001how are you you're good we would like to call this meeting to order and welcome everybody is that working okay welcome everybody to our work study and brief board business meeting tonight Tuesday December 6 2022 at 6 PM I have called this meeting to order and I will now move to our presentation and discussion topics 2.01 nutrition services meal pattern presentation and taste testing Dr McCord thank you madam president governing board members 2.01 nutrition services Mill pattern presentation and taste testing so I I've been here for a long time and I don't think we've ever really had it taste testing at a work study ever and when uh Miss betz approached me a few weeks ago saying hey what do you think about this I of course loved it because it's something that one we've
002never done two I think it gives a deeper inside look at what nutrition services go through and Natalie our director of nutrition services a week ago talked to all of our high school students that are in superintendent student Senate just about lunch and breakfast and how kind of no pun intended how the sausage is made on the nutrition services side and it was really informative and I think they gained a lot of knowledge and information out of this so we wanted you guys to be able to kind of see what they do in order to make sure our kids get some of the foods that they like and and they're taken care of appropriately so I'll turn it over to Bonnie and Natalie right now and shows yours awesome thank you very much so this
003came about because Natalie invited me to come to their taste testing that they do every Thursday morning during the fall with a variety of their vendors and so I'm tasting pizza and at that point in time I thought oh my gosh why don't we do this with the governing board and they can rate all these pizzas and I thought that would be fun and so I presented it to Dr McCord as you said and then here we are so to begin um so um Patrick put this up for us and so we'll go ahead and talk through this and I'm going to be doing none of the talking but I will drive and I will let Natty Natalie take over so it's all yours uh you can do yours I just gotta turn it on
004there you go hello hello governing board members Dr McCord thank you for having me this is weird okay thank you so it's more fun when we have our taste testings without everybody watching okay so I wanted to first uh introduce our leadership team which we were able to bring here tonight live and in person we have our admin assistant for the whole department which is Rhonda DeWitt which she had to step out for a second okay please please wave you guys then we have Michelle Shear she is our department buyer she helps bring all the food in for uh nutrition services there's Rhonda in the black shirt then we also have our supervisors here we have Tyler Ross he's right here he helps with all the junior high Elementary free and reduced and some of
005the technology things Christian frisbee champion right there she is a registered dietitian and she also helps with all of our special diets allergy menus uh the high schools and when we have uh student interns then we have Rachel Broughton okay right there she's our new supervisor and she helps with all the elementary schools and does some of our website and things like that then we have Judy Perlman she helps as an area manager for all the high schools and then she also is the manager of Gilbert High School kitchen so we're really excited that they were all able to be here to witness this testing tonight uh Judy does a lot of the district catering so a lot of you might have already met her and tasted her food tonight our focus is instead of
006on just foods that weed or get from the start on the food that we can serve to the students so tonight it'll all be real things that we serve in the school to the students during the school day first we wanted to go over our meal pattern Tyler has provided laminated copies for everyone at lunch the national school lunch program has us give five components and when the student passes the point of sale they have to have at least three on their plate outs we have to send them back for something else and if they don't have at least that on their plate then the USDA will not reimburse us for that meal so we will not get additional money and it's not considered a full meal the components are meat or protein so it
007could be eggs cheese anything like that grains they must be at least 51 percent whole grain fruit which can be fresh frozen or a hundred percent fruit juice vegetables the colors matter so every week we have to have a set number of red orange vegetables dark green like your leafy Romaine starchy which is like green beans corn legumes which can be even our refried beans hummus and then other which what we right now are doing for most of our other is cauliflower so it's white but it's another fluid milk we have to offer different varieties we not only have to have different flavors so chocolate and white sometimes strawberry or birthday cake milk sometimes we have like a orange dreamsicle milk whatever they're limited edition ones are but then we also have to offer different
008fat levels fat free one percent okay next slide then we have the school breakfast program which that only has four components and they have to have at least three greens same thing as at lunch must contain at least 51 percent of whole grains fruit and vegetable we have fresh fruit at breakfast we also have side items that make do that like a hash brown could count as a vegetable and then of course the 100 fruit juice fluid milk same thing offering different varieties and fat levels and flavors and then meter protein this Bonnie found fascinating um you don't have to offer any at breakfast so you know if we put on turkey bacon or sausage that can actually count as a green at breakfast because only greens count not proteins which is very interesting because
009to fuel you for the day sometimes protein will last longer so we definitely have yogurt and hard-boiled eggs and different proteins but they actually count as grain at breakfast so we are in compliance with all of our menus we were just audited we make sure we follow them and if something needs to be substituted we make sure it's in the right category we had just recently held interviews to get a new supervisor and one of my trick questions was if you're out of this food what would you substitute and two out of the three final candidates got the answer wrong and the one who got the answer right is the one that we hired yeah it's just to be clear and to be clear the answer is not Twinkies is that right exactly when in
010doubt not doing case okay so we are currently ready for the taste testing yes we are so ready so we wanted to First give a little background like why do we do taste tests if we know a certain Pizza meets all the requirements we don't just say this is the pizza you get and you love it we take it to the students and we let them try it so we have a timeline that we've developed every school year where in the fall from about the first week of August until this Thursday is our last one in December we um after not quite yeah you'll see it on the sorry guys um we do where the vendors come in and they show us all their new products show us all their popular products show us all
011the products that are compliant for schools and then we taste them and if if they're just not good then we don't order any samples if we taste them we think you know I think the students might like this they'll give us free samples and we'll go out to a school and we'll have the students vote we may have pizza a and pizza B and we'll have a tally sheet and we'll say do you like this one or this one better which one would you buy at lunch and and we do that and that happens mostly January through February at the end of February we have our new menu locked down for next school year and in March we divert the commodity pounds so that we divert the cheese for this pizza so that it brings
012down the price and also commits us to what pizza we're going to use for the whole school year May and June we provide usage to our vendors let's say we say we need 400 cases a month then they know so we get enough and that's why if you were to come visit us in July and say look I found these new crackers they're so great and we're like well it's a little too late now we already figured out a long time ago what we're serving or the best is maybe someone will come up to us and say I just tried your pizza it's disgusting you've got to change well now we've been locked in with our things we can get different flavors and varieties of it but we're sticking with that brand and usually it's
013a matter of taste preference so we're all adults sitting at this table sometimes kids palettes may be different than ours they may need to try food 10 times before they know for sure if they like it or not so kind of put yourself in student mode as you test these and say to yourself okay it may not be the actual Pizza that I eat from Little Caesars or whatever but this is a healthier version with reduced sodium in the sauce you know the pepperonis a lot of them is turkey pepperoni low-fat cheese whole grain crust so it's a much healthier elevated version than if you were to just go get pizza next slide now we are doing our pizza sampling so you have four pizzas in front of you um has Tyler left the room
014uh she's gonna pass around a sheet so that if you don't have a pen we also have a box of pens with us right there so for the pizza taste testing we have the green plate the pink plate the purple plate and the yellow I put it in alphabetical order for you and you put the overall winking five is the best five is wow I like this I would eat it one is the worst the very worst you put it on the ranking then after you're done ranking all of them one through five then you're gonna Circle the color so let's say purple was your absolute favorite you'd Circle purple at the end and then we're going to do the results after okay so you all don't have to eat the whole piece of pizza
015we tried to make it skinny slice one time I ate dinner before I came to abortion I did I did my apologies I should have come hungry and on Thursdays I don't eat lunch because after the tastiest thing I've already eaten everything so while you're taking the samples we'll go ahead and just share some of the photos that we included in the presentation and kind of talk through some of the pizzas that we offer here in Gilbert Public Schools all right four different pizzas please so I did to give them all the instructions okay good okay so while you're eating and enjoying we have some pictures from the actual schools that we just took the one on the left is an elementary tray so they have a five compartment tray where they can put their
016different meal components it has the pizza for the grains it has cheese and pepperoni for the protein then we have the salad next to it or your vegetable and we have cucumbers up in the top and then apple slices cancels the fruit and then the student this is an actual student's plate took apple juice they didn't feel like milk we don't force them to take it as long as they have enough meal components then they can go if they have no drink I might say oh did you want something to drink because it's offer versus serve so we don't force it the plate on the right in the picture is the high school plate um yeah I think that was Gilbert High so um that's a piece of pizza probably my error sorry about that
017well I think we had a Mesquite pitcher and then we switched it that's what happened so we're totally fine but that's representative of all five of our high schools looks like that and then they can take milk and or juice they've got their vegetable on the side they have the Apple for the fruit and this person wanted Ranch okay do you have any birthday cake flavored milk did we bring any tonight no but you can stop by at school tomorrow we do have it I feel like it tastes like a vanilla cupcake so they could have just called it vanilla milk we do have vanilla milk sometimes but the birthday cake milk is because Roxy from the dairy she's their cow she's celebrating her 100th birthday so it's important so I happened to walk in
018as Tyler and um Natalie were going through this presentation and they were fighting over this picture to the right that it's inappropriately labeled Mesquite it's actually Gilbert High but we had a picture over there that had like eight pieces of pepperoni shown on it and Tyler's like Natalie you can't show that we're required to only have four pieces of pepperoni per slice of pizza I just and then he said let they go and watch this and say that's not what mine looks like so so yeah he won that fight the other thing is we do serve pizza a la carte so this is a reimbursable meal which would be for free reduced lunch or for those that are paying for it and then we get reimbursement from that but we do sell the pizza's a
019la carte at the high schools only secondary secondary only yeah okay yeah you can sell parts of the meal at secondary but in elementary has to come as the whole meal okay all right next so go to the next one okay okay then we decided to get even more authentic and go in line with the students I didn't tell which schools so it's a little more Anonymous but we have the high school Pizza plate we have Elementary and they have orange chicken that day because they only have pizza once a week so the day I was doing pictures and then Junior High she wanted to do a thumbs up and she was being shy so she put her thumb in front of her face but if you'll notice she does have the side salad right
020behind her juice so she didn't have to take milk she's got her juice for the fruit she's got her main entree and she's got her side salad and so not only are we working the register to make sure we are accurate with the numbers but we're also looking at each plate to make sure they have what they need on their plate okay so has everybody started filling in their numbers a little bit okay you're done you're close Okay so because I don't want to do spoiler alert give you any information this is a blind tasting well don't tell them yet just tell them which ones right well what if they can tell from the picture oh don't look too closely okay so we gave don't look too closely so there were four options for the
021pizza tonight one was Domino's which is a delivered ready to eat pizza they cook it in their Domino's store and then delivered to our kitchen a few minutes before lunch that is only in secondary right now all of our Junior highs in our high school then we have big daddies which can be used in the elementary that's a product from Schwann's then we have wild mics which can be used in the elementary which means these come in as Frozen wedges and we cook them in our ovens and you can smell the pizza cooking and then we serve it fresh to the students and then the last one is nardone brothers and same thing it's for the elementary so in the elementary schools we prepared on site in the secondary schools they prefer to have something
022delivered um okay now yeah okay so now uh Tyler will come around and pick up your papers this is in real time he's gonna give us results I didn't bring the calculator Tyler he doesn't need it so you put zero for all of them Gabby's Tyler oh yeah she's up top so there's there was pepperoni and there was cheese yeah some had little chopped up pieces of pepperoni as well as the round pepperonis and some had different sauce different seasonings slightly different crust but they're all whole grain I can't tell you my favorite yet because it's too soon okay all right now I'm going to give you some little information while he's tabulating our results he went in private good okay here's some pizza statistics that we pulled just for your information and I found
023them very interesting this year from the first day of school we started the end of July through November 30th we have ordered 16 393 pizzas from Domino's so Bonnie was just being curious and she said well about how many pizzas have you ordered from Domino's and I thought for a few minutes and I said over fifteen thousand and what was your guess six six thousand so then we had Tyler look it up and it is 16 393. she had an unfair Advantage because I didn't know pizza was served every day at the secondary that's true there's a trick question and then they're cut into slices so that's 131 144 slices of pizza purchased from Domino's so that's a lot of pizza it is served daily in all of our Junior High and high schools and
024in the student Senate when we were talking to them with Dr McCord one of the high school students was saying how they go in the pizza line and a lot and they said Pizza is always the safe choice and I found that so interesting you know it's okay if you have it every day it's a safe choice so um I found that very interesting okay next slide is for elementary schools so from the first day of school to November 30th in elementary over 60 000 slices of pizza have been served so we cooked it and served it and it's only on Friday so if there was a holiday on Friday or something special or no school that day then it was skipped so that's still a lot of pizza for only one day a week
025is he back do you see him sorry I don't usually do this okay so we we will page him there he is dramatic so now you're going to tell them yeah let's tell which one and then I'll tell you what they are here come on up and speak in the microphone so we can oh yes Tyler come on you know oh I get to be you hello where did he go hello Governor board members so we had on our pink plate was Domino's yellow plate is wild mics our green plate is nardones and our purple plate was Big Daddy's we had a tie in first place between Big Daddy's and nardones at 24 points our pink plate dominoes is in third place with 23 points and wild mics at 17.5 points overall we had the
026most the your your most favorited item was the green plate which was nardone's pizza I'm taking guesses here who would like to let me know which of those frozen pizzas you feel like we use right now in our elementary schools I don't wild mics so we used maradons for years and about three years ago during the covid we switched to Wild mics nardones had a plant fire and so they had shortages and you know it was safer to go with wild mics kids loved it at first they're starting to get a little bit of menu fatigue right now like it's the same old same old so we're definitely super interested in this January and February going out to several schools and just head-to-head tasting you know put wild Mike skins and our dones and just
027head to head taste it my thing about the big daddies I hope they're not listening tonight is it looks good you look at it and you say oh that looks like great pizza and you get all worked up and excited to take a bite and then there's not much seasoning to it it's a little more bland this big the one I'm talking about is purple oh that was my favorite okay so maybe you like it a little less spicy you know I like it yeah spicy so that's just telling us that everybody's taste is different and that's what makes it hard when you have 26 elementaries you know this school May love this and this may love this so we can um split our Commodities we can say this much teased in our dogs and
028this much to Wild mics or whatever and and do it that way but then it gets to the warehouse and then they give you the wrong case and you know what I'm saying so it's just easier if everybody has the same and we know that it's um mostly accepted by most students so wild mics won big time but that is after we had like nardones for seven years so I think they just got tired of it and so it's fun to have something new and exciting so that was a very good result thank you for participating same specifications yes Domino's meets the same specifications the only kind of thing that makes me scared with dominoes is are they going to show up on time so in elementary school that is your hot meal choice so
029if they're not there you have the little kids all crying you have the principal yelling at you you have the teachers saying now I don't get to have a lunch it gets crazy when the pizza doesn't show up whereas at the high school and Junior High yeah and then it gets there after lunch now what you know it's it's terrible but in the secondary they have you know four other lines of food they could go to if it's five minutes late the little kids that would be really hard for the younger students because they had their heart set on Pizza that day and it's not there so that's the only thing is um when you do it in-house you have a lot more control over it but you also said I think earlier maybe not
030that this Domino's Pizza is different than what we would walk up and get on our own right extremely different yes they they have a school recipe just for us they Order special dough that's whole grain it's it's not even their same recipe that you could buy from their stores he had a problem with them being late I mean more than one problem I have some principals who have told me if you ever have Domino's here again like that I mean it's bad they their problem was um they couldn't keep up with the volume so they're already doing tons of pizzas for our high schools and Junior highs you add in 26 elementaries they just can't keep up and so what they said is it has to be on a Tuesday so now we have pizza
031on Friday when they want it but we were doing it on Tuesday because that was Domino's lightest day and they still couldn't make it so it was one of those things where you say you know we're making a hot Choice every day in elementary anyways so it's the same labor for us to do one hot choice and in the secondary they're doing so many choices that it's easier for them to get it delivered and easier for us to just make it an elementary for example Harris like Mr Roth never wants dominoes again because too many times he was sitting there looking at the kids and there was no pizza so now in all fairness we've had a tough couple of years here in Gilbert public schools with Staffing shortages and supply chain shortages that hit
032our private Enterprises out there as well so yeah they did we ran into this when we had Taco Bell at the elementary and I taught fourth grade we were last lunch and nine times out of ten we had Taco Bell day there were no burritos for the kids yeah yeah the menu home and they Circle the days they want to buy lunch and so they already know it's nachos I'm looking forward to it and if they get there and that's not what you have it's very disappointing to them so they really get their hearts set on it so we don't want to disappoint them we want it to be predictable for them and on time and there is a set schedule in school you don't just say well let's hold lunch for a while you
033just can't it gets really hard now that once you make a choice on a particular item for the year are you stuck with that item for the entire year or are there points in time when you can change out let's say looks at one pizza company to another at mid-year can you do that so if you have a really big reason and you've already diverted some cheese pounds you could just switch or we could say you know what this means enough to us that we will pay retail and we will switch off and we'll have carryover we can also write the state so this is what happened during covid is we couldn't get our burger patties and we had diverted 55 000 pounds of beef to a company in California and they're they weren't making
034any and so we had to write first the Ade and they couldn't really help us too much so then we went ahead and went National with it and I said they're holding our pounds hostage I want them back and we were able to get them sent to so did you understand that concept of holding diverting pounds so this is all about the commodity conversation so now they want to explain that a little bit regarding how the Commodities are used are we still using Commodities from the USDA yes that what that is as a participating district for national school lunch program we get the Commodities every year it's based off our participation every October and this last year we got close to 900 000 dollars to use on commodity pounds so it's a lot and it
035just brings your price down so let's say a case of these are not real numbers I'm just gonna make this up let's say a case of orange chicken would be a hundred and six dollars and instead we pay like 87. it just brings it down for each case so that it makes it more affordable for us and it's a benefit to us because since we participate with them they give us those pounds and the USDA delivers those directly to the vendor that produces the product for you correct yes you're right so that's another thing so they've sent truckloads of cheese to nardone so then you're kind of locked in with no don't so you'd have to have a big reason to but during covid we did have a valid reason and we did get it
036out so you did get the pounds of hamburger back yes we got a lot of it back and we sent it to someone else who was able to make hamburgers which a lot of places couldn't get any we were very fortunate here in our district to not have as much impact from the shortages because we kept ahead of it and um body was very supportive in helping us get emergency procurement well in place and they came here and you voted on it you guys approved numerous emergency procurements which are allowed when there's a shortage of of supplies so which we had never asked for that before there was a real need and thank you for helping us to do that because then the students weren't missing all those things then they kept some of our
037pounds because you know they'd say oh in January we can make some Oh by March we'll make some so now we're using those pounds this year so they let you roll over to the next year and so you didn't lose anything so curious Natalie why do you not serve the other Pizza products at the high school or secondaries okay very good question so I'd say around 2014 I want to say um we did a taste testing with the students and dominoes did not win with the secondary students and we're like great we'll just make it ourselves I'm easier better all this stuff well first of all we had to hire an additional person at each school and literally all they did was bake pizzas so it was more labor intensive secondly within the first two
038to three weeks of school our pizza cells went downhill drastically like nobody was buying pizza anymore and we were like but you guys liked this one well it's harder because you know you have the oven temperature and sometimes it's a little bit darker sometimes it's a little bit lighter sometimes it just it didn't come out as consistent and they just didn't like it so uh the supervisor at the time said let's try Domino's again see and then also shot right back up so that was what they wanted and I was explaining to the student Senate some of that could be mental some of that literally could be we put the frozen pizza in the box and they think it's from Domino's and they love it I'm not sure but the secondary students are the age
039where they want pizza delivered from somewhere it's more cool and more fun to have that than to have something that the Lunch Ladies made in the back so we accept that and they eat it I mean I was at Gilbert high today and we sold out a pizza every single Pizza right yep we sold out of every piece of pizza so it's definitely not struggling and it's still the safe Choice okay we are gonna switch gears and serve you some different foods so that was just the pizza that was just an example of one of our entrees and so we go through this process for everything we serve whether it's a chicken patty a sandwich nuggets um anything we make macaroni and cheese everything we taste test and then we take it to the schools
040and taste test it today we have two kinds of wraps we have an Italian combo wrap it's pictured on the left that's from South Valley Junior High we also have turkey BLT wrap so it's turkey ham so it's really turkey but it's kind of flavored like turkey ham bacon lettuce and tomato and that one's from Mesquite Junior so Judy was able to make some into small two inch pinwheels so that you won't have to get too full after already having dinner exactly we helped you out there Jill so um these are for you to sample and these are on our menu every day so let's say you're a student that doesn't want the hot option you could choose these These are how they look in the packs when the students take them you already have
041your veggie in there you have your fruit this has Ranch for dipping they can still take any fruits and vegetables all of our fruits and vegetables are unlimited so I have had some parents call me and they're like well my student is still hungry after lunch they can have as much fruits and vegetables as they want and then this they could take milk and or juice with it here's this is the this is the Italian combo one this is the Italian combo one and this one has our cupped peaches carrots and of course Ranch for dipping again then on your plate you'll notice they're salad we also have solid packs and in the secondary we also have sub sandwich packs every day you'll see in the next few pictures this one's spicy chicken it's spicy
042this makes me cry even if I peel the breading off the outside it's still too spicy for me but the secondary students love it the spicier the better they just crave this even my son would get this all the time when he went to Camp I've already had he loved it so they've already got their fruit in here then we have the grain because it wouldn't be enough if you just have this they also can have crackers with it if they want croutons those are the more greens and we also have milk and our juice and endless fruit veggies with that just to add we um the reason why I thought it would be a good idea to share the meal patterns with all of you is to know that even on that spicy chicken
043there's a breading on it it actually has a grain value and they just have to match up the number of grains that's just really interesting I think so I'd share yeah because uh you know maybe they do after school sports or something they need to have fuel to learn and to do physical activity okay this is the chef salad pictured on the right so that one's at Kenyan Rim Elementary you can see how the elementary kids open it and add things secondary we have a different package or sometimes we use these see some of these have three compartments we have some that are one compartment for some reason with the supply chain uh paper and Plastic Products still a hard thing you order and you get what you get so we make it so you
044serve them like that though they're created like that for them to choose usually but sometimes they're in the container on the left the circular one gotcha we like that one it's hard to get um just depends but this one with the three compartments nice because if it's one compartment if this were to shake a little everything moves and it combines and some kids don't like their food touching each other so this is chef salad it's true and you know you don't need to ruin their day right there at lunch and we have grains they can have crackers with this too because if you notice this one doesn't have an extra grain in here and milk and or juice okay [Music] this one we're not asking you to rank or win anything it's just hey I
045didn't know this was offered at lunch to our students or oh I did know this was awkward and I'm so glad we have these options because um you know we even have some students who are vegetarian or have allergies and things so we can offer a variety so that they have what they like at lunch um that last picture was a picture I Was preparing them then here's an elementary school so in elementary school the two most popular cold lunches are yogurt and PB and jpac so um the girl on the left she has her yogurt she has her crackers she has string cheese she has fruit juice and she has milk so she has everything she needs and I used to tell my kids don't get the yogurt pack I could just give you
046yogurt from home but sometimes if they didn't like what was the hot lunch choice they would get the yogurt pack peanut butter and jelly pack it's extremely popular we bring in 400 cases a month of the grape and 400 cases a month of the strawberry very popular in all grades in the middle you see our salad bar in the elementary schools again some people aren't aware that every day we do have fresh fruits and vegetables self-serve style inside the kitchen where it's monitored and supervised the reason I say that is one time I was emptying the salsa that had been out in the cafeteria and there was a quarter in there who knows who knows who thought it was fun to drop that in there so we have to supervise it just to make sure
047it stays sanitary and that everybody's treating it respectfully so um next High School cold meals so as you see she's making the salads they're chopped and prepared everyday fresh that's at deserts Junior then at Highland High that lady is making the sub sandwiches which we do sell a lot of those every day in the middle we have from Gilbert High so she has fruit and yogurt parfaits we were selling that today and I'm not kidding I was working at Gilbert high on that line and one boy said do I have enough money in my account to buy nine fruit and yogurt cup parfaits and I looked at the other lady working I thought do we do that and she was like sure I'd like to go get a box to put it so we could
048carry them all can't remind your kids yeah they let them they let him who knows if he bought him for his friends but it's healthy it's got yogurt it's got the one he had had strawberries blueberries low-fat yogurt and granola and he loved it so um that's what I had for breakfast it's good right and then she's got all her salad packs and then we have the side salads right there um which you know you could have with your pizza with your cheeseburger with anything you wanted that's the end of our presentation is there any questions board members do you have any questions this is delicious yes and it was it was so great to hear and see details of all of the things you do I we've seen it as parents and those who
049have worked in the schools but to get an even more in-depth reminder of all the work and thought and preparation and a year ahead the buying and the taste testing and and then to make sure that our students have healthy meals but that but we wanted to be happy with them and you guys do such a great job it makes such a difference so thanks to you all of your District staff every staff member at our schools you make such a difference for our students we sure appreciate you all I I think I have a question I I want to hear a little bit about the history because I know that we're offering more fresh options and more fruits and vegetables than in the past so can you give us a little history just about
050how we got here today let's go way back so Way Way Back um when the national school lunch program was born it was because they weren't having students that came out of school that were physically healthy enough to serve in the Army and so they needed people who were Soldier ready and that's when they developed the national school lunch program so that there wasn't as many malnourished young people growing up so that's when it started then in 2010 they passed the healthy hunger free kids act which really amped up the fresh fruits and vegetables we get an extra six cents per meal just for offering that because it does cost more you don't want to just count ketchup as your vegetables okay that's famous right it was on the news that's disgusting so [Music] um
051we were already offering but then we amped it up some more choices and more fresh things and we get more money so they're helping us do that but it's also training the students at a younger age to eat more healthy so I was explaining to the student Senate because some of them were like yeah well we just throw that part away or whatever they went back and started studying it was passed in 2010 in 2016 they did some more studies and they were probably studying it every year but by then the students were old enough to get to Junior High and the even the cafeteria managers were shocked they're all taking fresh fruits and vegetables they were trained to do it and now they're doing it so it's kind of a good feeling to know
052that you're helping them develop healthy habits that they can take into adulthood well I I do remember that when I sat down with Debbie once she was telling me that they learned to put the fruits and vegetables first so they grabbed those first because they're hungry and then some of the other things are further along the line that they would take anyway but they call that smarter lunchroom strategies so you know you put the chocolate milk behind the white or whatever and so we do a little bit of that but as long as they're taking it I'm happy you know if they like pears better than they like oranges that's fine with me I just want them to be able to get it that's great all right thank you for the history and and this
053is delicious I haven't had my wrap yet but the salad is wonderful how many lunches do you serve approximately we have that chart Tyler how many lunches about like 21 000 do you think okay we're gonna guess I'm gonna say an average of 21 000 a day yeah and that's right now so when we had Universal free meals it was a lot more almost every student wants eating with us kids are the option yes they can bring lunch or they can buy lunch with us we also have free and reduced priced meals so if it's harder to afford I know inflation's so hard right now um some students leave early like they don't stay at school all day so some of them might not eat so just the fact that we capture 21 000 is
054pretty good please thank you anything further could we take a brief yeah we were hoping to take about five or ten minutes and then everyone in the audience is welcome and then Dr McCord you've got two of your student Senators here maybe you might want to introduce them and we invite them please stand up Highland High superintendent student sentence I'm gonna let you guys go back and eat first thank you again to all of you guys nutrition services this is extremely important I think a lot of people take what you do for granted in terms of what happens at least twice a day on our campuses in terms of serving meals to our students and so thank you guys so very much appreciate you you're very welcome yeah appreciate it all right we'll grab your
055favorite pizza [Music] over here there we are thank you so much thank you so much to our nutrition staff again and to all those who who came and helped tonight appreciate it and thank you for your work each day we will now move to 2.02 Spring 2022 assessment data Dr McCord thank you amount of present governing board members tonight I have for you are directors of Elementary Mr Robert Berkshire we have our director of secondary Dr Cox and we have our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning um Dr Newman they're going to present to us tonight the spring 2022 assessment data I'll turn over to you thank you good morning good evening Madam president governing board members and Dr McCord not really quite sure how we're going to follow that what we just had at
056the presentation but we'll give you some food for thought how's that so we'll go there we appreciate the opportunity to share the summary of our spring assessment results as well as some highlights and towards the end some of our next steps related to that the slide here looks similar to what you've seen in the past every year it seems that our assessments have changed so just as an overview overview just some reminders here the comparisons on the slide you can see between 2021 and our 2022 different assessments at the state level and different things that we've been doing with our own District assessment platform and sort of implementation phase two of that and some of that work just as a reminder also we did have a time in 2020 where all tests were ex we
057do not have any tests right they were suspended but what so when we look through today and look through some of this data you're going to hear both Dr Cox and Mr Bircher speak and compare sometimes 2019 data to 2022 and sometimes some 21 data to 2022 and they'll be very explicit when they do that but that's important too because as we're looking at some things we really had that we had points and assessments in 2021 but we didn't necessarily have all of the same pieces is here to compare so we wanted to compare some of those tonight on the first chart you'll see the top numbers are year to year percent proficiency for ELA and on the bottom is math you'll see in green the GPS scores in the pink is Maricopa County averages
058and the yellow are State of Arizona averages remember so we've got 21 20 21 we took the azm2 assessment 2022 is the ASA assessment I'm pleased to report that do the hard work of our teachers we were able to beat State and Maricopa County averages across the board in all of our assessments um additionally I've got some uh just summary of performance on the third bullet I'd like to point out that out of the 21 schools that qualified for the English learner points 20 of the 21 received 80 or more of the El proficiency and growth points we said 21 schools because you have to have at least 10 students receiving English language services in order to qualify for those points in the accountability formula Dr Cox and I tried to quantify a little bit
059because we know we hear a lot about learning loss and things like that so we looked back at 2019 assessment data because that's when that's the last time the state gave uh letter grade for each of our schools so what we did is we took the the average points that each School earns so I'm going to speak on Elementary and she's going to do secondary so the average points earned for elementaries in 2019 was 82.7 and we went up with the spring of 2022 to an 84.6 thank you can I can I ask something before you go on real quick so when we see uh some of the scores go you know from 2021 to 2022 go up some of them go down what's your thoughts on that I think for the most part I
060was really pleased that the majority of them mirror what the state is doing and what the counties are doing uh when you look at all of the e-law or sorry the majority of our data mirrors what the state and County do so it's probably more reflective of the test because it's a different test so it's probably more reflective of the test that was given not are learning actually what if the learning actually was increased or decreased right right okay good evening so you will see on the next slide that we to mimic I'm not going to repeat all the same things Mr Bircher has but we have prepared all the same uh graphics and data points so that you can see the uh trajectory K-12 so for our seventh and 8th grade teams thank you
061for our seventh and 8th grade teams you will see the same Trends and notice that GPS outperformed Maricopa County in the state average percentages for all the secondary levels and for our seventh grade team one of the things I would like to highlight is when you see that GPS in 2022 is at 63. remember that that is an average and so I just want to highlight that and this is true for elementary through Junior High School that the range is when you look at the more broken down data actually show ranges all the way up to 94 in seventh grade up to 96 percent in the eighth grade and in those if you take note from 21 to 22 you will see increases anywhere from 6 to 13 percent in our seventh grade 4 to
06216 in our eighth grade and that's just for eoa and then in math the range also even though it is sitting at 43 and 41 for an average which is above the county and state those range up to 86 percent in our seventh grade and range all the way up to 89 in our eighth grade and those increases are anywhere from nine to twelve percent based on um which grade level you're looking at and which school you're looking at one of the things that I would like to point out that uh was something to be celebrated is when we took a look at our surrounding districts our seventh and eighth grade in English language arts outperformed all of our surrounding districts and in the Arizona Science assessment our eighth and 11th grade outperformed all of
063the surrounding districts as well so I know that um sometimes we like to look at our surrounding districts to just kind of see where we're at and we I'm a little bit competitive I know all of us at this table probably are so was excited to share that with all of you tonight and then moving on we put together a brief visual for our high school so at the high school level the only assessment data that we have for proficiency is our 11th grade act data and you'll notice on this graphic that 2021 is not there and that is because there was it was not our state assessment at the time but we did want to show that we do plan to show this trajectory of assessment data in the future and so what you
064can expect in the next year is to see what that growth data is going to be and right now the 2022 is really going to be our Baseline data and we're going to get to see the longitudinal data as we move forward and on the ACT Ela and the math is there a certain score that we consider as passing when we're saying that these this percentage passed what is that score that we're looking at so that is a little bit of a more complex conversation because according to our state they will determine proficiency bands but also act has their own fans that they determine as considered um proficient for like college entrants and things like that so for what you'll see right here um they use the bands that the state determines and those will
065change year to year depending on the cut scores that the state determines and we'll dive a little deeper into that in just a moment 18 20 21 whatever correct yep the other the question I have um with the ACT test used to be just kids that were going to college that took it now everybody has to take it so that's going to change the cut scores or whatever correct correct and so that is an important piece because Act is a national assessment and so they're not going to change their scores that they use nationally for college but since it is now adopted as our state assessment in Arizona Arizona they're looking at every student taking that so therefore they have created different performance bands to determine what's considered proficient minimally proficient and it's taking all
066of the students and looking at the standard deviation of those means and averages so one of one of the things that we get from standardized testing at least the state level standardized Destiny so we can look and see where students did well and where maybe they didn't have enough knowledge to do well on those questions and then address that how does that work with act since I don't think we really get to see those questions in the same way we do um we for act one of the things that I personally am thrilled about is that they provide us with very detailed reports and broken down by the different categories so right now you will see that I have shared and as we get a little further I'm going to focus on Ela and math
067because those are the two areas for our accountability formula however within act there's a science component there's a writing component and so the data that we get from that is very broken down but because it's not a standardized test it's a norm reference test it is really showing where students perform against one another Across the Nation and so it is under needing to understand kind of what you're looking at but our parents get immediate access once those scores are released which is a nice piece that is different from a historical State assessments and act has worked to create an Arizona dashboard where they provide more explanation reports q a frequently asked questions than I've ever seen the state provide and I believe that is because of the partnership that we have with the National Organization
068as act okay all right thank you Dr Cox yes recently there was a report in the National media about ACT scores Nationwide and a dip in reading and math is there any comparison with GPS scores and where where they fall where we fall in relationship to that National Data or do they compare specifically to what I think you're asking I could dive into that a little more deeply but I will share that right now what I have looked at is uh act comparison data from District to District which actually um gives us a decent indicator of where we can I guess I'm going to say competing with our surrounding districts but from a national lens I haven't Dove that deep yet into that big of a picture but I do question because there are a
069few states that are moving toward using this as a state assessment if that would have an impact because as uh was just mentioned a moment ago this used to just be for the college students and now the more that we are exposing all students to this there is the expectation that some of that data is going to shift I think that's the variable that the national media didn't pick up on correct in that many districts are beginning to use these kinds of Assessments in Acts sat as their testing formats yes and we in Gilbert Public Schools we have tested students on act for years uh but what I'm presenting and sharing with everybody right now is based on those performance bands that Ade is using for our letter grade because that's important because that is
070looking at all of the students that are testing instead of four years ago when we were just testing our students who really were doing a ton of test prep and were really driven with that post-secondary um mindset and I think it's valuable to report that out when we do that we're testing everybody's testing the select college-bound person we're testing everyone so you're going to see a variation in that score and probably a dip for a while and I really have been thrilled with the fact that this has become our state assessment as you recall there were a couple of years where there was like a menu where different schools around the state could choose different assessments and where Gilbert public schools had chosen act it was skewing that data on a national level on a
071state level even more because some had chosen it others didn't and then we were forced to use the ACT bands which really put us at a dis not just us but anyone that was choosing it as their state assessment at a disadvantage for that exact reason I I think that it's uh benefits us now that the entire state is using that because I think more districts and people people that understand what they're looking at with act recognize that it is all students that are taking it but I do agree that the more we can communicate that helps our stakeholders to understand that point good for us because it does give our student population an Open Door absolutely to challenge themselves absolutely well and hopefully over time as we increase that challenge and they're getting used
072to it we will incrementally improve and students will do better on the test I mean I think that's the goal of having it it's a state assessment is to help all students do better so that they can be College ready if they choose I agree with that skin so it's outside of the state's player for the ACT Testing thank you those scores for your college application yes yes there are a lot of benefits which is why I'm thrilled with the way that the high school assessments are set up for our accountability because it truly is providing the opportunities that should have been provided to all students in my opinion for a long time now do all colleges accept act now or is it because it used to be some of like out of state was
073it what is it in the other one yeah there are still in State uh yes but there are still some outside uh that it it depends all right so moving on to some secondary performance highlights I shared a couple of these but I did want to just share again that it is important to recognize that this spring was the first time that the aesa for our Junior High and then we also added in the ACT Aspire uh in the spring of 2022 for our ninth graders so these are all new state assessments across the board half of our secondary schools earned 70 or more of the El proficiency growth points that Mr vercher explained just a moment ago and similarly to the point that he shared in 2019 our secondary schools were sitting at 75.4
074points for the accountability model and in 2022 they increased that to 82.7 so K-12 we are very excited to be able to share that because we're going back to 2019 before we had some of the pieces that have kind of impacted us if that be the pandemic or the different assessments that have taken place over the last couple of years okay the following chart shows the elementary schools it's a year over year measure of points so first I want to go over the legend is blue represents the title schools receiving Title 1 services or funding the white is our non-tidal schools and green represents any increase either letter grade or points um year over year the first thing I want to point out is remember we did not get letter grades and for the 2021
075assessment so those are all estimated what we did is we took previous years accountability formula and we tried to estimate the best we could that you know had the state given a grade this is likely what we would have used what I would love to celebrate is commend the hard work of Ashland Ranch Mesquite Elementary Quartz Hill and Sonoma Ranch for all making a significant jump when you compare 2021 points give or estimated points given versus and then 20 2022 and then also I would love to recognize Finley Farms gilbertell Harris islands and Val Vista Lakes for all uh making an improvement in letter grade okay we also have some other things that we'd love to highlight is when you combine third through sixth grade math we did increase in math proficiency third and sixth
076grade ELA both increased by six points and fifth grade math increased by five points out of our 27 elementary schools 20 of them earned at least 80 percent of the growth points growth is huge as we look at meeting kids where they're at and really measuring what impact our teachers are having again meeting kids where they're at where they come to us growth is critical we also had 11 elementary schools maximize the acceleration and Readiness points and the accountability formula those acceleration and Readiness points are usually given for year-to-year subgroup improvement so that's a huge thing huge shout out to the 11 schools that maximize those points and then on the right side we also saw some huge jumps by different school and grade level teams so we'd like to commend and give them a
077shout out for working hard all right all right so now you will see the two-year comparison of accountability points for our secondary schools and the legend and the different color coding is the same you will notice on the right there's a lot of green we are really proud of the growth that our secondary schools have made and uh two major highlights that I would like to just draw your attention to the first being our Gilbert Global Academy they had a 20 over a 27 point increase and given everything that that school has had to there's been exponential growth with that school so it's very telling to what their team has done we're very proud of them and then another one that is just uh very high increase would include Gilbert High School with an over
07815 Point increase if you go through those numbers you'll see that there's several others on there but for the presentation I could only fit so many celebrations on there we also were very excited to share five of our six GPS high schools are in the top 50 of all schools in the entire state all of our secondary schools earned bonus points six of our high schools earned 10 out of 10 points for graduation rates three of our seven Junior highs received 80 or higher on that acceleration and Readiness category which is comprised of several different indicators and all of our high schools increased their CCRI points and just as a reminder that is the College and Career Readiness index which is self-reported and is in itself could be its own letter grade there are it
079is a spreadsheet that is filled of every opportunity for college opportunities our CTE classes different types of diplomas it's it's a huge undertaking and to see that all of our schools have increased those opportunities for our students I think is something to be celebrated as a district overall and then similarly we wanted to highlight some of our more significant increases with proficiency when it came to our Ela and math so with Ela you will notice that our Desert Ridge Junior High increased their seventh grade by 13 percent Gilbert Classical increased their seventh grade by 16 and our Junior highs for all Ela proficiency increased by 11 for all of our schools combined within our math subject area Desert Ridge Junior High increased 7th grade by 12 percent South Valley and Gilbert Classical both increased their
0807th and eighth grades and Junior High math proficiency for all of our schools combined increased by two percent [Music] okay Dr Cox and I tried to quantify how our subgroups were doing and so what we did is there are 15 subgroups for example special education low socioeconomic status ethnic groups foster care gender Etc so what we tried to do is quantify we took all of there were 15 data points for each assessment third through eight third through third through sixth grade math Ela and then 7th 8th 11th math Ela so each grade had a total of 30 subgroup categories that they were reporting we compared against Maricopa County averages and Gilbert Public Schools was higher in 88.3 we outperformed an 88.3 percent of the reported subgroups in elementary and we outperformed Maricopa County subgroups and
08176.7 percent of the reported subgroups in the secondary schools okay and then also fourth and sixth grade ELA outperformed Maricopa County in a hundred percent of the reported subgroups so Dr Newman started off this presentation sharing a little bit about the previous year overview and then kind of led into this year and we would like to just share a couple of things that outline the spring of 2022 which include uh that the Arizona Science test was used for reported data for the first time with this new Arizona with the new science test for grades five eight and eleven so that was a new piece in the spring this was the first year as we've noted for aasa and that is in math and Ela for grades three through eight was the first year for our
082ninth graders to take the ACT Aspire act will continue to be the state assessment for 11th grade and our 10th graders used to be required and have a mandated test but they are no longer required they no longer are part of the mandated assessment so with these pieces from Spring we wanted to share that the state has communicated to us that this is their assessment plan for the next five years and at this time they are not predicting that they're changing that at this time so we are excited to have the same assessment planned for the next five years I know I might don't hold me to that but at this point that is the plan and um again Ade has communicated that with us and it is posted on their website as their their
083long-term plan in addition to that there is the addition of a kindergarten entry assessment that will it's being uh piloted this year and will go into effect next year which will bring more information at a later time on that assessment but in regard to all of the previous assessments that I just noted all of those will continue on as true into this spring and the next few years what do we know right now about the kindergarten assessment other than that it's coming um we know very basic so we know that the state has provided funding for the next two years we know some of the timelines we know that students are to be a kindergarten students are supposed to be assessed within 45 first 45 days of school the state has picked a testing platform
084teaching strategies gold and that's kind of where we're at okay and we'll where will we report that data to do we know that to Ade it'll be Ade right after the 45th day of school gotcha okay we just have to do within the first 45 days correct okay so I am currently taking the training through Ade I'm doing it's two hours every Wednesday for the next couple Wednesdays so I'm learning a lot by getting ready to do it and I feel like that gives me the best chance to lead teachers principals by getting trained myself okay perfect [Music] is it computerized do you know that yet so I have seen screenshots but it's going to be five different categories it will be um physical motor activity social emotional learning numeracy literacy I'm forgetting the fifth
085sorry new Mercy literacy physical oh cognitive skills and what I believe is going to be a rubric nice that's beautiful so by a rubric he means the teachers will be making observations and then recording those within the platform right so um we want to make sure that we're supporting our Kinder teachers Mr vercher has done a really great job of establishing a plan where because we're going to be piloting developing a committee of teachers and getting some information so that we are really ahead of the game when we're having to train all of our Kinder teachers and they're going to have to implement it next fall I know I'm asking a lot of questions about kindergarten sorry but my what are they going to do with this data any idea I have not heard that
086as of yet okay this is something that came from the the legislature and they charged um the Arizona Department of Education to find an assessment so they chose this assessment which is what's being used right now in the preschool as well they did an RSP for that Head Start it's Head Start and my understanding is that um it has like a number of items on it 124 items that mostly are done through observation correct so I think that's tricky to be a teacher and helping all the kids to learn and observing individually so that you can know what the kids are capable of correct except that's what they do anyways because we want to meet them where they're at anyways so in some ways that's what kindergarten teachers are doing so we'll just need to
087make sure that they're understanding and supported yeah and something yeah something he had already also mentioned um looking through the test and the assessment as well is we are going to be able to some of the things that we're already doing in kindergarten those will become the artifacts that they will put in there exactly what you're saying yes so that is something already ahead of the game that we're thinking about but it's that Committee of kindergarten teachers that are really going to be able to tell us what it is you know that's going to be best for those artifacts I'm Mary to a kindergarten teacher in the district and she's let me know her thoughts right Robert do you see any just the little bit you know about this testing is any kind of a
088benefit for our teachers with the information I we used to many years ago we used to have testing before they started school like the first the first three days when it when the teachers came back and then teachers had an idea where their kids were going to be so I haven't seen the actual assessment but I'm optimistic that we'll be able to use that data to measure kindergarten Readiness to kind of set a path for um I think it's all going to depend on rollout and what evidence we want to prioritize if there is 124 days if there is right then a year I think it's great he's a preschool teacher and she I asked about it specifically so you know and that's why I'd love to get a committee is which ones do we
089prioritize right and which ones you know we can go a lot of different ways so as we kind of look at next steps uh we're continuing year three of the instructional framework and that should guide all of our initiatives that we're rolling out to both uh Schools teachers continuous Improvement plans are including quarterly impact checks we are working together as a teaching and learning Department with admin services to ensure that we're supporting teaching and learning is supporting the work that's happening on campuses we're focusing on core instruction and use of adopted curriculum resources such as foundations readygen and my perspectives uh it's been huge to build the coaching capacity for our new position of instructional coaches we're not only building the capacity with the Department of Professional growth and development but also building curricular capacity
090uh for leadership on the campuses next steps with assessment We are continuing with our priority of the reboot and refinement of our assessment platform illuminate and that includes several different components so one of the bigger ones is focusing on the universal screeners to help Target our interventions and even enrichment opportunities for our students these different opportunities take place in the classroom daily throughout the school year this year we added intercession opportunities and then for the past few years we've also used the screener data to help with summer school and summer support programs in the boot camps that take place in addition we have created and implemented end of semester common summative assessments for our high schools in each of the 16 a Arizona Board of Regents the graduation required classes to help with focusing on
091standards the academic Arizona academic standards and then with that a lot of our data teams and PLC conversations have led to the create of common formative assessments and those are small assessments on each of the standards by content and grade level and so this year we're focusing on creating those across the district so that instead of having a team at each School create them we can create a bank of them that everyone at the different schools can use and it will save as you can imagine with how many schools we have multiple teachers doing the same work uh and then finally I just want to point out that we are continuing with the administration of the PSAT and msqt to all of our 10th grade students which has been such a great opportunity at the
092high school level of being able to identify AP potential and open up a great opportunity for our students when it comes to scholarships College opportunities more advanced placement classes and that is something that I just know that on behalf of our team we're really thankful to the board because you guys have continued to support us with that and I just want to share that it really has been noted with the opportunities that it provides to our students and our parents our students and our faculty have all voiced that to us so we wanted to take an opportunity because really it's thanks to the board Dr Cox yes I'm intrigued by the common uh formative assessment can you give me a give us a sense of what your thoughts are well are you looking at a
093bank of information in a variety of domains or a predetermined domains I should say and teachers in that grade level in that content can then select from that bank of assessment items to create their own assessment but consistent with the domain am I you Dr Santa Cruz I could talk all night on this topic with you if you would like but to answer in a nutshell uh absolutely everything you're saying is spot on so just to reiterate some of that currently uh within illuminate in DNA there are banks of questions that exist and uh part of our package with illuminate is that they have experts on the other end of their um platform that create these and they're all attached to the standards so all of that work is done what we have found is
094that um when we first implemented illuminate it wasn't under the best circumstances which was out of everybody's control last year we did a reboot of the platform and we found that there were a lot of pieces within the platform that exist that our teachers and our administrators were not aware of and so um they were spending time doing some of this when we're like press pause that exists that we will save so much time so what that looks like right now is our PLC groups come together and they then are trained on how to create these common assessments there is a way to drop down so you can click a certain standard and there's a bank of hundreds of questions that exist they can click four or five of them and they can assess their
095students and then immediately the minute that the student has done and click submit these teachers could immediately come back together and it actually lights it up green and red they can visualize and see where their students are at which really helps with knowing when to maybe slow down the pacing of how they're teaching or if it is when they get together and talk in their data teams as a part of that data team cycle it is asking as a group what do we do now that they know how to do it what do we do if they don't know how to do it and then when and how do we re-teach those things and so it has also assisted with some of our teachers when giving re-test opportunities instead of teachers feeling like they have
096to recreate a new assessment on their own they can get into these Banks of questions and do that as well so depending on the type of assessment and what they're trying to evaluate those opportunities are there so our seventh and eighth grade team with our math departments have been the team that is most excited to come together and so in the next quarter our seventh and eighth grade teachers are going to be coming together to create these as a district and we're going to instead of going school by school this will be kind of that movement in the direction of okay we know and we're having the conversations how we're doing within our own seventh grade team but how are we doing compared to this other seventh grade team at this other school so that's
097kind of the direction of where we're going with it but I hope that that answers but this is a great conversation and we're really excited about the opportunities uh the wonders of technology I know take it back to ancient history and I remember how painful this was to create common summative Assessments in this District in the core areas and this gives a variety of options if it in fact works as it's theorized to work that that really is neat that's a that's a neat way to go but I I was just intrigued by that piece in your assessment package I I had a question just about the PSAT I presume we're going to encourage students to go on and take the SAT because then if they've done well in the PSAT that's where the opportunities
098lie if they do well on the SAT that entire plan uh I'm I'm not sure that that'd be like entirely National Merit scholar okay I I didn't want to assume where you were going with that but actually uh no our the end this exact assessment is actually what identifies National Merits but they have to be in their junior year so by testing all of our 10th grade students and each year that score that determines that changes because it depends on the top percentage and so what we are able to do and what our schools are currently doing is they get those results they just came in I believe this week and they're able to identify the top and based on the previous year's kind of cut score for the National Merits they are targeting those
099top end students and going to them and saying hey you really should consider taking it as a junior so the number of Juniors that we have taking the assessment has actually increased and we hope uh to really significantly increase that more PSAT again or the SAT it is the PSAT it's the same assessment the nmsqt that stands for national Merit student qualified test because I thought my understanding of the process was they take the PSAT they do well on that they still have to take the SAT not for National Merit no okay sorry it's okay understanding I was going to ask about psap too but you answered it thank you I know we've had National Merit Scholars quite a few of them in the district I my questions unless did you have anything for them
100to study I wanted to just ask a couple things one um I kind I'm excited about the formative assessments across the district as well because I think that it will help us see where things are what where things are effective like what about to say okay something really great is happening over here and then we can maybe say how can we replicate that what are they doing something different than other students not that someone's better or worse or anything but just how can we have everyone keep increasing and doing the best and learn from each other not be you know competing against each other as much as learning from each other and growing together so I'm looking forward to that and hoping that we we can use that in fact I was thinking that as
101you're saying like some of the schools had you know huge growth in some of their math or some of their things so do we then go back and look at that if third grade at Burke or I don't know what it was Desert Ridge Junior High you know had phenomenal growth then do we say hmm what is there something that we can pass on to replicate and that is 100 the mindset of where we go with these conversations and why we are hoping to create even more uh opportunities where we can look across the district at some of those pieces so historically and even currently we do have our benchmarks which provide that our state assessments and then like I said some of the campuses have created common assessments we're taking it to the district
102level the final exams that are created for the high school which they are administering in two weeks we're going to have that there but it all is a part of that conversation and I I love how you uh highlighted you know a lot of people do really great things and um it isn't that we're not doing a good job everybody's doing the best that they can but if there are areas where things are working well let's learn from one another and and I think our teachers are excited when I have worked with Department chairs and different teachers and that's the conversation that got going and so um I know that with the math department chairs at the junior high they're really eager and excited to go there I'm not sure that we're going to be
103able to keep up at the pace for the other teams that are going to want to be there so we're creating a plan for what we can kind of sustain for all the Departments and and K-12 to kind of have that um and it'll probably take a couple of years but that's the goal one of the things that um through our leadership coaches I mean such a wonderful thing for us to have so that collaboration with administer our administrative services with teaching and learning they have their quarterly impact checks so they look at the data then they determine what their goals are going to be and then quarterly what their action steps will be then quarterly they come in and they meet with a combination so Elementary will meet with Marcy Taylor Tim Cannon and
104Krista and second um sorry opposite secondary thank you for catching that um and then secondary elementary will meet with Robert Jason Martin and tia Hansen and just what they can learn just by through those conversations and so then we have our teaching and learning cohorts one of the things that we have planned is we're hearing all these great things that they're doing but we want to make sure that they're each hearing what they're doing as well so we're going to put some time just next Thursday and Tuesday to have them go through so they can hear what they're doing and some of those cool things too so we're really trying to work with some of that collaboration around the house because I think that everyone is valuing what each are doing they just don't necessarily
105know so we want to make sure that we're doing that but we're hearing tons through those quarterly impact checks they're so powerful and I think it's a great time because they can come and really brag about some of the wonderful things they're doing too and they're so intentional and they're so strategic and I think that makes them even more proud when really the results that they get are the wonderful that's that's great I I am happy and excited to celebrate a lot of great things that are happening and I know that even like our our grades from the state and different things like this assessments they are just one piece of the whole of what's really going on in every classroom and campus each day but it is it is one way that we can
106measure and see and something that we can Mark against it is difficult when the tests are change every year it's difficult when we haven't taken a test some you know different things when it's so I think it's a it's one piece but it's an important piece so I'm glad that we're looking at it if I could just ask one question I feel like some of our Junior High like our seventh and eighth grade um I felt like the way that you guys were describing it seemed like our assessments were fairly good so I'm wondering it doesn't feel like our grade from the state reflects that like their actual letter grades yeah the letter grades so one of the things to keep in mind is that the letter grade is made up of a very complex
107formula that is multiple areas and then when we dive into some of the celebrations that we shared we were focusing on proficiency within this presentation I did highlight a couple of other areas but when you look at the the whole picture if it is in those other categories so there's proficiency there's growth there's acceleration and Readiness and so when you start to look at all of those pieces we've identified the areas that we know and I I will be honest that um some of them it was just very close based on where those cut scores are and those cut scores change year after year so we know that there's there's always going to be work to do and we've identified those areas but we also because of all the variables you just pointed out a
108new assessment there's just so much change that we also like our teachers deserve to be celebrated for the the positives but yes at our Junior High we we notice that there's some work well there's work to be done everywhere every day so but you have a some specific categories that we can really focus on to reflect that better in the grade yes that's part of it too and I think it kind of goes back to a comment where Ade said we're dedicated to this for five years and nothing changing that would be phenomenal and when I say that because it seems like we've had moving targets for several years now and I think you highlighted that too but at the end of the day this this is information that informs our principles and forms our
109teachers of of where they need to play and this this is a bit of a a game to a degree and when you say that they keep adding certain things that are combined to make your letter grade over the years and so if you're really focused on one area and you you kind of let another area drop off because this is what your school really needs all of a sudden you're you're going backwards and not forwards according to a formula by a state but at the end of the day if your kids are progressing that's that's primarily what we're concerned about and making sure that um each single day that they're here that they're getting the very best out of our teachers and and so now if we're able to have some of the same
110consistency then we can focus in a little bit more on what that looks like for all of our students and so that's what these guys have been doing I I've been here what 24 years 23 years 25 years I don't know how many is I just got 25 years right 25 years oh yeah good thing I didn't get tested in math I have not witnessed more discussion about instruction and data amongst principals and teachers that ever before in this district and I can say that coming from a classroom coming to an administrator as a principal as well and it's it's really good and that those are hard conversations for people because some people aren't built that way I wasn't built that way as a principal and I know I got a couple principles here that
111probably weren't built that way either but we were principals in a different time and um so these folks are really really working hard and they're getting out of their comfort zone a lot of different ways and that is also things that they're doing with their teachers because that's not a comfort zone for a lot of them so we've had to take a step back and look at how we do certain things and how we construct our day how we plan for rigor on a daily basis for our kids and that's again it's not easy and it's a mind shift and when you go through that and when you go through that process some are going to get through it real easy others you're going to have to pull through and get them there but at
112the end of the day all that effort is going to spell great things for our kids and we just gotta continue to work hard and get there so and that's what these folks have been doing for the last few years so thank you thank you I I want to add to your comment just because I think I want to remind people that when we're talking about looking at the data what we're looking at is does the student know this or not and how do we go back and teach the student again so they understand it better because to me that is the thing that has changed instead of just giving a test and well you got to see or you got a D or you got an F that's it now we take that student
113and we work with them and help them understand that information so that they're better prepared to learn what's next and I think that's that's very very valuable Mr jelly I have one question that I think I've asked Dr Newman every year isn't it typical throughout the country that we see a seventh and eighth grade drop [Music] I mean it's it you know what's the reason for that and yes um and as a junior high Prince former Junior High Principal like it pains me sometimes to say that right we know that there's more than just the content we know that it has to do about the connect create and care it has to do with the relationships has to do with knowing what students do well and knowing what they struck how they struggle and being
114able to counter that so that they can achieve but I I do believe that our Junior High principals and teachers are completely dedicated to making it happen but that across the board not if that is not a single something singular to us no then I would like to just make one other comment if that's okay I would I would say that based on what we've dealt with over the last three four years in all of the different assessments and not getting assessed and and everything that um and just what you know all the expectations in our society and everything that's going on that our teachers are doing in our principles and all of you are doing a fabulous job and I think that it's really important that we celebrate what they do because you know
115they're not getting you know they can get a lot of they get a lot of beating up and I don't think that's fair anything further nope thank you very much thank you yes miss you Jenny we've end with that as well thank you and thank you very much foreign [Music] okay that will finish 2.02 and now we'll be to 2.03 FY 2022 School level annual financial report well here we are once again with the annual financial report for 2022. we'll bring up Miss betz and her team and they will go through this presentation with you good evening everyone again uh we had several questions from all of you when we presented the annual financial report and the school level annual financial report in October and so we took the time to do a comparison that
116we had done a few years ago looking at Gilbert Elementary versus Carol Ray Ranch Elementary and so we put together a very short presentation and also we'd like to share our own personal conclusions regarding the intent of this report and the difficulty of taking the data without the programmatic basis for the changes so to begin I want to introduce director Jackie matinin and budget manager Ashley Miranda and I'd like to point out that Ashley Miranda is the one who is putting together all of this data and rifling through it and you'll see in a few slides the difficulties associated with all of these all these numbers and so with that I'm going to go ahead and hand it over to Jackie thank you Miss betz Dr McCord Madam president members of the governing board as
117Miss Betts mentioned we are here again to present this there is nothing to approve this evening it's just a little bit more of an in-depth review of the school level annual financial report and again a huge shout out to Ashley Miranda for taking this on we do appreciate her hard work a little Blood Sweat and Tears and missed family time over it but we're here so today's report will include the school level AFR summary school by school comparison as mentioned Gilbert Elementary to Carol Ray Ranch and then we'll talk a little bit about school level Revenue to spend comparison so these are the the tabs I guess if you will from this giant data spreadsheet that is the school level AFR so it's important to keep in mind that not all of the spend is
118allocated out to the school level so we in particular special education special education Transportation those are all of those expenses are coded some services are coded at the district level um it's also important to remember that schools vary by location based on programs based on enrollment and also the revenue for this report was allocated by Ade and the auditor General's office that is not something that was in our control for this report so let's talk a little bit more about that but we'll compare Gilbert Elementary and Carol Ray Ranch so we wanted to focus on function 1000 which is instruction and then break it down by object codes which is part of part of the overall report so you can see salaries and benefits here salaries and benefits are higher at Carol Ray Ranch although
119the size of the school is very similar the purchase Services was much higher at Carol Ray due to our phased retirement folks who are not paid through payroll but actually through a purchase service supplies and capital you can see there the differences so it's important to note overall just an instruction that because of the special ed programs at Carol Ray Ranch on the target class sizes are a little bit different so special ed classes are smaller so you would see a higher cost for salaries and benefits any questions would that would that also be the same with the higher costs per student per supplies and as well right yes absolutely because with those special programs and okay and when I looked at the analysis on the supplies in particular um it's important to note also
120that this is this includes all funds except unemployment which is strange and Student Activity and the Enterprise and internal service funds so it includes most funds including tax credit and donations where Carol Ray exercised those funds a little bit more than than Gilberto [Music] this slide we combined all of the functions and I wanted to note that there are two highlighted cells on this slide there was a typo in the original presentation that was posted so we will post an updated revised presentation in the morning so those are the two that that changed so this is under all functions and then provides a total school over school so you can see that the amount per pupil overall in instruction was from the previous Slide the support services for students in that 2100 is higher this
121that includes the your speech language Pathologists otpt a lot of those special ed services so we would expect to see that higher there the 2200 Support Services instruction is actually higher at Gilbert Elementary because of the furniture that they purchase for their Library the school administration is pretty even Central Services was a was a minor um it was actually a professional development any questions on that one so you can tell from this slide overall that we're spending nine thousand two hundred eight dollars per student at Gilbert L and 10 935 dollars per student so for a reader that might be looking at the report they would think well that's not fair why are you spending more money at Carol Ray per student than you are at Gilbert Elementary which is one of the big problems
122associated with this report because the programmatic data is not there it's just a bunch of numbers collected together and divided by the number of students so it's easy to misinterpret the data as it's presented I'm sorry go ahead go ahead ask it two questions one question none of title one is in any of this information correct it is oh it is okay so where would that be I'm sorry I missed it it's part it's um included in all of the spent okay all right in fact the three dollars that you see under Gilbert Elementary was a title one expense and then I I think you said something about the um people that are on the for Pace retirement so that would that mean there's more at Carol Ray than there are at Gilberto there are
123yes and then Jackie could you explain you mentioned in your uh introduction that the bus transportation is held centrally so why is there student transportation reflected in each of these elementary schools um because the because these funds include tax credit and 525 auxiliary operations there these were school-based field trips for extracurricular activities it's a 17 and 12 dollars Miss matinee to your point and and to Betsy's point at Support Services 2100 function uh do we know the percentage of special student categories at Carol Ray and Gilbert l that might shed some light on that difference I don't have the percentage in front of me but I do know I can tell you that the Carol Ray Ranch special education population is about twice that of Gilbert Elementary I think that that's important factor it speaks
124to that programmatic issue that kind of throws the information into the clouds right yeah because they have similar total student counts but when you dive into and see the number of students that are actually in those highly specialized programs that completely changes and if we were to compare this to a different school that didn't have title one or it just is all of these different programs and things that we don't see in the numbers but once we can start looking at it we can we can see okay this is like I thought it was even interesting when you said the 376 dollars on the 2200 was more at Gilbert L because they chose to use some funding for Library Furniture which is beautiful over there right now so but that's an interesting it's just again
125that's a it's a yearly thing this doesn't reflect or show us that in just these numbers and these number this 2200 account well and if you talk about Library furniture since Gilbert L is 50 years old and Carol Ray is not I you know maybe 15 or 20 years old at least there's a big difference in Need For furniture when you right around that long so but to miss Beth's point it's important to caution our readers because to your point they look they look similar there are only seven students off but programs and how they choose to spend their money is very different thank you and I'm assuming that I'm assuming that the instruction code is is probably due to more senior teachers or that are probably paid more is that a correct analysis or
126that could be that could be part of it with the special ed students at Carol Ray keep in mind that those classes are a little bit smaller so there's probably more teachers at Carol Ray okay thank you I think that that's an important factor and I don't know if there is opportunity to create notations and asterisks on an AFR but if there were opportunity it would be important to say something about programmatic differences would be important to say something about Personnel differences as well when you factor in Phase retirement folks and the varieties of people who are there but I'm not sure that that's a viable option with this report but it's critical that we at least say that in these meetings so that that word does get out well if it's possible we would
127have a lot to say oh yes I'm sure well keep in mind that even just comparing two schools is a significant effort because we have to we have to go and de delve into HR records Etc to figure out what's going on at that schools and so to do that across the board would be an exceptional difficulty for we'd probably have to hire another couple of Staff members to get all that done our paraprofessionals counted in here as well yes that's a good point boost your salary as well you've got three or four more people per program that's very true to give you an idea on the class size too Mr Parker the special education classrooms are targeting maximum of 12 per class so it's often less than that whereas our k-6 population is probably
128on average about 26. so you have to have more questions classified as well for special for special education that's correct too yep from people in the gallery Caraway has eight spice classrooms with 23 percent of the students receiving sped Services Gilbert L is at 12 sped with two functional skills classroom thank you thank you Mr Martin breaking news maybe we could have Mr Martin do the programmatic analysis for the 27 schools for us kidding Kim totally kidding I'm kidding Jason I'm sorry sir foreign School Revenue to spend comparison School so one of the questions that we received from a couple of board members was regarding the negative so when you're looking at Revenue to spend in Gilbert Elementary uh you know looking at special education only you note the negative 292 000 and then you
129look at Carol Ray and they're positive at 55 299. so to explain that remember as Jackie introduced the presentation this evening she shared that the revenue is allocated out via a formula by the otter General's office and then Department of Education so we are not um we are not a participant in those decisions regarding how the revenue is allocated out and to explain it in a different way it's the concept of backpack funding where each child has a certain value depending upon their particular attribute boots whether they are a special needs student or an English language learner or a gifted student they all receive a variety of different weights associated with funding So based upon this the department of Ed is saying okay this is the population at Gilbert L this is how much you
130if it were backpack funding that you would be allocated out well obviously with a negative 292 thousand dollars they're not underfunded by 292 thousand dollars because our practice here in Gilbert is to fund the need we are not providing dollars based upon how much revenue each student is earning we are providing the resources to each School based upon what the needs of all the students are at that school so also Ms metton shared that none of the district office expenses are allocated out on a per student basis to any of these schools so there is a lot of spend held at the district office that's not reflected here so if you look at so really if you look at the backpack funding Gilbert Elementary should have received 292 thousand dollars more than they actually spent
131but that means Gilbert Elementary provided absolutely zero dollars to support transportation to support all of the district office functions even to support the special education leadership Personnel that are held centrally so that's the best example that was the biggest question that was asked alternatively if we had backpack funding and we were going to fund Carol Ray Ranch in that way they would have a surplus of fifty five thousand dollars from a district-wide perspective that's an inefficient way to allocate out resources and make make sure that every student then is getting what they need across the district so that's really the story thank you are there any other questions board members well thank you for all the hard work I I appreciate it um I wish you didn't have to do this um and I would
132like to see other education entities have to be more accountable and transparent and maybe us do a little less so because I you know while this this is valuable unless we know the context that it's in it we really can't make any judgments just based on the numbers so DR Sanders just like to again offer thank you to Ashley and Jackie and and Bonnie for the work and effort and it's a constant communication when you have reports like this that is seem to highlight disparities which actually do not exist because the amalgam of funds that come into the district are distributed to the institutions based on an internal formula that tries to provide equity for all of its populations and personnel and I hope I've said that correctly [Music] Mr Parker thanks again uh the
133the audit committee went through this a couple of weeks ago and so we appreciate everything you've done too great so I guess my takeaway would be if someone has a question as they look at the report to please give us a chance to help understand and and see what those numbers might be you know might be what they're reflecting what they're actually telling and that we would be able to show that kind of like you did here today give some even just general examples of what some differences are so is it is it is it useful like do we look year over year just the same school is that something that's useful like if if Carol Ray we look at 2020 versus 2021 versus 2022 does that provide any insight into anything or is really
134the intent of this is to compare the others to compare school by school what do you think I do believe that the intent was to allow a comparison of school by school and push that concept of backpack funding I believe that this came into being those fiscal 20 that we were required to do this so I know that the State of Arizona has been working on this concept of backpack funding for the last since 2013. um I do think and they also had it interestingly enough when I was at the department of Ed back in 2005 we also had a school by school level AFR and they dumped it then it came back again obviously so um so yeah we do not have a site-based budgeting process and um and and just I mean a
135simple concept for you to remember is that we can't we have differing teachers with differing levels of experience and so therefore differing pays can you imagine if we would have to assign teachers to schools based upon their pay to make sure that we're equitably Distributing funds throughout all of our schools I mean that's a ludicrous example no it's not that's true that's logic I mean and even informative you look at the transportation some Schools Bus poor kids further than other schools do so your your transportation expenses will be higher or lower it's it's just different things just different things yeah I think what also needs to be said is that if there's something that a school needs we do everything we can to get that to them we don't we don't care what their numbers
136are we don't care what this report says if they have a need we will fill it as best as possible so this is what these guys do so thank you yeah well that's kind of back to that zero-based budgeting process right we're going to fund what you need tell us what you need and then we'll take care of it on under capitalize an example Gilbert L chose I really want to change my my library Furniture this year and so we allocated out the money for that so it's just an example that's more efficient I think well and at least that is the process that we follow so whether or not it just isn't reflected the same way these numbers don't reflect that so yeah great well I really appreciate that Mr Jetty did you have
137something I just want to say in special education programs change over the years too because of population and things like that so you really it just you know it you have to just present what you have no no you're not no but I really appreciate what Mrs Betts said about that what our district philosophy is and you know that we take the child and do the best we can it's all about students so great thank you guys thank you very much I I really appreciate your time as well to to dive into this and give us give us some insights into that again this year so wonderful all right this will adjourn our work study and I will call to order our brief board business meeting tonight and I will ask Miss Wilson to please
138call the roll Dr Charles Santa Cruz here Mr Bill Parker here Miss Laurie wood here miss Jill Humphries here Michela eugetti here Madam president all four members are present you have a corn thank you very much let's go to the consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved thank you Mr Jetty it's been moved is our second second thank you thank you Dr Santa Cruz and it's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you that has passed and now we will adjourn our brief board business meeting is there a motion to adjourn so moved thank you Miss Humphreys is there a second second thank you missy Jetty it's been moved
139and seconded that we adjourn all those in favor please vote by saying aye aye any opposed with nay thank you thank you all for being here for all the work and presentations that were given to us tonight we appreciate it [Music]