001foreign we'd like to welcome all of you to Tuesday September 26th 2023 our regular board meeting at six o'clock and thank you all for being here and welcome to those also who are participating or watching online or in a in a recorded broadcast in the future we will begin and I'll call this meeting to order and then we will have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by Mrs Sheila eugetti if you'll stand please and join me in a moment of silence foreign thank you I will now ask for Mrs Wilson to please call roll Mr Chad Thompson here here Ms Rhonda page here Miss Laurie wood here Ms Jill Humphries here Madam president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you that will take us to item
0022.01 the approval of tonight's agenda board members is their motion I move that we approve the agenda as presented thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved as our second second thank you Mrs page it's been moved and seconded that we approved the agenda as it's been presented all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with me thank you that's past five zero now we will move to the superintendent's recognition Awards and I will turn the time over to Dr Shane McCord thank you madam president governing board members if you join me in front of the dice we have some folks we'd like to recognize this evening [Music] good evening oh no we're not doing it that way tonight good evening oh thank you so much this is our first round of
003recognitions for the 23-24 school year and if you've been to these you know this is my favorite part of the meeting because we get a brag about some of the great staff and students that we have in our school district so the first one I'm going to brag about dismiss and Schwab come on up man you're welcome so Ann um after I'm done talking about you couple minutes speeches all you're gonna need to know now and uh teaches art for Gilbert Public Schools she's also the coordinator of Elementary k-6 art and she won an award and we'd like to tell you guys about it aaea award for distinguished services with within the profession Ann Schwab was selected as a recipient of the 2023 MacArthur Goodwin award for distinguished service within the art profession an honor
004presented by the Arizona art Education Association this Accolade is a testament to Anne's dedication to Quality Art education in the state of Arizona not only is she dedicated and recognized by the state but she's a huge Champion for art in Gilbert public schools and all of our elementary schools and we are extremely proud of her and we thank her for her service thank you I was also told that the Packers who do they play this week the Lions do we have any Lions fans out there this is kind of an inside joke do we have any Packers fans out there oh couple faithful back there good luck to you and the Packers but more importantly thank you for everything you do for Gilbert Public Schools we appreciate you thank you so much [Music] next if
005I could have principal Jennifer Greene assistant principal Kristen Mayfield and any staff from Neely Elementary here or students please come up they didn't expect everybody to come up so I'm sure I've thrown some for a loop but that's okay why are you up here well let's let's tell everybody why the U.S Department of Education recently announced its 40th cohort of National Blue Ribbon Schools Neely Traditional Academy was among just four in the state of Arizona to win this award the National Blue Ribbon Schools program celebrates schools for their overall Excellence or their progress in closing achievement gaps among student subgroups this is the second time that Neely has received this honor the first time was 14 years ago in 2019. Neely has also been recognized as an A-Plus School of Excellence by the Arizona Education
006Foundation and in 2022 Neely was ranked eighth on the list of best elementary schools in Arizona by U.S News world and Report ladies and gentlemen your 2023 National Blue Ribbon School if we could go down everybody introduce themselves yeah Mrs Green the principal Kristen Mayfield assistant principal I'm Kristen Tierney I teach sixth grade math say your name what's your position oh I'm president of the Garden Club I'm Cassandra howdy I'm the president of Watchdog run I'm Matthew Dorney and I'm president of nihs I'm Emma Dorney and I'm president of student council I'm Lauren Schaefer and I'm student council representative of NHS I'm Ava Correa and I'm president of creative writing Club I'm Caroline manding and I'm president of ambassadors Club Heather Crandall fourth grade teacher Dawn Kane instructional coach [Music] Amanda hagermeister reading specialist Christina
007Bina 5th grade teacher this is just a sample of why Neely is a blue ribbon school please give them a hand would you like to say a few words come on this is your time to shine let's go the credit goes to the people that are standing here we have dedicated parents we have dedicated students and our staff is outstanding so that's where the credit goes in mid-november myself Miss green Miss Tierney by the way who I knew when she was in fifth grade when I was a teacher so that makes me feel really good I wasn't even a teacher yet Mayfield used to teach for me too when I was principal at Houston which is now nearly Traditional Academy in mid-november we get to go to Washington DC and accept the Blue Ribbon award
008and we're looking forward to it so very special celebration for this group of folks and I guarantee you it wasn't luck you definitely earned every piece of it so one more time for Neely thank you if you guys would shake hands with the board and then we'll stay for a picture thank you congratulations congratulations congratulations [Music] and we'll just fill in the gaps find our windows this way ever there we go one two three Traditional Academy school [Applause] well done [Music] and last but not least for our recognitions tonight um we'd like to recognize some National Merit Scholars semifinalists that we have here this evening let me read to you what this is all about over 1.3 million Juniors and about 21 000 high schools entered the 2024 National Merit Scholarship program by taking the
0092022 preliminary s.a.t National Merit Scholarship qualifying test the Nationwide pool of semi-finalists representing less than one percent of U.S High School seniors includes the highest scoring entrance in each state and we have some of those folks right here in Gilbert Public Schools when I call your name please come up let me give a disclaimer if I mispronounce your name wrong please tell me and I will correct it because I never scored that high on this test just so you know from Campo Verde High School Jonathan Schaefer also from Campo but not here this evening William Stecker congratulations William from Gilbert Classical Academy Reagan Burke Nicholas Carlson Stone guyman where's Heidi come here Heidi come here say your last name for me ulrixon Heidi ulrichsen see if you don't say it you can't screw it up
010that's my Victoria Wang and from Gilbert High School Gabriel Lopez from Highland High School Justin Joseph foreign [Applause] and from Desert Ridge High School Aaron Levitt these are your semi-finalists we wish you the best of luck as it continues on and we really really are proud of everything that you do we know that again like Neely this isn't luck this is about dedication hard work and not just on test day this is every day leading up to that test so you're a testament to what comes out of Gilbert public schools and we truly appreciate you we're extremely proud of you congratulations once again congratulations guys how many of you went to Neely no I was like yeah you bet you tell me what you want first everybody first okay we're gonna do some different sets
011we're gonna do everybody first and then we're gonna split you up by school and take pictures if you guys could take a knee or if you you're wearing a dress you don't have to do that you guys do know what taking e means there you go there it is we have limited amount of space here we get creative there it is okay GCA first do you want us in with us yeah they want us there you go go ahead and get in there it's Highland High congratulations GCA pilot High if I could have somebody vertically challenged stand next to me that would be great all right this is starting to get ridiculous come on over here you go okay I can fix that don't worry well done Gilbert High School well done thank you Campo
012hold on I know and Desert Ridge High should I oh he wasn't here oh yes Aaron Levitt yeah he'd never make that list ladies and gentlemen your National Merit semifinalists congratulations to all of you Madam president governing board members that concludes my recognitions for this evening thank you guys for being here with us we appreciate it thank you very much [Music] thank you for that and congratulations to those who were honored and and we appreciate you and best of wishes and and all that you're doing going forward thank you Dr McCord that will now take us to the superintendent's report 4.01 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members I would like to introduce a few people to you first uh we have some representatives from the superintendent student Senate if Lucas ganio from
013Mesquite High School and Taylor Perry from GCA could please stand thank you for being here welcome it's part of their service uh on the council they they get to come to some meetings and learn about what this is all about thank you guys again appreciate it oh did he ah hello well we're gonna take another picture with you get up here come on up ladies and gentlemen this is Aaron Levitt Desert Ridge High School we appreciate you being here please give him a big hand absolutely foreign I'm glad we got to get everybody which is really nice uh another group of folks I'd like to introduce from our Aspire program these folks uh are up and coming aspiring administrators would Sarah Earhart LV Krieger and Hannah Grothe please stand welcome thank you guys for being
014here we know you didn't have a choice either congratulations [Music] it's tonight this is the week of the first quarter and fall break will be here in just a few days fall break runs from Monday October 2nd through Friday October 13th we hope that all the students staff and families have an enjoyable break and please know School resumes on Monday October 16th we will have three Bond and override informational meetings for our community the meeting times and locations are as follows Wednesday September 27th at 6 PM right here in the governing board room Wednesday October 18th at 6 pm at the Desert Ridge High Library and Thursday October 19th at 6 pm at the Highland High School library so if you can make it we'll be giving out factual information related to the bond and
015override at those times also the Gilbert Education Foundation is holding its cornhole Extravaganza this Thursday evening at 6 p.m at the whole nine yards which is located on the northwest corner of Gilbert and Guadalupe this event is to help raise funds for our students and staff in the forms of scholarships and teacher grants which will be rewarded during the 23-24 school year we appreciate all the efforts GF puts forth to help benefit our students and staff and we want to thank all the sponsors for this event Madam president that concludes my report for this evening thank you Dr McCord we will now go to our request to speak to the governing board and if we could ask for the administrative to be to please be played speak to the governing board pursuant to ARS 38-431.02.h
016the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to the 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 open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against School Personnel or any person connected with the
017district as it may impact due process rights policies Keb and Ked are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for the use of these policies can be obtained from the Gilbert Public Schools website thank you we have two who have requested to speak as well as we had the the one who also commented on online so we appreciate that we have Richard young who will go first you'll have three minutes and then we'll have Barbara siego Diego thank you who will then follow with three minutes thank you Richard yes uh in February I spoke about uh standards based grading at the request of a concerned parent today I'm going to talk about the same thing because of my grandson who is one of your students he didn't
018ask me to do it I'm doing it because I overheard him at a little family neighborhood Gathering his talking to friends of his laughing rather loudly and I heard him mention even if you'd turn in a blank sheet of paper you get a 50 percent oh well I knew what that was that standards based grading so I went over I wanted to see what students thought about this because there's a little hokey used to be you'd have to sneak in and steal the teacher's grade book to add 50 points to your grade now the teacher does it for you under standards-based grading so I asked him why do you think this is being done they astonished me they think they're all Crooks that's what they think they think you're doing it to cook the books
019to get more money from the state that's the impression this thing is leaving at least with some of the students and it is not a good impression uh I didn't comment on it to him I was just simply surprised and I said well do you think there's any other reason that might be involved with it one of them said Equity yes that actually is correct if you look at the literature on that that is part of it and it's basically not what Equity means in a dictionary or in law which is fairness in public schools it is exactly the opposite it means unfairness it means giving a grade that someone does not deserve and you're robbing students of failure when you do that you learn they know it in sports if you shoot at a
020basket you don't get a score if you miss but in school apparently you do and you learn from your failures um Thomas Edison tried 6 000 filaments before he got a filament that would work as a light bulb Elon Musk launched a rocket that blew up everybody said it's a failure he said no it isn't a figure we learned a lot and now he's doing it this is a terrible program it cheats students and if honestly if you can afford something like this which is an adjunct to student social emotional indoctrination an expensive program if the school can afford that it already has too much money way too much money and you don't need the bond I'm going to vote against the bond thank you now we'll have Barbara ciago thank you members of the
021board I am Barbara siego I live in the Gilbert School District my children are too old to be in the school district anymore but they all did go to school here I just wanted to talk about the bonds I have an issue with um because of the way the economy is right now I feel like parents and families need their money and I feel like we're tightening our belts and the school districts should as well I also wanted to talk about um how bonds some people think you know bonds are an investment but like they are if you're buying the bonds but if you're actually selling the bonds it's like a loan that you have to pay back with interest and who guess who has to pay back the taxpayers so I think I think
022it's time for school boards all in Arizona lots of them are doing bonds right now and they all need to start cutting back on their spending as well since we have to do it as well thank you thank you Barbara that will conclude our request to speak to the governing board tonight we will now move to our reports beginning with 6.01 FY 2024 monthly financial report for month ended August 31st 2023 Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board member I'll turn it over to our associate superintendent of Business Services Bonnie Betts thank you good evening governing board members president wood Dr McCord this this presentation this evening represents the activity through August 31st so it represents about six weeks of school at that point in time so um as usual we always include the
023district operating funds but we're also going to do a little bit on the Federal grant funds the state Grant funds and then complete our conversation about the bond fund fun fund 630 that's a carryover from the report that we made to you on the 12th of September so first looking at the maintenance operations fund which is our main fund and the general fund note that the available balance is just under 8 million dollars so we anticipate at the beginning of every school year that we're going to have to process payrolls in order to encumber all of our medical benefits throughout the entire year so Ms matinin generally does that work over Labor Day so the the update on the maintenance operations you're the data extended encumbered increased by about six million dollars over the prior
024month resulting in that eight million dollars so that six million dollars included about four million dollars in additional benefits encumbrance we always anticipate there will be a certain dollar amount so we put in a a paper figure to kind of hold that in reserve so we've we've eliminated that now and fully encumbered all the benefits same situation with classroom site fund as you know we do have significant amounts of salaries in classroom site fund at this point and so all of the Arizona State Retirement contributions are now fully encumbered so those are the two main changes there in addition looking at unrestricted Capital which is our fund that we do allocate out certain dollar amounts to our schools is the requests are coming in and the spend is beginning on school materials such as classroom
025Furniture Library materials those kinds of things and so that explains the changes in all of those your date expended encumbered uh funds so to go to and then this this of course is just describing um what I just shared the Federal grant funds this is just a reminder uh also you can see the strikeouts of the ARP idea the 100th day in-person Education Plus up Grant letting you know that those will be deleted in the future and then I wanted to share the idea Part B at the end of this meeting in the action items you do have a request to approve a fiscal year 2022 AFR revision so this is a year ago this is related to the maintenance of effort requirement by the federal government so due to a recent meeting with the
026Department of Ed they've agreed to allow us to um do this AFR revision to move expenditures out of idea and put them in maintenance and operations giving us an opportunity to meet the the maintenance of effort requirement we discussed the classroom site fund issue and the fact that we purposely use classroom site fund for our program 200 our special education providers and they have disallowed that but in this way it was a win-win we were able to still preserve all of the available resources we have in Gilbert Public Schools it's just now going to increase the available balance in idea moving forward and decrease the available balance in maintenance and operations just as a reminder even in maintenance and operations we do have about a 55 to 60 million dollar spend associated with our special
027education programs here in Gilbert the other other highlighted row here is sr3 just wanted to let you know that after the intercession work as well as summer school for the 2024 summer any remaining monies will be used to help offset the cost of the math adoption which we have begun and you will be receiving a request for Award of multiple providers at the October 12th board meeting so that's all I have on federal grants before I move on are there any questions about any of that foreign could you go back to the previous page please sure and the one before that could you uh say a few words about uh line 570 indirect costs and what those are used for yes so um indirect costs are there's a recognition in the federal grants that we
028are allowed to charge what we call an indirect which means that when you have nutrition services when you have our federal programs whether it's idea or title programs we have Personnel that are operating in those in those funds and we have to provide payroll to them and we have to hire them and we have to have procurement associated with all of those funds and so we are allowed to charge an indirect charge to help compensate for those expenditures thank you you bet okay um then the state Grant funds we shared this last month as well again just a reminder instructional Improvement that adapted budget is low we have received the final payment of over 1.2 million dollars which will provide the needed resources we have to continue our professional development programs here in Gilbert Public
029Schools so that will be a big change and then I wanted to point out fund 478 the school safety program note that it does indicate an available balance of 7.7 million We Believe two that that adopted budget is low and that will be revised and taken care of when we revise the budget in December we are expecting to come to you the first meeting in December to revise the current year fiscal 2024 budget and so that all these changes will occur then miss betz can you say those numbers again on that last one that you've pointed out yeah the fund 478 okay now you can see the available balance is a negative seven thousand okay okay so we haven't as you know we are now working on the fiscal year 2023 AFR and we will
030be presenting that to you the first meeting in October and um at that point in time we will know what the carryovers were in all of these funds that will be reflected then on that revised budget in December in December okay thank you you bet and then finally bond fund 630 just wanted to share this with you because uh just a couple of weeks ago we shared that the available resources remaining in fund 630 was more like seven million dollars not uh 17 million this is a reminder that all of those projects that we shared at that meeting a month ago were associated with summer projects so there's lots of money being spent in June and even more continuing to be spent for those projects in July and August and ongoing into September so much
031of that 17 million dollars has already been accounted for and um and so once we get everything encumbered that's supposed to be encumbered for the new year you will see that that figure will come back down to that about seven million dollar figure I just wanted to explain that because it's such a huge change but we have to close out fiscal year 2023 and then we have to open up additional purchase orders in 2024 to complete the projects that have already been started and that's the end of my report thank you Miss betz are there any questions board members sorry Miss betz can you just remind us what some of those projects were that the bond funds were spent on sure um the the larger projects included the lighting project throughout all of our high
032schools associated with our stadiums and parking lots mostly the safety concerns associated with our our Lighting in addition over the summer we've started projects at Mesquite High I mean at Campo Verde High that are not quite completed but to redo their Student Center their Commons area that's still outstanding we started many restroom projects that are still in process in Greenfield Junior primarily and those are being completed to date all right thank you you bet anything further seen nothing thank you very much we will now move to 6.02 teaching and learning academic Spotlight Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members tonight I will turn this over to our assistant superintendent of teaching learning for our academic Spotlight Mr Ryan Madam president governing board Dr McCord thank you so much this is a recent addition
033to our board meeting agenda but has quickly become a favorite of our department it causes us to really take a deep look into a variety of programs that you all have supported over the course of time tonight we are joined by Brian winter and Stacia Cantrell from Gilbert High School they're here to talk about three specific things and and share some of the amazing results they have on their campus is coach Cannon would say who sits in our audience tonight this is publishable type work what they have done at Gilbert High School in recent years Gilbert accelerated Middle School International Baccalaureate and their AP progress have been off the charts and they're here to share with us tonight some of the work that they have been doing some of the the things you've supported including
034the career program the middle years program and the connection to Patterson Elementary School and all the pieces that surround that so a lot of work has gone into this and they're here to share with us tonight so Brian and Sasha thank you Mr Ryan Dr mcgord and governing board first of all Gilbert High School we certainly feel like we are a work in progress and I always tell our teachers that you know education is pretty humbling because you never really reached the Pinnacle of the profession with that being said some some hard work has gone in the last couple of years and and we are excited to be here tonight just to just to share some of those accomplishments and some of the things that we are doing I'd like to start out just mentioning
035that Gilbert High School you know in in a time where uh enrollment is down across the state Gilbert Public Schools is experiencing you know we're a declining enrollment District Gilbert High School has been able to maintain an enrollment of approximately 2 400 students and one of the reasons that we've been able to do that is 30 percent of our kids are open enrollment and I'd like to think that we really work hard each day to create a a safe caring inclusive environment for our students we've got teachers that are that are willing to meet kids where they are in addition to that just really unique programming I mean we have a meets lab in our Ag Department which is there's only a couple in the country we have a Metals jewelry class which is really
036unique and last year we added computer science and have just an All-Star teacher in there running our robotics program and computer science as you probably know is is the top degree that students are pursuing right now so we were excited to add add that in addition to that three years ago we started a campus-wide literacy initiative and we did that for a couple of reasons uh you know students had lost a lot of instructional time during covid and we wanted to focus on something that we felt could close you know close the the Gap the learning Gap and that loss of instructional time and uh thankfully coach Cannon here and his relationship with with Chris tavani who we brought out Chris tavani is a is an ex-english teacher she is a consultant and we were
037able to bring her out to Gilbert High School to kind of kick off the school year and and really get us focused on literacy in terms of what that was going to look like but literacy is not exclusive to just reading and writing that students do in their English classes it's it's really about being able for students to successfully engage in text in all content areas so it might be word problems in math reading music and choir or reading and understanding a warranty in our agriculture or Auto offerings literacy is the ability to read write speak and listen in a way that lets us communicate effectively and make sense of the world so again we were fortunate to bring christophani out we developed the literacy committee at Gilbert High School we had representation from every
038single department on our campus and um we we utilize the screener a screener to see where kids were reading at in in fast bridge to test students both at the in the fall and the spring to to be able to access their growth and at at the end of year one sixty percent of our students were reading at grade level and after our second year of the initiative we were able to make a 10 jump and get 70 percent of our students reading at grade level so this was a big accomplishment obviously and and the entire campus really rallied behind this initiative and when we started this this wasn't going to be something that we were just going to do for a period of time we were going to we are going to continue to
039emphasize the importance of literacy and and make it a priority on our campus moving forward so this year we we have a goal we've set one of our campus goals to move that to 75 percent of our students reading that grade level and then in addition to that we targeted one of our subgroups which is our special education students with a more focused approach this year in hopes of increasing their Lexile their reading level by two grade levels from the beginning of the year to the end of the year uh the next thing that I want to talk about is is our passing rates at Gilbert High School so we established a goal uh last year our goal was to have our core content areas math science English and social studies all have passing rates
040of 90 percent or above and this year we've expanded that to all of our content areas and you can't just say that you're going to um have these passing rates right this really is is a lot of work that that has gone into this with our our staff in terms of not only meeting kids where they are but giving kids multiple opportunities to show their level of understanding of of the content we have spent a lot of time with the GPS grading beliefs and practices the the various components we rolled this out last year so we continued the roll out this year but have seen some very positive gains with students and their success rates and we were proud to finish the year last year in all content areas with a passing rate of over
04190 percent and so we will continue to focus on a couple of those those areas moving forward at this time I'd like to have Stacia Cantrell our assistant principal talk a little bit about IB and the growth of our accelerated middle school thank you hello one very exciting Spotlight we'd like to share with you tonight is the growth of our accelerated middle school last year in the first year of the program there were 23 students and this year we've more than doubled to 60 students students in this program are happy and thriving and it's growing like crazy early projections for next year is that we will be over a hundred students and we're so proud to announce that Gilbert High School will soon be applying for candidacy for the IB Middle years program on our
042campus to service those middle years the 7th and 8th graders in the accelerated middle school and as well as our students in 9th and 10th grade that are in that IB track the addition of the middle years program will provide a Continuum of IB learning for students from the primary years program at Patterson Elementary all the way up through the diploma program in the career related program at Gilbert High School this IB Continuum will provide a framework of learning that encourages students to make practical connections between their studies and the real world and really help to find the identity of the Gilbert accelerated Middle School we're excited for those students to move on up to Gilbert High when they get to high school and continue their Advanced coursework whether it be in IB or AP
043dual enrollment or our amazing CTE programs um one of those areas that has grown significantly over the last three years is our International Baccalaureate program in the 21 2021 school year there were 82 seats occupied in IB courses and this year we have over 464 seats in IB courses occupied by 238 students these students are choosing to take rigorous courses that help them develop a breadth of breadth and depth of knowledge and interpret that knowledge within a global context in addition to the original diploma program we also added the career related program this year which provides additional IB opportunities to students who are passionate about career related study this program is designed for students interested in pursuing a career related education that also want to challenge themselves with IB diploma program coursework during their two
044years in the career related program the CP they will apply their knowledge by working in the community Through Service Learning and a reflective project also learn a second language and how that language applies to their career related study students who meet the CP the career program requirements will graduate with a career related program certificate that is recognized by University's worldwide similar to the IB diploma program we're so excited for the eight students who have chosen to pursue the career related program in its first year in areas of Agriculture and computer science and cannot wait to see their service learning and their reflective projects developed over the next year even with the increase in enrollment in IB courses the number of students taking advanced placement courses AP has continued as well between 2021 and 2023 you
045can see the number of AP tests administered to ghs students increase from 236 to 676 and when you combine this with the 70 IB exams that were administered last spring it shows impressive growth in the amount of college-level coursework that students at Gilbert High School are earning even our students who are not enrolled in IB or AP courses at Gilbert High School are performing at higher levels than ever before our preferred science track for students is biology and then chemistry and then physics and in order to effort in an effort to better prepare them for the act as well as for college opportunities After High School the science pathway provides them with the foundations they need to be critical thinkers and have the knowledge to be successful in their future Math and Science courses the
046number of physics students increased by over a hundred students from the 2122 to the 2223 school year and our amazing science teachers have embraced students who may have avoided these courses in the past and supported them along the way and at the end of last year we had zero failures in physics this is a testament to the hard work that those teachers put in every day and that their belief that students can learn and succeed thank you for your time tonight and we're excited to continue to see what happens with our amazing school thank you thank you both are there any questions board members um I'd like to know a little bit about how we're supporting students through these Sciences so that they're meeting that challenge are you speaking specifically come on up to the
047mic to the um well you talked about biology chemistry physics and I'd just like to know how we're supporting them so that they are better able to perform at that level right there's obviously in in chemistry and physics there's uh there's a math component to that and so I think that was the biggest thing early on is is just a belief in those students coming in it's really I think it's come down to teachers the willingness to kind of break down the the components of of the math necessary to be successful in those areas I think there was really a stigma that was out there that you really needed to to accelerate in math in order to be successful in chemistry and and physics um and I and I think this this the approach of
048the teachers I mean it's we've talked about it on our campus and obviously there's a lot of intervention that's that's taken place for some of our struggling Learners you know we've done some turnaround classes on our campus as well for for kids that that weren't successful in in algebra one and also in our English classes just trying to set those kids up for for success but I think if if I had to say this we were just really fortunate with the the teaching staff that we were able to hire again just to meet kids and say okay this is where you're at this is where we're going to get you and kind of figure out that that plan in order for those students to be successful so just just a real full-fledged commitment from from
049teachers to to work with students to give them the skills to be successful in both chemistry and physics all right thank you I appreciate that yes I just had a couple questions first of all Stacia thank you for showing up in the school colors you look amazing um I just quick question where is the Gams located is it is it Gilbert High School so we've got seventh and 8th graders on campus at the high school yeah our our accelerated middle school students um they they are in classrooms at Gilbert High School so they start um in English in the morning and then they travel to their other classes throughout the day and then they they end kind of in the same location but yeah so are they all together are they mixing with the high
050school students so they have their own classes for for English and science and social studies math there's a little bit of overlap depending on what level they're in for example we have like five students in honors geometry so they're seated in a high school class and then there's also co-seeding in the IB Spanish uh prep IB Spanish one prep class and the Japanese class okay and are these students coming from all over the district do we have any that are coming from out of District yes we have a lot of students that are coming from out of District or from Charter Schools or maybe we're in the district at one point and left and have come back okay thank you you guys are doing wonderful work over there it's it's amazing to hear all the
051accomplishments you guys have achieved over there thank you thank you thank you anything further well thank you Mr winter and Mrs Cantrell for coming tonight and for sharing some of those initiatives and success that we've seen and especially for the way that you care about students provide so many opportunities for each of them to succeed and to thank you to your faculty and staff and all the adults working there at Gilbert height for commitment to this these these opportunities for our students thank you [Applause] I think that concludes our reports then thank you very much we will now move to our consent agenda but I would like to actually remove off of 7.13 staff travel number three and number four um is that specific enough for everybody okay so that will that will not be
052considered as part of the consent agenda it won't be considered at all tonight it's just taken off yeah so board members is there emotion I moved that we approved the consent agenda with the exceptions noted by the president thank you it's been moved is there second thank you Miss Humphries for the motion and thank you Mr Thompson for the second board members all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items with the amendment that had been made please vote by saying aye aye and any approved with knee thank you that passes 5-0 that will now take us to the action items and we'll begin with 8.01 revision to FY 2022 annual financial report Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members as Miss betz stated earlier in her report this was coming along
053and she will take a few minutes to explain to you what this is all about first I really wanted to acknowledge Ms Jackie matinin the Director of Finance as well as her new budget manager Miss Lauren torska so both of them I walked back into the office Tuesday Morning a week ago and said okay we're doing an AFR revision from over a year ago even though they're actively working on the 2023 AFR however both of them went at it keep in mind that Lauren is brand new into school finance and has done a yeoman's effort of learning this very quickly so I just wanted to acknowledge the two of them in making this happen so very quickly so up on the screen this is the main page page eight of nine that reflects what Ade
054has historically used to verify idea maintenance of effort so you can see the highlighted boxes so in the original AFR under that total total of all disability classifications where you can see the 48.9 million um the original document showed that is 48.3 million so it's an increase of six hundred thousand dollars everything else stayed the same the remaining three hundred thousand dollars is associated with unrestricted capital and those are reflected elsewhere those expenditures are reflected elsewhere and again as I said earlier this will decrease maintenance and operations by that six hundred thousand dollars decrease the carryover going into 2023 not going as well as 2024. and then we'll increase the carryover in idea again no economic uh impact to our available resources and that's all I had to share and so we're asking you to
055approve the fiscal year 2022 AFR and please don't leave after the meeting because we need you all to sign it thank you thank you Miss betz board members is there are there actually let me call for a motion and then we can discuss I move that we approve the revised AFR thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second second thank you message Eddie it's been moved and seconded that we approve the revision to FY 2022 AFR is there any discussion or questions I I do appreciate the hard work on this that school of Finance is complicated and coming to a resolution with the Department of Education I think that's that is a win for both of us is really good so thank you and I'm sorry to say you haven't had a
056round of applause after your report that's okay I was I was clapping too that was really good well thank you it's just different when we're talking about student achievement then finances but finances are underneath they undergird all of that work so thank you I appreciated the explanation that you provided in our weekly board report it was very clear and sometimes it's hard to to interpret those kinds of things anything further okay seeing no further discussion I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving the revision to FY 2022 annual financial report please vote by saying aye aye aye any opposite's name thank you that has passed 5-0 8.02 policy development deletion of policy kcca Community involvement in bond campaigns Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members this agenda item as
057well as the remaining agenda items have been through our policy committee this one as well as the others the others are first reads this one is for the deletion of policy kcca Community involvement in bond campaigns based on how we operate and what the function is of the governing board as well as the school district we did not feel that this policy was needed any longer so we're asking your approval to delete it completely from our policy manual rectum cord board members I will call for a motion and then we can discuss I move that we delete the policy kcca thank you Mr Jetty is there a second the second thank you Mrs page is there any discussion I think I would just like to say that um we have in other policy that we
058remain it's legal and we we follow that that they're that we can only use that we can only ever the district can only ever give factual information and cannot use any funds to influence any in in election in any way let alone a bond and override election so that is still in our policies and the rest of this just we have never this is nothing no practice that we've ever used and this actually was distracting to maybe what are yeah to how we actually operate in belief so I think it's blue in the face of what we already do yeah so this is what I it's just outdated I mean I think when um the finance formula changed and we were allowed to do bonds and overrides maybe it was trying to clarify the process
059for that but we understand that well now and it's just an outdated policy great anything further okay if nothing further I will call for a vote all those in favor of deletion of policy kcca Community involvement in bond campaigns please vote by saying aye aye any opposed please but by say nay thank you that has passed by zero 8.03 policy development First Street to policy IGA curriculum development Dr McCord thank you madam president company board members before you we have a um I would say a correction to policy IGA earlier in the summer probably last spring at some point in time we received some policy updates and in the original policy update which this was originally I think went to the second read August at some point 26th or something close to that it included
060the word governing board in certain areas as it relates to meetings and asba came back and said you know what after further review that is not necessary to have in these policies the governing board already gives authorization to superintendents for certain committees and meetings and those that are governing board meetings or governing board created uh um committees committees they are subject to open meeting laws and so in order for this to read correctly asba has come back and given us Direction on how these should read uh which makes it more legal and more uh direct to Arizona State statutes so you'll see this in the next three policies this is just the first one and I I would oh never mind we haven't got a motion no we have this one thank you I will
061call for the motion um is there a motion board members on 8.03 First Street at policy IGA I move that we approve the first read of policy IGA curriculum development thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved is there a second second thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion I just wanted to point out that um part of the reason we changed this policy previously was because of Allah passed to the legislature that now textbook um curriculum committees are now subject to open me law even though they are not a board committee but but they will have and what that what that means is that the meetings will be posted in advanced and and the minutes will be kept and posted so that they're open to the public and that
062information is available to the public but um I was confused about why that said governing board originally so it's not a it's not a governing board committee but it's still a committee that has to abide by open meeting law I just wanted to clarify that for the community yes I think this makes it more clear to align with this the intent of the statute and the wording of the statute so this will make sure that we're in compliance and I know that we already are following that as we have begun this curriculum um looking at curriculum for the math adoption we're following all the open meeting laws and going through that in that way so is there any further discussion no this is a first read so again this will be back again but I
063will now call for the vote all those in favor of approving the First Street of policy IGA curriculum development please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that has passed five zero 8.04 policy development First Street to policy igd curriculum adoption thinking Madam president governing board members again this is the same concept as in the previous policy in terms of making sure it aligns with State Statute and um so okay there you go thank you um board members is there a motion I believe that we approve the first read of policy igd curriculum adoption thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved is there a second thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all those in favor of
064approving the First Street to policy igd curriculum adoption please vote by saying aye aye aye any opposed with nay thank you 8.05 policy development first read a policy ijj textbook supplementary materials selection and adoption Dr McCord thank you madam president government board members uh not to sound repetitive but this is the same concept as the previous two and there's one item struck out related to the governing board thank you board members is there a motion I moved that we had adopt First Street of policy ijj textbook supplementary materials selection and adoption thank you Miss Humphries it's been moved as our second second thank you Mr Page it's been moved and seconded board members is there any discussion seeing none I will call for the vote all those in favor of approving First Street a policy
065ijj textbook and supplementary materials selection adoption please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with me thank you that will pass 5-0 now that takes us to 9.01 requests for future agenda items are there any requests at this point no please let those be known as always that we might put those on the agenda let uh Dr McCord myself no please thank you that will take us now to our board committee reports see which begins with me and I do have one thing I'd like to share tonight okay so 10.01 city of Mesa liaison that's myself and I wanted to let everybody know I spoke with council member Summers and he said that they will continue the tradition of District Six in Mesa partnering with Desert Ridge and the Mesa Police Department to host a
066Halloween evening Monday October 30th from 5 30 to 7 30 p.m at Desert Ridge High School and they'd say please join us um celebrate Halloween early by meeting Mesa police officers learning important safety tips for trick-or-treating there will be candy for the kids and Trunk-or-Treat SWAT and air unit Halloween games and more so please I wanted he wanted me to let our public know that so thank you that concludes my report 10.02 town of Gilbert liaison Mr Rhonda page just one item and Dr McCord please jump in if necessary September 19th the town of Gilbert approved to add two additional SRO officers to Mesquite Junior High and Mesquite High School and they will work through the town and so we want to thank the town of Gilbert and the Town Council for approving those funds
067Dr McCord did you want to expand on that I will so the State of Arizona Arizona Department of Education put out money for Grants and this is something they've done several times over the last several years the town of Gilbert generally did not participate in those grants and so this year they decided that well last year they decided that moving forward they'd be able to do that and so we applied for two grants one for Mesquite High one from Mesquite Junior High and with their IGA being looked at by their attorneys are attorneys we came to the understanding of where this is at so this grant fund pays for the services of both of those police officers and we sincerely appreciate the town of Gilbert as well as the city of Mesa for providing sros
068for our students and staff on our secondary campuses thank you 10.03 Gilbert Education Foundation and audit committee Miss Humphries so the Gilbert Education Foundation is finishing up their power of one and that is the request that every student if possible donate a dollar those funds go towards the teacher grants in the classroom so we are really excited about the opportunities we give students to do a little extra that's above and beyond what we as a district can offer them and that's going to be closing soon so you can go to the gefaz.org and make a donation to the power of one we also have our cornhole tournament on Thursday night was mentioned earlier and our Gilbert unites campaign will start on October 16th we did have an audit committee meeting last week and things are
069looking very promising we're we're doing really well to have a clean audit thank you Miss Humphreys 10.04 Insurance trust representative Miss Sheila eugetti thank you just wanted to let everybody know that we have a premium holiday coming up the first paycheck after fall break which is a really nice thing for our employees and then some really good news since we adopted the investment policy and created the formal trust board we've earned over five hundred thousand dollars in interest for the fiscal year and that will go directly toward benefits or impacting its additional income yeah that can be given back to our our employees hopefully yes instead of having to give a bigger increase in things like that and that's just how many months Bonnie I know I said fiscal year but Bonnie how many months
070has that been that we earned that five five hundred thousand um it's it's been pretty much the no that was the other that was the Arizona State Retirement contribution so this one was the full year the full year okay and remember that our um our reserving our investment policy is very conservative so um but having a half a million dollars of earnings is not insignificant well in considering that I think we had what 10 000 previously yeah right yeah it's been a lot so a little bit of difference between 10 and 500. thank you 10.05 legislative representative Mr Thompson nothing to report tonight thank you 11 meeting dates Dr McCord thinking about a president governing board members October 10th we have a board work study and brief board business meeting October 17th we have a
071board policy committee meeting and October 24th we have a board business meeting [Music] we wish everyone a safe and Happy fall break and thank you for your good work this first quarter we will now go to an adjournment board members is there a motion I move that we adjourn this meeting thank you Mrs page is there a second second go ahead second thank you Miss Thompson it's been moved and seconded that we adjourn board members I will call for the vote all those in favor of adjourning please vote by saying aye aye aye and any opposed with name thank you we are adjourned hold on [Music]