001that'll be [Music] great see you [Music] talking it time yes I'm Tex got a few minutes should we do the wave or something [Music] warm do the Hoke poke or something around the room how about how about board yoga board yoga we now only have two minutes that ought to be interesting good evening we would like to welcome you to our special organizational meeting and brief board business meeting at 6: pm. tonight Tuesday January 9th 2024 I will call this meeting to order and ask Miss Wilson for a roll call Miss Wilson Mr Chad Thompson here Miss Lori wood here Miss Rhonda pige here M Sheila ug jetti here miss Jill humph here Madame President Obama board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much that will take us to agenda number
002two nominations and election of 2024 board officers we will I'll begin by describing what the board president does and then I will call for nominations three times and then we'll vote so let me begin with the board president according to policy bdb the duties of the president of the board shall be as follows preside over all meetings and conduct meetings in accordance with Arizona law and policies of the district consult with the superintendent and on behalf of the governing board as a whole approve items to be placed on the agenda for each meeting encourage and maintain orderly and Democratic participation keep all discussions factual and on the subject at hand allow for full and complete exploration of each item of business and then in the absence of the president of the board the clerk shall
003preside over the meeting temporarily and perform the functions of the president in the absence of the president and clerk the superintendent will recommend the board members select a temporary president okay so at this time I will call for nominations for board president for 2024 I would like to nominate Miss Sheila eetti I will make a second call for nominations are there any other nominations I'll make a third call seeing no other nominations I will take a vote all those in favor of voting for Mrs Sheila eetti as board president please say I I I any opposed please say nay thank you can I take over now you take over all right thank you you and before I I take over I would like to say a few words about Mrs wood if I can um
004and I think it's an agenda item because she is has been the board president thank you for your two years of service um we've been blessed with your leadership and your um sense of empathy and compassion and love for our school district and for our community and for our our faculty and staff and our Administration so thank you Lori thank you a second that oh thank you any all those in favor okay the second nomination will be for board Clerk and the board clerk um let me the duties of the board clerk shall be as follows the clerk of the governing board shall perform the following duties unless the board delegates them to an employee keep a record of the proceedings of the board in accordance with Arizona law and policies of the district review
005an itemized account of the receipts and expenditures of school monies also known as vouchers and discharge other duties as prescribed by the board um I I'm going to nomin or I'm going to call for three nominations for board clerk for the 2024 school year um first nomination do I hear I submit my name Jill humph for clerk okay thank you Jill so Mrs Jill humph for clerk second nomination I would like to submit Chad Thompson thank you is there a third nomination hearing none I'll call for the vote um first of all for Miss Mr JY yes sorry do we have them pitch themselves no oh okay no sorry I don't know that there we've ever done that before I don't know that would be I don't think yeah okay um I'll call for the
006vote for Mrs Jill humph all those in favor please signify by saying I I I'm sorry I I vote for myself uh and opposed Nay Nay Nay okay uh then all for Mr Tad Thompson all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed nay okay all right so Mr Thompson thank [Music] you all right so we will now go to the um internal organizational items for the times of the meetings and Dr mcord do you want to discuss any of [Music] that yes thank you Madame President governing board members uh for times of meetings generally we meet on the is it the second or 1 and third third or I'm even the wrong day Tuesdays at um 6:00 those seem to be working I don't know this obviously is up to you
007guys uh if you want to change something but those have been our regular times we also meet monthly uh for policy meetings at uh 11:30 in the morning so those are some of the regular times for our meeting any discussion about the times I move that we continue the times that we currently have is there a second second okay thank you very much for the for the um Motion in the second all those in favor of continuing the times of the meetings as we've done them in the past please signify by saying I I I opposed okay so uh 5 Z the times will stay the same which are usually the first and third Tuesdays of the month and then the second is is uh the policy meeting during the day but then that can
008be changed because of holidays and such correct okay um review and approval of Rules of Order if I can remember correctly we've just basically done the Roberts Rules of Order they're similar if you'd like me to read through them real quick the governing board prescribes rules for its meetings as follows this is policy bed um uh it shall hold a regular meeting at least once each month during the regular school Year and may hold other meetings as often as called uh each action item shall require a motion all motions shall require seconding this is letter C the governing board president may make or second motions and may vote on all motions d a motion to adjourn is in order at any time such a motion shall require second and majority vote no discussion is in
009order e a motion to table is in order at any time such a motion requires a second and is limited to being considered only once on any given agenda item no discussion is in order F Rules of Order may be subject to suspension only upon a majority vote of the members of the governing board present at a meeting and G the governing board president May recess the meeting without a vote of the governing board in order to maintain the Quorum and governing board meeting Rules of Order that's it all right thank you Dr mcord is there any discussion or comments I move that we accept the U current um Rules of Order thank you Mrs humre is there a second I'll second it so uh it's been moved and seconded that we uh continue to
010go by policy be DD The Rules of Order um all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed hearing none it's been um approved 5 to Z Dr Moore do you do you have a copy of the various committees so I I do you have an extra one okay thank you do you want to go first and hand it to me all right um the next agenda item is board appointments to various committees um this is done every year because we have different committees that are assigned by the board and I'm going to turn it over to Dr mcor to go over what they are oh thank you madam president govering board members currently uh uh we have I believe it looks like well I'll read through them the first one is
011policy committee and that is a committee of the whole all five board members uh second committee is enrollment management committee again that is committee of the whole all five board members next one is legislative representative currently that's Mr Chad Thompson uh next is alternative representative to the legislative uh branch and that is Mrs Jill humph uh town of council or town of Gilbert leaz on Mrs Ronda page uh city of Mesa liaison Mrs Lori wood Gilbert Education Foundation liaison Mrs Jill humpr Insurance trust representative Miss Sheil UG jetti and audit committee is Mrs Jill humph and those are committees okay thank you Dr mcord is there any um are there any questions about any of the of these by any of the board members about any of the duties or anything like that okay so
012let's just go ahead first and first one and two are already decided because they Committees of the whole third is legislative committee any volunteers or you want to keep it as it is Chad you've been doing that correct yeah I've been doing that um I know that last year Ronda wanted to do it but if you're wanting to do it I'm happy to do something else okay you okay with it you I'd rather okay sorry fine I'd rather stick with the town of Gilbert or move on to something different um how about alternative you want to continue Al I would like to at least stay the alternative if uh Mr Thompson's going to be the legislative representative because I do think it's important to have our vote at asba which I did in December all
013right any anybody any other discussion about that town of gilbertt the aison currently it's Rhonda Rhonda if nobody else wants it I'll keep it but I'm more than happy to jump over to something else um I I am happy to stay with the Gilbert Education Foundation I really enjoy that work but um I'm I do feel like we should change around a little bit every year so that we all get a taste of the different um aspects of the district and the things that are going on so um I don't know if you want to trade Rhonda or stay where you are yeah that's fine okay I can do GAA GF G what is that G Gilbert Education Foundation so I'll take the town of um Gilbert and then you'll take the anybody else want
014the Gilbert Education Foundation are you dying to do that anybody so you're okay with it Rhonda okay yeah so Lori are you still city of Mesa okay okay yeah I would be happy to do that if I could and I'd like to continue as the insurance trust representative because we're still in the process of getting that committee off the ground the and audit I'm happy to continue with that it's not a very big um commitment but if someone else wants to take that there will anybody else interested in that one I'm I'm happy to do it okay so we're okay with all of those everybody all right so do I hear a motion that we will continue with the Committees legislative representative Mr Thompson alternative representative Mrs humph town of Gilbert um Mrs humph city
015of Mesa Mrs wood Gilbert Education Foundation um Mrs Page Insurance trust rep myself and then audit committee Mrs humph do I hear a motion so moved thank you Mrs humph a second second thank you Mr Thompson so it's been moved and seconded that we continue with the committees as I just read all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed okay 5 Z so that concludes the um special organizational meeting and we'll move on to 5.01 calling to order the brief board business meeting for January 9th 2024 um we'll start once again with the roll call Mrs Mrs Wilson I'm sorry would you please do the roll call Miss Lori wood here Miss Sheila ug jetti here miss Jill humph here miss Ronda pige here Mr Chad Thompson here Madame President all
016board members are present you have a quorum thank you Mrs Wilson um we'll move now to the consent agenda items for tonight do I hear a motion I'd like to move that we approve the consent agenda items with the um the exception with the exception of 6.08 is that the right one staff travel oh no9 6.09 staff thank you 6.09 staff travel um so that we can either discuss tonight or at a later date as a board okay uh do I hear a second to that um motion I'll second thank you very much Mrs wood so it's been moved and seconded that we uh approve the consent agenda items with the exception of 6.09 which will take off for discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I opposed okay so
017hearing none we'll move on to it has been approved and we'll move on to 6.09 staff travel and I guess we need an a a motion to approve it and then we'll discuss so do I hear a motion to approve 6.09 well since Mr Thompson removed it to discuss he should probably make that motion so moved thank you Mr Thompson do I hear a second second thank you Mrs hrey so it's been moved and seconded that we um staff travel be approved but we need a discussion Mr Thompson so thank you very much in in looking through the staff travel um there were some things in regards to this uh request that concerned me um and I just wanted to bring it to the attention of the board and have an opportunity to discuss it
018because I think this is not only specific to this staff travel request but I think um could be relative to or um could relate to uh other staff travel upcoming staff travel requests uh and my concern is that the uh the provider of the conference the the group putting on the conference um is there there are some things that are included in the conference that in my opinion have nothing to do with physical education this conference is um a conference focused on physical education but this seems this conference specifically seems to focus on other things that excuse me Mr Thompson since we don't have a copy of that in front of us can you read us the item so we know which one you're discussing I was just going to ask if we can I'm
019not sure yeah could you could you read it this is um this is for a teacher at Highland Junior High uh physical education teacher it is in Cleveland Ohio and the conference is shape America 2024 National Convention and Expo uh it's March 12th through the 16th which I believe is our spring break uh the purpose will be learning best practices for health and physical education get hands-on experience and gain valuable insights from experienced teachers cost is $1,200 being paid through the uh instructional Improvement funds and I'm sorry but I don't remember what shape stands for I know it's an acronym for good question something that relates to physical education yeah something P Society of health and physical yeah Educators okay thank you okay so the the first thing that caught my eye is that this
020is a physical education conference but on the website for shape America of shap america.org it on the splash page it lists the top five reasons to attend and only two of those have to do with physical education three of them have to do with um social and emotional um aspects uh I can read these one is gain best practices for integrating social and emotional learning and Trauma informed instruction uh the third one is Implement an inclusive whole child Approach at your school and the the third instance is uh more ways to foster thank you more ways to foster equity and inclusion within your classroom and school community and my concern with these is that and we're seeing this across the board almost almost across the board in any of these conferences that we are that
021these that these conferences are encouraging and teaching teachers PE staff anybody that goes to be more um sort of uh what's the term I used um amateur armchair psychologists and this one in particular the reason that it caught my attention is because I thought oh PE physical education that's you know getting out that's being active but now we're focusing this conference is focusing so much on the social emotional learning the the diversity equity and inclusion things that things that in my opinion teachers in general should avoid um because these are issues that are should be should be reserved for licensed uh licensed psychologists licensed psychiatrists and we're asking our teachers to um or or we're I guess we these conferences are encouraging and teaching our teachers how to be these these amateur arm armchair psychologists
022and so I I went through the website and just to look at some of the offerings some of the classes that are offered um to see because I thought maybe you know maybe those are just buzzwords that they put on their splash page to um you know for one reason or another um and so I went through the the the out the break out sessions um and I just highlighted a few of these um but some of them include um embracing and ensuring inclusive practices Parts one and two um Beyond rainbows and pronouns teaching about gender identity in Elementary School uh there's a coffee talk session about uh bipo which is what does it mean is it okay to use um day one and day two uh for those that aren't familiar bipo is a
023um an acronym that is commonly used for um indigenous and people of uh indigenous people and people of color um some other offerings here are uh the impact of social media on advocacy and mental health uh day one and day two incorporating social emotional learning strategies into your physical education class uh Coffee Talk Equity diversity and is equity diversity and inclusion a good thing uh is equity diversion and incl diversity and inclusion sorry is the equity diversity and inclusion conversation still going strong um cultivating equity in nutrition education cultivating equity in physical educ education uh gender diverse PE programs uh hey you can't say that language that promotes equity and inclusivity uh and then there were um a number of uh references to uh specific um resources used by those putting on these breakout sessions
024and some of those are um developing and valid and development and validation of the emotional problem measurement scale um development of social emotional learning survey instrument and after school settings um there's one here the one uh after school physical activity program social and emotional learning of children and in there there's a description and part of the description says pre- and postmeasures of preschool and Elementary children's social emotional competencies uh let's see some other ones increasing children's social emotional learning through cspap aligned interventions investigation of social emotional learning and execution function in High School PE uh and those are just a few of the examples that I found and so uh again my main concern is that and I want to make it clear that there is I have no reason to think or believe that
025any teacher that we send to any conference would would go for the intent or bring back methods and practices that would that would not be conducive to um helping our kids our students Excel academically um my my apprehension is that these uh these conferences are becoming more and more focused on teaching Educators to become these these unlicensed armchair psychologist and I think that that is uh I think that's going to um be to the detriment of our students and our families and I also think it opens us up to litigation and um and financial trouble if some some instructor at one of our schools tries to or or or or [Music] try tries to help but does so inappropriately uh because they're not licensed um and and there's some negative result uh some some negative
026result that that stems from that and that's going to be somebody's going to look at us and say why are your teachers or why are your especially here why are PE teachers doing this why aren't they just teaching our kids and so that's my concern um I think there is uh a I think we're we're seeing this more and more we have been seeing it more and more um and I I don't think I I don't know if there's any the only thing that I can think of that we can do to um encourage the the the folks and the organizations that put on these conferences to stick to academics to stick to physical education is to not support them with our dollars when they're doing things that are going to put us and our
027students at risk and so that's what I wanted to bring before the board tonight I have a question for you not having it in front of us are there other um choices of of classes to take other than what you just brought up there are are there plenty of others there are yeah and that's and that that's a great point and I trust that um the Tony what's his last name I'm sorry she Tony Chilton Tony CH Tony Chilton yes trust that they're going to choose the the breakout sessions in the coures that they feel are going to best um help them in their interaction with uh through PE with the kids and when um when they go and teach uh other our other PE teach come back and share with other PE teachers what
028they learned but again it it just seems like this this um this Push by these organizations to is going is is being weaved into every everything that's going on at these conferences and so even if there are sessions breakout sessions and keynote speakers and other speakers that are talking about seemingly you know very appropriate things for our kids in regards to PE my fear is that this this this push to to to to make our teachers more psychologist than teacher is going to be is going to permeate through everything going on at these conferences any other I have something I'd like to say but I'll let you go ahead um Mr Thompson first off when we have large organizations we're not going to agree with everything in a large organization we can pick and choose
029the things that will be beneficial to us I attend asba conferences I do not agree with everything that happens or goes on in asba conference but I can certainly pick and choose many many helpful things for myself I was uh very grateful that a few years ago um one of our PE teachers and invited me to attend a um I think it was a similar conference shaped conference in Phoenix for just a day they were allowing administrator um administrators and board members to attend and I really thought it was a very exciting conference um some of our teachers were presenting they were presenting about things like team building and using games to help the students learn to work together um some people might categorize that as social emotional learning I think it's a good thing
030for students to learn how to work together when they're in a large group of diverse students so um also when you talk about Equity um diversity and inclusion some people see that as a negative label I myself see Equity is saying that we are going to meet the needs of every student in our district no matter where they are what they need we will try to provide so that everyone gets a great outcome I see diversity as the fact that I I grew up in the 60s and 70s in Utah pretty much everybody looked like me on my entire street we have a very much more diverse um population especially here in Arizona because we live close to the Border we have a mix of culture cultures and languages and people and so learning to
031deal with those differences and addressing those in a positive way that if a if a student say one of our students is a Native American that they can come here to our district and feel proud of the culture that they come from if they are a black student they can come here to our district and feel proud of the culture that they have same with any other student a white student or a his Hispanic student or a student just any any religion family style um cultural style that we value that child for who they are so I don't I don't see diversity as a negative word I see it as a positive I I know these words have been sort of bandied about and uh when we talk about inclusiveness I think of it as
032the word belonging we want people to feel like they belong in our community that they are a part of our community and so I trust that this teacher whom I know is a very experienced PE teacher and has done a lot of great things can select the conference that helps her um to to further her craft and her expertise as a teacher and I very much trust that no teacher wants to be an arm armchair psychologist that's not what they want to do they do not want to take over the role of parents they want to be there as a support and a help to that family in raising their children and in giving their children the best education possible but we have children coming and when we talk about trauma informed we have children
033coming to school that may need need additional ways of learning or a ways of of learning to deal with the students around them I mean you know if you're in a class of 25 to 30 kids there's a lot of learning to deal with other people that has to go on for there to be a positive learning environment so um well I can see that some of these might be very concerning to you I trust that that teacher will make good decisions and choose the things that she knows will benefit our district and again when we have large organizations coming and putting together a conference we're going to have a variety of viewpoints represented and we can choose the things that work the best for us that's my thoughts I appreciate that thank you any
034other I was thinking about it I I am appreciative of staff that is willing to go um receive more training and to try and gather new ideas to hone in their craft and to bring it back I am I do have some concerns with some of the classes that are listed and the I do know social emotional learning is part of every learning no matter what but I do have concerns with some of the focus on on some of these classes as well so again I think it is becoming an interesting an interesting thing that we see more and more of as we're as we're dealing with this so I appreciate you bringing it up and letting us have a chance to look at it you i' I'd like to just say that having been
035to a lot of conferences Through The Years um there have been numerous ones where I have philosophically not agreed with something that was on you know class that was presented in terms of of the a teaching strategy or whatever and I just didn't go um and I think that's you know I think we need to be able to say to our teach we're not going to be able to control that and I think that we should trust that our teachers are going to do the very best that they can uh I think we're if we start down this road there's not going to be any place anybody can go and you know I think that we have we teachers that teach in Gilbert understand what our community is like and are respectful of it so
036I don't have an issue with it any any other okay so I believe the the the motion was to approve it I is that the motion you made Mr Thompson okay and and I also agree that was a good discussion so the motion was to approve this 6.09 staff travel all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed so 5 Z vote it is has been approved and we now go to the adjournment do I hear a motion to adjourn I move to adjourn thank you Mrs humre a second second okay Mrs wood thank you so it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please signify by saying I I I I I don't think there's anybody opposed thank you very [Music] much