001in a scheduled board meeting uh we have a need for an executive session this evening item 1.01 call for executive 7 pursuant to ars 38 431 point zero three a and three and four for discussion consultation for legal advice with the governing board's attorney regarding reduction in force matters and for discussion or consultation with attorney to consider its position and instruction its attorney attorneys regarding the same did i read that correctly so the floor is open for motion for executive session dr santa cruz i move that we move to executive session as outlined on the agenda thank you mr carr is there zero second second thank you mrs humphries any discussion okay we will vote all those in favor moving to executive session please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same motion carries
002four zero and we will recess to executive session good evening sorry for the delay we're trying to work on some technical issues and i think we've created a workaround so we'll call this meeting of the gilbert governing board to order today is april 27th we have just adjourned an executive session we are now at item 2 the called order on 2.01 and we will move to 2.02 and do a moment of silence and 2.03 pledge of allegiance led by mrs wood would you please join me in a moment of silence please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the fight of the united states of america and to live over to stand one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you mrs wood we're at item 2.04
003roll call mrs wilson would you please assist dr charles santa cruz here miss laurie wood here mr reed carr here miss jill humphries here miss sheila you jetty i heard her say here you heard her yes thank you miss you jetty i'm here thank you mr president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you mrs wilson and we'll hope that mr jetty can hear and we'll try to pick your vote up on the portable phone as best we can we're word item three three point zero one is approval of tonight's agenda is our motion submit thank you mrs humphries is there a second a second thank you mrs wood any discussion seeing no discussion we will vote on approving this evening's agenda all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye
004those opposed the same motion carries five zero the agenda is approved and we'll move to item four item 4.01 our superintendent's recognition awards dr mccord defer to you thank you dr santa cruz i'll move down uh in front of the diocese and we will recognize some of our students this evening good evening everyone how are you dr mccord we'll we'll stay put just for the distancing you betcha thank you so as we slowly move back into these types of recognitions it's it's it's really a pleasure to be able to talk about our students and some of their accomplishments we have three students that have been recognized and winners of flynn scholars those individuals are sophia hammer from gilbert classical academy sophia are you here come on up sophia where are you going to go to
005school um i'm going to university of arizona you of a any u of a fans here that's all right you're kind of in sun devil country but that's all right my son graduated from u of a and so i guarantee you if he can do it so can you um next we have eugenia trackel from gilbert classical academy and how about you have you made a decision yet yeah arizona asu give her a hand sophia what do you think you want to major in um it's kind of long it's the ppel program so it's politics philosophy economics and law wow wow those topics under one and then i'm double majoring in family studies and human development it's kind of like social work so what do you want to be when you're done um there's a
006lot of things i want to be well um i would like to work in local governments um just so you know that doesn't pay anything back there um town council and then my other thing i kind of want to do is work with immigrants immigrant families good good thank you eugenia what about you so i'm gonna double major in finance and probably business sustainability wow intersection of those two majors with certificates in international business and maybe data analytics wow and and and your dream job with this these degrees would be what that's so hard because i can take the non-profit route work for the arizona community foundation and their community impact loan fund or maybe take the corporation route worked for like morgan stanley or blackrock with sustainable investing all right well i understood a
007little bit of that but i'm very proud of both of you we have another winner and that is jennifer tran she's not in attendance she's from mesquite high but we wanted to make sure we recognized you two for being here so thank you guys congratulations again [Applause] eugene don't don't leave you're back up here one more time she's like what i do now in addition to her flynn scholarship um eugena is also the winner of the hispanic heritage foundation award and this program honors latino high school seniors who excel in various categories the awardees receive grants for their education or to fund an idea or community project to encourage actionable leadership recipients are mentored by past award winners as they prepare to attend college and start their careers so congratulations to you congratulations thank you
008now on to the uh athletic portion of this a couple of announcements and we i think we have some folks here um winter sports recognitions granted it's going to be 100 degrees on saturday but we're going to talk about winter sports because we've been through this and we have some that can't be with us tonight that will uh definitely honor at the end of may first one is camp over the girls soccer they are the division two state champion so congratulations to them desert ridge high school fourth in state for division one boys wrestling mr jackson are you here along with uh kisting is that come on up congratulations now coach will you uh talk about um some of your winners and what they did come on up you get a talk now i know
009all right first off i'd just like to thank everybody for letting the season happen i know when it wasn't going to we were had many kids devastated it was hard to get some back we actually lost a couple one was a defending second champ but these guys um as a team they were section champs by over 80 points state fourth in the state which is pretty good considering the powerhouses kind of have a stranglehold and we're gonna we're closing the gap but um as far as state placers go looks like we're missing one up here but alexander sweeney was state runner-up as a sophomore and 106 pounds kai viglio was third at state in division one at 138 pounds nathaniel meza as a junior nathaniel meza was third at state heavyweight grace valetcheck became a
010two-time state placed her at 106 pounds she was a runner-up as a freshman she's a junior this year uh mr keistein became a two-time state placer he was fourth in the state as a junior or junior and sixth this year and one another one that's not up here gabe corrales was a two-time state placer his fifth as a freshman and fourth as a sophomore but most of all i'd like to thank these guys for overcoming i mean i know everybody overcomes some stuff but our team had five individuals lose family members during the season three of them to covet and these kids just found a way to keep persevering not making excuses and loving each other and finding a way to help each other get through those those those times that it was like holy
011cow we we're gonna get these kids back but it was an incredible accomplishment to be able to win a section title and finish the eye in the state so thank you guys for having us [Applause] also we have campo verde third and state uh division two boys wrestling there's nobody here from camp but i think we're gonna also recognize them at the end of the month so i'll save those for the end but again for academic and athletic accomplishments so far and there's many more that we can honor as we'll move through this in may please give another hand to all those individuals dr santa cruz that concludes my recognitions thank you sir we now move to item six which is a request to speak to the governing board oh okay i am ahead of
012myself so 5.01 is still the superintendent's report so my apologies dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members good evening and welcome to everyone to our meeting last week was support staff week and i want to thank all of our support staff for everything they do for our students and each other on a daily basis during this uh pandemic this school year you are an integral part of our success and we could not accomplish all the things that needed to be done without you again a sincere thank you to all of our support staff i also wanted to let everyone know that our vaccination pod which was held in february and march of this year was selected for a hot shots award by the arizona partnership for immune immunization for outstanding organization and
013distribution of the moderna vaccine to employees of gps queen creek higley high school as well or higley high school school districts and the surrounding centers that serve children congratulations and thank you alan kane and jen frost and all of the volunteers for your countless hours of dedication and work you are greatly appreciated and lastly this past friday evening i had the pleasure to attend a jazz concert at campo verde in their cafeteria we were treated to some extraordinary sounds from our students and guests from arizona state university and chandler-gilbert community college i can honestly honestly say that it was one of the most entertaining and enjoyable evenings that i've had in a very very long time well done to all those campo families they had the cafeteria set up where everything was social distance they
014had family sitting together they had couches up front and i'm telling you it was one of the most pleasurable and one of the most rewarding times i've had as a superintendent because these kids were absolutely phenomenal so appreciate all the hard work all of our music programs put into what they do dr santa cruz that concludes my report for this evening thank you dr mccord now we move to item six which is the request to speak to the governing board we have two speakers before we move to that we have a recorded message so please play that message 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 jurisdiction of
015the 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 k e 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
016of these policies can be obtained from the gilbert public schools website we have two speakers this evening cindy bonnen country and robin daughter good evening thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you my name is cindy bonacontri and i'm the admin assistant at south valley junior high i've been at south valley going on 15 years and have been the admin assistant for eight years i wanted to take the time personally to thank you the school board for being so supportive of the schools through this craziness of this last year i know that you have all had to make very difficult decisions this year but i wanted to bring to you a positive and a big thank you in particular for proving that each school have a flex substitute teacher on campus every
017day i know this started out as a temporary thing for just a few weeks and then it turned into a month and then thankfully you extended it until december and then again thankfully extending it through the end of the school year being the admin assistant in charge of the substitutes at south valley and being responsible for finding a way to cover all of those classes when we do not have substitutes i have to say a simple thank you is not enough each morning waking up to find out that i have five or six teachers sometimes more on a friday is a huge weight off my shoulders to know that i at least have my two amazing flex subs each and every day that i can count on also i know that rachel and her team
018will give me another flex sub when they are available this is such a giant relief i know that rachel and her team have worked tirelessly and a lot of late nights and weekends getting the system dialed in but this is awesome to us just the fact that i have my two preferred subs every day really is a godsend on the very seldom days when i don't need my flex sub to cover classes and rachel doesn't need them at another school i send out a campus-wide email stating that i have extra help available for our teachers my flex team works in the library fixing and shelving covering books making copies packets for our teachers grading filing in the attendance office getting registration caught up on things we make great use of these people we i guarantee
019they're not just sitting around i do put them to work this program is very worthwhile and beneficial to the campuses on that note i'm here to persuade you to continue with this program next year even if we only get one flex sub every day instead of two would be so helpful i'm sure there's an extra cost to this program but you really have no idea how beneficial this is to me personally as to all the other schools and k gift at greenfield and jessica brown at mesquite wanted me to let you know that they as well love this flex program and wish that it would continue next year i no longer wake up stressed out in the morning worrying about subs and how i'm going to cover sometimes anywhere between 15 to 25 hours of
020classes i know i at least have my two flex subs that i can count on also with rachel's help i can sometimes get a flex sub from another school i really pray that you will continue this program in august it really is great and we really do appreciate it at the school level so thank you for your time and efforts and supporting our schools i did bring you a thank you grift not a bribe but just to thank you for everything you've done for this year thank you have a great evening go saber cats thank you cindy it's rapping daughter thanks for hearing me um i'd like to bring up a few concerns today but i'll keep it brief because i'd rather focus on solutions first the concerns even though you built clear criterion to
021decide who to riff the rubric scoring was without checks and balances teachers who moved online this year were evaluated by unfamiliar administrators or by home school administrators who couldn't assess this year's performance if we were online and had a new principle it's a blind score several teachers have shared their rubric scores with me and i saw zeros in plc for teachers who were indispensable to my plc this year as department chair i ran that plc and i wasn't asked inflexibility zeros for teachers who didn't know what subject they were teaching until the week before school in leadership zeros for teachers who did lead in prior years and who did step up and lead at global before we had department chairs assigned in pd zeros despite studying to learn a brand new teaching format in extracurriculars
022zeros despite prior coaching in clubs weren't even coached this year for online teachers the grade for extracurricular docs points for something that's outside of our control so those who went online due to a health condition lost points simply for being chronically ill what's worse requests to review and revise incorrect scores were denied by administrators and otm i get that the riff and raises are driven by separate forces but i think it's a little naive to act as though they each exist in a vacuum they're absolutely entangled and are both parts of a very precariously balanced budget i believe mr carr you mentioned that we have to align our staffing and student numbers and we have to remain competitive with neighboring districts but what if we didn't what if we could be competitive in other ways
023what if instead of aligning our staffing to our student numbers we forego that two percent raise that's costing the district 4.4 million what if we kept those teachers and saved the district 4.5 million that saved the district 4.5 million for being dismissed what if instead of balancing the cost of enrollment by maintaining the status quo we pitched gilbert as the public school district with the best student-to-teacher ratio what if we kept a full staff of teachers who have the time to give kids individual attention because our classes are in the low 20s what if we could offer a large district experience including full arts and industry based elective programs with private school class sizes what if we reminded the community that our teachers can serve their children better because we don't have overpacked classes connect
024create care kids would do better most teachers would take lower pay for rational class sizes most parents do want their kids to get that kind of individual attention the pr campaign writes itself thank you thank you now move to item 7 which is our monthly reports 7.01 and 7.02 dr cordell defer to you thank you dr santa cruz governing board members we have ms betts our assistant superintendent of business services ready to present our monthly budget report as well as the final fiscal year 2020 audit report ms betts thank you dr mccord president santa cruz um board members this is our monthly financial reflective of march 31st so um as is has been our practice it's always a month in arrears that we're presenting so to begin we want to talk about our district operating
025funds so note uh the maintenance operations fund at the top our adopted budget was 200 and just um under 259 million i revised number two based upon capturing of additional uh average daily membership as well as the esser one in two grants and the enrollment stabilization grant we were able to revise the budget up to 260 million about a 1.8 million dollar increase note that revised budget number three went down slightly the pending revised budget number three went down slightly due to the enrollment being very sporadic students withdrawing and enrolling on a daily basis but i also wanted to point out that the revised budget number three reflected here is as of the end of march in april due to the hard work of joanna cantonzero our student count accountant she submitted our final distance
026learning adjustment which went from 67 69 down to 32 percent so i just wanted to let you know that next week we are presenting the final revised budget and you will see that revised budget number three pending to be about 3.3 million dollars more so it'll be 260.8 million 263.8 million that we will be reflecting on the revised number three and then you can see the available balance of about 14 million and as we indicated most of that is allocated out however there's not a lot of time to spend anymore so it could be that that much of that will go unspent so we are gearing up for our end-of-year journal entries and making sure that our expenses are reflected in the correct fund so we're starting that immediately the next fund to look at
027is the civic center we've talked about this before that the rental income is is uh down due to the pandemic so you can see that in revised budget number three pending we are bringing that value down based upon our experience to date in the current year and finally unrestricted capital so you can see that the revised budget number two and revised budget number three pending are very close to one another but the but both of those reflect the budget balance carry forward reflective of the annual financial report so those numbers are accurate and should not change the rest of the year in addition between number two and number three there was a question about which calculation was accurate the auditor general's calculation or the department of ed's calculation so we've gotten that clarified and that's
028why you see that small reduction from 16.8 million dollars down to 16.7 again you can see an available balance of 6.5 million dollars most of that was allocated to the curriculum adoption um that was was to begin being piloted in the current year that was put on hold not fully understanding what our financial status would be for the next fiscal year so that 6.5 million dollars will likely roll over and be allocated to that curriculum adoption in 2022 just to prepare you um miss bets can you just tell us which one was correct the department of ed or the attorney sorry the auditor general the um the department of education okay reports so i've already been through these highlights on the operating fund but i wanted to move to there the unrestricted capital financial highlights
029so the year to date spent an encumbered is 10.2 million dollars i wanted to enumerate some details on the unrestricted capital fund and how we've spent those monies in the current year curriculum instructional material so this does include florida virtual it does include some of those curriculum items that we've adopted in the past that we've been required to purchase a continuation of materials in the current year to a total total of 3.4 million dollars technology most of this is your non-discretionary software so remember that we are with visions which is our financial software we have infinite campus we have iep pro which is for our special education management system even identity management the infrastructure all of those licenses are within this technology non-discretionary software bucket operations cleaning and grounds equipment we did talk at length
030at the beginning of the school year about the sprayers that we purchased both for transportation as well as at least one for every one of our elementary and junior highs and two for every one of our high schools to make sure that we were able to clean the classrooms quickly or at least sanitize the classrooms quickly at the end of each school day in addition we do have an intergovernmental agreement with the town of gilbert associated with the mesquite junior pool as well as the greenfield junior pool there are regularly expenses associated capital expenditures associated with those pools and you can see that our portion was somewhere in the neighborhood of about 30 to 40 thousand dollars in the current year extracurricular athletics and performing arts we've made some headway into meeting the needs of
031our extracurricular activities so for athletics we did have an allocation to make sure that our our pole vault pits and our high jump pits are ready for the season also recall that the unrestricted capital funds instructional materials which does include baseballs and footballs and basketballs and that's tennis nets etc so all those are in there and then finally in performing arts we did buy several expensive instruments at the beginning of the year due to the pandemic and and the need to separate uses usage from student to student and then in addition district wide we did replace the orchestra and band storage equipment at all of our high schools to the tune of about a couple hundred thousand dollars so we're making headway into those uh extracurricular programs schools marquis we've done three or four this
032year oh excuse me we did five i'm looking at jason mr martin we did five marquise this year we also determined that it would be a good idea to provide a principal allocation of about fifty five hundred dollars per school there has been such a lack of unrestricted capital at our schools and in order to provide some flexibility to our principals to get what they needed without without necessarily totally planning for it there was about 1.4 million dollars spent along with the cafeteria tables we did replace all of the cafeteria tables that were needed which was intended for both the fact that they were in bad condition as well as adding additional cafeteria tables because of the pandemic to make sure that we could social distance when school began in mid-september and then finally the
033transportation facility the completion of the construction most of it did occur in fiscal 2020 but the final the final construction pieces did finish at the end of july and and we've talked about that in the past as well so those are just some of the details of how we spent the understated capital this year federal grants just wanted to point out the idea revised budget number three pending note that that has increased to reflect the budget balance carry forward or the balanced carry for that has been approved by the state of arizona and then sr3 note that we are reflecting sr3 there as a placeholder we are anticipating about 20 million dollars we have received notification that we will not receive the allocations until mid-may so we're still not sure what that final dollar amount
034is the other specific about sr3 though we do know that we are obligated to spend 20 percent on student learning loss so we are we are estimating right now that we may spend as much as two million dollars this summer for um for summer school not charging in most cases our parents for summer school as well as providing free transportation across the entire school district for the summer program and then we expect that whatever our allocation is that we would schedule the spend of that from fiscal year 2022 through 2024. miss butts yes a quick question um i've understood that we are paying and i actually have paid for summer school this year there are um not all summer school programs are free we have some title one programs that are being provided which is
035normal and some of our most at risk students but i would love to defer this to to miss taylor to give you some more details on that i just wanted to make sure that what i understood was that that because last year all of the online summer school classes for the junior high in high school that i understood were covered we didn't pay for them for summer school but this year we have been charging and um i've had a few questions from families so when you said that it made it there was a little bit of confusion i'm saying so there is we are paying for summer school as normal some of the summer schools um that that are specific to the enrichment there's a difference between summer school and summer program some are programming
036so that's that's where i think the confusion okay in addition though all the transportation is being provided without cost so there's there will be if you sign up for there's some summer programs that uh we have selected students because of some of the learning loss and where they felt on some of the testing that's been done throughout the year we've identified them as needing some extra help and they will not be charged for that for the transportation no they won't be charged for the troops offered to other students too then or i'm just asking i'm just trying to clarify no it's it's offered to those that we've provided transportation the past so if we've normally provided transportation there might have been a cost to that there wouldn't be a cost this time okay thank you
037so the the last funds to speak about would be the enterprise funds we wanted to draw your attention to this because nutrition services and community schools are improving their financial status at this point in time and so we wanted to share that the estimated revenues have been increased uh for the for and will be increased for the final budget revision in the current year miss vets sorry to ask one more time okay i the extension for the nutrition services i heard that it's extended through at least through september it was initially extended through september 30th it's now been formally extended through june 30 of 2022 2022 yes thank you and that's all i have for the report this evening thank you mrs betts and then for the second report i'm very happy to hand this
038over to miss jackie matanin and she will give you the details of the final audit results for fiscal year 2020 almost a whole year ago just to make sure you know that we're talking what we're talking about welcome mrs matin good evening dr mccord dr santa cruz members of the governing board i am very excited to be here this evening to present the final fy 2020 audit reports to you tonight's report will include the fy 2020 instructional spending as per our kaffir and the auditor general's report fy 2020 single audit reporting package the fy 2020 uniform system of financial records or the usfr compliance questionnaire and our best practices also tonight on the consent agenda we will be recommending um an audit firm heinfield meech and so we're excited to move forward with the fy
03921 audit as well so this guy are you really excited for that yeah saying that okay no i really am checking you know i'm a nerd yeah that's not i didn't say that it's a good thing so this graph shows the instructional spending from fy 2020 from our kafir this is the government-wide funds whoops and then this pie shows the instructional spending from the auditor general's report this breaks down some of those spending areas for district spending for gilbert public schools the first row is dollars instruction this is classroom teacher salaries and other supplies used directly in students hands in the classrooms you can see that we've increased slightly over the years the next row is dollars in the classroom instruction which includes the 1000 function above also instructional support which is library media services
040assessment curriculum and then student supports which is guidance counselors attendance health services and increase over prior year there and administer administration which is the district office and the schools slight increase there as well miss matin i think you're downplaying when you use slight um when we're already one of the top two or three districts in the state as far as dollars sit in the classroom it's not easy to to move this needle but as you can see it has moved in the right direction as far as dollar spent in the classroom and dollars on instruction each of the years on this so i think that's worth a little bit of a celebration to our community that we're continuing to work diligently to put dollars where it impacts our students yes thank you very true this
041slide shows our peer district spending so you can see on the dollars it's the same grid and you'll see that the smaller districts higley and queen creek have a higher administration cost which would stand to reason they're much smaller districts it's a nice comparison to show gilbert compared to our peers as well any questions before we move on to the audit reports so first up is the single audit report this is the fy 2020 single audit this is required for districts with 750 000 of federal spend or more this year we had a clean or unmodified audit report we had no material weaknesses no significant deficiencies in the area of financial reporting or federal awards the report also notes prior year findings in 18 and 19 including payroll cash reconciliation and compensated absences i believe
042and these have all been resolved i would like to go off script just a little bit and send out a shout out to my team pat donahue internal auditor isn't here this evening but ashley miranda our budget manager is she was instrumental in in our cash reconciliation process and of course miss betts for her leadership so thank you ms matin and as mr carr pointed out relative to the first slide uh bullet number two and actually number one this is cause for celebration as well so congratulations to you and your team thank you now you know why she's excited [Laughter] miss matt how many how many years has it been since we've had a clean report seven and that predates any of you that are in this finance team so um and i don't mean
043to disparage anyone and your predecessors i mean to give credit to this team for taking on some challenges that that they inherited and overcoming them and get the getting this clean audit this is this is a big deal we're very proud thank you next up is our uniform system system of financial records compliance questionnaire or usfr i really like this questionnaire as well i kind of think of it as our playbook against which we are audited uh this year we had approximately 175 yes or no questions the auditors are required to answer either yes or no there is no other option this year we had 17 no options which is down from previous years some of the areas where we had these no answers one was in budget the question asks did we submit our
044final revised budget for 2020 by may 15th the statutory deadline and the answer was no we did not but the auditors did note that we were allowed to extend that through june 30th which we took advantage of we also revised again in november which they noted we did that to take advantage of the esser monies and esg monies expenditures we had an after the fact which means that there was an invoice dated prior to the purchase order being in place which is a very common finding among arizona school districts especially a district this size technology we had a finding that our at the time the audit was done um the disaster recovery plan had not yet been completed it is now so that's in place a couple findings in transportation in route miles and student
045rider counts and student attendance again very common findings across arizona school districts we work closely with our student information system to ensure that we are working together accurately and reporting those absences a little bit more on the usfr compliance questionnaire we did have some areas of 100 compliance so these were all answered yes in cash and revenue procurement classroom site fund and financial reporting some implemented best practices from all financial processes are consistently reviewed and updated and we are documenting process as we move through the reconciliation is completed monthly we have an ongoing review of expenditures and the general ledger implementing best practices in the current year in finance we have implemented budget journal entries which allows us to track our budget and expenditures much more closely it provides us kind of real-time information at
046our fingertips revenue tracking we are tracking revenues against anticipated revenues what we receive in our bank accounts in the maricopa county treasurer's office the technology again the disaster recovery plan is in place mr castellano is here should you have any specific questions there and transportation the data collection tool has been created to capture and substantiate the data uploaded to ade the 100 day report reviewed and verified prior to submittal new routing planning software has been implemented along with the zonar passes and miss betts is here if you have any specific transportation questions that's it for my report tonight any questions all right i just have a comment i this has been a process in the work of you know getting a new financial system getting new technology to deal with our buses and our transportation
047and and i do appreciate all the hard work i mean i want to call attention to the fact that we're presenting all this to our community so that they can understand the work that we're doing on our finances and how we have improved greatly and i will say um just i i was going to back when in the slide in 2015 when our administration was lower that was a a point where we were very tight on our finances so our administration was very very um liked and maybe not quite enough people to do all the work so i really appreciate how hard everyone is working to to show and really make good use of our finances so thank you thank you anyone else ms metz miss matinen ms miranda thank you all for the good
048information it's actually heartening to to hear that we have reached a point where we are seeing our head above water way above water so thank you all right we move to item eight consent agenda items we have the consent agenda items you've had an opportunity to review them and we are open to entertain emotion dr santa cruz i move that we move that we approve tonight's consent agenda thank you mr carr is there a second second thank you miss humphries i saw miss wood's hand go up there as well any discussion seeing that there is no discussion all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda as presented and printed please signify by saying aye those opposed the same motion carries five zero we are at item nine action items for consideration discussion direction and
049possible approval 9.01 by way of introduction dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members before you we have a policy i kfb the adoption of this new policy is basically a revision to our current policy this is a graduation policy we're able to adopt this policy on emergency basis due to policy bgb essentially for our graduation policy the governor enacted um and signed into law some different requirements that needed to be put into our policy that's why we're putting this on there this evening the additions to our policy which are just additions there are no other changes to our policy um are the following a student who is a member of a federally recognized indian tribe or who is eligible to be enrolled as a member of a federally recognized indian tribe may
050wear traditional tribal regalia or objects of culture significance cultural significance at a graduation ceremony next for the purposes of this section objects of cultural significance and traditional tribal regalia include an eagle feather or eagle plume and so those are the additions to this graduation policy again something that was signed into law by our governor just recently thank you dr mccord uh item 9.01 does require a motion and this is the first and only read i think it's submitted to us on an emergency basis from the governor's office so is there a motion i move that we suspend policy bgb and adopt policy ik fb graduation exercises as written thank you mrs humphries is there a second second thank you mr wood is there any discussion um i just wanted to point out that the the
051statutes already gone into effect i had an emergency clause so that is one reason why we are doing this policy in one read instead of taking our time and usually doing it in two reads anything else okay seeing no additional discussion we will vote on item 9.01 all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all those opposed the same motion carries five zero we are now at item 9.02 action to clarify and confirm that the board's march 30 20 21 approval of the reduction in force recommendations constitute board approval for the rubric used to develop the recommendations and if you would by way of explanation allow me before the motion to just review our district enrollment declined by approximately sixteen hundred students during the twenty 2020-2021 school year resulting in a substantial loss
052of state funding for the 2020 2021 and 2021 2022 school year and significant overstaffing in district schools said another way as of the date as of the date the board took the difficult but necessary action to approve a reduction in force there were simply too many teachers for the number of students expected to return for the 2021 2022 school year governing board policy g c q a as adopted on january 26 2021 describes that non-exclusive criteria that the superintendent is expected to use to develop his recommendations for the non-continuation of specific state staff members as a tool to help implement policy gcqa a rubric was developed prior to march 30th 2021 every board member reviewed the rubric and determined it was aligned with the board member with the board members understanding of policy gcqa as
053well as the rubric was provided to the board as an attachment to the march 30 2021 board meeting and included in the presentation on the reduction in force that took place prior to the governing board vote that evening to implement the superintendent's recommendation for the non-continuation of specific staff members since march 30 2021 the governing board has learned that some teachers who were non-continued for next school year have expressed concern that the rubric used to develop the reduction in force recommendations was not approved by the board or does not comply with the governing board policy gcqa relative to the reduction in force criteria by the proposed board action tonight the board takes this opportunity to address this concern and so we are at item 9.02 is there a motion dr santa cruz i moved to
054clarify and confirm that the board's march 30th 2021 approval of the reduction in force recommendations constituted the board approval of the rubric used to develop the recommendations as fully consider is fully consistent with or an approved exception to the criteria set forth in governing board policy gcqa thank you miss wood is there a second i second thank you mrs humphries it's been moved and seconded is there any discussion seeing that there is no discussion dr santa cruz i just want to say i believe you you presented what i would have wanted to say so thank you for doing that thank you anything else with that then we will vote on the motion for 9.02 all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those oppose the same motion carries five zero we are now
055at item 10 requests for future agenda items 10.01 as is typical for us if there is nothing you would like to communicate this evening please make contact with mrs wilson and we will include them on a future agenda we move to item 11 board committee reports 11.01 gilbert education foundation ms humphries um yes i i want to report um thursday night the gilbert education foundation held their scholarship re reception and so they honored those who would want who had achieved the volunteer letter by volunteering at least 200 hours also the scholarship recipients which were recipients which were both students and teachers and staff and it was a delightful evening we we wore our mess we social distanced it was take-home refreshments because we wanted to be extremely careful but it was a delightful evening i
056wanted to also just take a point of personal privilege and share um this year i've worked really hard and i have visited all of our schools except one that i will get to before the end of the year and it's been a wonderful opportunity to see what's going on in our schools and see what our students are learning so much and our teachers and staff and principals are working so diligently to make sure that they have the best experience possible i i just couldn't be more proud and then secondly i wanted to share um some people may not be aware of the organization school connect that is an organization that's working to support schools through partnerships with community and business through community engagement and on thursday morning they heard held their first virtual award ceremony
057and i had the honor of being awarded the leader uh collaborative leadership award for school board member so i wanted to share that because i'm i think it's a really awesome opportunity so it is one of my goals to work on community engagement it's not something we've been able to do a lot of this year but hopefully next year we can move that forward and and really enjoy some good opportunities with with um supporting our schools so thank you thank you mrs humphries and congratulations miss wood item 11.02 city of mesa liaison yes thank you just a couple comments they're working on budget discussions in the city right now but of note of interest to our community and our school district they're having a community meeting on may 13th to take citizen input for the
058monterey park expansion that's the park next to superstition springs elementary so if if you'd like to give input on that in any way please look on the website or contact a town council member too to find out how to do that may 13th thank you mrs wood item 11.02 and 11.04 town gilbert liaison and finance audit committee mr carr dr saturn crews i think the finance committee has given its report very well tonight so i won't add anything more to that and i do not have anything report from the town of gilbert if i may at the end of this i'd like to take a moment following the rest of the reports thank you sir we'll circle back to you item 11.05 insurance and trust representative miss eugetti dr santa cruz i don't have anything
059to report as our meeting has been rescheduled thank you 11.06 is legislative representative and my report is ongoing you keep track of information coming to you through our local agencies newspapers and media outlets and there is still a great deal of activity going on at the legislature so as you have the opportunity to present your point of view we encourage you to do so mr carr i'll circle back to you sir thank you dr santa cruz um over the past couple of years the demands on my time have pulled me a variety of directions i've found it increasingly difficult in the past several months to meet my own expectations as i balance those competing demands after carefully evaluating my demands and opportunities to serve i've come to an extremely difficult decision and have submitted my
060resignation from this governing board effective june 30th by continuing through the academic slash fiscal fiscal year i hope that the timing will allow for a smooth transition to identify a replacement while allowing us to complete the school year consideration of the decision has given me the opportunity to pause and reflect on many years of involvement with our school district i i think back to when my children were in elementary at pioneer elementary and the art masters program engineering weeks science camps field trip chaperoning booster clubs site councils superintendent parent council override campaigns and then of course the last four and a half years as a school board member um this school district in particular its teachers have been a blessing in my family excuse me i don't consider myself an emotional man but it's an
061emotional moment to each of those teachers faculty staff thank you you have my deepest gratitude the past four years on this governing board four plus years i've tried to ask meaningful questions and i've tried to question the status quo i'm sure i've made my share of mistakes and at least some of the emails that we receive tend to validate that perception nevertheless i hope that those efforts are received as intended i've always tried to improve our school's ability to serve children to my fellow board members we've had some lively discussions we've occasionally split votes and i'm sorry for that mrs humphries we've faced red fred walkouts we've seen covid cause disruptions we've closed and repurposed schools and just very recently we've made some difficult decisions to reduce staff but it hasn't all been negative we've
062had some wonderful successes we've adopted and implemented a strategic plan although interrupted by kovid we're seeing that plan lead to improved academic opportunities and scores at one point we actually reversed the downward enrollment trend something that our demographer predicted was not possible and a sign that we were becoming the choice of our community i look forward to watching the board return to that path of progress we now have parents complimenting us on our communication in the past it seemed like our complaints were that they didn't know what was going on and now they're telling us we're communicating too often as discussed earlier tonight we've consistently increased the dollar spent in the classroom and for the first time in years we have a clean financial audit for some reason that seems to be something that i've
063paid increased attention to so i think those i believe we've accomplished the above i believe the way that we have accomplished the above to be every important is every bit as important as what we've achieved despite momentary lapses in which frustration has been expressed and i apologize to all for my contribution to those lapses i commend and thank each of you for your sincerity your passion and your civility regardless of agreement with decisions or disagreement i believe this board exemplifies how to interact in a respectful civil manner perhaps one of the best decisions we've made as a board was to hire new superintendent dr mccord and his staff made the above possible he faces constant criticism and has even received a threat or two but each day whether recognized or not he worries about the
064students and staff in this district i thank him and kristen for their dedication to the community it's not easy being a superintendent a large visible with a large visible target on your shirt every day shane thank you for not giving up on us thank you for answering my questions even when they were annoying thank you for pushing back at times and helping me see different perspectives to all of his cabinet i express those same sentiments we are lucky to have you i will miss touring campuses all particularly misreading students and i should probably once again apologize to the teacher at greenfield elementary whose exams i interrupted getting a little exuberant with where the wild things are but they did roar a terrible roar i hope that i will still be invited to championship games and
065regular season games to choir and orchestra concerts to patriotic commemorations fall festivals all of the great things that our district does i have loved meeting with teachers and i have loved witnessing your love for our students you do amazing things again i thank my fellow board members dr mccord his administration i thank the principals educators and staff of this district your dedication is appreciated finally thank you to my wife and my family chantal is four-footed vacation time she's tolerated morning and evening phone calls and she's overheard my verbalized self-directed in other words talking to myself conversations and generally she's just put up with me as i prepared for or cooled down from board meetings and of course as miss wood would remind me if i'd missed this thank you to the parents in our community
066your support means everything to gilbert public schools we know it's been a tough year in particular but thank you for the confidence thank you for the confidence that you've placed in electing me to this position i've been honored to serve thank you thank you mr carr if i may at least a point of personal privilege and and perhaps i'm speaking for the entire board that uh your service to this community uh is undoubtedly honest and forthright and your commitment to young people is certainly always evident and on behalf of the board and gilbert public schools and i'll defer to mr dr mccord here in a bit uh thank you for your service could i could i just add something ms i'm ready for santa cruz um being a board member it it kind of has
067to take number one in your life and i know that um mr carr has balanced being a scout master and being a leader and and a job um paid position nobody gets after me because i don't get paid for anything i do so um he's balanced a lot on his play and um you know i really appreciate serving with him and look forward to serving with him until the end of june so thank you very much dr mccord mr carr and i talked about this a few days ago and um and i appreciate that um it isn't easy doing what the five of you do um not just in times like this but i think just in general you carry the weight of the district on your shoulders and and the families out there that
068depend on you for a lot of different things and i think you've managed that extremely well um as you noted all five of you haven't agreed and you've heard me say this over and over again to all five of you but i think you've shown the community how how easy can be to agree to disagree and do it in a civil way there's two things you don't mess with in this world and that's people's children and their money and we do that on a daily basis here uh one way or the other and it's it's not easy and but every time i've had conversations with you you've wanted to know what's in the best interest of kids and that is exactly the type of person you are and that's how you've served so i i
069can appreciate that again not everybody's going to agree with everything that happens up here but never ever have you made a decision without thinking it through and wondering what's best for our students in our community and our staff so thank you for that appreciate your service ms eugetti and ms wood sheila would you like to say anything i can't i'm crying okay miss wood just thank you all right with that again we wish you well mr carr we're we're going to work you to death until june 30th but we do wish you will i do item 12 meeting dates 12.01 dr mccord our next meeting is next tuesday may 4th at 6 pm that's a work-study and a brief board meeting and then we also have a policy meeting on may 11th and a board
070business meeting on may 18th and then coming up after that is graduation where our kids will be walking across the stage and so we're so very happy and proud of that thank you sir we moved to item 13 13.01 is adjournment is there a motion summit thank you mrs humphries is there a second i'll second thank you mrs wood discussion doesn't seem like there ever is on that one all right with that we will vote all those in favor of item 13.01 adjournment please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same motion carries 5-0 we thank you for your attendance those of you on live stream and those of you who are in the room we appreciate staff and their work in preparation for the meeting have a good evening we are adjourned you