001good evening and welcome to those of you who are here in the boardroom and those of you who are watching on live stream today is tuesday december 7th 2021 and we are in a work study and a brief board business meeting we'll call this meeting to order and before we actually get started with presentations i would like to exercise a point of personal privilege given that we are meeting on december the 7th i'd like to just take a moment and please remain seated where you are and take a moment of silence for all those souls who were lost at pearl harbor thank you and as always if i could speak on behalf of the board we thank our veterans and for the military community who work on behalf of this nation every day so we
002call the meaning to order we're at item two is a presentation and discussion of a topic a topic being elementary acceleration program item 2.01 dr mccord anything by way of introduction no just want to bring up jason martin and the executive director of elementary schools and mr patrick miller the principal of valve esti lakes elementary they're going to talk to you a little bit about some things that they've been working on and get your thoughts and feelings on it as we move forward so mr martin thank you dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz members of the governing board as well as the community we're excited tonight to present to you this proposal for a basically a pilot program for acceleration next year in gilbert public schools and so patrick and i will be going
003through the slides but just want to give a little bit of history most of us sitting around this table know the word acceleration is nothing new to gilbert schools but what we want to do is basically formalize what the acceleration program looks like historically in gilbert public schools at the elementary level gifted services and accelerated services have been kind of combined and the words have been intermeshed and what we're attempting to do this year and moving forward is to separate those because those are two different groups of students we have gifted programs that we're working on right now the teaching and learning department is leading a charge right now with a gifted committee so that we can further define what a gifted student means and the types of services but we also too want to
004ensure that we are opening pathways for our students k-12 with the acceleration model historically of course we called it accelerated learning program at the elementary level we've ceased to use that word about two years or those words two years ago trying to separate gifted and accelerated services and so now at the elementary level most elementary schools have 1.0 or if they're smaller with their gifted population might have a 0.5 gifted teacher and even those gifted services might look a little different from campus to campus based on the population needs of those students so that's a little bit of background of where we were and now i'll take you into where we're proposing to head into for this upcoming school year and i want to tell you that it's not just patrick and i working on
005this there's four other principals sitting back there elementary principles jason fayla amber bickus joan henry and chris stroud that are also committed to working through this program and they've been working with us the last two months jared ryan with strategic initiatives and community ed has also been working with us we're really looking at how we're ensuring that some of our pathways k-12 we're giving students the opportunity at the elementary level so that we can increase the number of students at the junior high and high school level receiving accelerated services and then of course the teaching learning department dr barbara newman brandi burton and some of the district coaches and coordinators have also been working on this so it's a team effort just like everything we do here in gilbert to move this new program model
006forward so one of the philosophies here of course is to provide a challenging learning environment for students with higher academic abilities as i shared we have many students that may not qualify for gifted services uh using the traditionally the cogat test or some other methods that we are now using but we have a lot of students that are motivated to do that and so really what our background or philosophy is to create those learning opportunities and experiences for above level instruction to happen for those students and a lot of these students too we want them to take ownership of their learning and one of the things that we talked about too is that articulation and that pace currently when students go to seventh grade there are some students that have the opportunity to take honors
007junior high or high school classes and historically those students have funneled in from our gifted program at the elementary level well that's usually three to five percent of students at each school which is a relatively large or small percentage of students and so by proposing to offer this acceleration model where we have more students k through six experiencing the accelerated curriculum they'll also have the opportunity in our secondary schools to move towards the honors classes and eventually in high school we hopefully will see more students in our ap classes as well too so might be asking well what's the placement in enrollment it's a little it's a little um less formal than gifted services where we have to by state statute uh have certain parameters in order for a student to be classified as gifted
008so what we're proposing here is that the placement would be based on parent and student request teacher recommendation review of appropriate placement will occur throughout the year and then also two the number of accelerated sections at a campus within each grade level would be decided upon the principle utilizing the parent preferences as well as class sizes in classroom space and if you think about a lot of this is going to look similar in terms of staffing of how we currently staff spectrum elementary and canyon rim elementary where we have the traditional program and the conventional program and this would be similar in that way or also as well gilbert elementary where we have the spanish dual language program and the conventional program we run two ftes basically simultaneously at that campus based on need and
009the principal supervisors working with otm and administrative services works to figure out each year how many sections are needed for those programs so at these five proposed campuses that's what would happen this upcoming year so just like i introduced the five principles before there's the five locations and we chose them strategically we didn't just pull them out of a hat of our 26 campuses uh first of all highland park and quartz hill have actually already been working for a couple of years actually highland park for five years and i believe quartz hill for three years on a primary acceleration model and so really we took what their they've been working on and have refined it and hopefully we're going to articulate it more so that we can also market it to our community because one
010of the things we know is that we're in a highly competitive environment with school choice and we want to be able to market this acceleration model to students that may be currently attending or will be attending charter schools or surrounding districts as well and so that goes to that other bullet point too as we pretty much strategically chose some of these schools too because they are near the borders of our surrounding districts so hopefully maybe we can take some mesa higley chandler or queen creek kids that are interested in having an accelerated curriculum i think the other main thing is too that these five principals are truly committed to working through this we know anytime you start a new program there's going to be dips and there's going to be challenges that lie ahead on
011this road to acceleration and all five of these readily volunteered to be part of this journey with us as well too and then also to strategically looking at it if you look at these five elementary schools they each feed into a different junior high school so also in terms of regionally across the district we're offering it equitably across the district as well by having one elementary feed into each junior high school and we know that if this is popular that in future years we might add more elementary schools that have the acceleration program but one thing we talked about is we have to start small in order to figure out what the program exactly will look like and work out those kinks and tweak it and so then we can move forward next slide i'm
012going to turn over to patrick to explain a little bit of what the model will look like all right so here there you go all right green light all right for math when we first started talking about it we had a lot of the principals that are on this committee had some questions and for math the math concepts will be a grade level ahead and i remember as a very simple word but it i felt good about it as far as moving a kids as the students a year ahead is that they would have a scope and sequence or pacing guide for those teachers to follow and also they use the word backfill which we know there's going to be concepts those students have missed the previous year and they're going to provide that those
013backfill concepts that we can hit before we move on so just to have the scope and sequence for the teachers as a principal i was looking at it like you know how is this going to work and them having that scope and sequence for us is really going to be helpful for their planning and then to be able to go back and teach those concepts that they're going to need that they know they've missed in the previous year so that's how the math will work as far as ela and social studies it is a district adopted curriculum we're still using is readygen but the pacing will be faster and that will allow some time for some standard based learning projects uh one example that someone shared with me that seemed to i wrapped my brain
014around it the first time hearing it was it in a normal traditional conventional model it might take four weeks to get through a unit with the accelerated classroom it might they might finish it in three and that would give a week for those standard based projects and so that kind of made sense to me how that would work and then once again having those pacing guides for the teachers and then also supplying some of those standard-based projects as well i think it would be great for those students fast-paced as far as i might be skipping a slide but one thing we've learned in our pd this year in in our administrative meetings and through my teachers have learned we've they've done a lot with pacing and in the beginning pacing um i'm trying to follow
015along and do this activity with principal friends at a table and we're just flying through this and i'm nervous like oh i'm behind i'm behind but i'm on task uh and that's pretty good uh for me to be on task so at those meetings thanks jason okay so we we kind of learned that that i've learned that that pacing is really good for the students as well it kind of eliminates some of that off-task behavior because they're given too much time to and it's more that wording was um procedure not what is it they're focused more on the procedure and not the product so that working quickly and i saw i've seen this in my classrooms now and the students are on task because the time is clicking and it is amazing to watch so
016i know that a lot of students will thrive with that fast-paced curriculum can i just ask so you mentioned ready jen is that going to be the ela curriculum or um is that what you're referring to yes okay and what's what will the math curriculum be the math will just be the grade level ahead okay yeah it'll be the hmh but a grade level ahead yeah okay thank you and then uh jason and patrick before you move on if i i could ask can you give us a sense of how you arrived at this model what's foundational to it from a from a research base how do we get here sure good question so working with the teaching and learning department we've looked at um math is some is is more sequential than ela obviously
017you can learn a math concept master it and move on and so when we've looked at some of the other models such as our traditional model where the acceleration in math using the saxon curriculum it's been quite beneficial we've also looked at some other models in other school districts chandler actually has an accelerated model that is not traditional and we've looked at what they've done and they've actually accelerated the math one year using their chandler adopted math curriculum and what that does is it sets them up to for success in the junior high and high school as well now going to the ela science and social studies as we talked about it's more interdisciplinary more project based going deeper with the standards as well patrick talked about they don't have to spend as much time
018on that ela standard that might be tied into science or social studies but we find that these students also are really adept at doing projects and and applying the critical thinking skills and so what our teaching and learning department is working on as patrick talked about is giving scope and sequence documents utilizing our curriculum materials so that teachers don't have to come up with it on their own they will have those documents in hand which is different than what like highland park and quartz hill have been doing as well too so we've seen some success models dr santa cruz and surrounding school districts okay yeah the bigger concern or bigger question is saxon ready gen any of those materials are refinements additions to our curriculum our curriculum is standard based if i'm correct if i'm
019incorrect please correct me but those materials are what we use to advance what we've determined is important for young people to know and so i always get just a little kind of concerned when we say that already generous saxon or whatever is our curriculum those are materials that we use to advance our curriculum and uh i'm just trying to wrap my head around uh how we decided that this was a good thing for a grouping of our student population so thank you so and and i i can definitely appreciate that when i was teaching sixth grade 25 years ago at valves the lakes we noticed that we had we had four sections and each one of our sections we had students that did not and could not qualify for alp but they needed something else
020and so um we developed a system within sixth grade to where one teacher would take a class and another teacher would take students from each classroom and supplement some of that curriculum that was going on in terms of math or science and we actually dipped into some former alp curriculum that was no longer being used but that we could we could modify a bit for the needs and i'll tell you what these students these families loved it they ate it up because they knew that their kid these kids were achievers they they were high scoring always things done but yet we could tell they were starving for a little bit more and so we provided something like that this is similar to that so that'll be good thank you for that dr gordon and i
021absolutely endorsed that that idea i'm just trying to get get what the foundational pieces were thank you this section here yeah so the next section there it says um what will be required by the students higher higher depth of knowledge required increased expectations and quality and composition daily academic extended learning activities and at home support and that's all of these things and since it's a pilot for a lot of us we'll have to work through these and when we when i was reading about extended learning activities and home support you know your mind goes a little bit towards um homework at the same time you know that's a discussion i'm gonna have with my staff like what kind of homework can we have that's actually helping these students move ahead not practice uh like your
022tip your typical homework it's more like maybe they have i'm thought this outside of what we talked about but i was thinking about it today sorry jason's like oh no here we go mike off no so like if maybe the teacher could they're going to have a discussion the next day so that the homework might be something about make some notes at home for some discussion points okay so that's not recall homework that's not homework that the parents have to sit with because the parents and we've learned through the covid season that parents are get frustrated at home working on homework because the teacher says it needs to be this way or that way so i think we could think about homework as actually legitimate work to help them move forward and so but that's
023all those things i'm kind of looking forward to like getting my staff together and discussing it because they have great ideas and i can facilitate that but they they live it every day so but that's an example of what i consider like home support and then assistance through interventions and support is needed we still have our enrichment time we still have supports and just because they're an accelerated classroom doesn't mean that they're going to need and we'll have probably some students that are struggling with the accelerated so they will need those interventions and those will be available to them as well dr sanchez yes i just so i had homework written down as one thing i because i don't know that just because their pace is a little faster does does it mean that they
024need to be loaded down with homework every night and then kind of create a a place where they don't love learning when they take it home with an extra i don't want it to be just like five extra worksheets you're in accelerated so five extra worksheets i don't think that will meet the needs at all so i'd love to hear your thoughts about that i agree and that's that's kind of what i was mentioning like sometimes there is some things to be done at home right but it could be you know so maybe some reading or skidding writing something yes um but yeah it's not um hey you're an accelerated student congratulations you have packets at home right they have things to do at home as well like we know in gilbert they're very involved
025i had two girls my own that were club volleyball and i didn't want them to have homework um and we've kind of i think district wide have talked about homework and the the bang for your buck for homework and we know it's low um it's a homework's actually a point two on hatties and how do you yeah that's what i thought we'd see and i don't i don't mind learning through homework and using it as like you're saying as a tool or reinforcement here and there or you know as we as you've deliberately decided but i just don't want this accelerated program to mean 10 extra worksheets and then that equals accelerate that that's not something sometimes people get rigor confused with the amount of work yeah and that's what we're trying to stay away
026from not just in a program like this but in in everything we do yeah so yeah thanks all right and then here we have what makes a successful accelerated student and once again it says increase expectations and quality and composition uh application of skill and then the characteristics of an accelerated student this we do have a form that i'll talk about in a minute but this is great as far as for students to look at parents to look at teachers to look at to kind of go through those and it gives you really kind of an idea of what a typical accelerated student we're looking for and i think the parents will need to have this and we have a form here that is a parent agreement and acknowledgement and i think some parents would
027think oh i think my student would do great with that but i really think they need to have kind of some guidelines or some bullet points for them to go through and i think once they read these they can really look at their kid and think wow my kid's awesome but it's not he's not really the accelerated student he doesn't really meet all of these and then some might think that they're close and and there's an opportunity for their child to try the accelerated program and even in this thing it says that with consultation with the principal and the teacher possible placement into a conventional classroom so there's always that you know that maybe that student that wants to try it and that parent wants to support them with that decision and then there's some
028parents and students that will read some of these expectations and just kind of know right away that i don't really think that's meant for me and so those are the characteristics and then in that you see it like a blue link and on that piece of paper it goes over expectations in the classrooms and then it also goes it says expectation for parents of students i fully support i fully understand and recognize i understand the expectations i understand the importance of attendance i understand if my child is struggling i will need to support my child and then in the event if it's get becoming too difficult then there's always that opportunity to move to the conventional classroom and all of you have a copy of that as well too um i have a question what
029about the student who might be ready for acceleration in say language arts does really with that but maybe in another area like math or spelling maybe they have more difficulty how are we going to manage that kind of a student because students are all over the board on every subject that's a great question well actually patrick's been thinking about this yeah so um like i think a good example to kind of think about would be that student that is in the accelerated program and then really struggles with math right and so i can see parents that uh they're gifted writers readers you know and they struggle in math um so that is going to be uh something a topic for discussion and what i see without thinking through it right because i really haven't presented
030this to my staff yet i could see that student being an accelerated model and then when it's math time they're in the conventional math class so i don't see why we move students now for intervention and enrichment um and so i don't see why we couldn't transition that student to conventional math you know grade level math um so i i think we'll have the autonomy to do that and so that would be do you see another there's lots of flexibility there because really the grade levels will be following the same master daily schedule so patrick's exactly right you can have kids coming and going between the different conventional and accelerated classrooms at that grade level we have that patrick's done a fabulous job for years he didn't have the alp or now called gifted teacher
031at val vista lakes and so they walked up to math even too and he made that work and we have schools doing that all over but one of the things is we can't market those things that they're doing because they're kind of organic we're here we can define this market it to our community as well but i exactly see that there will be students that move back and forth between the conventional and the uh accelerated classrooms okay thank you i have another question as well that that kind of brings up this idea of um how do we address uh those whose maybe whose students aren't in it accelerated and look at it as now am i in a lesser class am i getting a lesser education or i need to be in it for at
032least one or the other or how do we make sure that they know that they're getting the appropriate education for them and that they're they're moving along at a great pace we're gonna have great teachers for them we have you know great curriculum how do we make it something that it doesn't make somebody feel like they're you know having a lesser experience or yep so we've had this conversation and actually we've kind of been using the spectrum and canyon rim because we had kind of talked about that four years ago when we started implementing with families choosing the traditional model versus the conventional model at those campuses and first of all it's the mindset of the principal and the teachers too and mixing the kids during lunch and recess or different times and opportunities and
033not segregating the one group of students with classrooms you'll see that the classrooms at these campuses the teachers there will be one room right next to another room and there are different classrooms and so it's really the mindset of that and it starts with the adults and i don't see that the students when we've talked to the three campuses that have dual programs they have commented that they do not see any separation occurring and that really is a testament that they have to be more purposeful and articulate about that and making sure that kids don't feel like there's a a better than or a less than type of community among that and the good thing is in gps we have a robust rigorous curriculum and i think we tell parents that that no matter what
034what we're trying to do here is differentiate for all of our students and we have a multitude of services including special education services for other students that need extra services as well i like that we're trying to meet best meet the needs of the students on our campus and you know and i think you have if you try accelerated this year and it's not the best fit for you or you don't try it this year and then you want to try it next year i think there's that kind of opportunity too but we want to make sure that your students are at having the best opportunities to learn and grow for their needs and everyone's different everyone learns at different paces they're different ages they're different there's all different reasons why why they can be
035in different you know ahead of different needs so i think that's great when we've seen some of that where the kids even are walking up to another grade level to receive services and one thing i think we do here at least in the united states as we we get so age bound and grade level bound in here it's really about each student working at his or her pace and we as the school district and the schools meeting each student where they're at and moving them at the pace that they can handle just go ahead and go sorry i mean my thought is one of the things is that we do need more kids to go to college i mean the center for the future of arizona they've sent some benchmarks and i i didn't look
036at them today but i think it's the benchmark is to get 60 percent of our kids through college so that we're prepared for our future economy and have the kind of education for the jobs that will be available to kids and so whether they take the accelerated program or they take the regular classroom program which i like to call collaborative we need kids to go to college and get those skills for the future jobs that will be available or even if they choose a career track that they will get a post-secondary certificate and it's a huge concern that we're not getting enough kids prepared at that level and to do that and i think this is a great opportunity but every one of those kids whether they take a accelerated or the collaborative classroom or
037conventional classroom they need to be prepared for the jobs of the future which means more education post high school and that really ties into our next slide with that k-12 pathways that i had been talking about before you move to that i appreciate your question miss wood because i think the key to what i'm listening to in the accelerated program versus the uh typical program or conventional conventional program is that open entry the fluidity that we build into that so that parents and students have the opportunity to select in and out as they wish at strategic points in time obviously any kind of movement like that is a little disruptive but if you can manage that i think that will be the key the stratification is is real important because uh we we certainly don't
038want to move back to a track system of of any sort but at the same time it is absolutely imperative that we provide all possibilities for those who wish to maximize their opportunity to learn yeah and sorry well i think it's a great idea my only concern uh is that that we make sure that we monitor students real close particularly with something like math but if you're like me on in math if i get behind i'll never catch up again so conventional class wouldn't work for me if i got two four so uh yeah i mean for a lot of i think there are a lot of people like that i mean yeah and and math comes to mind it could be anything but that's what i was thinking and when talking about the students
039uh sometimes like there are students that think they can't do things right they're so they're students they're like oh this isn't for me but given the opportunity and sometimes it might be the parent giving them the opportunity and then they realize wow i can do it so it's not you know there are some students out there that can do it but would tell you straight up that uh that's really not for me and but once you get them in something like this and they're pushed and they're i've seen it i've seen it in classrooms that the teacher just reinforces that she has the smartest class what do you know she has the smartest class because she tells him every day and so i think it i think it is nice for those students to you
040know have that opportunity because sometimes they don't know themselves until they're pushed a lot of time it's like you said it's about mindset and also too we've talked a lot about here too we like to tend to when we enter programs gatekeep and have you know screeners or entry exams and the great thing about the acceleration model here is it's really open to any student and family that wants to try it out and like you said they can move in in and out over the years through the accelerated program if it works for them or doesn't and so i think that's a great opportunity as well too for our students and then tying into college and career readiness this next slide shows the k-12 pathways as we talked about that currently we want to see
041more students getting into those honors classes in our junior high schools and we have several classes offered in the core subject areas and then it moves into the high school area too so looking at our system pre-k through 12th grade what we can do to give more students so that then they have the opportunity to get maybe some of those ap classes or or dual credit classes so that then when they graduate high school they already have some college credit or their college bound ready to go so they would like in sixth grade they'd be taking seventh grade classes essentially so in sixth grade they would be taking seventh grade math they went would we bust the kids to the junior high or would they come the teachers come to the head the accelerated teachers
042would in sixth grade would provide the instruction but we have also talked about too actually someday if we get enough students of how could we get some junior high teachers down to the elementary level particularly in sixth grade so that we can get that feeder system in tracked in place too and one example one example in the math is like my sixth grade i have three sections so the sixth grade teacher would teach two conventional sixth grade sections and then one seventh grade section so that's what that would look like in the math so moving on to the curriculum here we've we've touched on this but we'll articulate it a little more so for math the academic standards are and the textbook that the students would be utilizing there's one grade level above and then
043in the other subject areas ela science and social studies we'd be using the grade level academic standards and the textbook with enrichment and extension that project-based leading learning as well as that rigor going more in depth in terms of report cards the math the accelerated grade level and right here for example our grade 5 student would be enrolled in a grade 6 math course in our infinite campus system this is similar to how we utilize it at spectrum canyon rim and neely right now when they're in an accelerated class and then the other subject areas of course would be on grade level reporting and then for the district and state assessments those students would take their on grade level assessment so going back to that example of the report card the fifth grade student even
044though they're learning sixth grade math standards they're going to take the state assessment and district assessments in fifth grade and then yeah i just don't think that that always shows the best of what they've learned because they're not focused on those standards just like dr santa cruz has said for fifth grade math there's fifth grade math standards but they will be learning they'll have learned that last year and they'll be learning sixth grade math standards right or whatever it is you know what i'm saying the grade ahead is there any option in that or is that the district assessments we can't we we've done things with the district assessment i think at the state level you want to be careful about what you do with that okay and we also want to show growth as
045well too with our students and so they typically do show high growth because they are accelerated in math by one grade level okay but we do have district assessments that are uh that we could give students as well that are at the actual grade level and that also ties to the plc and those common formative assessments that the teacher is utilizing and those really are the assessments that we use in in measuring student progress weekly and daily as well so our next steps uh is of course we want to present the information to each school community hosting this acceleration model so we're looking at starting to roll this out in january and february as parents start to think about the next school year and then marketing the program not only to gps families but our
046marketing department wants to market this in many different ways to our non-gps families we believe there is a niche out there um amongst charter school and surrounding districts that families would come to one of these five schools to partake in the acceleration program and then of course principals will continue to work these five principles with otm and administrative services on determining the number of teachers that are needed and the class section needs at each campus just like we've done with all of our other programs curriculum development is already starting patrick alluded to their scope and sequence documents that are being uh already worked on by our curriculum department and and then in the spring also too we want for those teachers that are selected to teach the accelerated classrooms we want to start offering them
047training prior to them leaving in the summer so that they are ready to go and understand what it is they're teaching we know teachers like to plan well ahead and then also give them the summer opportunities as well to come in and collaborate in preparation for the kickoff of this program and of course we know that this will be a refinement it's a work in progress just like we started the dual programs at spectrum and canyon rim four years ago you learn as you go along the way and the wonderful thing is we have five principals here that are committed to making this model work but also making it the refinements and and changes as needed and that we will come back and continue to meet as a committee and report back to everyone how
048it's going um as we roll this out in the coming months and for the 22-23 school year thank you jason any additional questions i have one mr jenny um how does this address that some of those the gifted kids that don't fit in these categories because there's a lot of those kids out there who get lost in the shuffle and you know sometimes don't graduate from high school etc and they're the truly gifted kids and they're not necessarily motivated in this ways how are we addressing that so i think that's also too uh sheila also looking at our gifted program as well too because we're trying to articulate that and as i said in the coming months you'll learn more about what we our refinements or any changes we want with the gifted program we
049see some students will be in the gifted program some students will be in the accelerated program and some students will also be in both programs as well based on what that child needs are go ahead ms wood thanks so i had a question about the applications if we start i know that quartz hill and highland park have done some even pre-kindergarten like before kindergarten starts to have those classes kind of figure out how many students will be in a class so they can have some staffing patterns ready so i was just wondering if we're looking at it across the district at these five schools what do we have a time when the applications would be available and is there a deadline or something so that we can have appropriate staffing so we're not scrambling at
050the last minute trying to figure out right how many students are here there and if we have enough teachers or and those parents do have to make that decision yeah you know prior to school starting yeah and then that's that are we thinking in the spring then the spring and i would say we'll have a good idea based on what we've done at these other schools if we know prior to the end of the school year then on staffing patterns we we have a good idea of how many class sections would be accelerated at each school within each grade level and so we'll be giving informational what i foresee is we'll be giving informational sessions as well as when they're doing the tours at their schools which we found the tours are one of the
051best ways because then you can answer individual family questions they will be marketing this and asking families at that time to make a decision as they're registering their child for kindergarten and then of course this first year it's first through sixth graders two also working with each teacher at these campuses to identify which students would make up a good profile of an accelerated student so that's why we want to start sooner than later so families can make decisions ask questions so then we can plan accordingly and also with the uh the families we also have building restrictions you know exactly yeah that's what we call a classroom yeah we so there's a lot a lot involved and that's i think when we first met that's you know some of our questions because we're kind of
052overseeing it you know and when we're given uh the opportunity to do something like this and i know they probably don't want me to speak for the other principles like you take it like hey they've asked me to do this and they have faith i can do this and so we're going to do everything we can to make success successful but there are a lot of little pieces you know that you know that we'll be dealing with and the families and everyone but but those are all great questions what i'd love to see is that was the lakes is filled next year and so then all of a sudden i have to go pioneer or sonoma ranch we need an acceleration model at your campus as well several of the campuses such as quartz hill
053and meridian and playa del rey do have capacity to grow those types of things so although we also selected them strategically because of the space utilization capabilities at their campuses right now and i think too when you said teachers will help in this whole process for next year so that that makes a lot of sense if that's it's not like just this no yeah you know yeah like this blind rush of one thing or another it's there's there's a process and there's gonna be communication between our current students and families and teachers and then we might have some new students and then kindergarten will be interesting but yeah i advanvista and i talked to jason about this but i talked to him about doing k3 next year okay okay and then so that's it's new
054it's a pilot and to do you know my campus my community k-6 so i'm going to focus on k-3 and then i can learn from the other schools as well what uh how four six went you know what some of their some things to look for and so year two then i could do uh four six and then so i'm gonna take it in in half so i'm you know working with four classes four grade levels thank you other board members well i think it's a an interesting option and i i think it could be very popular but again i think whatever your child needs if they're in a class where they're progressing too fast and they're not understanding it that's not going to help them learn so they need to be where they will
055excel and get the best education and hopefully at the end we'll they'll be pretty much in the same place because we do need those um secondary post-secondary education and college graduates so that we can have the economy we need in 20 years so thank you well jason and patrick thank you for the presentation also would like to thank cadre of elementary principles who are seated at the back of the room here uh for your diligence and your work uh i predict that you're going to have a real interest among the other campuses once you establish the method in the mode in which you're going to operate so congratulations and good luck dr mccord nope just a big thank you to these two gentlemen and all four of you back there and mr ryan for all
056the work going into this again you know there's some unknowns that we'll work through but we think this will be just another option for students as we move forward so thank you guys thank you thank you well having previewed that presentation we move to item three which is adjournment of the work study session again thank you to jason and our elementary principals for their work and if there are no concerns we will adjourn the work study session and move into the brief board business meeting okay we stand adjourned for the work study and we move to item 4 and item 4.01 is a call to order and we will do that and we will ask miss wilson to please call the row under item 4.02 dr charles santa cruz here miss laurie wood here miss
057sheila eugetti here miss jill humphries here mr bill parker here mr president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you mrs wilson move to item 4.03 is approval of tonight's agenda for this brief board business meeting is there a motion i mean that we approved the agenda as presented thank you miss humphries is there a second second thank you mr jenny it's been moved and seconded any discussion seeing that there is no discussion we will vote on approving this evening's agenda all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those oppose the same motion carries five zero removed item five which is the consent agenda items you have had an opportunity to review all items in your board packet is there a motion i move that we approve the consent agenda
058items as presented thank you mr jetty is there a second second thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda and the associated items as presented any discussion i just i wanted to just bring up my appreciation as part of 5.02 for all the employees who work in our vik in our community education and who have been a critical part in the last year and a half of providing services to our students in need and i'm glad that we are able to take care of them through this child stabilization grant and give them some appreciation for their their diligent work well said ms wood anything else seeing no additional discussion we will vote all those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye aye those oppose the
059same motion carries five zero we move to item six which is action items item 6.01 i will defer to dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members um tonight we bring before you an opportunity as you know we closed houston elementary last year and we moved neely elementary of the traditional academy over to the building where houston elementary currently resides which left us a building and and some land to figure out what we're going to do with and we have determined that we are able to sell this property uh to the town of gilbert and they are very interested buyers and uh tonight we present to you a resolution related to that and a purchase agreement uh with the town of gilbert to move this transaction forward and so that we have mr
060uh our our attorney curtis is here to help answer any questions as well as bonnie and jason who were instrumental in making this happen so that is our presentation thank you dr mccord board members you have item 6.01 in front of you uh and it is discussion and possible approval resolution to approve sale of real property located at 321 west juniper avenue gilbert arizona 85233 formerly the site neale elementary to the town of gilbert the board may vote to go into executive session pursuant to 38.431 dollar dash for 31.03 a 3 and 7 to receive legal advice from the attorney and discuss consult with the representatives in order to consider its position and instruct attorney and the representatives regarding negotiations for the real sale of property all of that has already occurred in previous executive
061sessions i am simply reading the item as it is presented on our agenda is there a motion i move that we approve the the resolution and sale of property um as listed thank you miss humphries is there a second so i could thank you mr parker it's been moved and seconded uh is there a discussion i i would like to say a few words i think this for me it's a little hard to watch us sell a piece of property that's been in our district for so many years and i know i'm sure it's hard for others but we have to be fiscally responsible and you know it was it was hard to close houston elementary it was there for many years in a a great school but we again we have to be fiscally
062responsible and use our resources to the best we can for every student and i really think that the students at neely needed a bigger campus the students who chose to go to burke elementary or other places in the district are getting a wonderful education and we were able to place all those teachers and staff in other positions and um it is kind of the closing of an era you know we used to be building schools like every other year or every year um and our demographics and our the age of our town has changed to the point where we have to deal with the issues of not having as many students as we had prior and so i this to me is a great opportunity because we're giving we're selling this to the town they
063have some needs that they can use that property for and it will benefit our community and it benefits us to receive those tax dollars back into our coffers and then be able to use them for our students and as hard as that was i think we're in a better place for all of our students to to receive a wonderful education and i look forward to you know going to uh kneely traditional in the new location and see how they're doing to touch base at burke and see how those students are doing and to go to islands and see um how islands is doing under samphias so i think i think this is a great opportunity but but it is i think it's hard for all of us to to watch this change concur with that
064thank you both my kids went to neely yeah and that stuff at that location uh but you're right i mean change has to come and this is a win-win situation i think for the district as well as the town of gilbert dr mccord i see that the resolution is posted there was there anything you needed to add uh if you don't mind i'll add a couple things and actually just read the resolution if that's all right please do that just so you know the district we did obtain two appraisals on the property and uh the proposed sale price is 6.85 million dollars and it's equal to the highest appraisal received by the district the town of gilbert has indicated that the property is required for a public purpose the sale of the property will not
065affect the normal operations of the district and the cell is authorized pursuant of ars section 15-3 here's the resolution a resolution of the governing board of the gilbert uh unified school district approving the sale of real property located at 321 west juniper avenue gilbert arizona whereas the governing board of gilbert unified school district number 41 the district has been presented with a purchase agreement for the sale of real property owned by the gilbert district located at 321 west juniper avenue gilbert arizona the former location of neely elementary school to the town of gilbert and whereas the sale of the property will not affect the normal operations of the district and town of gilbert requires the property for public purpose the governing board of the district has the authority to sell the property in accordance with
066the ars 15-342-7 and whereas the district desires to approve the sale of property in accordance with the terms of the purchase agreement and authorized district representatives to sign the purchase agreement now therefore it is hereby resolved that the governing board of gilbert unified school district number 41 makes the following approvals and resolutions the sale of the property in accordance with the terms of the purchase agreement is hereby approved by the superintendent dr shane mcquarter assistant superintendent of business services bonnie j betts as are authorized to sign the purchase agreement along with the authority to sign any other ancillary documents to effectuate to sell the property including but not limited to the conveyance deed and any closing settlement statements two the district superintendent dr shane mccord or assistant superintendent of business services bonnie j betts are
067authorized to take all other appropriate and necessary actions to evacuate the sale of the property in accordance with the terms of the purchase agreement three all actions of the mayor all actions of the members of the governing board officers employees and agents of the district which are in conformity with the purposes and intent of this resolution whether heretofore or hereafter taken shall be and are hereby ratified confirmed and authorized and approved that is the resolution thank you dr mccord seeing no additional discussion thank you for reading the resolution into the record we will vote unless there is a burning question that someone is seeing none all those in favor of approval of the resolution please sig uh resolution and sale of property please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed the same motion carries
068five zero we move to item seven is adjournment of this brief board business meeting and we are open to entertain a motion thumlift thank you miss humphries is there a second second thank you mr eugenie it's been moved and seconded that we adjourned this brief board business meeting all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same motion carries five zero we thank you for your attendance both on live stream and here in the board room we are