001all right you guys ready good evening we'd like to welcome you to the regular board meeting tonight Tuesday November 28th 2023 and thank you to all those who are joining us here we're excited to have you as well as any who are joining us online or later watch it recorded we appreciate your attendance we will begin with a call to order and then be followed by a Moment of Silence after which Mr Chad Thompson will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance if you'll please stand and join join me in a moment of [Music] silence back [Music] today thank you I alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all thanks chair thank you
002all I will now ask Miss Wilson for a roll call Mr Chad Thompson here Miss Rhonda page here Miss Sheila ug jetti here Miss Lori wood here miss Jill humph here Madame President all board members are present you have a quorum thank you very much that will take us to approval of agenda item 2.01 board members is there a motion I move that we approve the agenda as presented thank you Miss jetti is there a second second thank you Miss humph it's been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda as submitted all those in favor please vote by saying I I any oppose with nay thank you that passes 5 that will take us to our superintendent recognition Awards Dr McCord thank you madam president govering board members if you join me in front
003of the dis we'll present our recognitions good evening oh good good evening good evening thank you thank you thank you welcome uh to our board meeting tonight um we are going to recognize uh a few people some athletic teams teacher social workers groups of kids it's going to be great are you guys ready all right first person tonight that we would like to recognize is Mrs Jenny Nicholls Jenny please come on [Applause] up I'm good we we going to try to recognize Jenny at last month's meeting but she she had a sick teacher she teaches music and so she covered for her that night this is the type of person we're recognizing tonight Jenny has been awarded the Arizona string Teacher of the Year by the a string Association please give her a hand Jenny
004is taught Orchestra and general music for Gilbert public schools for 39 years Miss Nichols currently teaches orchestra at Gilbert Elementary and Ashlin Ranch elementary schools and is the district department chair for elementary strings Jenny has a passion for teaching teachers and regularly mentors pre-service teachers and teachers new to Gilbert Jenny's favorite students were her four children all were in her strings class in elementary school and do we have one under employment El Gilbert Elementary her daughter teaches for us now we're like the mafia folks you we don't ever let you out uh Jenny I I know you personally and I know everything that you do uh and you have a lot of passion for what you do and that's exactly what we appreciate and respect about you and wellers deserve reward congratulations Jenny I have
005to just so you guys know it is always picture time after your presentation so don't leave one more time can I have Coach Dave Montgomery or coach Monty as everybody likes to say from Highland High boys and girls cross country come up Mr montgomry Dave and I tend to meet each year right around this time in the same spot it's a good habit again it's a great habit um so Highland High School boys and girls cross country won the division one Championship this year and I'm going to let Coach talk do you have any girls with you and boys oh there look at oh wow come on up bring the hardware it is look at you guys I guess you also one best dressed right coach go ahead and say some words well well first
006I'd like to uh acknowledge today as my anniversary 36 years to my wonderful wife Sheree in the back there so she deals with the early mornings and the late nights and the weekend's gone and stuff so she's the best teammate and best person for me so anyway I want to kind of go through this real quick cuz I know we got lots to go here but uh these both these teams uh won last year and this year and no other uh cross country teams have done that in the history of Arizona across country so that's cool uh the girls three Pete they three Pete I don't know how do you beat that but the three and then the guys were back to back so that's kind of cool um so on the girls side I'm
007just going to have them raise their hand I'm just going to give you their place at State um we have Alder humpher sophomore 36th Place wave uh and then McLaren Cruz a freshman 33rd then Addy Frost one of our most improved she's a junior got a medal 21st Place Charlotte Greer always very strong all year Junior and 18th Kenley Jackson our only senior she just signed with MCC and she finished ninth and then Cameron Delany is sophomore finished fourth and then Stella Hall um just ran out of her brain and they all did but this one just went after it to win it uh she took runner up not by much uh By 10 meters she got beat by a girl from Basia but it was incredible gutty effort uh the girls record was 160
008wins and two losses and the losses were at uh big meet desert Twilight where all the Colorado schools Arkansas California they all come down to race on the fast course and we took third that those are the only two schools that beat us were from Colorado and they're ranked in the nation so that was pretty impressive so anyway best girls team out of all the divisions and if you notice one senior on the boys side our number seven was Christian Leck our one of our our soccer multisport gu senior 46th Place raise your hand there Christian where are you and then uh we have a a a former basketball player he just loved the run on so much I we think he needs counseling but he loves uh he loves running and he did really
009well this year Junior Brady Moore 38th Place and then uh sophmore Sam Davis passed 20 guys the last 600 meters to finish 30th Sam raise your hand and then uh our hockey player you know he's our enforcer in case someone gets out of line out there but uh he's a senior in 26th Place and then Wildman Tim Wilford senior 18th Place and then our our blonds have more fun guy Lucas Witcher senior at 10th place and crew Golden Boy senior eighth place the number one Runner there we go the girls were solid all year you know and uh when the gun went off at State you know you don't ever predict that you can win but these girls were solid all year we kind of figured uh that they were going to be solid and
010obviously they came through and ran what they were supposed to to the Boys At 2 miles we were down by 12 points to Hamilton High School boo anyway so we were down and I'm looking at my phone looking at you know oh no man you know I'm kind of coming up with a speech okay well if you take second I got to go in there you know cuz you know they're going to be disappointed and anyway the last 600 meters these seven guys passed over 40 guys to to get us the win and they won by 11 points and the program had 75 Runners we we we show up at 5:00 a.m. we run at 5:00 a.m. 6 days a week starting in June so these guys you know so proud of them and you
011know state championships are hard to get even though I've been coming back here but they're just hard to get uh it's very competitive in our state so appreciate yall thanks for uh having us and thank you Mr M thank you sir if there yes we'll get a picture if there are any parents of these students could you please stand up here tonight thank you thank you for letting us coach and teach your kids Tera Hall has she left already oh okay go yeah okay if you guys will go through shake hands and then come back and we're going to have to do a couple rows so boys probably on your knees Girls behind them and then the board all right go ahead [Applause] coach all right soeing so we're kneeling guys I know just go
012to your right it's okay all right gentlemen on your knee girls right behind oh this is photography after board members will fill in Jonathan how was that was that good Campo take note you're next one two a mean [Music] guy tag me ladies and gentlemen your boys and girls cross country championships from Highland High happy anniversary and I think coach Monty said for his anniversary he's taking everybody out for ice cream see how fast you can run now all right uh if I could have from Campo ver High School coach Brian Koger that uhoh obviously I didn't say it right say it kre Koger you know you've done it before don't laugh at me Cara krower and John Clayton not here okay how you doing guys good so your Campo ver coyotes this is historic
013the first ever 5A state champion in flag football congratulations if we could have those Champions come on up woo coach if you could talk a little bit about your team and then maybe have pass this down and have them introduce themselves that'd be great and talk about the big Championship win that actually makes it easy on me to let them talk cuz I as the players know and my parents know I don't normally talk in front of groups very much other than on the football field um but as somebody that's been coaching flag football for about 5 years now um to see the state finally recognize it as a sanction sport for the girlss um it's awesome and just for us to be the first Champions is really cherry on the top um the amount
014of work that these girls put in this year um from practicing on Saturday mornings film two days a week on top of practice um it just shows their dedication and um just proud of what what they did this year your name and what year you are Maddie Koger position Junior wide receiver and safety Kelsey Shelton Junior quarterback and safety uh Izzy Pap sophomore quarterback uh Sammy KO um senior I play tight end and linebacker M Robertson I'm a sophomore a linebacker and a running back um Katie mccan uh sophomore corner and wide receiver uh Brennan Reed I'm a junior and I play running back and lineman Addison I'm a sophomore and center and linebacker I'm Emmy castorf szer and I am a corner and ride receiver M I'm a senior uh T and linebacker Michaela
015White Horse dorak I am a freshman and I play free um strong safety um I'm Rihanna grani I'm a junior I play corner and wide receiver um I'm Bailey Morgan I'm a freshman and I play running back and defensive back I'm Maddie I'm a sophomore and I play running back in corner I'm Nivea Don I'm a senior I'm a center and I'm a linebacker Veronica Hutchings I'm a junior and I play wide receiver I'm Serena doosa I'm a sophomore and I play Rusher and wide receiver um I'm Sean holling said I'm a junior and I play [Applause] linebacker well coyotes we're extremely proud of you for everything you've accomplished like coach said this is the first year coming out of the gate and you guys showed them what Campo ver is all about what Gilbert
016Public Schools is all about we are so very proud of you and congratulations once again thank you one more time for these guys can you come through and shake hands with the board and then stay around for pictures well done guys well done coaches board members this like that well done [Applause] kampo if I could have have Mr Alvarado sis or athletic director assistant principal from mosqu high come up and the friends that he brought with them they're arguing with you already they're like no you're good so we love championships we love coming in first that's what competition's all about but not entirely it's also about the people playing the game and how they conduct themselves and the AIA hands out uh some awards and officials hand out awards for sportsmanship and that's real big
017especially in today's day and age if you haven't been to a high school athletic event uh they can get pretty chippy and out of control and um this award goes to the mosquite High girls flag football team they won the five a sports official sportsmanship award and that's huge so congratulations to you guys introduce yourself all right I'm Mr Alvarado uh I'm the athletic director um so basically at the end of games the officials get to go in and they rate our players our coaches and our fans so it it incorporates everybody in the stadium and how we interact with the officials and with the other team so um it was an entire group effort it was really cool it's a fun group of parents they're in the stands um learning football as the girls
018do and and doing the first down uh stuff and but always positive always cheering on the girls um I know in the playoffs it didn't and we lost in the quarterfinals and um we got our butts handed to us a little bit cute um but we would take their flag and hand it back to them help the girls up encourage and I had good luck in it was really cool just to see off check check oh they uh competed really well but uh how they handled defeat was even more impressive so I'm proud of our girls and our coaches and our families you want say anything yeah so um I'm one of the assistant coaches for the girls flag football team here and I will tell you oh sorry I'm I'm Chelsea Jordan I'm also
019a counsel at the school too so I see these girls on and off the field um and just watching them out there uh learning how to be good teammates to one another and how to support um their opponents even whenever you know we're handing out beatings but we're also taking some as well um yeah so just watching them evolve throughout the season and grow up was great so yeah it's definitely a great Sport and we're happy that it's finally sanctioned yes and if you're wondering the rest of my team is at our first soccer game of the season season that took about 10 girls maybe and then a handful at basketball so uh these are my spring athletes and dance dancing queen at the end will you have't introduced themselves which position just say your
020name I'm Hannah McKinley Corner uh Kayla Salsbury linebacker Alexis sling I play linebacker ladies and gentlemen Ms high thank you guys shake hands with the board congratulations thanks foring yes picture time I think everybody can stand we'll just squeeze in and around well [Applause] done and um just everybody knows Highland High girls flag football team could not be here tonight but they won the 6A officials sportsmanship award for their division so congratulations to [Applause] Highland GPS Community Native American her AG month will Angel oh I know t a Dy t i n Angel tattin yes come up and Candace Haro who are you this is Ashton in case anybody's wondering hello how are you I'm going to read some things if you guys don't mind everybody else that's with these two wonderful ladies please come
021on up angel and Candice provided valuable learning opportunities in recognition and celebration of Native American heritage month they started the month with a native hoop Dance by Sierra herox a Highland High student at Pioneer Elementary School Sierra there you are is that you well done they followed it by coordinating a rock your mocks event on November 15th at Pioneer they invited students and staff to represent their Heritage and share their culture with their schools by wearing Native American moccasins traditional dress and jewelry Sierra also performed the native hoop dance and spoke to all Pioneer Elementary students and staff about not giving up and staying motivated it was a great representation from our very own social worker workers Angel and Nico where's Nico there you are Nico everybody else got a shout out I got to
022give you one as well as Candice Sierra and her students would you like to say a few words you're like not really it's okay go ahead um yeah uh my name's angel tton I'm Navajo I'm from uh Northern Arizona and Candace Horax is my sister that's why we're able to partner in this we don't look the same um and of course Nico also is Navajo and he's a social worker here at Gilbert public schools and so we were able to come together and get our little ones involved in sharing our culture with our new schools that we're at cuz we're we're fairly new to the Gilbert Public Schools so um it was very exciting and fun to do yeah I'm Candace uh this is my fourth year in the Gilbert School District very blessed to
023have been hired by the Gilbert School District uh we we also performed at um Augusta Ranch and uh Highland Park and that was fun for the kids and we just love sharing who we are with the school district and we really enjoyed it I I don't really want to say anything I'm good one tell what what grade you're in where you go to school all that fun stuff um I'm Hunter horox I go to Highland and I'm a freshman uh y uh my name's Sierra horox and I'm a junior um my name's Sydney horox and I go to Highland Junior High School and I'm in seventh grade my my name is sage and I'm in fifth grade and I also go to Holland Park or Elementary Park School whatever it's ladies and gentlemen we appreciate
024you bringing your heritage to us and it is such a special occasion and I think making sure that we wear our heritage well like everybody is here uh makes it even that much more special so thank you for sharing that with us and our schools and we can't wait to see what else is coming from you guys one more time thank you please shake hands and then we'll get a picture if you'd like hi buddy hey buddy I have my my we have cousins that go to park [Music] pictures all right guys here we go can we spread those Hoops out yeah yeah yeah nice good go ahead I'll stay out of your [Music] way C [Applause] thank you guys ladies and gentlemen this is why we're here and this is what we're all about
025our kids our staff and our community one more time for all of our winners Madam president govering board members that concludes the recognitions for this evening thank Youk you [Music] can't you ready ready thank you again for those Awards and for all who attended that was really special we will now go to our superintendent's report Dr McCord thank you madam president govering board members before I start that I'd like to recognize a few people that are with us tonight uh we have three people from our Spire program this is a program that uh current GPS uh employees are part of that aspire to be administrators one day so we're getting psychological checks done on them it's going to be great no let me introduce some Julie Doyle from Greenfield Jr stand up that part of
026being administrator you got to be embarrassed uh Patricia Shores Highland high school and Marcus hire Highland High School thank you guys for being here this tonight good evening again to everyone Welcome to our meeting I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable Thanksgiving like to thank unite for Education uh and the members of unite for education for their efforts in supporting our bond and override election uh we may not have secured a win for the bond and override but your hard work and dedication will was noticed and greatly appreciated congratulations to the Highland High School varsity football team for making it to the semi-final game with the Open Championship they were defeated by a very tough Liberty team but our Hawks played their hearts out thank you to the players coaches and families I know
027the time and dedication that goes into a successful program and what you accomplished this year was exceptional on December 14th in the morning right here in this very boardroom we are going to honor around 40 of our employees who have been with us for 25 years they will enjoy a breakfast and be presented with the plaque signifying their 25 years of dedication to education this is always one of my favorite events because we get the opportunity to honor our administrator support staff teachers and those who have dedicated their lives to our children thank you for making education a priority in your lives is it cold in here no well well it'll be Frozen at Highland High School on Thursday Friday and Saturday this week Highland High will present the first ever High School production of
028Disney's Frozen the Broadway musical in Arizona with performances on November 30th through December 2nd at 700 p.m. with a maea show on the 2nd at 2 p.m. the school earned this opportunity as part of a nationwide competition where one high school in every US state was chosen to to win exclusive rights to present the musical in 2023 a wide range of Performing Arts at Highland High will work together to create a night to remember for friends family and the Wier Highland High Community students from drama choir orchestra and stagecraft programs that the school are involved and are at the center of the entire production on stage behind the scenes in the orchestra and as director the students will be supported by a team of Highland High St Laura Hardy in her third year as the
029theater director at Highland will lead the production featuring over 50 students alongside music director Katie boram and choreographer Tia trepte I'm sure I just butchered their name Orchestra conductor Craig gromley and technical director Nathan crane 75 students auditioned and 33 made it into the cast there will be an orchestra of over 20 students and over 20 stage craft students designing on the crew this is the opportunity for students to Showcase their amazing talents in song Dance Design musicans as well as their sense of compassion towards our community through this beautiful story's message of love for each other and oneself while being extraordinarily fun it is also such a meaningful story about the healing power of love said director Laura Hardy ladies and gentlemen if you have time go see Frozen it'll be great this would
030that concludes my report for this evening thank you Dr mcord we will now go to our requests to speak to the govering board and we have one request if we could have the admonition read please request to speak to the governing board pursuant to AR ARS 38-43 1.02 the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to The Reason able 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
031board 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 open 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 Ked are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms requ required for the use of these policies can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you and we have Pam seili and if you'll correct my pronunciation please you'll have three minutes to speak and the time will time will come up thank you sure thanks very much all right um I just I wrote it partly to
032make sure I'd stay within the time okay why am I here it's to express my issue with the recent Val Vista Lakes act Elementary acted out marriage of two women in a spelling lesson where Q married to you this was shortly before Thanksgiving the direct message that this gives to Children there is that same-sex marriages are so fully accepted by all this is not a value that all fames support I'm shocked that they saw no need to mention to this list to parents in advance or afterwards how do children learn most and best well by example and who do they learn this from from trusted examp examples if teachers principes other staff are not trusted by students I would be surprised what really speaks volumes is this was actually also posted on official Valvista lak
033social media and then also shared on GPS social media many many parents I know because I've been hearing from them would have never approved this in advance if notified afterwards they would have had the opportunity to discuss this with their children I imagine many families did because they had that opportunity due to this being sent further through social media to um via other channels bottom line though I know GPS is losing enrollment and it's not just due to fewer children living in the district actions like these um have shocked and disappointed many many Gilbert Pan um parents and families at the very least I ask that the school makes a statement that this is against District policy and that the principal um teachers and other participants are censored and that this is documented it isn't
034an acceptable situation to so many of us who live in Gilbert and I do want to just share that I even though my kids went to Gilbert public schools and they have extended family that's still in the GPS it's not something that we're going to passively forget we do vote we do donate and we do support campaigns in many ways I know there's one person on the school board here who responded to my email and said they're nice people they go to church and I'm like that doesn't really say anything it's actually just like what do you think I am a fool that these children aren't being influenced by these types of behaviors in the classroom they are so on that note um thank you for letting me come and speak my thoughts on this
035and I know that all of you have the best interest of the kids at heart but sometimes it's important to think about the other you know the full spectrum of parents that are out there thank you thank you very much we appreciate that we appreciate that and that will now take us to our reports uh 6.01 we'll go to our monthly financial report for the month ended October 31st 2023 Dr McCord thank you Madame President governing board members I hand it over to our associate superintendent of Business Services Miss Bonnie Betts good evening governing board members president wood um Dr McCord uh this is a short presentation just to give you the status of our financials a as of October 31st of the current fiscal year so as usual District operating funds are going to
036be um information about the district operating funds will be shared as well as state grants Enterprise funds other District funds and Debt Service service just a reminder we choose the particular fund groupings based upon the changes that have occurred and we we highlight those within the grids so to begin uh again as always maintenance operations and unrestricted Capital are shown this just indicates that we continue to spend as expected we're through the first um over the first quarter now and remember that the year-to date expended encumbered is also includes encumbrances so includes the expected spend of all salary and benefits through the remainder of the fiscal year also note that there's an available balance of about $6.5 million this particular grid is still reflecting the adopted budget as you know we've had some significant changes
037uh the annual financial report has now been presented and we will be sharing with you the um a pending budget revision for the uh report shown in December are there any questions about any of that before I move forward okay great so the state grants again we shared this grid uh last month as well you can see the negative available balance um but we had described last month that the reason for that is that the budget needs to be revised we did receive uh late notification on the instructional Improvement that we received additional revenues late um prior to when we were able to adopt the um I mean after we adopted the budget and then the school safety program we were awarded additional resources in that school safety program so those will all be corrected
038when we do the revised budget which we are expecting to present to you in January um the next grouping is the Enterprise funds this uh new fund 521 is a is a new Community Education Grant that's going to be a Workforce Grant related to being able to U provide incentives and additional U Personnel to support our community schools programs in Gilbert and so we we were just awarded that amount um other District funds just sharing advanced placement summer Institute um the advanced placement summer Institute was begun we finished our second year I believe Jared this past summer and at this time they are now trying to procure all of their teachers for the summer already so there are some incumbrances going on right now uh reflected on the in that year-to dat expended encumbered column
039in addition an employee benefit trust you can see that we continue to show a very strong available balance um but uh keeping in mind that that October was the month in which we did do the premium holiday so revenues were a little bit less than expenditures all expected um but still in a very good uh positive financial position and then finally the bond Debt Service we normally don't share this with you but it was interesting that we have a year-to DAT expended encumber encumbrance amount of just under $30,000 as you know The Debt Service fund are generally paid in January and July so it's kind of odd to have an expenditure and an encumbrance at this time of year uh the the requirement for bonds is that we have what we call Arbitrage calculations we
040are not allowed to earn interest on bond proceeds that exceed the interest earned on those bonds when that does happen then we are obligated to pay a tax to the um Internal Revenue Service so the large the large portion about 23 $24,000 is that IRS payment that we were doe from prior that we were requ requ ired to pay from prior um Bond proceeds interest earnings please know that the interest earnings though definitely exceeded what we had to pay so it was still it's still it's always good to have a positive Arbitrage because that means we're earning enough interest on those dollars and all of those interest earnings go back to the taxpayer to decrease the the um tax burden on our taxpayers and then finally a small portion is associated with doing the Arbitrage
041calculations we do have a consultant that does our Arbitrage calculations for us when they are due u based upon IRS regulations and that's the end of my report today thank you Miss fets are there any questions board members Mr Thompson if you could go back I think it's slide 678 where we had those funds with the negative balance so after the the funds that the later funds are after this budget is amended to include the later incoming funds will both of those available balances then be positive or will we still have a negative balance in either of those both of them will be positive the last payment that we received for instructional Improvement as an example was um nearly $700,000 so both of them will result in a available balance that will be positive thank
042you anything further I I just wanted to share I appreciate the hard work and I just want to remind our community that we are doing current year budgeting there was a change in the statute a few years ago and so we are still working on assumptions about what our 100 day count will be and what our budget will be and so that way we do need to have a positive um we we need to be careful not to use all our funds so that if we are not accurate in our predictions that we have the funds to continue on to the end of the year thank you Miss humre Miss paig I just also wanted to make sure that we clarify that the bond not passing does not affect this next fiscal year with correct
043the the override um North Bond will impact this next fiscal year that's correct that's it thank you Miss SPS we appreciate that we will now move to 6.02 teaching and learning academic Spotlight Dr McCord thank you madam president govering board members I will turn this one over to our assistant superintendent of teaching learning uh Mr Jared Ryan I believe we have a spotlight on one of our Junior highs Mr Ryan yes sir Dr mcord Madam president governing board thank you so much for the opportunity um to Spotlight one of our programs we're so excited um to see and hear about the great work that they're doing on campus um if Mr Davis Miss Bernard and Miss Hubert would come and join us that would be great um briefly earlier Dr McCord mention this is why
044we're here when we talked about extracurriculars and between our extracurriculars and our academic um spotlights and the great things going on academically on campus we have so much to to share I remember earlier this year quick story um then I'll turn it over to Miss Taylor to do a formal introduction but earlier this year we had an opportunity to sit down and discuss this and what did we want the academic spotlights to really look like what do we want it to Encompass and I remember Miss Taylor's face just kind of beaming as she talked about the great work going on at our junior high schools and Junior Highs are challenging um two years of of having students on campus feels like every year you lose half of your leaders or or more as they move
045on to high school and and you're have new sixth graders coming on to join you that are learning the ropes at a junior high and and it's a challenge and to find out where students are academically and to really put attention to the detail and the strategy and working with students to prepare them for the next steps is is hugely challenging and and we're very proud of Desert Ridge Junior High School and the other Junior highs and they're here to share tonight I'll turn it over to Miss Taylor thank you uh Madame President governing board members Dr McCord it's my privilege to introduce Desert Ridge Junior High team as our academic Spotlight this month uh they have made tremendous gains in the last couple years with their student outcomes and it is because of their
046um focus on their goals and it's an honor to listen to them speak during our impact check for their continuous Improvement plan uh so tonight we are going to ask them to share what they provide on campus as far as student interventions and how they utilize The Advisory period at our junior high schools uh 4 days a week and at this time I'm going to turn it over to them we have our principal Mike Davis our dean of students Angie barard and our instructional coach at Desert Ridge Junior High toy Hubert [Music] all right thank you so much uh good evening board president wood board members of the board Dr McCord and members of cabinet uh my name is Mike Davis I'm very proud to be the principal of desert idge Junior High um very
047proud of the work that we put in uh every day we love our kids uh we know how important uh the work that we're doing every day is um and we do know that we have them for a very short amount of time the two years so uh we want to make the most of that opportunity so we thank you for this opportunity to share uh what we're doing at our school for student interventions I also want to mention how fortunate I am uh to work with the amazing Junior High principles um and the fact that they're so collaborative and willing to share what's working on their campuses um as you've already done you've introduced uh most of our team uh Mr loette couldn't be here tonight he has an illness um I have a
048slight illness I'm trying out for the oakd boys a backup singer with my deep voice tonight um but I'm very PR of the work that uh Angie Bernard Ard dean of students has done in the last two years at our school She's really BR a focus into our classrooms with teacher strategies and another person that our staff can go to so I really thank her for her hard work and toy Hubert who joined us uh also as an instructional coach and as you will soon see the addition of an uh instructional coach uh has changed my life dramatically um as the instructional leader of Desert Ridge Junior High many times I'm pulled away uh dealing with a multitude of situations and having toy on our campus uh is a constant highly qualified instructional coach that
049is there for my teachers at all times um there is no fear of evaluation just an amazing resource and relationships built with teachers um and she helps design professional development in the moment so we're just we're really excited about what she's been able to do um and that has helped us because we base everything off our student data and our teacher feedback and that's how we keep our CIP or our continuous learning plan uh alive so at this time I'm going to turn it over to miss Andrew Bernard to begin our intervention uh presentation you're GNA make me do it I want you to do it okay hi my name is Angie Barner this is my second year as Dina student at Desert Ridge Junior High and I'm just going to go over a couple
050different things that we do at Desert Ridge that have started start to become very successful um advisory time is 4 days a week and it's a 26 minute period uh we currently Place students in an advisory class with one of their teachers because it helps build relationships in [Music] community that's good yeah next slide um we uh spend the first part of the Year getting to know our students and one important way that we do that is through data so there's lot of different pieces of data that we use we look at State data aasa and aella we look at aasa mimic which is the district test that we take beginning middle and end of year we use fastbridge data which is another District test that we use that identifies the lowest skills for math
051and reading including Lexile levels and we take that beginning middle and end of year as well um and of course teacher observations um after we get to know the students and identify some of their needs we create PD that is relative to District initiatives but also what our school and our students need and one of the needs that we identified was math math was a need um filling some of the gaps that we noticed our students had and how are we going to do that so last year we created um math intervention advisory classes for the math teachers not everybody can teach math and so we said for these Math teachers we're going to give you a smaller class size and we're going to put these students in your class we did it with different
052Math teachers the first year because we were thinking seeing uh seeing it from a different perspective from a different teacher might make the connection might make the click so that's what we tried for the first part last year um the feedback we got from the teachers um as we were reflecting on our year last year you know what was successful and what could we improve upon and they said we'd really like our own math kids we already have a connection and with those kids we would then see them twice a day uh we don't have to spend time with routines and and that kind of thing so we made that change this year so any student that we identify for this math intervention advisory class is with their math teacher um over the summer we
053used sixth grade data bass bridge data because it it brings down the skills to the lowest we used sixth grade data and the seventh grade data to create our advisory classes and we were able to start on day one which was a very successful thing um that I think we're very proud of that we could start from day one we had already looked at the data and and found out what our kids need and place them in the in the situation that would be best for them the class sizes are smaller they're about 15 kids so they can have individualized um attention the teachers create either lessons from fastbridge that are provided or they can create their own they do a pre and a post test so we can check on growth we're meeting all
054the time to talk about you know what did you choose for uh the standard why did you choose it what was the growth how do we meet the needs of the kids who didn't make the growth that you want in those kind of conversations and then this year we decided as a school we were going to create an initiative and purchase a program called ISL and it's a math program a lot of elementary schools use it and it is a K12 program which is amazing because we can kids at 7th and eth who are down who need skills at fifth grade level can get them and we can enrich uh kids who could go up to the 12th grade level so we're meeting the needs of whatever the kids need based on our fastbridge data
055I EXL can meet that so we still have those math advisory classes with the the the smaller class sizes but then every other student on our campus um is onl during advisory they can do it at the end of a class if they have some free time and they can even do it at home which is amazing thank you so in addition to math we at looking at the data we determine that math was our Focus however that's not all the data told us the data also told us that we had some kids that struggled a little bit in reading and so we looked at um in addition to the things that we did with our math and our our advisory and our intervention we also looked at um doing some schoolwide reading initiatives and
056we started by looking inward we were already in Avid school and Avid is a a program that is is a college readiness program that already has a lot of great instructional strategies that can be used across all the contents and so we the the CIP team or the uh School Improvement team teamed up with our school our site Avid team and talked about what are some of those strategies that we can really utilize in every single classroom with every single student and came up with a couple that that we're really pushing and so the first one is marking the text um and writing in the margins which is just a metacognitive reading strategy where our kids are really thinking about reading and and how they're thinking as they're reading which boosts their comprehension in addition
057we also um looked at costess levels of questioning which is an inquiry um strategy that it helps our kids take that basic comprehension to that next level really thinking about what am I reading and thinking deeply about that and so that was another strategy that we kind of just meshed into things that we were kind of already doing but saying hey this is what we're going to do schoolwide with all of our teachers to help our kids with reading in addition we had to look then okay these are the programs we're going to do now how are we going to prepare our teachers what are we going to do and that's where the professional development piece came in um and so we started we started by looking at the data so we thought gosh that's
058a great place to start our teachers right help them learn how to analyze interpret that D that data from fastbridge and ASA and mimic and so we um created some professional development that helped our teachers really understand what that data was telling them and how to dig into that data then we decided to take that a step further so after we taught them how to look at the data we taught them how to use it okay because that's that's an important step it's one thing to know how to look at it it's a whole another thing to say okay this is how we're going to use it this is how we're going to impact our students and so we talked to them about grouping about providing interventions about scaffolding how to provide enrichment for our
059kiddos that are already there so we did some training with our teachers about how to do those kinds of things as well um we wrapped around all of that our teacher Clarity which is part of our GPS instructional framework because teacher Clarity is a great blanket for everything right as long as we are helping our teachers understand deeply like what they are teaching and what they're doing their content their standards and then imparting that knowledge to our students that kind of encompasses all of that so we wrap that into our professional development as well and then finally just how to use those tools Angie mentioned that we have ISL we're teaching them how how do we utilize ISL to the best of our abilities how do we utilize those Avid strategies how do you use
060them in your classroom whether you're teaching PE social studies you know um any of any of our classes another thing that we looked at is what kinds of structures and procedures could we provide for our teachers that would help them be successful and one of the things that we looked at was something called win Wednesday and w when Wednesday stands for what I need Wednesday so one thing that we heard a lot from teachers was okay great you gave me this data you showed me how to use it where when in the world am I going to have time to help my kids right I have a a 60-minute class with 30 kids how am I going to how am I going to do that and so we sat down as a CIP team and
061talked about how can we provide that for teachers and so what we did was um for win Wednesdays we built a schedule that gives teachers every other Wednesday that opportunity to pause what they're doing in their content take a look at their format of assessment data and and help their students meet their students where they're at and and meet the needs of each of our classes and so what they do is they look at that data they say okay this this Wednesday these kids need some remediation these kids need to be pushed these kids might just need a little bit more time to finish a test or or a little bit of some more skills work on some things and so they develop activities and lessons that meet the kids where they're at so it's
062kind of like giving our teachers permission to say whoa slow down it's okay we can stop right here you have time to retach or you have time to look at our students individual needs and so I think providing that structure really just helped our teachers go oh it's okay like it's fine just you know to take that little break and do what we need to do for our kids which has encouraged them to kind of build in their own win Thursdays and Friday is and it's been a really a great thing to see our teachers transform in that way the last thing that we um talked about for as far as structure and tools that we could give our our teachers is we talked about we already had student agendas so we said how can
063we make student agendas even more meaningful for our teachers and our students and so we added something called the Friday form and so that's just a a tool that helps our students be more cognizant of what where they're at as far as their own learning their grades what they know where they need to go and it also helps them plan a little bit and so every Friday during our advisory class we have our um advisory teachers stop and talk to our kids they have a form that's already in their planner so it's in their agenda so they're utilizing a tool that they were already utilizing but now we're just amping it up a little bit and they take they write down their grades they write down missing assignments they write down if they have tests
064next week they write down if they have a volleyball game next week so that they can look at that and go oh man I have a volleyball game on Tuesday and I have a test on Wednesday how can I plan this out and so it's just a tool a guide because we know how hard that is for Junior High kids right to do that planning piece and to really do that so um it's just a tool to help them in addition it helps our advisory teachers make connections to those kids because on Fridays when they fill out their Friday form the expectation is that you conference with your teacher and you go talk to them about the things that you wrote down so that they can help you make that plan and make that connection
065it's also a home connection because we also have a a piece on there with a student or sorry a parent signature where the kids can take that home they can talk to their parents about hey this is what we did this week this is what I'm missing these are what my grades are just to open up that conversation at home and then again if a parent wants to sign that and send that back then they then our teachers know too hey my kids are going home and talking to their parents about that so it just provided kind of that tool that helps them be successful in all areas not just math or reading but just as a student um as a organized person all those things as you can see I have a team that
066makes our school look incredible um I'm just I'm proud every day of what we're doing uh the relationships we build with kids it's not perfect tonight sounded fantastic and well rehearsed and it's outstanding but it's it's messy and it's it's it's every day it's digging in it's re-evaluating it's checking to see uh tight loose tight you know what what what is working for us what do we need to be a little more accountable for um and we're just really excited about that so our plan moving forward um I was an elementary principal for 10 years and I know the data that we kept and then all of a sudden they went to Junior High and it was poof so what we've been doing for the last couple of years is we've been tracking the the
067state data for all of our feeder schools from grade 3 through six we look at the averages We compare them to where we're at and this was the first year that we were able to actually as as they said start on day one with interventions our our plan for the future is working with the elementary principles also to make sure that as those kids are coming up if we need to expand on some advanced math classes um some stem classes and if there's more remediation that we can do it may become an elective class rather than just an advisory uh so we really do want to work ahead and see as many kids from the elementary level as we can before they get to us because we want to make sure we are using our
068full two years uh to do its best for for the students so um at this point we're going to turn it back over to you guys but thank you so much for your time thank you thank you very much for the presentation board members are there any questions or comments Mr Thompson did you have something yeah I've got um a comment and a couple questions so first of all junior high is so hard it's so hard because these kids and and we've we you and I discussed this before these kids are coming from six years of elementary school where they you know were they they're very involved in in their in their Elementary education and they're also looking forward to their high school education where they're going to be for four years and so I
069think a program like this is a great way for is a great way to help students Buy in to these two years that they're in junior high and and make it not just a a stopping point in between Elementary and high school and I especially like the fact that we're spending more time with kids on the academic side because it's going to let them know that you really care about their progress and about their academics and I think that's going to even even more so help the buyin my questions so thank you for what you guys do it's it's it's a a tough tough couple years tough tough age for kids and uh so thank you so my questions are more um logistically oriented in regard to the advisory and I don't know if you're
070if you're referring to advisory as is that what the classes are called you you'd mentioned I think it was um anyway The Advisory slide where there these 20 there four days a week There's 29 minute periods logistically how does that work are all of the kids in taking that 29 minute period class at the same time every day or is it or is it spread out throughout the day yeah throughout um as we came through the co years uh the school's aligned and we all have an advisory period at the same time during the day so it's built into the schedule so um we were able to to look at how many minutes we have for each of the the seven classes but one of them is is the advisory period so all six uh
071seventh and eighth grade students at the same time go to an advisory uh the Bell starts it and the bell finishes it um so there's that specific time and over the years we've worked on different things whether it was going to be uh reading makeup work uh you know math and we've gotten to the point now where we're starting to use more of the what students need so in the future the hope is that if students are where they're supposed to be um that maybe they can do some additional band or orchestra or another skill that they have um but right now we're at the point where you know two-thirds of our our students are getting a letter about their math scores from the state uh and we needed to put our foot down on
072that so that's what we did this year um and as we move forward we just keep those options open but that that 26 minutes is is valuable and we use as as much of it as we can okay so that 26 minutes so it sounds like most of the students are using that 26 minutes to either work on math or reading is that right and then other and then but others it for other students it could just be something like a study hall or or something am I understanding that right we we've tried to stay away from it just being an open study hall over the years we've tried you know a Monday and a Thursday is going to be focused on reading and uh Tuesday Friday is going to focus on math kind of
073thing so it's kind of evolved and the more that we've looked into the data now we've gotten to the part where for this first quarter we were trying to get to the point of is it worth the financial investment to bring inl we wanted to talk to other schools we wanted to uh we know that it was working in the junior high or in the elementaries um but we wanted to really make sure that that was the step we wanted to take so for the first quarter our our most math um intensive students were assigned into the advisories and they've been working hardcore math all year long the rest of the students were working on pretty much what they needed to be during that time and now as first quarter ended and we've started into
074the ISL uh we're training staff on Wednesday on what the expectations are so we can share that with the students and the families and it is something that if a student is falling behind or is is currently behind or wants to work ahead um they're going to have the ability to that outside of school hours but we also are going to have like a minimum requirement during the day for the students okay and you'd mentioned that some of these classes that these kids go to are smaller classes some some of the math classes only have 15 students so they can get more you know more personalized instruction where do the other kids go if everybody's going if all the kids are going to the these same 26 minute periods where where do the other where
075do the other 15 kids that would have been in that class I don't know if I'm explaining if I'm asking this right but where do the other kids from from the normal size class go during that time are there other classes that have you know 45 kids in them to make up for the 15 that are trying to get the more more individualized instruction right and that and that's something that we look at when we look at the size of the the intervention group we we look to see you know what are the sizes of those other classes going to look like so we we never want to overburden a classroom you know we have a setup for 35 students in every classroom with some additional seating on the sides if need be um so
076being that in that advisory period the hope is that the teacher is is getting throughout the week to be able to touch five to six maybe eight kids having conversations each of the day to get through the group so some of our math classes are you know 15 to 20 based on on the need of those students and then the other advisory classes could be anywhere from 29 to 35 kids uh which isn't out of the normal realm okay thank you very much be back are there other questions yes Mr Pig um thank you so much for coming and doing that presentation and nothing makes me happier than listening to principles and administrators come and do these spotlights that have such a focus on your population that you know exactly what to do for them
077so I greatly appreciate that and it was also a pleasure meeting you at your school there's a great spirit over at Desert rid Junior High um I'm also grateful to Gilbert public schools because they give you the autonomy to be able to go and focus on programs that suit the needs of your kids there the students there I just have one quick question um in these math classes and maybe this is to Mrs Bernard I think that was who presented um once if they do achieve their goals are they then moved out of the class and if they are is there kind of a rotation that goes on if they do achieve their math goals yeah it's a great question um last year when we started we started in January and we just to get
078the kids and the teachers into what what an intervention looked like we kept the groups the same just for just to learn how to do it what did it look like just get everybody used to it this year an intervention class is meant to be much more fluid and so we looked at right as we got to the end of the quarter 1 uh we talked to the teachers who do you think needs to come out and based on your observations in class who needs to be put in and that's what we did if we took out five we put five in to keep those class sizes smaller it does make the other advisory classes a little bit bigger but not unmanageable and in an intervention class you really need to have the smaller numbers
079to to make the Imp imp that you need does that answer your question it does thank you so much so do you track that data and add it into your other data you do track it okay yeah thank you so much I also want to say that I think this is a wonderful way to do it because of the kids getting you know lost in junior high at some sometimes because it takes you a while to get to know them I just have a question because I really believe in Avid um do you utilize this period of time for some Avid training with some of the other kiddos we have uh Avid classes and sections on our campus and we still have Avid teachers um what we have is we have three Avid teachers that
080do not have an advisory class and they are meeting every day about the aage Avid class that they have and the future of avid um we changed over quite a bit of our staff in the last 3 years um this was our first year of having big stability um so we went from having a a schoolwide AVID program to backing out of that I didn't want to boast about something that we weren't at the time uh so we stepped back and this summer just so you know our our staff we had 14 staff members that went uh out of state or in in state to trainings um on their own time so we were really appreciative of them buying into the Abit so if if a student needs some you know like some um organizational
081skills or something like that are they able to get that during the 26 minute period of time at I mean you know it's you can kind of put it into whatever you do yeah we we do have that ability um you know in the first quarter we were able to uh teachers have that autonomy to see which kids are struggling which ones are communicating with teachers which ones can't uh or weren't so they have the ability to do those kinds of things they they talk with our counselors and we meet with our our desert intervention team um and our Behavior Health Team to see which students are maybe needing some of those skills so um at that point our counselors work with the student and their families and then we find uh opportunities for that
082to happen on the campus um moving forward as we do get into more of what students need um you an elementary principle forever we know that even though students need math they almost always also need reading so it's like who's going to win out so right now that's kind of our priority is just figuring out you know is it an organizational thing for a student is it a read thing is it a math thing all right awesome I I just want to thank you all for the presentation and Mr Davis you were the one that taught me how important data is to seeing where students are so that we can make sure that they learn instead of you know taking a test and moving ahead and just leaving that Gap we're making sure that they
083learn those um Concepts and St and things that they need so that they when they move on they have a full understanding so I really appreciate that and I really am amazed at all you're doing at Desert Rich jior high and thank you so very much thank you well thank you again and thank you to each of you and to each of your staff members and your teachers and for the focus on our students and the opportunities that you're giv each student to learn and grow it's phenomenal we appreciate it thank you very much thank you and I I thank the district for the support that they give us so thank you all thank you [Applause] was there anything further with that okay thank you very much we will now move to our consent agenda
084board members I am looking for a motion for the approval of consent agenda items I move that we approve the consent agenda items as listed thank you Mr Thompson it's been moved is there second second thank you Miss hre it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda items as listed all those in favor please vote by saying I I I any oppose with nay thank you that's pass 5 and are there any requests for future agenda items yes Mr Thompson so in light of um the events at Vista Lakes Elementary before the holiday I'd like to add um an agenda item where we review our protocols for communications with parents for some of these larger more organized events that take place at the schools um and also see if there's not a
085need to uh create some protocol for these larger events and activities um something along the lines of a checks and balances so that we can uh make sure that we're we're we're viewing these activities from all angles um before they take place in an effort to uh benefit both students and teachers okay I will discuss that with Dr mord that possibly is more of a policy regulation maybe we'll take it up at the policy meeting but I'll get back to you and we'll we'll we'll look at that thank you anything further thank you um that will take us to our board committee reports and I don't have anything to report I'm the city of Mesa liazon 9.02 town of Gilbert liazon Mrs pagee nothing to report tonight thank you thank you 9.03 Gilbert Education Foundation
086and audit committee Mrs humph uh just to report for the Gilbert Education Foundation we received SE 70 applications for our Innovation grants so um in the process of reading through those and selecting those um because we've had some you know we wish we could fund them all we just didn't raise $100,000 to do that so um we will be sorting through those and um in mid December the decision will be made um we also have our scholarships for staff and students are open and will remain open until those applications until March 4th and the V volunteer Varsity letter um application is also open and that's for students who have earned um 200 hours of community service and then on February 24th we'll have our 5K run walk and um that will be an exciting event
087so we have these coming up and really encourage uh those who are interested in the scholarships to go to the web website and apply and then we did have an audit committee meeting um and just everything's going really smoothly and we're doing very well with our Audits and coming back with really good um results thank you miss hre that will take us to 9.04 in Insurance trust representative Miss U jetti I don't have anything to report tonight thank you thank you 9.05 legislative representative Mr Thompson nothing tonight thank you thank you Dr McCord if you could take us through our meeting dates 10.01 thank you madam president governing board members on December 5th we have a board retreat and a board policy committee meeting and on December 12th we have a board business meeting that
088will be our last meeting of the first semester and 2023 thank you very much we appreciate that that will take us to our adjournment board members is there a motion I move that we adjourn thank you Miss paig it's been moved is there a second second thank you Miss eetti it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please vote by saying I I I any oppose with nay thank you