scores improved engagement in school enhanced social emotional skills greater long-term

048academic achievement and greater success in the workforce so we feel like what we do after school with these kids really helps benefit them not just today but all the way through into their lives and that's our goal and now I'm going to turn it over to the lovely cobein thank you Mr Houston um and thank you um Dr Martin um I want to say thank you good evening to everyone um thank you Dr McCord members of the governing board and cabinet um my name is Don koberstein I'm the director of early learning with Gilbert Public Schools overseeing all of the um preschool programming um here in Gilbert um I want to introduce a couple people that are in the audience um we have Julie Stockton who's the coordinator of the advantage on preschool program in

049the de and hard hearing as well as the preschool evaluation team and then also Eric dctl um back there in the corner um he's our Building Blocks Preschool um program supervisor um for our preschool programming and they're really uh the big my main suppor of the leadership team although there's a few other people we're a small department but we are a mighty department and so we're delighted and honored to share with you um tonight our preschool Vision um as well as provide an overview of our preschool programming that we've been working hard at um over the last you know since we've been around in GPS as well as share with you our requests for a tuition um increase and with that I want to share um three key numbers with you uh 74317 um 74

050believe it or not is the number of classrooms um of preschool classrooms here in GPS that's a pretty large number um 30 it's the number of campuses that actually utilize ume that we utilize prek through 12 so we actually have utiliz high school because of the toy box preschool program and the CTE which is the career in technical education and 117 is the number of preschool sections that are offered whether it's an AM section a PM section or possibly full day um so those are pretty large numbers um when we're talking about preschool um sharing with you Vision as um Mr Houston had shared it's really about our passion their future um we are a team of cognitive Engineers we like to believe at preschool um because we build brains or at least we lay

051that foundation for um in order to help support our k through2 um uh students and for their lifetime um we really want to be recognized here in preschool in GPS as the highest quality of preschool programming um and we want to be that programming of Choice by families here here in Gilbert and so in order to do that um we really want to have quality programming and so last year when I came on board we um actually partnered with quality first first things first and prior to my coming on board um there was a vision by um Mr Ryan um to really look at that furniture refresh that you know we had a lot of other programs that were coming in that shiny and new but we like to say we're tried and true um

052but we also need to be shiny we need to have the materials for Quality programming and and um so during the winter of 2022 they refreshed actually 20 preschool classrooms using some of that um Dees and um s funding or the Department of Economic Security um and they redid um you know that was about $400,000 that was invested in our preschool programming um then last year um during the fall because we were partnering with quality first first things first um we then um received some additional funding in which we've been able to expand that uh refresh to nine more classrooms and really that basic need of a preschool classroom is that you need to have the right materials and I'm going to talk about that in a little bit in order to provide that quality

053programming Don may I ask a question I was wondering um how long we'd had the previous the furniture in the previous classrooms I bet a good 20 years at least a long time um a very long time in fact um I don't know if Eric wants to sh a little bit but I know when we were expanding in particular some of our building blocks programming and doing that many times we would be going to the Boneyard and digging through what different things that we would have and you know as we can imagine that's not always the best of things and quality of things so um it was really on that nickel budget and so we really want to make sure that we have the quality materials the bone yard is also known as property control

054thank you but those of us that work here so thank you Dr mcord um place no um so we really want to work on having that quality programming and so we partnered with quality first first things first and so um we've been working on what's called our star ratings and so we strive for five we strive for that five star rating which is very similar to the Arizona Department of Education letter grades which we're very proud of as a district we're an a-rated District well that starts off in preschool we want to have those fstar quality ratings that's important to parents it's also similar to the Arizona Education Foundation when they do A+ recognition and keeping in mind in that process um that's something every you know 3 to four years campuses are going out

055to get that recognition and it means that outside evaluators are coming in to say are you really delivering that that's the same thing that we go through with our quality first first things first star rating the first thing that they do is they come in um the first rating is eers which is the um Early Childhood environment um rating scale and they're really looking at the material so again that furniture refresh was really important because you want to make sure that you don't have things that are broken quality materials but they're also looking at that when you have an area such as building blocks or blocks you should have a block section well that block section shouldn't just have wooden blocks you want to have at least five um different types of materials in that

056block area so not only it's about that quality of things of programming and that's a part of that eers um then the next part that they'll look at the second time that they come in is you have the class or the classroom assessment scoring system now they're really looking at the interactions that the staff are having with the students um and so with that we were um getting some different funding so we got additional funding for supplies in our classrooms for preschool programming and then it also um helped us with coaching from condel and we know how important that is here in Gilbert that's why we've invested with coaches at our campuses well we see that in preschool those teachers need support and especially on those early learning standards on what quality preschool programming should

057look like and so this has been a really rigorous process proc that we've started um also with some of that funding we've been able to um uh get foundations programming because remember foundations we use K through three we now use it prek through three so we're really laying that strong foundation for our preschool students that are going to set them up for Success when they get into kindergarten and Beyond is this a prek version of foundations that is you know developmentally appropriate I mean I'm familiar with foundations but I just Yep this is the part of it's part of the preschool so they actually have a pre module that really lays and they're not going to be doing things with a lot with the writing but it's having um the teachers to have that knowledge

058when we're talking about the sounds and we're going a as an apple a um those things that's really important well they're doing that same language than in prek so then when they get into kindergarten they're not learning something different um the other part too we've invested is Learning Without Tears so Julie had um used that a lot with her um special ed programming her Advantage well that's a supplemental that really extends the foundations that we're really doing a lot with Clay we're building those fine motor skills to get them ready for other things um so that's been really positive that it's helped us to bring in that funding so we can be consistent across all of our preschool programming to have those materials again that gets them ready for what they're going to be exposed

059to later on um we were talking about um the other part of preschool is really that oral language development that's a key thing when we're talking about preschool is um we really strive for five and it's about those conversational turns and research will show as I'm sharing the data there that if they're not getting exposed to that we're really talking about our staff being engaged and helping the students to engage in those conversations by asking questions wow I really like your shirt is that new um yes it is new we went shopping this weekend you know and it's back and forth Just on those different things um children really should be exposed to a million words before they ever even enter kindergarten and so that's really something that we're striving for in our preschool programming

060really to increase that quality of the programming and those interactions that the staff are having with students and really being intentional about the things that we do now talking about those festar ratings um I'd love to take credit but I certainly can't um Heidi rush and cesie Reynolds um Heidi Rush is the director at um Campo verie high school and CES Reynolds um over at Desert Ridge um before I came in they saw that need of having quality programming and so they started that star rating process which is usually a two to threee process you get that initial assessment you work with um the quality first with improvements um on different things and so um they brought in some funding to really help their um campuses well the exciting part is um Desert Ridge went

061um and received a fourstar rating in I believe it was April of last year and then um just recently or in March and then in um April when they came around with that assessment um again Camp verie moved to a five star so we're excited yay it's our first five star rating so again really improving and being intentional about what we're doing again having the right materials in the classroom and really supporting the staff that are in there working with the students um we then last year brought on the quality first um programming and we added on nine more campuses I'm sorry so I've just got a a real quick question this uh quality first grant funding is this a one-time grant that we used to update some of the some of the locations or

062is this an annual funding that we can continue to apply for to well that's refresh all of our sites well I'm with you because I would love to be refreshing all of our sites and I think very passionate about continuing with that that's part of why we're asking for a tuition increase because unfortunately they've lost um funding um and so now we're currently on a weit list so it was really nice bringing in $175,000 to really do things but we o need to we know we need to continue that momentum unfortunately we can't um uh I guess rely rely on um their help with that and so um you know things like if we want to continue with that star rating those are some things that we'll have to continue to pay for them to

063come in with those evaluation processes we're optimistic and we're hopeful that things will turn around and we'll be able to get back onto that and receive additional funding to continue thank you um another thing then with our festar um rating um we had nine um other schools that we brought on board um well as well as mosquite high school came on board last year I'm starting that quality first um and then we had nine other um campuses um looking at that again bringing in some additional funding um realizing um you know with some of that funding um gosh or with the state cuts it's really kind of put a little damper on um different things because of the quality first funding I kind of lost where I was at um professional development and Curriculum maps

064um we've been working really hard because of um being a license program as Mr Houston had shared um the child care Education Institute um and the child care training where we call that ccei um and being part of the Arizona registry so our staff has to be a part of that just even getting on boarded before they ever even can step foot into the classroom there's 18 hours of training that they have to do um and so um we also want to make sure it aligns with the Arizon department of health services and their licensing guidelines um we've partnered this past year um with um Robert berer to really understand that whole foundations as I shared earlier having Kristen McCord um coming in um to really provide um training for our building blocks teachers on

065phonological awareness and our building blocks 3es um as well as the foundations I'm training I'm doing things with Learning Without Tears in the Matman um we've also partnered with the Arizona Department of Education to bring in letters um and so that's really that literacy um Early Childhood Focus not just the letters that our kth through um six teachers are needing to do but even in preschool bringing that letters Early Childhood for all of our programming in fact we're starting um cohort 5 um actually next week um with a launch off of that so our K prep teachers our advantage teachers actually led the way uh with Julie Stockton and then we brought on our K prep teachers we're halfway through that or actually three quarters our building blocks our Toy Box staff um along the

066way with that um we've also um change from teaching strategies gold to move to the child outcome summary uh data or cost or Cod we' like to say that we're fishing for um data for our kiddos um we're also working a lot with literacy routines thinking about with our ready gen um that we've adopted as a district it really talks about through our letters training the need for multiple reads um really being intentional about vocabulary um those things are really important and so we really want to align with what we're doing K through six and so we're really trying to develop that um curriculum which is coming from inhouse using our advantage teachers our um K prep teachers or certified teachers to help us develop some of that um we also recently went through a

067math textbook adoption as you're aware of um this past year and piloting that uh I've been working with Crystal Udall Robert berer um the math department to really understand what does that look like in the elementary in order to develop those math routines in preschool and really doing things like I notice I wonder and sharing you know some of the literature that we're doing and having the kids beginning to talk about mathematics um another thing that we're working on is that classroom management because remember after covid I think we could all agree that um kids are a little wigger and squigger and we kind of notice different things happening at the school we certainly noticed that in the pr preschool setting but part of that is really making sure that the staff have the tools

068and the knowledge um in order to support that so as Mr Houston shared that PBIS that positive behavior intervention support I'm really working um so that way our preschool staff knows what that PBIS system is at that campus and really supporting that the other thing is is with Kelly Jarrett and with the special ed Department that prevent teach reinforce um uh uh training that's happening at the campus site we're making sure all of our preschool staff are getting that same um training so that way they're a part of what's happening at the campus uh We've also brought in the PS good behavior game um that really focuses on that tier one um type of intervention so things that we think of as a classroom teacher like having random sticks or um making sure that we're

069getting around different having a class Vision Sometimes some of our staff didn't know that because not all of our staff are certified necessarily let's say in the building blocks or in the toy box but they need to have those same tools that we do through our professional growth and development so part of what we're doing in preschool is really being intentional to provide that support to our staff um so we can have that quality programming and then of course we utilize um the conscious discipline um as well again those are tools to help our staff I've got a a real well maybe a quick question sure first of all I just want to just point out that the acronym acronym game in this uh document is very strong we tried to spell it out for

070you too appreciate that I I need that um going back to the previous page can you give us just a a really like a 30,000 foot view of what is Learning Without Tears or LWT um absolutely making your own now huh just laugh out loud right there wow yeah um just a real quick yeah just a real quick um overview of just what is that is that more of a like a philosophy that the instructors are are using or is that an actual curriculum that the kids are using what is that right it's an actual um curriculum of materials and so um well the kids will actually be doing things where they'll be rolling the dough forming the letter where they have trays to be able to do that um that actually have the letters

071with it um it'll be things like we have the books the Matman and me books so if we're I'm talking about um the letter M um that the book has a bunch of words you know Mike and you know Milani they went to you know um the supermarket just different things and having the kids to be able to look for the letter M within that book um but again there's different things um like there's the rol the D activity um there's um blocks and so um they've got different like curved edges and straight edges and soow they're using these blocks to be able to form the letters so again it's a methodology to really make things handson especially for those kinesthetic Learners and again to build a lot of that that um fine motor um

072so developmentally that they're going to be holding the pencils correctly um there's the size little broken crayons um which you know here we always think about we want the big crayons and the big pencils no you really want the GOL tea pencils because it really helps the kids with holding um the pencil better and forming that grip so again it's just additional materials in order to help provide that instruction for the kiddos and those opportunities to learn thank you um let's see and then um something else I really want to highlight is we've partnered with Paradise Valley Community College um in order to really support our staff especially in building blocks and toy box to have that pathway to become teachers um and so um with it they have the opportunity to get their CDA

073uh their child development associates degree um which is that two years degree in early childhood and then it um to transition to get their Bachelor of Arts degree um so we're really excited about that partnership and helping to develop and kind of grow our own um and then lastly we have a link to the teaching and learning Maps we've worked hard to really develop um really kind of a scope and sequence of things um and intentionally selecting books with multiple reads to really support the kiddos um and then um really laying out the foundations and what we do each day and during some of those Circle time routines I I have a question just about the partnership with Paradise Valley so are they doing this in an afterwork time or they come in with this

074um Associates toer how does that work great um so we partnered with Paradise Valley Community College because they do it online and so it really works well around the building blocks and the toy box um teacher schedules um so that way you know they're not having to drive anywhere to do that they get to work at things at their pace and because of the online program to support that great thank you I wish it was with Chandler Gilbert Community College because it's in our backyard but I know it makes it much more challenging and they do have that option to do that as well I just when talking to the staff it's really hard to get to those classes um on time and just with driving and being there that FaceTime so also do um

075because now the community colleges can offer bachelor's degrees can they then just continue to work through once they get the associates to get the bachelors's yep okay that's amazing that's awesome it's very exciting yeah and so um program offerings um just wanted to give a highlight that we have four key different types of preschool programs in our district um Advantage tends to be more of the um what we know more of that special education and getting Federal support that way with students who are on IEPs but we also have students that are qualifier or students that pay tuition um in order to help support because you want to have those role models and having that inclusive model um and so we have halfday options where it's four days a week um two and a half

076hours a day um and it's located on the elementary school campuses um then we have our building blocks program um which then allows for an extended date option those tends to be more for the working um parents um and who may want that extended day option and being able to partner with our vik programming um again those are located on the elementary school campuses and it's designed for our threes and our four yearolds um then we have our kindergarten prep uh which tends to be more for our um four students or maybe those early fives where parents might just want a little extra time um and those are located at our elementary um campuses we've actually started where we actually have traditional programming some steam programming and we started um a pilot this year with

077gifted and bringing that in and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment um and then of course we have our toy box which is the CTE the Career and Technical education where we have um students who um are high school students with the hope that they might want to become you know have a career in education and we're trying to encourage that and so they have that opportunity to go in a lab setting and being able to develop lessons and then be able to go and deliver those lessons with the preschoolers and so as you can see we're really talking about that choice and providing a of choice for our families with these different options and as we know um we also have the Dual language um in our building blocks

078program over at Gilbert Elementary next door and so um and a little shout out is 100% of our GPS CTE that Career and Technical um programs um where toy box is a part of it um earned a quality rating of proficient or distinguished from ad so certainly something to shout out about awesome um I just want to highlight a couple um preschool programs that we had started um this this past year and that's with the steam program I'm partnering with um Dr Joan Henry uh she came to me when I first came in as a director of early learning and she said Don I want to have preschool at my campus and we have a focus on Steam um at our campus what can we do to start that off with preschool so I'm really

079excited that we launched um that off and so our enrollment initially uh we had 15 students last year and we've grown um to 18 I'm currently to start the year so we ended the year at 15 and now starting strong with that program is really exciting um the other program that I'd like to highlight is um Suzanne Carlson last spring said hey we have a lot of students we're really trying to do a lot of things with accelerated learning on our campus and we also have a high number of gifted students not to mention I know that's one of the district goals is to really um work on identifying our gifted Learners and really providing that support and so we're piloting um or we piloted this past year um having a gifted um preschool programming

080um for parents there is a $175 fee um for gifted testing in GPS but also understand um I know Higley has um their gifted um programming as well however families have to go to an outside um psychologist uh certified psychologist in order to get gifted testing which costs anywhere from 300 to $850 for parents to do that um so it's really just trying to cover the cost um to be able to do that the other thing is is I'd like to give a shout out um and recognize um s can I go back to that one absolutely just um on the gifted testing is is this just for preschool because we offer it in correct older grades yes it's just for preschool so those parents who feel um I've had a number of parents as

081Suzanne has where parents will feel like you know my child's gifted you know they're they've already know their letters they know different things and you know gifted Learners learn and think a little bit differently and we want to make sure we're meeting the needs of their child okay and so those parents that are noticing that and want that um that certainly it's an option that we're trying to provide so again we're trying to provide choices for our families okay um I want to give a shout out um and recognize again our preschool evaluation team um you know they do an amazing job um back in 2023 the determination was made that we were not really helping our um students um in our community fast enough um so it was often a 90-day delay in getting

082the children the help that they needed from the beginning to the end of screening and the evaluation process um and so last year um we added another um 3-day team to the District in the 23 24 school year and um we're now at an average of just 45 days getting through that process so we've cut that in half um this was something that was supported by cabinet and it certainly has been an incredible um change to our early intervention um services and again it's really about identifying those needs and providing students as early as they can um because early intervention truly is key um here's a little bit of enrollment um data um our advantage 23 24 enrollment um we had 217 tuition-based students and that 567 um happens to be qualifiers um and so

083I'm really providing that support and again um Dees funding is something that definitely um helps support our families um so we do a lot with tracking of data um you know our numbers increase throughout the year um as students turn three years old um and so our numbers will continually go up as you can see from the first day of school um we started with 823 students and now we're up to 883 um that are just tuition-based students um and when we're looking at tuition as well as those qualifiers the students on an IEP or an individualized education plan we have 1,445 um students and again uh pretty soon we're getting to the 10th day of November and um as it is I think we're getting close to about 1,500 kiddos so that's very exciting

084news so we continue to um increase throughout the year um we've also been working with um Ryan Nelson and the research and evaluation team um we've begun utilizing um Tableau to help us to look at our data and help us to focus on families um on state to state in um Gilbert public schools and we also survey our parents as um Mr Houston had shared at the end of the year on their experience in our preschool programs to help us to drive um refinements in our programming and overwhelmingly we're excited that you know parents comment on how much they love um their school their teacher and then many choose to actually stay in GPS and so and many times they want to stay at that campus when they get to be there um something else

085I want to highlight is our capture rate um so when I first came in we were capturing meaning families that would stay within Gilbert Public Schools um 80.4 2% um we've actually increased that tracking that um we're up to an 86% um capture rate and again these are um kiddos who choose um you know that haven't chosen to elsewhere um they want to stay in Gilbert Public Schools there's amazing things that happen um on our campuses and you know if they start somewhere let's say at Gilbert Elementary um and maybe that wasn't their home school because that's a campus that brings in a lot of open enrollment of parents that are wanning that dual language and starting then they see themselves as a Gilbert T tiger and they want to stay um there um we're

086also working to establish outcomes Don what what would what are some reasons parents would have for not staying in GPS after after going through a a GPS preschool program great well they move away um maybe they um you know can't afford to be here they move somewhere else and all of a sudden that commute um is too long um maybe there's a variety of different things but we also attract a lot of people coming in for preschool um because preschool maybe isn't offered in some of the other surrounding areas and of quality and sometimes it might is be you know that neighborhood school that they may be going to um but like I said I think that capture rate is increasing because once they get in there um they they fall in love with Gilbert

087School love with Gilbert public schools and they want to stay and that's really what our hope happens to be is that they choose that they may not want to go or they say you know what honey we need to move over into Gilbert to be closer that way that's the that's the dream right um what is the what's the if you know what's the cost difference between our tuition programs and and say like a like a monu school or something like that so glad that you asked that and we're going to be getting to that in just a few slides thanks so speaking of that um one other thing I wanted to share as we're talking about um that capture rate is we're really wanting to support our families not just with that preschool part

088um but really understanding things that they can do at home to support their child um as um Mr Houston had shared there's a lot that vik is doing with some of those family connections we're doing that as well um with preschool because that's important to be that five-star quality programming um we started initially partnering with the parent University um where we did um that paved a path and then we did that transition that Kinder Readiness um during the fourth quarter for parents and it was so overwhelmingly receive parents were like oh gosh we wish we we'd like more of this and so this year we started our four parts um parent par series um in September we did a facilitating Independence so really trying to encourage parents what they can do at home to help

089their child to be more independent with different things um and really helping with some of those transitions that sometimes can be hard for students we're getting ready next week on Wednesday if you're doing nothing please come over to community ed because we have our play talk read uh Cara Hawkins is going to be presenting um and it's really aligned with some of that letters that we're doing and that oral language development um for parents to really know what they can do at home to really support their child's oral language development what time that will that be uh at Eric that is at 6:30 6:30 no 5:30 till 7 um p.m. yes hey we've got snacks there and stuff it's always great that's a week from today a week from today yes and then um let's

090talk about then with um PRI school and so one of the things I've learned pretty quickly coming in boy we have a lot of different titles of our preschool um staff and so one of the things that um the preschool leadership team and I are recommending that sight level um staff titles are adjusted to actually reflect the similarities between positions and to actually align with the Arizona Department of Health Services um and the licensing terminology and to specify um the evaluation rubrics um for our staff and currently the district um is using eight different um position titles across the four preschool programs and so um we've been working with otm and with um payroll to really look at that differently um and getting your blessing on that and so for instance you have um uh

091positions such as um uh K prep um our um K prep preschool programming and the um you have a teacher and then you also have an instructional assistant however in a building blocks program you have a teacher however they're not called a teacher they're called a site leader and then you have somebody else of an activity leader but wait a second we had an activity leader really which is that instructional assistant like it's really confusing and so we really want to clean that up and then with that we would like to change that name to child educator and the reason for that is it aligns with the Arizona Department of Health Services that um label um that they have and then I'm also really making sure that we're intentional about their evaluation instrument because right

092now the rubric is pretty um generic on things and really being specific about their job responsibilities and so that happens to be that first proposal um that we want to do and then um secondly the employee um position adjustments with those title changes um so the preschool leadership team is recommending these changes to align with some of that payroll law um to compensate the certified Subs appropriately um so we've had some substitutes going in there and we've had a little um things that kind of get messed up because of those titles because they're called a pair of specialist in Toy Box well that that tends to be a special education term and so then it's not quite getting to the right department so again I think those things that if we clean those things up

093it's going to make sure that our staff are getting paid um timely with different things as well as accurately um and because this isn't hard to fill um we really want to work um I've been working with Rachel Thorton to talk about how we can use that asop system that we already use for our certified teachers um in order to help support our preschool programming um and so that way with the call outs versus we're trying to call on a phone list ourselves it's not very efficient um and then we're having some challenges with that and so um we there's a need to have accurate sublist and there's a need to have license Subs um and so being in a preschool program because of Licensing and with ratios I can't not have somebody in there

094I need to and this really needs to be a priority um and so we really want to have that per DM rate like what we do with the certified subs and we have on a Monday and Friday our high needs well if you're going through that licensed and you're a substitute and you do the licensing requirements we want to be able to pay you at that higher um prum rate of pay of 150 to cover in a license program um and again I had shared a little bit about our um program structure um with things we're a small Department um but we're Mighty um but I shared with you we have 77 different classrooms um having one preschool coach um you know we are utilizing the campus coaches to help but many of them are

095not versed in um Early Childhood or the Arizona early learning standards and it is difficult for Robin to get around to all 77 programs Our Hope would be is that she's focused on the special education programming working with Julie and really supporting Eric um because we don't have that Kellin coaching that we did last year and we saw the value in that the need to be able to have um a preschool coach to help support um our K prep our um building blocks and Toy Box programming and so you had asked about tuition rights well our desire as um roted shared is um looking at our preschool programming we look at a lot of things whether it's the current hourly rate um curriculum costs food and supplies um the a DHS um requirements that we

096have to have those ratios and maintaining um competitiveness um with different things um but before I jump to that I also want to talk about um that support um even with our outside because remember I shared about that eer scale and making sure that um we have those areas within the classroom and having the right materials we're also noticing that out on our playgrounds um we're wanting to make sure we have the materials for that gross motor play for our preschoolers and so um we're trying to work with um Lakeshore um and using some of that in order to have some um playground um refreshes of things as you can see there's that caterpillar the kids love that to be able to climb um through and On Again by working with Lakes where that we're

097not going out for $275,000 for a brand new playground but how can we add some things to enhance our playground for the student students on bringing bicycles and tricycles I should say and helmets onto the campus again so students can have that gross motor play that and so we want to have that access for them um so let's talk about um because of these different things that we're wanting to do and to continue on that programming to allow for Choice as well as quality programming in Gilbert Public Schools um we want to look at those hourly rates and so working with the um finance department intensively over the last 14 16 months really trying to look at what do we need to do in order to um support for that quality programming um and as

098well as meet the needs because prices of things have been going up and so we're looking at um in our advantage preschool of around a 5 to 8% increase um toy box with an increase of 15% um building blocks of a 10% increase and then our K prep at a 20% increase and why that because they um K prep tends to have that certified teacher and so to be able to do that that is a higher cost to be able to do that um and so what does that actually mean um let's look at the tuition rate adjustments when we're looking at Advantage preschool um that is a 2 and 1 half hours a day whether it's 4 days or 3 days a week um there are the costs there um one of the things

099we're trying to move when we're looking at building blocks is really looking at building blocks to be a school day of being that 7:45 until 3:15 and really trying to work in time where the teacher has some time prior to the students coming into their classroom from vik um to be able to do some of that planning um and working through some of those curricular materials um where they haven't had that before and it's been challenging um so really trying to value that like what we do with our K through 12 of having some of that built-in um time for planning um we want to emphasize have a question about that with building blocks do they then go because they're they all day during the school day do they also go to the specials or

100what do we do to give teacher breaks um well they do have specials um when they are in the building blocks program but remember because we're a licensed preschool program we need to keep those ratios and I can't just send the students to let's say a PE class and the teacher to go back um to have a prep um unfortunately that teacher needs to stay within the classroom environment in that special area because they are licensed and the um PE teacher the music teacher isn't licensed to have them they're there basically as like a guest teacher to provide um support to our students okay it's a great question and so that's why in the building blocks they'll have some time prior to their day at 7:45 or after 3:15 to have that preparation period or

101during lunch or is that still a problem during well I mean that would be that's their Bunch time and we try to give them that break and they would actually be clocked out at that time okay so we really want to give them some time um contracted time to actually be intentionally planning and making sure that you know they're ready to go for the next day's instruction versus you know trying to wing it so is so do building blocks participate with our specials teachers they do oh they don't always get every special but as we look at the k6 master Special schedule then we also then look at at the beginning of the year once we figure out all the k6 sections then if we have some specials teachers that have open time then we

102will give them so a lot of our building blocks may not have all four specials classes but they may have like PE and library at one building blocks and another class uh another building blocks down the street at another school might have art and from an art teacher and music from the general music teacher so we've filled that in to give them that experience for 20 to 30 minutes do we kind of then have a way that we um track the payment of that then because it should kind of go toward a payment then right we've looked at that too and so we we've we've covered it internally because they just naturally might have a gap that like Spectrum Elementary have one or two classes so instead of letting just giving them idle time or

103asking them to go somewhere else we've actually filled up their time as well too so okay we've been more strategic on that the last five or six years I think that's good I would like to see I would like to see like some grids I guess I like what Bonnie does just to show exactly just the cost that you're showing us I would love to see those like even just on some more you know what I'm saying just some grids that show us exactly what that looks like not even even just your tuition asks going forward in the future well uh when we bring this for approval at our next board meeting we'll have it in grid form for you so you guys can read it out thanks I think it's grid form there um

104it is so there actually is a hyperlink in the um on the tuition rate adjustments no I saw that I want to see like where the where the cost will go like exactly oh the break oh the breakdown of when I'm asking for the tuition increase where that would go okay I can work on that for you thanks and then um I know sometimes when you're looking at it's like oh my goodness you know you're looking asking for a big percentage and as we said as we all know the price of things have certainly um has gone up but there are ways to really support those families um with need um as we shared before there's um either some companies have the employer um Child Care reimbursements um there is the dees the Department of

105Economic Security and that reimbursement rate I noted that and what's really important why we working on the accreditation and the five star or getting the quality stars is um when you have three star or above you can actually get a higher rate of return in order to provide that support for families so that's really important to families to have that five-star um rating or that accreditation um the other part is is um Quality first and first things first have provided scholarships although there have been cutbacks um our hope is as that comes back again a little healthier as we've been able to award um scholarships to families um and then we also utilize some of our Title One funding to help Provide support at our Title One campuses for families to reduce that tuition as

106well for those families that are in need and then of course we do do for our employees an employee um 20% discount um the next part would be the building blocks um tuition scenario and so really wanted to share with you an example of currently um you know what it looks like so on a school day would be from 7:45 until 3:15 um that would be currently a $750 cost um per per month per week that would be per month per month correct okay and then um if you were doing extended day which would mean dropping your kiddo off perhaps maybe at 6:30 in the morning and then staying for that extended day um then that would be 920 um when we look at the proposed um part would be in a school day would

107be $825 again that's from $745 to 315 if families are wanting that extended day you've got that um building blocks plus the vi you'll notice that that's $1,330 but we feel that it's important giving families a discount that if you are doing that full day with the building blocks that vik that's helping us with Staffing and we can plan accordingly for that um then we're giving that discount of $133 so then it would be $1,197 a month so there's that then and now kind of comparison for an example and I know you had asked earlier what about some surrounding on preschool programs and so I just want to um highlight just a few um different programs um around so if you're looking at um like Bridges preschool Bridges preschool has won a lot of awards

108um you know kind of the top we're kind of competing you know preschool program um in Gilbert and so um what they're charging um but some things to know is although right now it may look like oh goodness um Chandler Queen Creek and higgle are less than us I know all three of those districts are currently doing the same thing that we are um higgle is going to be presenting next week and doing um an increase as well um and so that's what their current rate is not what they're proposing to change so again we're going to be pretty comparable with things that we're doing um you also need to think about with some of the programs why did we do why do we have differences you also have to look at programs are they

109certified versus non-certified that really makes a difference as well um I know Higley um or right and the other thing is you have to look at the hours so as Rod had shared with the extended day um some of them um such as Chandler their hours are from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. our hours are longer um so we have an extra hour for families that provide that extra support um and something else you need to take into consideration are cap sizes or class sizes we know that's important um in Queen Creek they use a class size where they cap it at 24 students we cap ours at 20 and that's something else to take into consideration um a lot of kids in a preschool program that's a lot of preschoolers yeah so that's one

110reason too why we really look at the hourly Fe and try to break it down because like Don said there are so many variables you know one of our um Advantage preschools might be 2 and a half and another preschool halfday program might be three or three and a half hours and so you're you're really comparing a lot of apples to oranges when you're looking at the various program offerings because each school district and each child care even private school facilities have a lot of different things they also too some school districts have a lot of other fees associated with that as well where we've tried to keep the amount of fees reduced both in vik and preschool where they're included as much as possible so like our registration fee is the cheapest of the

111East Valley um we don't charge a materials fee whereas kirene in addition to their um registration fee they charge $150 extra for materials for the year and so again once we pay that that's what you pay monthly it's for the entire year so we try not to add those little extra nickel and dime types of things to families I I do have a question here about the um the spice and Advantage for the four 4 days 2 and a half hours and it says 10300 can you explain that because that seems much less than the others and no and I'm glad that you asked that um a big part of those programs in order for them to be um that inclusive part is we need those students that are tuition-based to come in there they're

112fortunate because they get Federal funding to be able to pay because of the um special education um portion of of it um so that helps to kind of provide some of those costs of like with the teacher um in those classrooms and so if families are in a hardship we really are trying to drive them perhaps look at those programming um options for your child it helps us um but it also helps your child as well so again I'm glad that you pointed that out that's another option for families where they may be looking at oh goodness I can't quite afford some of these others but this is an option to help provide so this would be for the tuition students for that those classes because I mean we do have to have you know

113maybe eight special ed students and then four typical students that have that language that can help thems demonstrate you know and we need them and I know right now um Julie's um team that's they've been struggling finding and getting those families to choose that and so our hope is is by keeping those rates lower um it may draw some of those families you know what I think I'm going to choose that option which helps um our special ed portion and our students needing that okay that's that's good to know thank you mhm R it's all yours all right I'm back um but I do hear the producer telling me to hurry and get off so but I want to I just want to h a couple of things cuz they're here I feel like we

114just went around the Indiana Speedway D um so I talked just a little bit about arit programs those really are the programs that we bring in to to kind of build passions for kids and hopefully find those things that they do um and that's Nathan pit is our enrichment supervisor he runs those programs for us um he's doing those and I want to hit on just one of those for him and then I'll let you read the spreadsheets you guys know how to do that you don't mean to to you but one of the things that Nathan and I have really focused on this year is we want to build family programming we feel like that's an area where we can help our community in general so Nathan has started a a parent child golf

115program that he partnered with Augusta Ranch um that we're seeing getting filled up every Saturday um and then he's also done in the last year he's done two camping trips last spring we took some families take about 60 people and 15 families out to The riparian Preserve if you didn't know they have camping spaces out there they did I did know did and it's really cool we had a really great time um and it was cool we were we partner with some organizations and kids learned to fish um it was really cool and then he just finished one out at user pass um we partnered with them and they taught him how to shoot archery and do that went on some hikes and did that and it was great and we get tons of feedback

116about how they want us to do more of that I think for Nathan and I both when we've talked about it the cool thing is you go to those and we don't see parents with their phones and we don't see kids with their phones they're engaged and we're giving them the language to talk to one another we feel like that's a place where we can really help build and take care of some of those issues we get them young they're still doing it when they're Junior High they continue to do it in high school um and we're focused on that in all of our programs um and then so here's just the numbers for the enrichment programs if if you want to take a look at those but you don't me to read them to

117you um Gilbert Youth Athletics um is new Dan hash is our Gilbert our athletic director Gilbert Youth Athletics um and Dan's running a ton of programs the things that we're doing here that have really we feel like have really sparked last year we did a partnership we are the NFL FLAG Football how house for Arizona for the Gilbert area they work in groups but we've kind of the strip of Gilbert um down the center we've taken it over and if you want to play NFL flight football you're playing in Gilbert public schools and Gilbert Youth Athletics um and then the other one that we just want to share is the camps one you'll see that that one I just want to share the number at the end with um that's $16,244.73 to the Civic fund

118some of it goes to the principal's fund some of it goes to District Athletics it's um but that's that's a nice figure when you're looking that it only started this June and we've already put that kind of money into the coffers of the schools and it's in their civic fund so that helps um our facility rental program is run by the manager of Adam crang um Adam does a great job of doing that he's been doing that for a long time and he kind of helps all over with everybody um but just these numbers to me I thought were pretty impressive um remember that we're in our buildings from 6:30 to 6 so we don't really rent during that time we're still getting last year we did 33,099 hours of rental time in N40 building

119well we even do the gym over here but um the 30 3395 hours of rental time with 408 different Community groups renting our facilities um and brought in 1 1,6,2,5 is a program that um Jared Ryan brought when he was kind of in it up and handed it over to us to take and it's really a way that we're building Partnerships with our parents our Civic groups our community colleges and and other groups in the district um our faith-based organizations and other community businesses and some of our groups that like help us build and do that and um we bring them in they get at a table with a principal and we get to have really genuine conversations about what we need and what we what they can do to help us improve our programs

120um I don't want to go deep into them if if you want you can always any of this stuff if you have questions you know you can email me or call me but um ply Del re has built a relationships with one of those organiz that's great she gets phone calls from them they're like hey we just met these guys a couple months ago we got one like 100 contract he's looking for something what to do what can we do for you um that's that's new that doesn't happen right they they're calling us and going hey we want to give you stuff what can we do what do you need um Mike Davis said desert R Junior High had a cool one in his he he needed some benches and he wanted to get some

121benches for his kids to sit outside and do that um there was no nobody in his group that could do it but one of the girls picked up her phone and called her dad in Colorado who called one of the guys that sells lumber to him who also sells lumber down here and like a week and a half later Mike had an 18- wheeel truck dumping Lumber so they could build benches on his campus um and another one that I thought was super cool was Canyon Valley um Chad partnered with Core Construction um for his kids to kind of see what that looks like and all the different things and it was really cool to me because I didn't think about the fact that they got Realtors and they got draftsman and they got um

122Architects and electricians and plumbers and all of those things and they brought people from all of those walks in for those kids to see like hey here's here's what you can do and this is this is what being in construction looks like and here's how you grow and the new places you can go they had a really cool electrician there that started out doing that and then had some health issues and wasn't able to keep going they helped him go to college and now he does all of their electrical drafting for them um you know but for that for him and that family for those kids to hear like hey there's options here for us to go out and do it was super cool um so those have been really successful um and just feeling

123good about where we are with those kind of to wrap us up Community Education we're up in 52 weeks a year we serve 251 days a year of programming um this last school year we we had contacts we had 696,000 kids a day um which is a pretty good number means we're taking pretty good care of our families I feel like and we do that with 247 employees that show up and we're just proud to have them thank you for your time so thank you uh governing board and thank you Don and Rod uh what we plan to do is we will bring then before you on the November 19th meeting the tuition rates for approval and we are needing to do that because of course uh we did start on November 1st K12 registration

124for the upcoming school year and our goal is by the end of November and early December to start the opening of preschool but we need to let the preschool families know how much they will be paying so we'll be bringing that before you and we will uh in the board report the um next week I will have the grid for you and some of the information Miss wood that you asked for as well thank you thank you that's a lot of work a lot of programs and appreciate what everyone's doing to make that work well for our families so thank you yeah that's what I want to say too thanks for all that you guys do and all the ways that we support our families I know that's the purpose is to support bring it

125build community and help our families who are part of our schools and invite them to be part of our schools too it's super important and I know that anytime we talk about the tuition raises and different things it's done carefully knowing that it's going to impact our families but at the same time we want we have to pay our staff and those cost scope every year and all the different quality things that our families are asking for I think we just keep probably showing them and um letting them know and see the quality that's happening and like some of those surveys that you did it looks like you're getting some really good responses back so I think that's great thank you thank you very much for the presentation tonight does anybody have anything else any

126other questions or anything I I did have some trouble with the links in board do so I was wondering if you could just like send us a email with those links and cuz I know I didn't get to watch the video I tried to do that but needed access yeah yeah that would be great you want the one minute video you want the three minute video you want the 30 minute video um I give them all three that way they can just how their days going they can select if I need something calming I'll take the 30 minute video all right thank you very much we'll go ahead and uh adjourn our work study session of this uh meeting tonight and call to order uh our brief board business meeting and we will ask Miss

127Wilson to start us out with a roll call Mr Chad Thompson here miss Lorie wood here miss Jill humph here miss Ronda page here Mr Thompson you have a quorum thank you very much uh moving on to agenda item number five our consent agenda is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda items I move that we approve the consent agenda items thank you Miss humph is there a second I'll second thank you very much Miss Wood uh I'll call for a vote all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda items please say I I I I any opposed n that's four to zero and that passes thank you um and that's it for tonight oh we got um since we have a board me we have to adjourn so we right right that's

128it that's it for tonight before adjournment thank you um thank you all for coming tonight very informative very uh uh uh necessary and uh appreciate all the hard work that that you've done and thank both of you for being here tonight and Miss Paige for joining us and uh we'll go ahead and adjourn I will call for a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn thank you Miss humph and I'll go ahead and second that and all those in favor of adjourning our meeting tonight say I I hi I thank you very much we are adjourned