001e e e good evening I would like to welcome welcome you all to our uh regular board business meeting for Tuesday June 25th 2024 we just concluded with our executive session so now we will move um to opening items and it's being handled just a little bit differently tonight because of the public hearing which we'll explain as we go along so we'll head for opening items number one 2.01 call to order which I just did we'll stand for the moment of silence and then we'll have the Pledge of Allegiance led by Mrs wood so can we stand for the moment of silence please please join me in the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
002liberty and justice for all thank thank you uh 2.04 roll call Mrs Wilson Miss Lorie wood here Miss Sheila ug jetti here miss Jill humph here miss Ronda pige here Mr Chad Thompson here Madame President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much Mrs Wilson and now we'll move to the public hearing which is 3.01 to start with fiscal year 2025 proposed budget for adoption presentation and this is We are following state law and the way we um have this set up so we will go ahead Dr mcord with your part of this and I'm sure Mrs Betts will have another part of it so very much uh again as this is uh by Statute we have to have a public hearing related to the proposed budget for the 2425
003school year Miss Betts will give a brief presentation and answer any questions you may have and Dr McCord and Mrs bets just for the um public information this is something that we have been discussing a lot over the last several months so your your your is a summarization of everything that we've been dealing with for quite a while yes yes thank you so good evening Dr McCord um president eug jetti governing board members so just to preface this presentation it is very very much like the proposed budget presentation as you have already gone through a lot of the details and we went through it um two weeks go at the governing board meeting I'll be going through the most um important slides this evening okay so to begin uh the introduction so the budget development
004timeline just really quick um you see at the end here before legislative session is supposed to end it now says the legislative legislative session has ended which is very good news we have a budget from the state legislature so then the proposed budget for adoption as always every budget that we present to you is strictly aligned to the Strategic operating plan and is also specifically and very clearly identified with um to the m override commitments so the student counts just really quick you can see um at the far right that this budget does assume a uh estimated student enrollment drop of about 1,200 we believe that to be conservative so as you know that's an estimate at this point in time you know that we're funded on current year counts so this could go um
005could be a little bit worse could be a little bit better we have beat our estimates um since I've been here so the chances are are really good that we will we will definitely not have to revise our budget down in December but we will be watching and sharing with you closely and this is just a comparison and a graphical representation so here's the M budget capacity projection and this is based on the governor's proposed budget as well as the State of Arizona legislative action so the base level amount was increased by 2% the district additional assistance was also increased by 2% however um it is considered one time instead of um ongoing the teacher experience index is the same and this is specific to Gilbert Public Schools so this is the budget capacity with
006budget balance carrier forward and as you remember we felt it was more important to take a look at our M budget related to um the pure ongoing monies uh so excluding the impact of the um budget balance carry forward so as we shared two weeks ago you can see that our uh budget capacity considering the 12200 ADM loss is expected to go down by about $ 3.62 million and that is exactly the same as what we presented two we two weeks ago so we also have non-discretionary budgetary increases however fortunately when we presented to you back in late March early April you approved a 0% increase to medical benefits we always put it up there because we have not seen a zero premium increase um for some time uh in addition in inflationary increases we
007felt that we needed to budget something there we don't have any anything that we're calculating to determine that so we uh included a half a million dollars for inflationary increases uh we do know that the city of Mesa school resource officer uh IGA has changed and we are now required to fund the entire cost of this um of the um resource officers from Mesa and then again another precaution is calculating what could be the new minimum wage starting January 1st could impact Us by as much as a half a million dollars going into the second half of fiscal 2025 before I go further are there any questions on any of them I have a question so when we have this increase for the this half a million dollars for the minimum wage increase does that
008also take into consideration not just those who are working for minimum wage but also adjusting the wages for those who are above them so we don't have compaction it does we've been very disciplined about any increase that's associated with minimum wages also added to the base rates of any existing employee so yes thank you you bet so the total of that is 1.3 million and then budgetary savings I shared that we have 1,200 student loss so we're expecting to have less of a need for teachers going into 2025 and remember that we're not laying off any teachers we have normal attrition that easily meets that 60 FTE expectation and then technology Services as well has has reorganized uh how they do business and resulting in about a $300,000 savings there so those are the savings
009associated with this budget so recommended pay increases you have already approved all of these so all staff to receive a 2% pay increase there's an athletic coach stien increase as you know the athletic coaches um have not had their stiens increased since I've been here so it's been over six years at least in addition we added a $600 per FTE stien for hourly staff in the event we are successful with passage of the m&o override in November and then um for exempt staff which would be all of our teachers all of our School principles your Administration across the district would receive an $800 stien prated by FTE again upon passage of the budget override continuation and these are all con these last two are considered one time so the total cost or the recommended pay
010increases total cost is about $8.4 million so overall then we need to figure out what it is what is the budget gra Gap that we need need to balance so with the ongoing available budget the projected ongoing savings the non-discretionary increases as well as the ongoing and one-time pay increases we are at a budgetary deficit about 9.03 million okay so balancing the M budget so how do we achieve that 9.03 million so pay increases funded by other funds we always look at the district globally do the 2% figure out how much Community Ed will be able to fund how much nutrition services how much Medicaid Career and Technical education all of those other funds will be able to absorb and then that's their contribution to this 2% pay increase and then the classroom site fund
011um as you know the classroom site fund eligible employees has increased over the years to uh include our um occupational therapists our physical therapists speech language uh therapists as well as our psychologists and so taking advantage of that the custom site fund contribution would be about $2.7 million District additional assistance transfer this is included in your in your budget document showing the transfer from the district additional assistance into M that's $2 million and then the M contribution which would be budget balance carry forward um just under $1.9 million so with these two one time and ongoing funding sources we have balanced our budget so before I I go any further are there any specific questions regarding that so I do have one question so on the classroom site fund we we'll be using ongoing money
012of 2.7 and then onetime money of 2.1 million 2.01 million yes sorry 2.01 million right so the 2.01 million will go towards funding the $800 per FTE one time stipended okay okay okay so classroom site fund because classroom site fund is playing a large role in balancing our budget we are sharing the details for you and you can see that in 2023 we received $750 per student $758 per student in 2024 and due to the sales tax increases in the state of the economy in Arizona the um ex the uh joint legislative budget committee recommendation is 7 $92 per student and you can see how that's impacted our funding level over time and then do note the last um the last row which shows the interest again due to the economy the larger um the
013increase in the interest rates we are seeing greater interest earnings in these funds as well so now let's talk about the proposed budget for adoption this does have some more changes more significant changes than on the M um m budget capacity so note that this is the budget capacity note I think I've got a yeah so note that you can see the district additional assistance toino transfer of the $2 million under the 2025 proposed recall that we also made that recommendation to you a year ago for the 2024 budget but our budget balance carry forward and our student counts were improved enough where we did not have to move the $2 million out of District additional assistance into M for the the current year um so again that that could change depending upon how how
014we do with our student counts um you can see the one time state aid of the district additional assistance we received that additional $8.8 million about for 20124 you see it shown here at zero but when we revise the budget the first time you will see that that um zero will change because that 2% to the district additional assistance is now one time not ongoing so that will a change you will see when we revise the budget the first time and then you can see the the budget balance Carri forward and then the interest earned it's been quite remarkable that we have been able to um earn a million dollars or more in interest in the unrestricted Capital fund so before I go any further are there any questions there no I I would just
015like to make the the a comment about the fact that so much of this is is um you are being Guided by Statute and that's why you have to do all of the moving and so on around that's correct we you even though we know what going to happen we have to follow get to the letter of the law that's correct thank you for that so other fund budgets just wanted to share these again with you just Community Schools nutrition services instructional Improvement state and federal grants other cash funds you can see how most of those have um increased so you can see that and federal grants have seen a a decline of about $10 million but please remember that as we build the budget and we adapt the budget we do not presume any
016carryover for state and federal grants so generally speaking the carryover will appear when we do our first budget revision so we expect it to be more than that $30 million average teacher salary we share this as well we shared this two weeks ago you can see that the average teacher salary reported in the final budget Revision in May was $67,000 and some change and we just added 2% to that as you know this changes because we have retirements and separations and we have new employees that we hire so the average uh teacher salary for the 2025 school year will be established and shared with you in that first budget revision as well and then finally the estimated tax rates one thing that we did not share with you last uh two weeks ago was the
017Maricopa County quasim Mar judgment this was an assessed valuation judgment that impacted many many municipalities and tax um levying jurisdictions throughout Maricopa County Gilbert Public Schools was impacted by about 5.4 million dollars that we would have to pay back to all of those properties that had a value that was greater than actual based upon the um the calculations of Maricopa County so we have we owe them all back about $5.4 million fortunately because our tax collections here in Gilbert have been much greater than um than anticipated there's always a delinquency rate um we have we have more cash than we've needed to support our budget and that excess cash is available to us and we anticipate that we will be able to offset that full $5.4 million without having to Levy any additional money against
018the taxpayers here in Gilbert Public Schools so as an example this is what we shared with you two weeks ago and it was a 24 Cent decrease in the tax rate that 24 cents will definitely go be a greater decrease um because the estimation included that we would need to Levy about half of that $5.4 million um but we now know that we will have uh excess cash available to totally offset that those judgments so we are in a very positive situation here in gber public schools uh Mrs Betts can you go back to the previous slide um just I want to clarify that those excess property valuations that we have to pay back those are from the county that they set those evalu those valuations they they um they assess those values back to
0192015 so this is a 8-year correction which accounts for the quantification of the payback which is not anything that we could have done something about there's nothing we could have done about it we have to take the information that we reive from the assess assessors the County Assessors and so in hindsight they probably set it too high and now they're trying to fix that problem it was specific to a presumption of property between a couple of classes so there's a lot of details there but um but anyway regardless it was a long obviously a long-term uh complaint since it went back to 2015 okay all right thank you MH can I just say one thing I was just want to thank Mrs humph for bringing that up I also wanted to bring that up and
020just say through no fault of our own probably should be capitalized um but thank you Miss humph for um speaking up on that but the best the best news though is that there are school districts that will have to Levy to pay back some of this amount and just because of our circumstances we will not have to Levy additional dollars and so we are expecting our tax rate to actually go down maybe as much as 30 or 35 cents once it's set in Late July great okay perfect and that's all set at the county level yes we make our recommendations so um I'm I have uh both a primary and a secondary tax worksheet that I fill in and then I transmit that information to the county superintendent's office for them to review say yay
021or nay and so there's a little bit of an iterative process where we go back and forth um but generally we make a recommendation and then it's but it is finally set by the county superintendent's office and then it's approved by the County Board of Supervisors okay okay risks and opportunities please to share this AEL is still looming for 2025 which is what we shared two weeks ago but no the budget was passed without us having to concern ourselves in the spring that we will have to potentially take the money and then give it back so that's taken care of a loss of more students than the 1200 projected is still a risk legis legislatur de legislature decreases funding so they didn't uh not in M nor in District additional assistance however they did make
022the ongoing 2% in District additional assistance one time but the school district still gets to see um that budget capacity going into the 2025 school year I do have a question about that if it's one time time um previous ones have been added to the district additional assistance so when the next year when we get 2% it's on the whole thing so if this is one time um and we say got a 1% increase next year that one time wouldn't count towards that 1% increase is that correct that's correct because they would go back to the base that was effective in 2024 and so they would give a 1% increase to the 202 for base okay all right that's correct so students return to govern public schools to provide greater funding that's possible we do
023not see a 1200 student loss legislature approves greater funding than the 2% of course we know now that that didn't happen so that's crossed out and then finally the budget balance carry forward may may be larger uh we we we know for certain it will not be less because of our work that we do during the encumbrance period uh so the the budget balance Carri for forward may be and most likely will be higher um in m and unrestricted capital in fact probably for certain in unrestricted Capital because we have a lot of encumbrance right now that of course those projects will not be done as of June 30 so that budget capacity and those projects roll over so therefore it will be considered um in the 2025 school year and that's all I have
024and I'm ready for any questions questions we just go back to that last slide Miss bets I just wanted to make a notation because when you see the number 1200 projected student loss that seems like a lot but we have over 30,000 students in our district so it that I just wanted to put that a little bit into perspective and I know that we've talked about this in policy meetings can you just give a couple of reasons why we're expecting that projected number to happen so I wanted to make sure and I'm glad you asked that question thank you very much for that I wanted to make sure that you all knew that we're not expecting 1,200 students to just up and leave here in Gilbert Public Schools um it's really about cohort movement so
025since the pandemic we have seen smaller class sizes in kindergarten coming to govern Public Schools due to a variety of reasons young families not moving in birth rat's going down aging out of our neighborhoods Etc so over time so now we're seeing the effect of the cohort movement so kindergarteners become first grade so now the first grade is less and then kindergarten is less again and then the first graders go into second second grade is less and then first grade is less than it was the year before so really the 1,200 student loss is an accumulation over the last three years of loss so I wanted to make sure that that was clear as well thank you yeah because it it almost reads as if all of a sudden 1200 kids with withdrew from our
026school district and that's not the case does but it's it's really and and also consider that kindergarten kindergarteners are funded at half so when you have a smaller kindergarten classroom in any one year it doesn't impact you so great but as soon as that kindergartener becomes a first grader the first grader becomes a second grader Etc then it has a larger impact so that's really the basis so I appreciate the question very much thank you Bonnie yeah okay thank you guys any further questions great thank you thank you don't go too far yeah let just okay uh we will now move as part of the public hearing to 3.02 request to speak regarding the FY 2025 proposed budget and we have one um speaker tonight Mr Young and just um know that that right now
027the only thing you you can I talk about is the budget then we'll get back to the next one in a in a little bit so were you able to hear me okay pardon me were you able to hear me okay I can't hear you I'm sorry I didn't wear my hearing aids I assumed you called me if not I'll go back sit down okay no I did okay yes I'm Richard young I uh want to speak on Foya in part I left copies with the SEC we we we have to you can only talk right now about the budget I can only talk about what about the budget what we the budget what we just okay my was about a budget item okay then you'll get a chance to come back up and talk
028about the other what is she saying right now it's only on that presentation that had and she'll call you back up in minutes thank you I'm sorry my voice wasn't loud enough that's right my fault for the confusion no so you're not you're okay well let's let's do it in order yeah so now we will just adjourn the is there yeah that's the only one we had we'll adjourn the public hearing and move on to 4.01 approval of the agenda do I hear a motion to approve the agenda as presented so moved thank you very much Mrs paage second I'll second thank you Mrs wood and it's been moved and seconded that we move to the um or excuse me that we approve the agenda as presented and that means we now move to Mr
029I'm sorry I trying to make sure I'm loud enough and I didn't think to say that thank you Mrs Mrs humre I appreciate it all those in favor of approving the budget as presented please signify by saying I we're approving the agenda I you said budget okay that I'm sorry I will I will make sure I get everything right from now on okay all those in favor of approving the agenda as presented please signify by saying I I I I so on a -0 vote our agenda has been approved and we will now move to the superintendent's report Dr mcord thank you Madame President governing board members uh thank you to everyone for joining us tonight summer is in full swing and I would like to thank all of our employees who are working this
030summer we have many programs uh that are going on at all of our schools we have of course people at the district level working and and making sure the wheels are still going so your time and DED dation truly make a phenomenal place to work and learn so we appreciate you uh we do have some free summer meals wanted to let everybody know about those locations and times uh this is for kids and teens 18 years old and younger we provide free healthy nutritious meals to be consumed on site adults may have P May purchase breakfast for 275 and lunch for $475 and this is a cash only deal locations Boulder Creek May 30th through July 16th Monday through Friday breakfast is from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. lunch is noon to 1 haris Elementary June
0313rd through June 27th Monday through Thursday breakfast is 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. lunch is 11: to 12 and Mos Junior High May 30th through July 16th that's Monday through Friday breakfast is 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 lunch is from noon to 1 and oak tree is May 30th through July 16th that's Monday through Friday Friday breakfast is 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. and lunch is noon to 1 and so please check those out and uh they'll be happy to serve you and just a reminder our first day of school this year will be Tuesday July 23rd so soak up every moment of your summer we will see you back before you know it Miss U jetti that concludes my report for this evening we will now move to requests to speak to the governing board
032and we are ready for the admonition please request to speak to the governing board pursuant to ARS 38-43 1.02 the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to a reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on any issue within the jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of an open call to the public individual board members May respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask staff to review a matter or may ask that a matter be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during an open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during an
033open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policies K Keb and K are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you Mr Thompson uh and we will now move to uh calls from the public Mr Young thank you I heard you um this time uh I'm addressing a problem that I've had with um AOA type request I actually submitted two uh at the same time a number of weeks ago one to the town of Gilbert on a completely distinct issue and another to the Gilbert schools uh within days I had a response
034from uh the town of Gilbert which was satisfying to see I heard nothing uh from U the public schools so on um June 14th I submitted another one both of these by the way online but I provided a copy uh with the secretary for the board so that you can see that I've done it I have not had a response yet I tried emailing the U organization within the Govern schools that is responsible for this but um I've had no response to that email either it concerns something that I would like to know and I think every board member would like to know and I have reason to believe that none of you knows it uh it has to do with second step social emotional learning I'm asking for the original cost of this program
035which I understand is very expensive and I'm betting you don't know so you should ask and any continuing costs for this program uh I happen to ask or check online US News and world report for the best schools in Arizona and the top 10 are all bases I called one of them the Poria school to see if they do anything with social emotional learning no they don't not that I could tell they didn't even seem to know what it had to do with we've heard criticism of social emotional learning that among other things it's CRT we're assured no has nothing to do with uh critical race Theory but if you dig into their own website here we have anti-racism and anti-bias resources yes it does and the people of Gilbert don't particularly like having this
036addressed in the public schools we're committed to addressing racial Injustice and helping you to drive real change in your school communities that's not really something that any of us wants Gilbert Public Schools to be doing certainly don't want you to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to do that this horrible grading system uh standard-based grading which you have adopted is a part of this and you may remember that for that the lowest grade you can get is 50% so if you do nothing if you hand in a blank sheet of paper you get 50% so if a kid sits in his chair stares out the window and picks his nose for the entire year he still gets 50% what academic standard is achieved by that what does that 50% represent in learning nothing to
037do with math nothing to do with reading nothing to do with history or civics at the very best it's a booger count that's what it is it's ridiculous but you don't do that in sports never if a kid sits on the sideline in a uh football game doing absolutely nothing he doesn't get half a touchdown Point thank you very much Mr Young do Dr McCord I know that that you um we will make sure otm expedites his request to so he gets it ASAP thank you thank you we will now move to um item number eight consent agenda items do I hear a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented Sheila we we have the financial report monthly I just got finished saying that's okay you didn't really promise so it was okay
038you want me to get up leave now no you're you're good I apologize I didn't get my afternoon nap report 7.01 monthly financial report for month ended May 31st 2024 Dr McCord thank you madam president Gover board members that time of the meeting uh where we have our monthly budget report Miss Betts um thank you I thought you were just giving me a break I know I thought I thought we had just heard from you you know that's right you didn't need to hear from me again right but there has to be a reason why Mrs maton and and Mrs tar here today and I was remiss because um both of them are instrumental in creating that budget as well so um I just wanted to make sure that that I'm U identifying them as
039a very very key players in this whole budget process but regardless let's talk about the monthly Financial presentation year to date as of May 31st so this is the current year so we are not talking about the the new budget year so as always we present the district operating funds just wanted to share that that $14.7 million of available balance in m&o is an increase of about $800,000 over last month this is that time in which we are un encumbering open purchase orders because the purchasing times have lapsed so you will see fluctuations in both maintenance and operations and unrestricted Capital through the remainder of the encumbrance period which is 60 days after June 30 just a reminder and then unrestricted Capital alter alternatively the unrestricted Capital available balance has decreased by about $3.5 million
040due to those capital projects that you guys have approved uh last board meeting any questions on that before I go to the next slides okay great so federal grants um so uh talking about voke Ed the reason that we are bringing this to your attention is due to the negative available balance we do have a budget for voke Ed but often we receive more revenues than we budget for and so the revenues were received before we were before um revenues were received after you approved the final budget Revision in May and so the uh the department is able to spend those monies if they've received them um so there's no issue with that I just wanted to make sure that we're sharing that with you and then finally Ester 3 and S 3 the required
04120% set aside wanted to make sure that our plans are really really close to uh spending all of that money through June 30 we're able to spend it through September 30 um but we are working on the final budget revision for the Esser fund right now um and then if we are not able to get everything approved um we will definitely work on identifying appropriate expenditures between July 1st and September 30th any questions on any of that okay great and then finally the Enterprise funds we have received this ASAP Grant over the last two years which is specific to community ed in this particular case it's very specific to community ed employees we cannot use any of these monies for stuff and so uh we anticipate with pay increases that were awarded uh last year
042as well as for the first oh I think this has to be spent by June 30 um so we're we expect that we we will have maybe $100,000 unspent um but we're of course working to spend it all as well through through June 30 and then finally uh other funds on the employee benefit trust we've been working the last three months to make sure that the employee benefit trust financials that we report to you are very comparable to the financials presented to the employee benefit trust as well as the employee benefit trust committee and so the big change that occurred month over month um is that we were we were notified that our normal quarterly uh Pharmacy rebate of about $930,000 has grown to over 1.2 million so that has put our employee benefit trust
043in even more of a favorable state so we feel very fortunate about that and in addition the activity uh the claims activity in May has definitely um declined considerably since those High claim months uh in Fe February and April I think okay and then the bond fund uh we're just sharing this with you you know that our bond fund is nearly expended we do anticipate that our transportation department will put in purchase orders for additional buses uh this fall and then uh you can see the $730,000 or so left in facilities but we have several capital projects on the agenda um for uh on the ENT agenda for for um your approval uh and so for sure we expect the facil renewal portion to be fully spent in the next few months and that's all
044I have questions for anyone thank you very much Mrs Betts for all your hard work on that and your ladies out out there I know they are tremendous what they do so thank you I just report they do all the work I just report well you do a good job of reporting all their work how's that thank you now moved to eight consent agenda items for consideration discussion Direction and possible approval do I hear a motion so moved thank you Mrs humph a second a second thank you Mrs this page it's been moved and seconded that we approve the um consent agenda items as presented all those in favor please signify by saying I I I and that would be a 5- z vote we will now move on to action items which would be
045first one 9.01 implementation of the Arizona risk retention trust policy Dr mord I'll let you give an introduction then we'll do a motion and discussion thank you madam president gy board members what we have before you is something that we've been working on basically most of the school year uh in the past you had approved us moving to the uh Arizona risk retention trust policy Services moving away from the asba policy bridge and we took this year to make sure we did crosswalks and the team did a phenomenal job of making sure our policies were lined up with what was presented by the Arizona risk retention trust policy Services um it does look different in the sense that uh there are less policies in this a lot of the current policies we have were combined
046and made into a specific policy depending on the chapter uh asba uses a letter policy um in the Arizona risk retention trust policy Services uses a number policy and they go by chap CHS and so uh this is the final product that we bring before you tonight and this will go into effect July one and anything moving forward um again we will already have changes to this uh today I I received an email for a policy for Title 9 that's coming up and so it's something that like we did with asba will'll meet in our policy meetings we will review bring them for first and second read and bring them for finalization here so uh nothing changing there just making sure that uh we are now everybody understands that we're using the Arizona risk retention
047trust policy thank you Dr mcord so um do I hear a motion to uh uh improve uh to approve the implementation of the Arizona risk retention trust policy Sur and then we will discuss I move that we approve the implementation of the Arizona risk retention trust policy Services thank you Mrs wood second I'll second it so it's been moved and seconded but before we vote we may have anybody have any questions concerns or comments that you would like to make please I just wanted to give a thank you to the district for all your hard work I know this was a huge undertaking and much appreciated thank I just had one question um will we have some training for employees to help them get familiar with this new policy manual I don't think we will
048have any specific training um it's we didn't train them on the last policy so it's something that they'll just have to be familiar with what we will tell them is where it's located and how to access it okay all right thank you any anything else and before we vote I would just like to say that that um we obviously spend a lot of time discussing policies and and so on and the um Arizona risk retention as well as as anybody else that helped us in the past always have their attorneys going over all of this so before we even get to it we have a legal opinion and then we as a as a board are are are able to make some changes depending on if there's not a statute that we would be violating
049because there are certain things that are just just for Gilbert Public Schools so um Miss eug jetti uh just one uh one thing I wanted to add there are places in the policy where it says board and um in the past policy manual uh we were changing that to governing board and I would ask that we would try and do that in this policy manual I certainly think that's something that we can talk about when we have our next policy meeting so make sure it gets put on the agenda for that and that's something easily done yes all right thank you anything else okay I I'll call for the vote for the implementation of the Arizona risk retention trust policy Services all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I okay no
050oppose so on a - Z vote we will move to that and I'm sure we'll be discussing all of this in future uh policy meetings 9.02 fiscal year 2025 proposed budget for adoption Dr McCord thank you madam president govering board members as uh you've been presented over the last uh several weeks uh the proposed budget for the 2425 school year we ask for your approval thank you do I hear a motion for the proposed budget for of adoption so moved thank you Mrs Humphrey second second thank you Mrs paig discussion just a comment don't forget that we need your signatures at the end of the board meeting please yes well I do want to say thank you I mean I feel like um first uh the legislature came through in better shape than I I
051had anticipated at least we have the 2% as a one-time um monies for district additional assistance and the 2% for um the maintenance and operation so we can give those raises so I do appreciate that and I appreciate the hard work that has been put in to to get us I feel like we're in a really good financial position and I appreciate all that hard work it's taken some time to get there so thank you thank you I I second that any any other comments or questions hearing I'll call for the vote for the 20 F fiscal year 2025 proposed budget for adoption all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I okay so on a - Z vote that's been adopted we will now move to 9.03 reopening of Canyon Valley
052high school and adding grades seven and 8 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members first of all I think the title of this is a little misleading Canyon Valley uh has always been open uh but uh in order to comply with state and federal reporting guidelines school districts and Charters must report student enrollment and student attendance accurately at the physical School site in which the student is being educated for the past 12 years Canyon Valley has been operating as an alternative school program in order to comply it is recommended that we reopen Canyon Valley High School uh and expand the grade level to include s and eth grade and this is based on AR 15-10 42b which says require School District Charter Schools submit electronic data on a school by school basis including
053student level data to the Department of Education order for the school district Career Technical education uh of a district or Charter School to receive monies for the cost of educating students pursuant to this title um so we're asking your approval for this to be in compliance with the statute uh we were informed I think and when I say we were informed we were given information in late February uh but we we believed as well as many other districts because there's other districts doing what we're doing right now at the same time of year we believed it only had to do primarily with special education and uh nutrition services but as more conversations happened uh it went deeper than that and so we want to make sure that that we're doing everything correctly and we may
054come back to you with some other thoughts and ideas later on in the school year uh in order to comply in a different route because um we believe that how these are articulated and how they are um calculated for school or District letter grades um I this will impact everybody not just in our district brother District so we will come back to you later so don't think that we're skiz phrenic about this we do know what we're doing we just have to do stepbystep processes related to this to make sure we get it in the right place thanks okay thank you um take a motion for reopening of Canyon Valley high school and adding grade seven and eight I move that we reopen Canyon Valley high school and add grade seven and eight thank you
055Mrs humre a second I'll second thank you Mrs wood um discussion questions this is so it for all intents and purposes will this look any different when these kids come to school the first day is there anything not one thing different just the only thing that'll be different is their how they're coded at the state level and how uh data is sent to them okay and Dr McCord just a question on on that um we previously had seventh and eighth grade there and then I think that was probably one of the budget cuts I don't remember exactly um but now we're going back to it and I think I'm think that's a really good option because you know those two years could be the make or break for a lot of kids and if we're
056getting them the younger we get them the better it is and and uh I'm I'm really glad that we're doing this thank you anybody any other comments well I I think Canyon Valley is a great School and provide services for kids that you know need need a smaller campus and more individual attention and I I know they do a great job um I think it education is complex and um so they're telling us now we have to count them the students differently or code them differently at the state level and um letter grades are one way of looking at what kids have accomplished but there's a whole lot more that goes into school and Canyon Valley is one of those that does a great job with kids and it may not show on a letter
057grade but it really shows in the what the students accomplish I love going to graduation there because I get to see kids that have really put some work in to make sure that they get that high school diploma so I think um sometimes letter grades are not the best indication of what's going on at a school thank you m Mrs Paige did you have a comment I just had a quick question um we're not looking at this school year to be reopening the seventh and eighth grade right is would it be for this fall yes this is we already have seventh and eighth grade there but it's a program yeah right and so we're going to in order to because we call it a high school we just want to make sure it's all combined
058okay you just said you weren't being schizophrenic so I was wondering that's okay you're leaving that leaving that to me right okay Bonnie would like to say something imagine that if I if I can add the reason that we are specific about seven and eight is when the canyon Valley High School ctds number which is that entity identification number was first created it was just for high school so we're just expanding that to include seventh and eighth grade and yes seventh and 8th graders have been educated at Canyon Valley now the last two years I think two years thank thank you any anything else anybody else okay hearing no more comments or questions I'll call for the vote for the reopening of Canyon Valley high school and adding grade seven and8 just as we were
059given all the information all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I so on a 5- z vote we will approve that or was approved I should say uh number 10 request for future agenda items I know we already have one from Mrs humph for our um policy meeting are there any others okay hearing none we'll move on to board committee reports and I get to be the first one and I'm going to be the first one to say I don't have anything to report we haven't met and you know I once again would like to just say that the fact that we were able to get some money Mrs bets and and your your ability to figure some of these things out is is amazing it really is so it's pretty
060easy to accept the $1.2 million just so you know yeah I I know it's pretty easy for us to say thank you too but I I mean it really is it's not something that as we all know here that we approve very often is getting money we're good at spending it okay 11.02 legislative representative Mr Thompson do you have anything tonight nothing tonight thank you okay thank you very much 11.03 city of Mesa liaison Mrs wood anything tonight nothing tonight thanks thank you very much 11.04 uh Gilbert toy Gilbert liaison and audit commit committee Mrs humph uh I don't have anything to report tonight great thank you Gilbert Education Foundation Mrs Pig I'm sorry to break the trend but I do have something to report tonight um exciting stuff actually so Gilbert Education Foundation was
061awarded in June over $70,000 from meta for a multimedia Center at Desert red junior high so that's really exciting and we're so grateful for Teresa and all the hard work she does with GF um this multimedia Center is going to be headed up by the history and social science and Digital Arts Teacher Nate web and he's going to initiate programming that will help the students innovate enhance students creativity problem solving teamwork skills and empowering them to become digital influencers in their Community um also um the 20 2425 business leader breakfast Estates have been set by GF um 8: a.m. in the governing boardroom on August 14th November 13th February 19th and May 7th and I will obviously when those come I will remind the board and then um just to put this on the calendar
062the Gilbert Education Foundation cornhole Extravaganza will be held on September 26 at 6:00 p.m. at the whole n yards cornhle venue in Gilbert and anybody would like to support GF please contact either myself or Teresa um they are looking for sponsors thank you thank you Mrs Paige we will now move to 13 um adjournment all I well we need a motion first all those I mean who who like to move that we're going to adjourn I think it's time for me to adjourn oh so moved thank you Mrs humph second and time in a second it so it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn and I forgot the meeting date boy I can't believe it but it is July 30th so all those in favor I'm think I'm going to need about 30 days
063of rest so I can handle it on July 30th thank you all those in favor of adjourning please signify by saying I I I I okay so on a - Z vote uh we'll see you in July thank you don't forget signatures thank you