001thank you good evening i'd like to call this meeting to order it's tuesday january 25th 2022 and this is our regular board meeting at 6pm i'd like to welcome everybody who's here and those who are joining us on live stream or recorded session we would like to begin tonight with a moment of silence and as part of this if we could remember an employee who passed away recently larry french as part of our moment of silence and then i will lead us in the pledge of allegiance if you could all please stand with me i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you miss wilson could you please do the roll
002call dr charles santa cruz here miss laurie wood here miss sheila eugetti here ms jill humphries here mr bill parker here madam president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you we will move on to 2.01 the approval of the agenda do i have a motion i move to approve the agenda as presented thank you miss humphries is there a second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda as presented all in favor please vote by saying aye hi anya please please say nay all right that passes 5-0 we'll now move on to 3.01 with the superintendent's report with dr mccord thank you and good evening um i'd like to acknowledge a couple people in the room first is maddie trimmer here is she back there
003maddie maddie is one of our superintendent uh student senate members and she's here to check out how things work so thank you for being here please give her a hand and then we also have some folks from aspire which is um a group that is aspiring to be administrators and so they meet on a monthly basis with our administrative team to go through a lot of different things related to administration uh we have alistor tini where are you alice yay here we go liesel hafner there you are amanda patrick and shar cap she here yet she's on her way so we'll give her a future hand all right thank you guys for being here tonight we appreciate it uh welcome back we definitely hit the beginning of 2022 running the current cobin 19 surge has
004created challenges for our school district but our students staff and families have done all they can do to remain in school i'd like to thank all of our teachers support staff and school administrators for their ability to pivot at a moment's notice to help cover classes when we are short on substitutes you prove day in and day out that you care about children and it's greatly appreciated i'd also like to thank all of our substitutes we appreciate your willingness to step up in a time of need and give our students everything you can and again to everyone thank you very much last thursday we had our district spelling bee it was held at campo verde and all the students represented gps extremely well it was an exciting evening and we're so very proud of all
005of our participants there were well over 25 rounds held during the competition i'll read off the names of the students and what place they came in all eight of these students will represent gps in the regional spelling bee on tuesday february 8th at 10 a.m at the queen creek performing arts center in first place we have from augusta ranch sean fay in second place from south valley safarth rahaman in third place aryan rivera torres from playa del rey from quartz hill kate mesoruski and in fifth place ellie draves from greenfield elementary and sixth place adianaya from mesquite junior high and seventh ava gasparo from meridian and an eighth was mason smith from neely traditional academy again congratulations and good luck to all of our spellers at the regionals we have some national board certified teachers
006we'd like to recognize congratulations to our new two new national board certified teachers melissa wiltbank from desert ridge high and casey shafer from gilbert high school what a great honor and accomplishment thank you for sharing your expertise with the students of gilbert public schools mrs wood that concludes my report for this evening thank you dr recording congratulations to those that were honored tonight we we're proud of you we would like to now move to 4.01 request to speak to the governing board and we do have one person who's requested to speak so if we could listen to the admonition please the board may make an open call to the public during a public meeting subject to reasonable time place and manner restrictions to allow individuals to address the public body on an issue within the
007jurisdiction of the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open call the board requests that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against school personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy ke k-e-b and k-e-d are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies
008can be obtained from the gilbert public schools website thank you we have one speaker tonight amber mcafee and you'll have three minutes when you come up thank you amber mcafee it's a hard last name it's okay it's a really hard name um back again i am still just as upset as i was last month talking to this board about the actions of nsba i emailed each of you i've yet to receive a response from any of you and as a citizen and you are representing me as an elected body i'm deeply upset that there's no communication so i'm here to redress that tonight i'm also deeply upset that a member of this board testified at the legislature last week against bill 1011. 1011 that bill it's by kelly townsend and it seeks to remove taxpayer
009dollars from being used by an organization with a partisan bias mainly that is going towards as arizona school boards association asba is deeply partisan anyone who says otherwise is lying i'm sorry it is true you can look at their track record of the past five to ten years of their bills that they support it is deeply partisan they work very hard to silence parents they have cut off and shut down bills that would give parents rights that's wrong what's really wrong is my tax dollars going towards an elected official who then takes those tax dollars and gives it to a lobby that wants to shut my voice down that's against america that's against what we stand for i should hope okay it is also national school choice week i'm grateful for choice gps has not
010always given me the best education for my children for the ones it does they are still enrolled in this district choice is a huge part of who we are as americans it is what has given us this wonderful land choice to live where we want to do what we want to speak and to fight for the things that we want i would hope that this body would respect the choice now back to choice school board members you have a right to give those dues to whatever body you want but you don't have the right to take the money from the hard working pockets to give to an organization that is going to then turn around and weaponize that money against the people that you took the money from i'm deeply opposed to that it is
011very very unfair to claim that you need the services of asba when there are other options asba can turn into a 501 c 4 they can fundraise elected officials have the ability to fundraise also there is the coalition of school board members that is a non-partisan option for school board members to get training i understand you don't want to lose a resource i get it none of us want to lose resources but not at the expense of the taxpayer not at the expense of the very people who have elected you hey please we i've been up here talking about masks i've been up here talking about closures i'm all about choice please do not choose to use funds and taxpayer dollars against the parents who have elected you miss humphries i believe you need to
012step down i believe you have violated the trust of this public and i believe that your actions in supporting asba make you unfit to serve on this board thank you president uh would may i respond to police sure first i our view is very different of what arizona school board association does and i'll just say that um we were not responsible for the letter that was sent by the nsba i did learn last week that the person who sent that letter was an interim director who has since been removed from his position the major thing that asba does is that they take the legislation passed by the legislature they turn it into policy and then they teach board members how to implement that policy in their districts that is their major um push there are
013other initiatives we are a large group so when you have 1100 school board members we don't always agree with each other but we try to maintain decorum and work through those differences of issues and come together to support kids um and i would just say as i did in my testimony at the senate that some people think that taxpayer money should not be used for lobbying my position is that if we don't allow taxpayers funds to be used towards lobbying at the state legislature who is there to speak on behalf of children parents and taxpayers it's only otherwise it's just private companies lobbying and i think that's a mistake i think that we need a voice with our own state legislature to talk about what bills should be passed and i am all about wanting
014and encouraging parent parent engagement and community engagement in our schools and i will speak about that later during the committee reports something i attended today so um sorry that we have a difference of opinion if you would like to make an appointment with mrs wilson i would be happy to sit down and talk with you at the district office thank you thank you for the request to speak and i also wanted to acknowledge that we had comments made given over the website that we have looked at and that are there in the public as well so thank you for those who have participated that way we appreciate that if we could move on to 5.01 well 5.5.0 is reports and 5.01 the monthly budget report december 2021 fy2022 dr mccord thank you madam president i'll
015turn this over to bonnie betz our assistant superintendent of business services good evening governing board members president wood um dr mccord can you guys hear me all right i have a wireless am i all right can you huh it's on am i good okay good okay good so um good evening again uh this is the uh status of our finances as of december 31st 2021 and uh next week a week from tonight we will be presenting the revised number two budget to you this presentation is referencing the pending revised number two that we've calculated and assumed we would be revising to and it's it's very close there will be some small adjustments made from this pending revised number two versus the uh final revised number two that we are requesting you to approve next week
016so just keep that in mind as we go through this report so we're going to go through the following specific reports operating funds federal funds state funds and other funds so again i i shared with you that the budgeted funds all are looking at the pending revised number two and the cash funds do reflect the annual financial report that you approved in october of 2021. so again this is what you've seen on the maintenance operations fund so looking at the upper maintenance operations fund you can see that we are anticipating a budget of very close to 286 million to to date we have expended and uncovered about 236 million leaving an available balance of about 50 million again as is monthly as stated monthly there are some purchases that are have not yet been encumbered
017some of them are our extra duty pays and those sorts of things so roughly about 15 million of that we can expect to be spent the classroom site fund please note that we do have the pay for performance encumbered in the year-to-date expended encumbered column so truly we expect at the end of the year that we will have close to 14 million dollars carried over in classroom site fund again a reminder classroom site fund in the past has been reported in three separate funds now due to statutory changes last spring we have one fund and all activity is coming out of that fund 10. finally looking at unrestricted capital we can see the normal spend that's been ongoing and you can see that again the revised budget two pending is increased slightly over adopted due
018to the budget balance carry forward from the afr and we do right now have an available balance of about 13.4 million dollars however you are approving a couple of items tonight that will be encumbered out of unrestricted capital as well so you can see that available balance go down throughout the remainder of the fiscal year and this slide just gives the the reader the background that i just shared on our federal funds the change the biggest change here is to show the activity in sr3 we made our first one and a half percent stipend payment that last pay in december so you can see that a spend is reflected under sr3 also note the education plus up grant i've shared with you in the past that we have been formally approved now for that and
019that is 3.8 million dollars generally speaking we plan on taking existing maintenance and operations expenditures and moving those into this epu grant again with the whole objective of increasing budget balance carry forward into fiscal 2023. before i go on are there any questions about that okay great again these are the just the details that i just shared the state funds i just wanted to point out results based funding you can see the dollar amount that we were notified we will be receiving and you have an item under consent to approve that payment we plan on making that payment on the 1st of march um let's see and then the final other fun details looking at the internal services fund which is print shop the doodle credit and then other apps that are purchased by schools
020in an enterprise manner we did encumber the amount of salary that we expect to move out of maintenance and operations and put it into the dual credit fund representing the salaries and benefits paid to those teachers who are educating dual credit students and that is the end of my report if there are any questions i'm happy to answer those board members are there any questions good thank you very much thank you miss bets we appreciate that we will now move to six on the agenda consent agenda items miss wood before you go i just want to let everyone know about a change on 6.03 certified classified and substitute personnel we'll have to reclassify mr french was set to retire on the 31st we will have to move that to separation of employment thank you for
021the update dr mccord do i have a motion 6.01 approval of consent agenda items do i have a motion i move that we approve the consent agenda items as presented thank you miss you jetty is there second a second thank you miss humphries it's been moved and seconded that we approve the agenda items as presented with the change given by dr mccord board members may we um let's vote any all those in favor will you please say aye aye aye any opposed please say nay all right the it passes 5-0 now we're moving to action items we will begin with 7.01 the results-based funding payment dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members uh item 7.01 is results-based funding payment and i'll just read to you what we have in public competent content the
022purpose of this agenda item is to form you of the arizona revised statute 15-249-08 results-based funding and its implications for gilbert public schools this is the fifth year results-based funding has been allocated the funding consists of legislative statewide appropriations that the arizona department of education administers and distributes to eligible school districts or charter districts based on the statutory formula through applying the statutory formula gilbert public schools received three one million three hundred fifty nine thousand three hundred seventy nine dollars and fifty five cents the ten identified results based funding schools include ashland ranch canyon rim elementary carroll ray ranch elementary gilbert classical academy greenfield elementary harris elementary highland park elementary neely traditional academy patterson elementary and quartz hill elementary spring 2019 the state student performance data was used to distribute results-based funds to districts receipt
023of the funds is dependent on the number of students who attended the school on the 100th day of the school year during the 2020-2021 school year a stipend will be given to current qualifying staff in those schools to include payroll taxes and benefits professional staff will receive 800 based on their full-time equivalency and support staff will receive 400 based on their full-time equivalency these results-based funding monies will be distributed to qualifying employees in one check scheduled for march 1st 2022 pay date after the governing board approves the distribution of the rfb funds the remaining results-based funding balance will be utilized by the district to assist in replicating and maintaining successful school programs in gps such as traditional acceleration and other school choice programs we ask for your approval thank you dr mccord may i have
024a i move that we approve the results based funding payment thank you mr jetty is our second second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded that we approve the results-based funding payment is there any discussion uh yes i just have a couple comments about results-based funding this is not this is something that was put in place and i am not in favor of results-based funding because i feel like it is um all of our teachers work hard they really do to bring their children to a place of learning and to accomplishment and when we measure that by a standardized test i don't really feel like it is a fair measurement to many of our students people are learning whether they reach a certain place on a standardized test or not and i just
025wanted to say that i'm going to vote in favor because obviously we're receiving the money and it should go out and to those who have worked hard but i feel like it is not the fair a fair program for teachers and staff for everyone in the district i'm very happy for these 10 schools but i think that every school should be recognized in that way because i know they work hard so put that on thank you mrs humphries is there any other discussion all right it has been moved and seconded that we approve the results-based funding payment board members all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed please say nay all right the motion passes 5-0 thank you now let's move to 7.02 policy development first read a policy db annual budget dr
026mccord thank you madam president governing board members we have policy db before you annual budget all budgets you see this evening all budgets all policies you see this evening have been through our policy committee meeting for the first read we bring those here for you tonight this policy in particular deals with rolling over balances and i'll let ms betts explain a little bit more deeper yes the the main change to the annual budget db is reflecting that we would like to allow our um our schools to carry over unused discretionary maintenance and operations funds into the new year the intent is to allow them to one consider careful spending so at the end of the year they're not just spending just to spend it because they know that they're going to lose it it also
027gives them an opportunity if they have a spend that might be more than they would have in any one year they could they could actually accumulate it over a year or two to spend it in a subsequent year and then it also accounts for the fact that we are funded in current year average daily membership putting some of our schools at risk in the event that their enrollment goes down so it gives them some flexibility in terms of being able to pay some of those discretionary dollars back so the other details regarding the various definitions of fund balance are added to allow us to account for the carryover of these discretionary monies on our financial statements at the end of each year thank you miss betts may i have a motion i move that we
028uh passed the sorry we've already had a motion oh sorry this is the policy my mistake i move that we passed the policy db annual budget thank you the there's a motion is there a second second thank you miss humphries and miss eugetti it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion board members all right if there's none we will take this back to the policy committee as well and then bring it back for a second read as well but um let's go ahead and vote on the motion that's as it's been moved tonight all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed please say right it passes 5-0 that takes us to 7.03 policy development first read of policy gbevc gifts to and solicitations by staff members dr mccord thank you madam president
029governing board members we bring before you policy gb ebc uh gifts to and solicitations by staff members basically there's an addition to this policy it's called food for staff and this gives the ability providing a working breakfast or lunch for staff shall not be considered a gift the use of mno funds for this purpose shall be limited to district-wide events sponsored by superintendent and shall be limited to no more than four times annually again this policy went through policy committee as well thank you dr mccord may i have a motion i move to prove policy geb sorry gb ebc gifts to and solicitations by staff members thank you miss humphries is there a second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion i just again i think this is a
030good addition because you know sometimes just having some food can really build relationships and and help people to have something to visit over and and just kind of builds the trust in our in our district i think that's really important uh to build relationships mrs wood yes miss bets if i could add at the bottom the legal reference we have we have that confirmed that the legal reference was incorrect on the original uh policy and we have changed that so it was identified in the previous policy as 15312 and you can see the change it's now 15 213 which is the correct statutory reference thank you going along with that there's nothing in statute statute that that would prohibit this no this policy change is in direct response to new legislation that was added regarding
031the governing board discretionary powers and so a whole paragraph was added paragraph 39 and this is in direct response to that paragraph edition last legislative session thank you is there any other discussion seeing none i'll call for the vote all those in favor of approving policy gb ebc gifts too and solicitations by staff members please say aye aye all of those opposed please say nay right that passes 5-0 and again that will go back that's the first read so we'll take that back to the committee and then bring it back here for and for a second read that will take us to 7.04 policy development first read a policy ikf graduation requirements dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members this is essentially our graduation requirements but in our graduation requirements we have a
032section for gilbert classical academy and what we are currently doing is just updating some language like world language instead of modern language and then changing fine arts from three credits to two credits and adding one to the elective credit so moving that from three to four credits essentially giving those students ability one more elective credit to be able to use thank you dr mccord may i have a motion i move that we adopt the first read of policy uh jfb open enrollment oh wait sheila we're one above that that's okay i know you're good you're good first read of policy ikf graduation requirements thank you mr jetty is our second second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded do we have any discussion i guess my one question would be when would that
033go into effect for the next school year correct yes it would begin 22-23 school year okay thank you are there any any other questions or discussion in this first read see none i ask for the vote all those in favor of approving the first street of policy ikf graduation requirements please say aye aye any opposed please say nay all right that passes 5-0 and we are now to 7.05 policy development first read a policy jfb open enrollment dr mccord thank you madam president governing board members policy jfb has to do with our open enrollment policies state legislature passed some laws that require us to do some things and post some things on our website and i'll read through part of this in accordance with state law the district has established an open enrollment policy and
034program is set forth by ars 15-816 and ars 15-816.01 no tuition shall be charged for open enrollment except as authorized by applicable provisions of ars and 15-764-15-797-15-823-15-824-15 and here's the section that truly uh makes us do some things a little bit different and that's okay says the open enrollment program described this policy shall be placed on the district website made available to the public upon request the district will update on each school's website the school's capacity whether the school is currently accepting open enrollment students by grade level and at least once every 12 weeks unless there are no changes to report for the individual school so again we would have a section on our website that would have this information posted and we would update it on a regular basis just to make sure it's
035as current as possible and then there's some other language that was added except provided ars 15-816 the school may not limit admission based on the following ethnicity or race national origin sex income level disability proficiency in english language or athletic ability and so then there's the legal references down there which is 15-341 thank you dr mccord board members may i have a motion yeah i move and get it correct this time i knew that we approved the first read of policy jfb open enrollment thank you mr jetty is there a second second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing none i will call for the vote uh all those in favor of approving the first read of policy jfb open enrollment please say aye aye any opposed please
036say nay all right those pass 5-0 and again like we've said before they will go back to our policy committee and then back to the next public meeting for the second read great all right mrs wood yes since this is the for the first actual business meeting of the year yes would you kind of explain to the to our public how we how we get to this part to these policies how we um our process in this district about how we do it uh you know and we think we we talk about it every now and then it might not hurt to just explain it to the public each year sure i will give my thoughts and then if anybody wants to add so typically when typically either a law changes and so we need
037to add or adjust our policies based on that or there's a question or concern that comes up within the district from either a staff member or our district staff or a parent and so we will address and look at the policy around it and see if we can address that and so typically we'll start by we have a policy meeting this second tuesday second and third tuesday of every month it's a public meeting we hold it at 11 30 in the board in the board meeting room over there um it's you will see the agenda it's it's open to the public as well and we just will go through and discuss the policies and we have staff members come as well to be present to give feedback as needed and then we will wordsmith whatever
038we need to make some changes and then we bring it to the first read at the public meeting at our at our regular board meeting we'll go through that what you just saw tonight that will be the first read then we'll take it back to the policy meeting again if we have any other input from from emails or phone calls or other things along the way then we bring that back to this the second meeting and a second policy meeting go through it again make sure that we said what you need to make sure it addresses the law as it needs to be get legal reference if we need to those kinds of things and then we'll bring it back here for the second read before we approve it is that that's perfect thank you
039thank you thank you for asking for that i appreciate that great with that we will move on to 8.01 items for future agenda if any have anything they'd like to request right now to be put on the agenda or please let dr mccord or myself now or miss wilson know if we'd like to have something on the future agenda all right from that then we'll move on to 9.01 with the board committee reports we'll begin with myself gilbert education foundation i've contacted miss dudeson and am getting up to speed on everything that's going on and i know we have a breakfast business breakfast meeting this february 7th monday morning here so looking forward to that that's the extent of my report tonight 9.02 city of mesa liaison miss humphreys i want to report on two
040things that i've been involved with this last couple weeks one was a virtual town hall put on by the maricopa county superintendent of public instruction where he he sent out a just a survey to teachers and was concerned about the results that that there is a lot of stress on teachers this year and it's been a very difficult year for them so um he sent out an email i i think anybody could have answered the invitation i chose to do so and i thought it was a very beneficial he is offering that if if the district would districts would like to have him work with them and survey their teachers to to get some understanding of what their stress level is or thoughts on what could help them and i know we're working on that
041issue very hard here but i just wanted to share that also today i attended the school connect summit school connect is a non-profit group that works very hard to support schools by connecting business and government and faith-based leaders with schools and local communities so that we can work together to provide for our schools and help them have the things that they need and i have to say it was a very uplifting presentation for me one of the guest speakers talked about the the trauma that children have gone through and and addressing some of that and helping with their behaviors and i got to listen to some superintendents share what they're doing in their districts and then we also had time to talk at our table with the people that we were with and share some
042of the things that have been going on and it was just a really um good opportunity to just appreciate what our public schools are doing across the maricopa county and across the state so i just want to share that thank you 9.03 town of gilbert liaison dr santa cruz president wood i have nothing to report i still need to make contact with the town liaison and we'll do that soon great thank you finance audit committee mr parker nothing new thank you insurance trust representative mrs eugetti we met last week and everything's in very good shape once again and i think more to report thank you legislature legislative representative mrs humphries just to announce that the asba equity event will be march 3rd and 4th and it will be in maricopa so registration is available for
043that now and i would encourage attendance thank you 10.01 future meeting dates dr mccord madame president governing board members meetings for february february 1st board work study and brief board business meeting february 8th board policy committee meeting and on our agenda says february 14th which is valentine's day and we don't have a meeting that night it's actually february 15th so there you go you all have the night off for your significant others and that is our last board business meeting for that month thank you appreciate that seeing no further discussion on anything we will go ahead and call for adjournment 11.01 is there a motion make a motion for german thank you mr parker is our second second thank you miss humphries and eugenie appreciate that um it's been moved and seconded all those in
044favor please say aye any opposed nay all right we are adjourned thank you for your attendance tonight and for all that you're doing for our schools and our students