Gilbert Public Schools District Board Meeting 02/23/2021

001tuesday february 23rd and this is a meeting of the gilbert public schools governing board we have a need for an executive session pursuant with ars 38431 a and 3 governing board may convene an executive session for discussion and or consultation for legal advice with the governing board's attorney regarding arizona's open meeting law requirements and that executive session was set for five o'clock is there a motion so moved thank you miss humphries is there a second second thank you mr eugetti any discussion seeing none we will vote all those in favor of moving to executive session please signify by saying aye aye those pose the same motion carries five zero we will recess to executive session [Music] really thank you maybe because they're still worn you got that nice check mic check sitting up there you're

002fine we have about nine minutes before we begin the official agenda so please feel free to visit with each other for a little bit good evening today is february the 23rd and this is a meeting of the gilbert governing board regularly scheduled business meeting we have just concluded an executive session and we will now attend to our regular session agenda we'll open the meeting with a moment of silence a pledge led by miss wood and a call to order i would ask that during the moment of silence we remember jason mercet from campover the student employees keith purdy from transportation and mona conlon business services and those who have perished due to covet please join us in a moment of silence dr anna cruz may i add one more person please mrs peggy dole who

003taught at gilbert l for very many years also in our moment of silence thank you for that please join me in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you board members [Music] we will now call the roll item 2.04 miss wilson miss larry wood sure dr charles santa cruz here mr reed carr here michelle eugetti here ms jill humphries here mr president all board members are present you have a quorum thank you miss wilson we'll now move to item three is approval of the agenda item three point zero one is there a motion some moved thank you miss humphries is there a second a second thank you mr

004carr any discussion seeing none we will vote to approve tonight's agenda item 3.01 all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those oppose the same motion carries meeting agenda is approved item 4 superintendents recognition awards 4.01 dr mccord we yield to you thank you dr santa cruz governing board members tonight we've we've got some treats for you i'll start off on uh just some recognitions uh we have national merit finalists mesquite high and i pardon my uh if i mispronounce someone's name from mesquite high hong tao lu and donovan harp from desert ridge high adeline dao from campo verde lauren brandt from highland high marianne wood isaac root and jason calalang and from gilbert classical academy matthew hannah congratulations to all of our national merit finalists we have flynn scholarship finalists jennifer tran

005from mesquite high hannah abdul from highland high school sophia hammer from gilbert classical academy and eugenia truckel from gilbert classical academy congratulations to our flynn scholar finalists [Applause] next we will have a presentation we have a football team from mesquite high that has won the championship once again back to back and i'd like to bring up their principal mr rod houston because he would like to say a few words about this and present some things mr houston thank you dr mccord dr santa cruz and governing board for having us here tonight we're extremely excited to come back for the second year in a row and our back-to-back state championships um we didn't feel like we could bring the whole team tonight but we did bring some people that we want to make sure get recognized

006and then we have some gifts for you our team had a great season we got into the playoffs they came from behind in every game in the fourth quarter to win all the way through the finals super exciting final win the game in the last second on a two-point conversion i don't know that we could ask for much more my heart almost burst but it was good um do want to bring up our guys and so i got our athletic director mr rudy alvarado then we have our head coach scott hare scott is also the 4a conference coach of the year and the desert sky region coach of the year just bring him up we also have with us a couple of our team captains uh we got judson cole judd is a all-state offensive

007tackle um through more than one organization got that for him um so we're super excited to have him coming up and then andrew morris is an allstate linebacker and an allstate receiver for us so we're glad to have andrew coming up and we just wanted to thank you again for supporting high school athletics the comprehensive high schools here in gilbert public schools and going through and making sure that we got an opportunity to play this season so we brought you some autographed footballs from our team so thank you to the governing board and the superintendent congratulations mesquite high football football i'll do it once again let's hear it from mesquite high football [Applause] now we have a little treat for you so each year we have an oratorical contest that's made up of kindergarten through

008eighth grade students in our district and they compete for three divisions the k2 division the third through six division and the seventh through eighth grade division and tonight we have winners from each one of those divisions and they are going to perform their oratorical speech for you this evening in order as they'll come up and we're gonna come downstairs and watch you from the right side and um they will be taking out their masks because this is one of the um presentations in an oratorical they have to do expressions we've got them socially distanced and they don't move around and walk all over the place so we're very happy that they wanted to be here this evening we have ruby webb from superstition springs the k2 winner we have evelyn gerdes from highland park through

009through third through sixth grade winner and rayna braun from south valley the seventh and eighth grade winner and we will start with ruby and then evelyn and then reyna so ruby come on up born in 1933 in new york ruth bader grew up during a time when all people did not enjoy equal rights including women her mother felt the education was important and expected young ruth to take her schooling seriously ruth was the first in her family to attend college she graduated at the top of her class at cornell it was there that she met the love of her life marty ginsburg shortly after graduation they married and moved to oklahoma where marty was stationed it was there that ruth was directly affected by laws unfair to women when she became pregnant with their first

010child she was demoted at her position at the social security administration which was perfectly legal at the time ruth enrolled at harvard law school one of nine women in a class of 500 students some felt that women didn't deserve to be there including her dean who asked why are you here taking the place of a man ruth quietly worked hard at her studies and was the first woman to make the harvard law review she transferred to columbia law school and graduated first in her class even with all these accomplishments no law firm would hire a woman she was finally able to secure position but only after several of the male perf of her male professors vouched for her this was only one of the many injustices throughout her distinguished career while she didn't back down

011from a challenge she wasn't afraid of being the only woman in the room because she knew her capabilities during the 1970s while a law professor at columbia ruth bader ginsburg directed the influential women's rights project of the american civil liberties union in this position she led the fight against gender discrimination and successfully argued six landmark cases before the u.s supreme court in 1980 president carter nominated ruth bader ginsburg to the u.s court of appeals there she earned the reputation of working with conservatives and liberals alike in 1993 president clinton nominated judge ginsberg to the u.s supreme court in her rulings she considered both sides crossing party lines if necessary judge ginsburg felt that both sides of a question needed to be explored and approached cases with reason judge ginsburg acknowledged differing viewpoints at a 2009

012graduation speech she spoke about affirmative action and said effective participation by members of minority groups and women in the civil life of our nation is essential if the dream of one nation indivisible is to be realized we all profit from a more diverse inclusive society understanding accommodating even celebrating our differences while pulling together for the common good her advice to that graduating class is what all students should follow she said as you leave here and proceed among life's paths try to leave tracks use the education you've received to help repair tears in your communities in other words try to leave tracks for those who follow to show them the way toward justice for all our citizens today our country is more divided than ever there is anger and ascension among our citizens our viewpoints divide

013family and friends neighbors and communities if we took ruth's advice what if we approach the path to equality like justice ginsburg by acknowledging the pain hurt and frustration on both sides what if we didn't shout or yell but listen to others with different viewpoints what if we came together with the common goal of equality and then just like justice ginsburg took one step at a time toward our shared goal so so little together we can do so much some of you will recognize this quote others will not this quote isn't just a group of words to me it's all of my life achievements at a young age i was diagnosed with traucoma which meant my eyes were almost always bothering me a few years later my mother died and my father decided that it was

014too hard to raise me and my brother jimmy hence we were sent to the tewksbury aunt's house at this time i was almost completely blind due to overcrowding and underfunding the almshouse had a high mortality rate and they ended up losing jimmy to tuberculosis within four months i was devastated but nonetheless i persevered through the dark times soon after jimmy's passing a few people took an interest in me i soon underwent multiple eye operations that eased symptoms of trachoma for short periods of time when my eyesight was a bit better i got a job as a housemaid that ended quickly due to my lack of sight when i arrived back at the um's house i soon learned about a school for the blind all of a sudden i knew what i wanted to do i

015wanted to get an education when i was around 14 years old a panel of commissioners came to inspect the alms house at that moment i knew that speaking to them would be the only way of achieving my goal of getting an education i followed the panel around tirelessly until they were finally done with their tour right before they left i bolstered all of my courage and told one of the commissioners that i wanted an education four months later i found myself at perkins institute for the blind when i first arrived life there was pretty rough at first i was the only one who didn't know how to read or write their name i had never owned a nightgown or a hairbrush and i certainly didn't know how to thread a needle nevertheless i was wise

016in the ways of the world most of my peers and some of my teachers didn't give me any grace i was straight up humiliated but as they say there's a silver lining on every cloud this feeling of humiliation drove me to be even more determined in my studies and within two years i closed all of my academic gaps i had yet another surgery on my eyes but this time it finally worked i could finally read print due to despite my near expulsions due to my sharp tongue and temper i still graduated and gave the valedictory speech i told everyone to find their own place in the world even when i myself didn't know how to do that i was afraid of the future and what it would bring when all of a sudden the opportunity

017of a lifetime came bounding in during the summer of 1886 i received a request to teach a young seven-year-old girl i was surprised let alone intimidated by the opportunity to teach such a young girl it took me almost a year to bolster the courage and skills i needed to go to alabama and start a new chapter in my life most of you are more familiar with the story of my student helen keller i am her teacher anne sullivan when i first began teaching helen i taught her using standardized methods and let me tell you she would have no part of it she was constantly distracted by the wonders of the outside world this should mean that i needed to switch learning styles much like the teachers of today we persevered through unconventional times we persevered

018through dark times using unconventional methods we switched learning styles and broke most all the rules about teaching the deafblind but we didn't care we were having fun learning miraculously in only six months helen had learned 575 words the entire braille system and multiplication tables up to five this was a wonderful start but i felt that the limited resources in alabama were limiting helen's ability to learn so we moved back to perkins institute for the blind when you first arrived there was a lot of tension between me and some of the teachers so helen and i decided to live at the school for long periods of time in alabama for long periods of time when i was around 25 years old and when helen was around 11 helen wrote a story for the perkins director's birthday

019this led to people thinking that she had plagiarized the story and led to many investigative interviews the whole ordeal deeply scarred both me and helen and we never returned to perkins institute our journey took us to radcliffe college where i interpreted lessons for helen making her the first deafblind student to ever graduate college six years after world war one i got helen and i got the opportunity to be advocates for the american foundation for the blind helen and i lived out the rest of my days side by side in my new york home thus i am my story with one of my own quotes the future for all of us will be tragic if we do not find a way to use the vast educational resources of this country to serve their true purpose of

020education truth and justice thank you good evening i'm rosie the riveter but i am more than a riveter i'm a machinist a welder a builder a foreman an electrician a construction worker a baseball player and even a soldier i represent all the women who answered our country's call to join the war effort by working when the united states entered world war ii most men were called to serve the military meanwhile the demand for airplanes ships and guns skyrocketed as the country realized that the great war was not the war to end all wars and we needed supplies to fight the ax's powers so who would fill this major labor shortage us women of course my picture was first taken in 1942 by westinghouse electric corporation to recruit women and inspire workers to do their best

021soon after this red evans and john chagoblio wrote a song about me which became very popular this song and poster became so inspirational that the us army decided to use it to recruit more desperately needed workers on may 29 1943 another version of me painted by norman rockwell appeared in the saturday evening post i was depicted on my lunch break at work riveting gun in my lap stepping on hitler's book minecomp squashing this nazi symbol like a bug and it worked over 19 million women joined the workforce we made over 297 000 airplanes 88 000 warships and 47 million tons of ammunition now let me tell you a bit about life before we were called to work most of us finished high school but never attended college because college was for men none of us

022took classes in trades or shop at high school because those were boy classes and many of us had small children at home that needed to be cared for so how did we do it we pooled our resources neighbors would take alternating shifts at the factory while trading child care responsibilities with each other one member of a group would wash clothes while another would cook meals it was a tough life but we were all fighting the ax's powers together as i have said you can always tell who the strong women are they are the ones you see building each other up instead of tearing each other down before i came on the scene women were expected to wear skirts or dresses out in public but who can run a turret lathe in a dress and heels

023we need to wear work clothes like jeans overalls blonde hair pulled back and heavy work boots own a headband and meant that you were rosy which was a very patriotic fashion statement despite our lack of early training we not only did it we did it better than our male predecessors production increased quality increased and safety improved with us at these jobs yet even the best of us were only paid 50 percent of what men were paid now this may sound insulting but back then we were paid on what we needed now what we are worth almost all of us were supported by men we didn't have our own houses or even bank accounts that would come much later thanks to women like ruth bader ginsburg after the war many men came home and we were

024laid off from our jobs factory owners and supervisors thanked us for our service and sent us back to run households now you may think this is the end of my story but it was just the beginning of an era in american history we prove that we can not only do women's jobs we can do men's we can run households work in factories manage our money work as doctors lawyers even soldiers we can do anything we want to as years passed some of us even went back to work but we all told our stories to our nieces daughters and granddaughters who became their own versions of rosies we can do it please give one more hand to ruby evelyn and reyna i had the pleasure of being at the oratorical contest and although these three are

025definite winners everyone there did a fantastic job and the competition was extremely difficult but thank you for representing gilbert public schools at the next level if that's where you go thanks again dr santa cruz that concludes my recognitions for this evening thank you dr mccord and just a note from me as a representative of the board it is impressive and inspiring to hear these three young ladies speak and to speak so eloquently about the contributions of the women of this country thank you for enlightening us again we'll now move to superintendents report item 5 5.01 dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members and again good evening to everybody here tonight and online first i'd like to thank our director of health services jennifer frost and director of safety and security al kane

026for all the work they all the work they did to establish and implement the modern vaccine distribution at our pod on saturday and sunday february 13th and 14th we will we were able to vaccinate over 2400 staff from gilbert public schools higley public schools queen creek public schools and surrounding day care and facility employees this was in partnership with albertsons and safeway pharmacies a top-level executive who was in attendance on saturday from safeway told me that our pod was the best planned and executed distribution sites that he has had the pleasure of working with during this pandemic additionally thank you to all those who all those that volunteered on both days office staff school support staff teachers administrators and community volunteers all pitched in to make this happen and a big thank you especially the

027highland high school for being such gracious hosts for the event again to all thank you for everything that you did the second dose will be administered at highland high school on saturday and sunday march 20th and 21st we will send out information to sign up as we move closer to the event last night we held the first of three community meetings regarding proposed changes for the 20-21-22 school year our proposal is to combine burke and houston elementary at burke elementary and move neely to houston location thank you to all of you that attended the meeting at houston last night and for your thoughts and questions the next meeting will be held at burke elementary tomorrow evening 6 pm and the final meeting will be held on thursday evening at 6 pm at neely elementary we

028will then present feedback and information to the governing board during a work study on tuesday march 2nd with a possible vote on the proposal at a regular board meeting on tuesday march 30th and lastly spring break is approaching monday march 8th through monday march 15th is our spring break this year school resume on tuesday march 16th while on break please be cautious and safe and please take care of each other dr santa cruz that concludes my report for this evening thank you dr mccord move to item six it's a request to speak to the governing board we have six community members who have expressed an interest in speaking to the board four regarding mask wearing and two regarding gifted education we will start with those wishing to speak on gifted education we'll start with katie

029thorpe and then galena versa if you'll please go ahead with the recorded 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 the public body at the conclusion of the open call to the public individual board members may respond to criticism made by those who have addressed the board may ask the staff to review a matter or may ask a matter be to be put on a future agenda however members of the board shall not discuss or take legal action on matters raised during the open call to the public unless the matters are properly noticed for discussion and legal action during the open call the board requests

030that speakers refrain from voicing complaints against school personnel or any person connected with the district as it may impact due process rights policy ke keb and ked are provided by the board for disposition of legitimate complaints including those involving individuals forms required for use of these policies can be obtained from the gilbert public schools website thank you kathy thorpe and then galena hello i'm kathy thorpe and i'm a parent of children in gilbert public schools grades kindergarten through second grade i am also a member of the gifted education parent council thank you to the board for being here and for giving me time to speak i'm here to talk about the needs of gifted children as you may know gifted children are generally the top 3 percent of the population and on a bell curve

031children with special needs are generally the bottom 3 percent of that same curve as a society we spend a lot of resources helping those children with special needs as well we should i want to point out that gifted children also have very diverse needs that deserve to be addressed i'm very appreciative that gps has formed the gifted educate education parent council to mirror the special education parent council in order to help meet those needs i appreciate the programs in place like the one at town meadows highland junior high and the schools that have alp alp teachers and cluster models the gps vision statement for gifted reads as follows gilbert public schools is a premier provider of services to pre-k through grade 12 students identified as gifted or twice exceptional using research-based instruction to address the

032needs of the whole child i believe that this vision is an end goal that gps is working toward and we have come a long way but we have a long way ahead of us to make this vision a complete reality i believe that gifted children deserve to have services in the primary grades they deserve to be challenged and to learn something new every day many families have left the district because these needs are not being met starting a new program or expanding the current program from town meadows to offer self-contained gifted classes to grades one through three would be one excellent way to accomplish this i also believe that all elementary schools should have training for teachers who have gifted children in their classes i know that gifted training for teachers and gifted services and

033curriculum varies from school to school i would like to see these items standardized across all elementary schools in the district i'm offering my help and support to aid in the further meeting the needs of gifted children please call on us at the gifted education parent council to let us know how we can be of service to the district in fulfilling the vision statement let's bolster our program and get families back from charters and other districts thank you that's the first time i'm doing it so good evening my name is galena verishagina i am a mother of two children currently in gilbert public schools and i'm an associate professor of economics at asu and the gilbert resident since 2011. last week i sent a letter to the gps board advocating for the extension of the self-contained

034gifted program to younger grades 20 other parents signed this letter and tonight two of us decided to come over and speak and explain why we need such a program as needed so thank you so much for giving us such an opportunity um 10 years ago our family was looking for a long-term home and eventually we decided to settle in gilbert to a large extent because of all the opportunities it offers to families including its excellent schools but we were very surprised when our daughter started kindergarten in a few months we started seeing warning signs so liz who was always eager to earn would come home and say that school is not exciting that it's too easy and that you'd rather learn at home so in a couple of months later she was formally tested as

035gifted and her teacher really went out of her way to try to help and engage her in class and challenge her and we're very very grateful for this but looking forward we were concerned about the future we were not sure whether the cluster model would be able to meet her needs academically and probably even more important socially so imagine a child who is being consistently asked to do an alternative assignment or is being asked to sit and read in the corner which often happens to academically advanced children so we were not sure that we really wanted our daughter to be in that situation so based on our experience and the experiences of many parents we talked to we knew that please would not be able to thrive within the cluster model that the vista lakes

036elementary had to offer and we started looking for other options it turns out that outside of the gps many districts at schools offer self-contained gifted programs starting from early grades and we ended up transferring lists to a sentence charter school where we saw her thrive academically socially and emotionally in there at least a third of the families were the families residing in gps district that chose to move to a different school because gilbert public schools could not offer to their children what their children needed and over time i came to meet at least 20 other families who did exactly the same so i believe that expanding self-contained gifted program to younger grades will help align the gps gifted education with its vision of being a premier provider of gifted services and will help retain students

037in the district which ultimately will be financially beneficial so i hope the board will consider the possibility of doing it and the great first step would be to serve the gps families and the families in the neighboring districts to assess the demand for such a program so thank you for giving an opportunity to speak i'm looking forward to continuing this conversation and hope that the board will support this initiative thank you next we have four speakers the topic is mask wearing nicole gutierrez lindsey stevens milana with the laura and hannah silby we'll start with nicole hello my name is nicole gutierrez and i'm a senior at highland high school i'm gonna tell you my experience about covid and how i got it and how it affected me and my family so my dad and i

038both got it around the same time uh it was in january and i had gotten a covert exposure in my math class um we were told the quarantine but we thought it would just be one of those kind of it's a cold that type of stuff we are uh like very heavy on wearing our masks and stuff and i don't really take it off i took it off to take a sip of water i was wrong about how i wasn't going to put my family in danger or anything so no one in that class wears masks at all if they do it's under their chin or under their nose being in that class which isn't available online along with a lot of my other classes has put on not only me but my family in

039grave danger my father is a type 2 diabetic and my mother is severely asthmatic i am mildly asthmatic and my grandmother who lives with us has medical issues such as hypertension type 1 diabetes and heart issues along with possible cancer being in this class i brought the deadly virus to my house i gave it to my father first he thought he had a normal cold and it got so bad until he couldn't breathe and was terrified and had to go to the hospital he ended up on a heavy breathing tube pushing too sorry tube pushing 90 percent of oxygen into his lungs that did not work he had to go on to a ventilator which he was there for around 15 days he was scared for his life that he would never be able to

040see us again before we got off the ventilator we called him he let me know not to blame myself for anything that happened i fell into a depression and i was thinking i'm causing my own father to die i immediately broke down into all the type of attacks you could imagine anxiety panic and more uh i was the reason my father was at death's door him being diabetic also didn't help as it attacked him more since his immune system was already weakened there is not a second i don't blame myself for his sickness not only did he get coveted but he got coba pneumonia since the coronavirus main target is for the lungs and the immune system it's really dangerous for me now to go home after school because people do not demonstrate about caring

041about others at my school when i had covet i was asymptomatic but i did end up also getting pneumonia and bronchitis mixed together i missed school for a month and that's and i'm in a lot of ap classes um from one mask being not being worn you can hurt a lot of other people around you one person in my classrooms can get six other people sick since it's like the setup of it um i'm scared to go home now as i still have a risk of bringing it home as the second strain so my message would just be like us students who have people we care about need others to have and i know you can't teach this human decency or even how to wear masks properly because one aerosol can ruin another's life thank

042you thank you lindsay hi my name is lindsay stevens and i'm a senior at highland high school thank you so much for your time tonight and for allowing us to use your voices as you taught us back in august we were promised a safe learning environment one with mask wearing social distancing and if we met criteria um being an infection rate of five to seven percent when we came back to school this past january the infection rate was 23 percent and oh i have some photo evidence not going to show it but i'll show you guys later this pandemic has worn away at many things in our lives for some of us the cancellation of graduation ceremonies and life events and for others beloved family members the pandem this pandemic has done something to all

043of us however in the same effect it has divided us currently there is a grim divide at highland and although many toe the line there are some friendships and there are some friendships across the divide it is tearing us apart each of us have a different background family stories i live with a person with a pre-existing condition lung condition and i const consistently see my elderly family so i am very concerned about coronavirus and the possibility of giving it to my susceptible family each of us have a different background families and stories i personally choose to wear crop tops and short shorts in the summer because i believe comfort is important however just because we all have a different background family and story does not mean we are able to bend the rules because of

044them well on school grounds this meaning even an if another student does not have the same connection to coronavirus perhaps they do not have at-risk family members or they have already had the virus or they don't believe in the virus these ramifications do not and should not stand on school grounds even though the rule technically states all persons including but not limited to staff students and visitors shall we wear a face covering well on any district property in any district facility and at any district event whether indoors or outdoors tonight we are just asking for the enforcement of masks while inside the building there are giant crowds of massless kids we often have to swear it and avoid outside however a lot of the time it is not possible as it is a smaller space

045and we truly and it is truly honestly impossible for us to avoid the influx of people not wearing masks inside to take our own measures we wear multiple masks all day long we hold our breath and we shield our eyes in the hallway we take every long route to do our best to avoid them please let you know you are not our first listeners and we have tried our best to avoid taking time from you all by having meetings with our counselors our administrators and our principal these meetings were very helpful in expressing our concerns and our principle has taken some steps but due to the number of student overwhelming the staff um she says she cannot control this um we have a few other ideas other schools have implemented that work very well on

046many campuses they sorry i'm running out of time i have about it if you'd like you can email the rest of it or the whole entire speech to the board okay i will definitely email it sorry thank you elana hi my name is melana with elara and i'm a student at highland high school i'm a senior this year i've been at gilbert public schools for most of my schooling so i have first-hand experiences of what we what and who we are here to speak about today and i just want to thank you guys for allowing us to speak and yeah in previous years i've seen first hand that the dress code is very important to teachers and other administrators many students mostly females have been in the have been dress coded in the past almost

047every single day because showing skin is distracting to other students to me wearing your mask incorrectly is more distracting so sorry so wearing your mask is um included in the dress code and yet many teachers do not enforce it if someone is violating the rule and sorry my mind is just okay so people breaking the school rule is way more distracting and detrimental than a student wearing a tank top in hot arizona weather we are afraid to sit near other students we are afraid to walk through the hallways the ones where we have resorted to holding our breath and shielding our faces with our hands because of the overwhelming amount of students who do not wear their mask properly or even at all why does my education have to be compromised because someone doesn't have

048any sympathy for their peers no other dress quote just dress code rule affects someone's education no other rule makes one afraid to even show up to class i'm asking you to sympathize with us and to hear your students out the board is supposed to protect us and we are begging for you to do your part we have done ours but now but now i've had to overstep our job and have damaged our relationships with other students for just simply asking them to pull up their mask some of us have even called us derogatory names because we are vocal and care about our families and our friends this is our last result resort and we need people like you who have the power to please do something the group i'm here with today recently had a

049meeting with the highland principal she informed us that it is very difficult for administration to monitor who is and who isn't wearing a mask correctly like lindsay said the age group at highland are most like age group at highland according to the cdc are going to be asymptomatic so we have no idea who has it and who doesn't and it could be the students not properly wearing their masks we have 3 000 students walking through these hallways we need to go back to hybrid these rules are not enforced and there's no other solution in order to keep our families safe half of our staff here are not enforcing the rules and if there were there was more help available a stronger education system surrounding masks and consequences for those who violate the rules would take

050so much stress off of teachers and students who worry about bringing this deadly virus home to their families some students have the argument of just go online which has been proven false i've personally tried to go online but all of my classes which are ap have all been at the same exact time and other classes weren't even offered at all we have no other option but to step in an infected building we are first forced to hurt gilbert public schools families just to attend school thank you so the group i came here today with we have some questions we would like to ask you guys so we have four questions um the first being how are the cases being counted like into the board into the system during the public comments section we're not allowed

051to answer back we're just allowed to listen okay so you can you can ask the questions and then we can ruminate on them later so um so i'm gonna ask the questions and then read the rest of lindsay's um the second question is if i test it on friday um and am i if i test positive on sunday would that be counted and if not why the third question is many students with masks mask exemption forms play sports at our school or have part-time jobs where they have to wear them their mask and they do and my question is what types of doctors or health care workers are allowed to sign the mass exemption as some students get it signed by doctors that are not specialized in respiratory health such as a chiropractor and are

052they also allowed to have it signed by any relatives that are in the healthcare system and my fourth question is is that if students cannot absolutely wear the mask could they at least have could we at least incorporate the face shield into the form as many of our handicapped students do to finish off lindsay's speech our principal has taken some action steps but we were told by her that they are often unable to effectively enforce these rules due to the number of students overwhelming the staff we have a few ideas other schools have implemented that have worked very well on many campuses they instated the rule that if you have your mask purposely off or incorrectly inside the building you were moved to online school for two weeks online school was so mentally draining for

053a lot of students and aggravating too many parents and that is the reason we are here today the reason we are we were allowed to go back to in-person learning is because of masks and other health protocols those who do not follow the health protocol obviously do not truly value in person learning we do not want to be forced back into online schools because the truth is that the situation we present to you today violates arizona department of health services emergency measure 20204 as well as the governor of the state and of arizona's executive order 20 20 51. um there is nothing more fun to look forward to than graduation for many of the students in senior prom but there is something more important than those events the 500 000 and 71 dead as of

054yesterday that is more that more americans lost than in world war one world war ii and the vietnam war all put together time again thank you thank you that was our last speaker and we will move to item seven dr santa cruz don't you just be before you go on i i would like to say that i appreciate the comments that we're getting um via online and and being sent to us i think there was a lot nine or eleven of them today and i spent the time it's up to 14 okay i spent the time reading them and i appreciate that that parents and community members are able to um give us comments online too thank you thank you mr eugetti and and thank you for bringing that again to the public's attention also

055would like to commend the students who and parents who spoke this evening you are certainly a service to your community and your peer group and we commend you for the courage to come forward and speak your mind item 7 7.01 is the monthly budget report dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members tonight ms betts will present our monthly budget report good evening governing board members dr santa cruz dr mccord this will be very short this evening next week we are scheduled to present to you the revised number two budget as well as do a comprehensive budget projection uh presentation to you as well so i just wanted to point out just a few highlights on this month's report of uh reflective of year to date january 31st so let's see what am

056i supposed to point oh i gotta turn it on sorry excuse me i'm an appointment so as you can see at the top line that's highlighted in yellow is our maintenance and operations fund when we presented the budget projection to you a couple of weeks ago we anticipated a revised budget of i'm sorry a revised budget of 249 million you can see that this revised budget number two pending is 257 million i want to share with you that new data arrives and we're calculating the average daily membership daily and we received an update on those numbers yesterday and so we're expecting that the revised budget number two pending will be to uh just over 260 million when we present to you next week so that's very good news as we are being funded on current

057year average daily membership the budget capacity changes daily here in gilroy public schools so in addition you can see the year-to-date expended encumbered and the available balance of just under 14 million that year-to-date expended encumbered does not account for the new allocation of the sr2 monies which we know will be a 9.7 million for gilbert public schools so the overall effect of that will be that that year-to-date expended encumbered will um will be decreased by that same about nine million dollars which will mean the available balance will go up and that will improve our budget projection for the fiscal year 2022 but we'll get into all of those details uh next week to continue the conversation i'm sorry okay so going to the next slide there we go the federal grants we wanted to make

058sure that we included another row on for the sr2 on the federal grants page as you can see the revised budget number two will have that amount reflected and we have not determined how that was going to be spent yet but um but that will be shared with you next week as well uh let's see and then on the state grants just wanted to share the biggest change on the building renewal grants is we have received now all of the reimbursement revenues from the school facilities board eliminating the negative in the building renewal fund um in addition we didn't highlight this but the results-based funding uh which we intend to distribute to the employees that are eligible in the first paycheck in march you will be approving that tonight at this board meeting on our

059enterprise funds as you know we are monitoring these funds closely as these are the two funds that have been consistently negatively impacted by the pandemic with the decrease in activity etc however note that on nutrition services the estimated revenues has been increased at this time due to the usda's change that all students will be offered a free me a free breakfast and a free lunch it actually we actually expect it to increase our revenues in the current year putting our nutrition services fund at a very positive sustainable balance and then these are the other district funds and we have other information regarding the bond funds etc as we get closer to april albert dutchover will be presenting the summer projects list to you and we will go into the bond fund activity at greater detail

060at that time and that is the end of my report this evening board members any questions comments i just want to say i appreciate the work to make sure we have an accurate student count and bring our budget up i mean uh school funding is very complicated and even more complicated now that we have current year funding and we have to be very watchful on that so thank you you bet anyone else okay no other questions and just for again information to the public board members have had the opportunity to review the slides that miss betts presented among others and so the lack of any question doesn't mean anything other than they have reviewed the information and they are satisfied with the information at this point and we will await a more comprehensive presentation next

061week all right we move to item eight consent agenda items for consideration discussion direction or possible approval is their emotion dr santa cruz i move that we approve the consent agenda as presented thank you mr carr is there a second second miss eugenie thank you there is a second any discussion seeing no discussion then we will vote all those in favor of proving the consent agenda as printed and presented please signify by saying i i those opposed the same motion carries five zero removed item nine action item uh nine point zero one discussion and action on accepting school calendar option one two one or calendar option two two two for the 2022 2023 23 24 school years is there a motion or by way of introduction dr mccord and then we'll ask for a motion

062thank you dr santa cruz governing board members you introduced the item extremely well back on february 2nd mr martin presented in a work study the survey related to the calendar we both surveyed the staff of gps as well as our families and for those of you that don't know what one two one and two two two mean uh one two one is is the traditional calendar calendar that we've been using for several years and that means one week at fall break off two weeks at winter break and one week at or during spring break two two two goes along the same model except an extra week two weeks at fall break two weeks at winter break two weeks spring break and the options for you to consider tonight again are for the 22-23 school year

063and the 23-24 school year mr martin is here if you have any questions before we go to mr martin is there a motion uh dr santa cruz i motioned that we adopt the 2-2-2 calendar for the 2022-23 and 23 24 school years thank you miss humphries is there a second i will second that motion and open the floor for mr martin's presentation and or discussion questions from the board good evening uh governing board members dr mccord community members as you recall we did review the survey results that were given to the both the staff and the community in december and then we reviewed them at the prior work study here in february and i'm here tonight to answer any questions that you may have can you give us the percentages please once again okay so

064this year in december of 2020 uh we had 9942 parents take the survey and 50.5 percent of the parents uh opted for the 2-2-2 model the staff response was 2979 responses for and 65 percent voted in favor of the 2-2-2 model and what about the other i have to figure that out okay no no so for the 1-2-1 on the parents it would be 49.5 percent and then on the one two one for the staff that was 35 percent thank you thank you mr martin can you uh talk about um when we have heat days at elementary i mean this would be starting school earlier yeah towards the end of july if we went to the 222 model what do we do for students for their recess time sure great question uh it is similar

065to what we used to call the rainy day schedule and now um different schools call it different things but really it's for acclimated weather and if the heat index at that day during lunch time particularly in july and august is over that threshold than the students normally eat in the cafeteria as they normally do and then instead of going out to the playground for that 15 or 20 minutes of recess schools have come up with different options most of them you still use their paraprofessionals and instead of watching them outside on the playground the students usually are divided into a series of rooms the the most popular areas that are utilized during that time for quote indoor recess or activities is the library and the project room some schools of course have other empty rooms

066or classrooms that they use as well and during that time then they do alternative activities though it might have board games or different activities some of them might be showing some type of video students can read that's left up to the discretion of each individual school and paraprofessional sometimes as well all right and when we talked uh earlier today you said the the morning time um when kids got it's not usually too hot for them at that point correct so for those grade levels uh at schools that have an am recess that's usually somewhere between 9 30 and probably 10 30. usually the heat index at that time even if it's a heat advisory day is not hot enough at that time so the students are able to get outside for that am recess we

067have fewer schools now that have a pm recess partly due to the 8 10 to 2 55 school time with all our elementary schools getting out earlier than they used to and during that time there are some that still have a pm recess it really depends upon the daily schedule of each grade level but if they do then they would also spend time usually in their teacher's classroom for that 15-minute pm recess am and pm recess at the elementary schools is normally supervised by those teachers at that particular grade level so they figure out how to do that in their own classrooms if they have to stay inside and just remind us a couple years ago the legislature passed a law giving more recess but we had already had that in place in our district

068is that correct correct we pretty much had it in place we did have some intermediate fourth and fifth grade classrooms that did have to go back to adding an am or a pm recess in addition to the lunch recess that was school by school and so that was one the only major change of area otherwise we were in compliance with the new ars statute regarding recess at the elementary schools in grades k through five all right thank you mr martin can you give me the dates for um summer school this year please so for this year uh and this is summer of 2021 coming up right they will be june 7th through july 2nd and one of the things i will note is that we will put on we've talked about this previously and on

069these calendars we will note the summer school period so in this case on the 2022-23 calendar we would note that summer school would be june 5th through june 30th so families could plan as they are looking at that we know we have many families that do participate in summer school and then in june of 2024 on the uh second calendar that we're looking for your approval it would be june 3rd through june 28th for that four week period so it would give uh families at least that the 222 would give even though we're starting earlier would give the families at least a month yes correct okay thank you and all of these uh the one two one and the two two two uh proposals as you well know school is proposed to end on the

070thursday before memorial day and so then summer school starts the monday one week after memorial day on all versions of these calendars and then what would be the first day of school um for those two years the i'm looking here the 25th of july would be the first day of school in 2022 and then in the 2023 it would be the july 24th is that correct so yes i'm pulling up the calendars here so on the 222 model for 2223 the first day of school is monday july 25th on this proposed calendar and then on the 222 for 23 24 it is monday july 24th and that is nine days earlier than the one two one model which starts the following wednesday on those two calendar options okay thank you other questions comments yes i

071yes thank you dr santa cruz i had a few concerns one thing actually i wanted to point out on the calendars is on the 222 calendars okay just one of them just the 2022 2023 we just need to change um on september 22nd 23rd just on this middle column it says grading day but it needs to be parent teacher conference good catch but i see the rest it looks good on the other one but my concern is um one thing that i want to bring up was about the half days scheduled and i'm i know part of it is due to the scheduling this year and the all that we've you know all that we've all that we've all experienced this year but i am concerned i'm concerned about two things one i know our

072goal is to provide the best learning opportunities for our students and the best learning environments for our students and i know a big part of that is to have the professional development opportunities for our teachers but i'm concerned that four half days which really is only eight hours four half days toward teacher professional development which is really only eight hours but i think it turns into more than that with half days it changes it changes the nature of the day it really does it impacts teachers are able to do especially well all teachers elementary and junior high in high school when the classes are so short and junior high in high school it really makes it less than an optimal learning day and so i i'm concerned that by having adding continually adding more and

073more half days that we are interrupting the schedule and flow of learning and the expectation of learning and the opportunity for teachers to teach what they need to get through and so i'm wondering if there's something else that we could look at i i would like to see maybe two half days for um professional development and then if we could and i apologize that i'm offering this at this point but if we could look at the monday after the april break the spring holiday we have a four day weekend on that i wondered if we could take that spring holiday put that back so on the 2022-2023 calendar it's monday april 10th i wonder if we actually go to school that day and then look at an option of moving that day maybe to after

074fall break and trying to find a way to fund an extra day of um a teacher contract so that we could have a learning day and this is a lot of this is a lot of suggestions i think that would be an additional cost because it would it would and i would like to prioritize that so if we could if we couldn't find a way to to fund it starting in 2022 2023 then if it was on the calendar we would do like we did last time where it was just another day one more day i don't know if that's can we do more than 10 days i don't know if that's part of the problem but it would just be another day like we did a few last year i believe or the year

075before when we moved the monday after fall break we moved the teacher training day back before school started and then we just had an extra monday that's what kind of started the extra mondays after fall break so i know that's a lot to drop right now i don't know if if um how you guys would feel about even looking at it or discussing it i just i feel like i also wanted to point out in the 2020 2023 2024 calendar that spring break is march 11th through march 22nd and then the very next weekend march 29th and april 1st just as how easter falls is that four day weekend again and i just wondered again with that spring time there's that's when the testing remember we'd heard before from principals that the second semester um

076it's there's only 88 days in both of them on this 222 calendar and there's uh that would give one more day back to the second semester but the thing is that april time period is when we have testing that test those testing windows and as well as in high school they're getting ready for ap tests which are early may usually i just think those are critical days of learning and i would i just think we could i would like to see us find a way to use that in a different way so again this that's a lot to drop at this point uh those are my thoughts um i i guess i would propose well i don't know what i would propose i would want to hear your thoughts board members if you if you

077think that's worth exploring or my only concern this would would be that these proposals have gone through an established committee of folks who have given us their best recommendation over their study period which has been a significant amount of time and i think i think that that that that creates a challenge for us and the work that they have done to give us their best recommendation was so there was a calendar committee dr martin or have we who have we submitted it to wow i'm a doctor now i went dr santa cruz mr martin i'll take it yes yes this year we didn't have a formal committee like we did two years ago we basically took the options we have looked at them with administrators and other groups we've also briefly shared them with ibbt

078which has uh representatives from different groups as well too to look at the calendars okay well and we and we have had the feedback from right all of the parents and staff that that's true send it out to them and i so i think it's um well the only thing that would change that wouldn't change the start and end date no but it does i i personally feel like if we put professional development in a shorter frame a half day um strategically throughout the year i think that is a better use for teachers that they they get that i don't know what i'd call it shot in the arm you know just get that opportunity to learn something then take it and use it in their classroom and i think that's really really powerful um

079as opposed to putting on a whole day or moving it to a different you know at an additional cost and the second part of that is if it is an additional cost then we are committing a future board to that cost and we already know by our experience this year that prioritizing what is most important in the budget can be stressful because everything is important i mean we just everything is important um and so i my concern is that additional cost um of paying them for addition an additional day for professional development where this way we can you know parents have a little you know an extra time with their children i know it's hard for those working parents we now yeah we have over eight half days now with this it's a lot it's

080almost every if you start looking and if you have your children in school there's besides the early out there's many many half days it's very disruptive for students it's a great this is a great way to save money and to give teachers that professional development which is important but i'm concerned about our students learning and i'm concerned about putting that first and i think that this isn't the best way i am i do apologize that um that i didn't bring this up earlier i was looking more at the one two one and two two two so i i can understand that that maybe it's late in this process but i am very concerned that we have gotten away from putting the opportunities for student learning first and that with all the half days and other

081things that we put in it takes it it just wednesdays have become less than an ideal time from my perspective with my children for the learning to happen that's my concern so and i'm not saying i still we would still have the two half days throughout the year we would have one in august and we would have one in january i just would remove the one in march and the one in october but um but i can see that as well and i i do think that the four day weekend after the two weeks spring break is a bit ridiculous in the spring on the 2023-2024 i don't think that's the best use of our time in april and may but i don't when should i brought this up i guess at the last work

082study dr sanchez go ahead mr carr thank you miss wood i don't think you have to apologize for bringing issues up the reality is we can't discuss this outside of the board meeting we were presented at a work study it was a good presentation and we've all had time to see things afterwards and we all discover things and sometimes things are said on the dice i had i had not noticed the in spite of looking at this calendar many times had not noticed the two-week spring break followed immediately by a four-day weekend and if i were a high school teacher in particular as an ap teacher i'd be very very concerned about that in trying to prepare my students for success so i think it's a valid point and i don't know that you have

083someplace else to bring it up i i would suggest that we're not under a deadline of today to pass this and particularly the 23 24 i think we need to look at that matter perhaps and i know what makes the terms the you know the half semester is uneven but perhaps we seriously talk about the benefits of moving the first week of spring break from the 11th to the 15th of march to the 25th through 29th you could still give the monday off but that gives one day back that you could use someplace else or shorten this school year or start a day later or whatever it be but i think academically you're you're in essence affecting students academically because the the four day week following two weeks it's gonna take kids two weeks two

084days to get back in the routine then they're gonna have two days of education and they're gonna be hitting a four-week break it's it's just i think this would make a valid point that i hadn't considered or heard um and not trying to create more work but i think it's just it's something we need to seriously consider that's probably my greatest concern i i also you know we if we could find a way to realistically do it or understand the impact i think one of the things that we have with our neighboring districts that are on this calendar is they do do that extra day professional and it's one of the things that the overall contract of of teachers looks a little bit better because they get an extra one or two days pay i

085don't know that we can find a way to do that uh miss bets could how much does an extra day cost us across the system otm actually today ran the numbers and for sir if we uh give certified staff an additional day it's approximately 700 to 750 000 per day with salary and benefits for that additional day and that is my concern because um you know in a year like this year where we we have to really work to figure out how we're going to address a deficit um and and that was my concern when we we traded those days instead of spending that extra money um when it was brought up that was my concern in my experience being on this board is it's great to have a year like last year where we

086are able to do a nice raise and add a few positions to help us out that is an exceptional year it's not the standards i feel like i've cut the budget more than i've added things to it in my and this is my ninth year of doing a budget so i just want to be extremely careful not to tie the hands of a future board to where they i don't know what that year is going to look like hopefully it will be better than this one i hope there won't be a pandemic but i i really want to be careful not to tie the hands of the future board well in that case let's not adopt a calendar at all because we're now tying the days of of meetings i mean every decision we make

087and i say that facetiously and i apologize if that comes across rudely that wasn't my intent but and i get you're talking monetarily and that's that's your your comment but um you know but every decision we make doesn't in fact impact the decisions that we've made in the future i i to a great degree actually agree with your comment in spite of my remarks at the same time um you know i i i do agree with some of the concerns and i hear those concerns and and i do know that we cut to the half days with not necessarily with the intent of that being a permanent but like anything once we find some way to save money it becomes permanent we don't revisit it so i'm not adverse to doing that what i would

088suggest if we're going to go this approach and and i haven't spoken to the overall calendar um let me do that just in turn instead of going back and forth i i personally struggle with the 2-2 calendar that now that's my personal i like the traditional calendar if it were to if it were up to me we would go back to you know start after labor day and and let kids have a summer and let kids work and let kids have that experience that's not really an option because the state and the national laws have prolonged the the school year and added to the school year we could shorten it by removing spring break and fall break entirely but uh that you know that was at the time that was adopted i was not on

089the board and there was a lot of discussion but at that time well are they just trying to elongate the year and make a move towards year-round school um but now that it's in place people have accepted it liked it and it's it's been positively received and adding that fourth that monday afterwards at first people were like why are you doing that and now people take advantage of that weekend so it's it's one of those things that as people get used to something uh they they see the advantages um you know what two three years ago the last time we visited calendars i made the statement very similar to this that i prefer the uh the traditional calendar but i based my vote publicly in my comments off the fact that the majority of parents

090wanted the traditional calendar even though the majority of teachers at that point wanted the 222 calendar and i again i personally prefer the one two one calendar but staying consistent with my rationale in the last round of discussion on calendars where i went with what the majority of parents want i plan to support a 2-2 calendar what i would perhaps suggest is let's adopt the 2223 calendar or vote to see if we adopt it and perhaps we put the 2324 calendar on hold to address some of the issues that miss wood brought up particularly about the spring break but also to answer some of her questions rather than you know i don't think that's more than maybe the next meeting to allow a little bit of discovery on some of those questions that we haven't

091been able to discuss publicly mr carr i i don't disagree with the intent of what you're suggesting i would modify slightly and say why don't we approve what's before us with the caveat that the 2324 calendar to be reviewed and and adjusted as necessary so that everyone is aware that we we have some concerns or some some of us have some concerns about that particular year in a specific area and try to smooth that area out if we can well i if i can dr sanchez um two other things again i would prefer that we don't have that monday after that in that april on either of those calendars but i guess you know if that doesn't go through that doesn't go through i prefer that we even if we don't have a teacher day

092that we start maybe a day later or move it to the first semester somehow another thing could we just could we just have two half days for professional development and find another way to do the other even if we can't put in the full day could we just take out those other two and then i i don't know if that's possible that's just another suggestion and then i also wanted to bring up that we we received a few emails um and just wanted to kind of discuss this um a few emails and i'm sure you'll read them or and maybe this were statements in some of the statements made today online the online comments um some of the concerns were if we changed the 222 they they were concerned that we've had so much change

093and again that's partly due to this year that would it is it worth it to just keep the one two one just to have some consistency for families this won't go into effect until next year 22 23 not this coming year so that gives a little bit of help there but i wondered what your other thoughts were on that and then also there was someone who mentioned that summer internships for students if you're looking like at college opportunities particularly between your junior and senior year they're often july like the four weeks of july um so this would put this would make it difficult for someone to do that and start school i don't know that that's the majority of our students but i certainly that would be some of our students you know how would

094we could we invite them to do that and then come to school contact with their teachers and come to school if that's the opportunity that they need to take that's what i would do if i were that parent i when we lived in chandler which i lived in chandler for a year and a half and on that calendar my son attended the national scout jamboree and just missed the first few days of school that was just how it had to be handled and i think if someone has a great opportunity like an internship at nasa i would suggest they go with that talk to their teachers in advance make sure that they do what they need to and and make up those days one of the reasons i was leaning more towards the 222 is

095because queen creek and higley and chandler all do this um so i you know it's it's not like we're the first ones to do it but um it did seem like we're tending towards that with our survey um and so that's where i was because because we actually have a a majority of parents who want the 222 and a majority of the staff that's the reason i was offering that one as the motion with regard to the comment on internships and and the like it's been my experience both as an educator in the district and as an administrator that whenever opportunities present themselves for families in our community the school and the district has always worked to help benefit that student and that parent and i don't think that would be a problem regardless of

096what calendar we select we have we have a tradition i guess of of working with our parent community when things of import affect a family and a student so i don't see that as a monumental concern thank you and dr santa cruz i'd echo that i you know i know a few years ago two of my children when they were in high school had the opportunity to travel over to to africa with a humanitarian trip and every teacher was bent over backwards to accommodate them now one of the differences that mrs wood points out was it was mid-year so they could talk to the teachers before they went get work done before they went etc i think teachers would be equally accommodating but it's a little bit harder to get in touch with your teacher

097if you're missing the first week or first two weeks of school and so we would we we may want to consider some some formal or informal policy adjustments that allow for that at some point yeah i think that's implicit in many of our policies and where a teacher is unavailable that's why we hire principals i i'd like to say that um i would agree with mr carr i think we shouldn't be starting school till after labor day either having taught in the dark ages when that happened it was really much easier in terms of the heat and all of that and i and i don't think that the nine days or eight days or whatever with the heat the way it is now is going to make any difference um i too you know understand

098people saying that they don't want a lot of change but like you just said it's not for another year um i was surprised that that our community the majority of the people that were polled want the 222 i know that the teachers or the staff was overwhelming both years not wasn't just a slight majority but it was an overwhelming majority and i think that you know we have to listen to them and then as as far as as um the half days and i i would just like to say that i know that that sometimes it seems like it interferes with learning and i i really understand that completely but we are there's so many things that teachers have to learn now that they didn't have to learn before and things have changed so much

099and they change so quickly and we have to give them the opportunity to not have to do everything on their own time and even you know even when we give them the half days i i can't i can't tell you how many teachers still are taking a class from four to five or four to six or whatever on their own time and and i know that's part of being a teacher i get that but i don't think i think that that we are enhancing student learning by giving the teachers the opportunity to improve their skills so i i understand what you're saying and i i get that and i know that that can be an issue however i do really believe that it is an integral part of of our learning is giving our teachers

100those and i think you know i i look at what we're doing in this district now in terms of our staff development compared to you know just just the growth through the last 10 or 15 years and we've put together you not we you guys have put together probably the premier staff development program in the state for teachers and you know i see all the time what what they're doing and you know i think it's extremely valuable for us to give the teachers the opportunity so you know i mean like i said i'd if i were in charge of the world we'd be going back after labor day because i can remember duty was a whole lot easier but that's not the way it's going to be so i think we have to be you

101know i i appreciate that you've taken the opportunity to um to survey the community and the teachers and we need to give them a voice and we've got a lot of responses you know when you think about it i know we have a much much larger district but that's a lot of responses additional i guess just two other thoughts one it is a majority but it's a very small majority but it was last year too so it's it's a pretty even split as far as the parents go but also second i think it's just important to also say it's one week it's about one and a half weeks earlier it's not as early as chandler and queen creek go back they go back even a week earlier than this um and so that kind of

102speaks to my point too of it's really not about that students are going to retain learning better it's a one week difference basically from what we're doing it's not about if one thing is academically better or not it's really i guess about preference i think i think mr martin has said that before and about making decisions and then going forward with it again if i if it was if there was one way or the other that to me said again i guess that's why i'm saying to me the academic and learning that i brought up the concerns that i have about the academic and learning time but either calendar i think addresses equally the the learning retention of students the opportunities that they have to learn that kind of a thing i don't think it's

103that big of a difference the one two one or two two two the way that we have it now so well and and i would hope that we could address any issues on those shorter days that the time does get well used i will just say of course my kids started in public schools quite a long time ago 30 years ago and i would say that the way we use time today in our schools is way more effective and well used than it was when my kids started elementary school i mean i the way we are targeted in instruction and we use time and we get kids up and moving and the level that we're teaching at i just am always impressed when i visit a school to see what kids are learning and you

104know i i say i am not smarter than a fifth grader i feel like i need to go back to school i have more wisdom i have more wisdom because i've lived longer but um they are learning so much and their time um is really well used and i can tell you some eye-opening stories about how time was not used back in the day so um i i understand that maybe you feel it's not as well used as it could be but i will i do think that we're doing much better now than we were 30 years ago or 20 years ago and i'm not suggesting that i'm not suggesting or faulting teachers in any way i'm saying when you have 30 minutes every other once a month on a wednesday or a friday that

105changes you know that does change your schedule impacts what you can teach what you have time for not if your intent is to use it or not and i i do think that is important you know that we keep keep like you said keep um emphasizing that and i appreciate all that teachers do to make that happen so okay and i'll make one last remark if i can go ahead mr croc thank you i'm just looking again at this calendar 23 24. if i start the week of february 18th or 19th since that's a monday i have a four day week i have a four and a half i have a five day week with a half day i have a five day week then i have zero zero four four so in that seven

106week period no you have a half day on this one too hit that eight that's a half a day so i don't have a full week in that entire seven period seven week period and i think that's what's what what what creates the concern um if we can schedule that i mean that's disruptive to education that's disruptive to parents who are trying to to to work and employ and so on so to me that would be that would be the consideration can we can we just look at that um i'm i'm appreciate your your suggestion dr santa cruz if we adopt these but if we can adopt these with a plan to come back and maybe revisit this in the next one to two board meetings to see if we can find a modification that

107works um and actually put it on the agenda so it doesn't just fall off how about if i um amend my motion to uh um include i i think i said adopt the two two two schedule bringing back 2023 2024 calendar at the next business meeting to look at options for adjusting the calendar i i would like us to look at that same period for 2022-2023 because it's very similar as far as not hardly a full week and i apologize if i'm speaking out a term but listening to all of you uh some options when i look at this the monday after both of the spring holidays if we wanted to we could make that a school day so that would be april 10th and april 1st no fooling would be a school day and

108what we could do then is start the first day of school actually in the fall instead of on a monday we could start it on a tuesday and that would push it back one more day that also in the semesters then you'd go from 92 in the first semester to 91 and the second semester would be 89 if you look when new teachers start back in july on the 15th and the 14th if you move it one day everything then they would start on that following monday the 18th and the 17th when new teachers to our district start so one of the things you know that teachers i will say like uh is that that first week back is always long days for both teachers and students getting back into the routine so having a

109four day week with students perhaps is more similar to normally here on the one two one typically we have a three day three days back starting on wednesday so that's one thing we can do if you are interested in exploring that option i think the motion stands we want to revisit and modify specific aspects of the calendars so in concept we are the motion is adopting a 2-2-2 calendar and the modification or i why don't we just say um the motion is to adopt the 2-2-2 calendar for 20 22-23 and 23-24 making slighted bringing it back at the next board meeting to make slight adjustments are you saying next week at the brief board meeting and the next business okay and and then maybe if there is an opportunity maybe we could just look at

110some options at the brief board meeting so we can have time to think about it if that can work into our plan i think that those options can be submitted to us via the superintendent's report okay they can be and we can we can touch base on it on march 2nd which is next week just know also we have a lot of things that are coming up within march that are pretty important as well so please give us some leeway if if we fall behind on something yep and dr santa cruz i want to be very careful if we if if we go that route of adopting this knowing that it's modified it will be modified that we not publish it uh more actively because as soon as we publish it on that calendar list

111on the website people are going to start saying oh this is the dates and if we come back and change these dates people have planned you know vacations and and other things for those two weeks so i think that's that's a given that while we may approve as the motion stated this evening it will not be published until we make the necessary modifications at our next business meeting after our next business meeting i should say could i just ask is the concern to not make the change that mr martin offered tonight is there just a concern you want to just look at it make sure that everybody has a chance to look at it or why not adopt what he suggested i would prefer we look at it just so we so that when it

112is finally we weren't rushed in any way shape or form or anybody was confused about what was discussed right here so i went should we just table it then i i'm just i'm just asking what's the what's the least confusing you know what's the best could table it i i would rather just adopt it because i think if we do something i think it should just be minor okay i mean like a change a day or two is a minor change um other more than that i think is problematic i think i i just want to respect the level of participation of folks yes uh who were involved whether that was mr martin and touching base with various employee groups and parents or whether it was a full committee i just want to respect that

113that piece of the work and i think with the minor the the modifications we talked about tonight don't impact the essence of of what we've already went out and surveyed for and so i think we'll be okay and are we ready to vote does everyone understand what they're voting on okay so all those in favor of adopting calendars under the 222 model with a return at a business meeting to review modifications to appropriate calendars please signify by saying aye aye those opposed same motion carries five zero item 9.02 results based funding distribution dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members every year for the past four years we've come to you for your approval based on arizona revised statutes the results based funding and its implications for gilbert public schools this is the

114fourth of the year uh results-based funding has been allocated the funding consists of legislative statewide appropriations that the arizona department of education administers and distributes to eligible school districts or charter schools based on statutory formula through applying the statutory formula gps received 1 million 484 173 000.69 to be distributed among 10 identified schools those schools are ashland ranch canyon rim elementary carroll ray ranch elementary gilbert classical academy greenfield elementary harris elementary highland park elementary neely traditional academy cortell elementary and patterson elementary receipt of the funds is dependent on the number of students who attended the school on the 100th day of school during the 2019-20 school year the funds may be distributed in a number of different ways however gps has decided to continue to distribute the funds in the same way as the previous

115school year a stipend will be given to current qualifying staff in those buildings current global academy staff who worked at one of the 10 qualifying schools in the 1920 school year will also be eligible the allocation for stipends to include payroll benefits will be 90 of the school allocation with the remaining 10 allocated a school to the school for professional development other eligible expenses each eligible certified staff member as previously defined will receive a portion based on their full-time equivalency whereas each full-time staff member will receive an 800 dollar stipend also based on their full-time equivalency the result-based funding monies will be distributed in one check and payment will be on march 16 2021. thank you dr mccord you have heard the rationale is there a motion i move that we approve the results-based funding

116as presented by dr mccord thank you mr jetty is there a second second thank you mr humphries is there any discussion just a question i was listening to here did you give us details from the state of how they selected this because we two schools that were previously didn't qualify last year but i don't feel like we had the same testing so i'm just wondering what was their they've never been the same year over year right so it depends on free and reduced lunch it depends on test scores there's a lot of and then there's some little other formulas together either include them or knock them out depending on certain aspects there is a link in our board agenda under this item and you can go click on the link to look through it okay

117it's pretty comprehensive to be honest with you it's not simple i guess the best way that's great i will look at that i appreciate that thank you no problem any other comment questions concerns seeing none then the motion is before you all those in favor of 9.02 results-based funding distribution please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same motion carries 5-0 item 10 request for future agenda items if there isn't something that one of us has a burning desire to present openly this evening please make sure you make contact with mrs wilson so we can put it on to a future agenda we'll move to item 11 board committees and reports item 11.01 gilbert ed foundation ms humphreys um so right now the gilbert education foundation is working through the number of grants that

118we're given um in january to make sure that people that the teachers have what they need and then um they are beginning to work with the technology department on the seti conference that will be held after school gets out where teachers can go get professional development and training and learn more about technology and integrate that into their classrooms and um so this the study conference coming up they'll be one day in person one day virtual to help their people social distance and um it's really great conference and so i appreciate gilbert education foundation helping to do the funding for that because it it is a real benefit to our teachers and our staff thank you ms humphries 11.02 city of mesa liaison ms wood i don't have anything to report tonight thank you ma'am 11.03

11911.04 town gilbert liaison and finance audit committee mr carr thank you dr santa cruz i have nothing from the town of gilbert the finance audit committee did meet this afternoon or this morning i guess it was noon time so whatever you want to call it had a good discussion one of the things that the board may be aware of or might want to be aware of is that our current contract with the external auditor expires after this year so that will be going out for an rfp shortly then we reviewed the comprehensive annual financial report and we'll be in the next meetings talking about the internal audit plan as to to move forward thank you mr carr i am item 11.05 insurance trust representative mr jetty i just want to say that we met this

120afternoon and we'll be bringing um information to the board for the at the end of march no next week and we have good news for a change not for a change but we really have good news so and can i uh say something else that has nothing to do with the this will you slap me around or anything okay i just wanted to thank the um don and our videographer for giving us the opportunity to come and read and i would like to say that that um i belong to a group on facebook that are storytellers all over the country and i was telling them about this and they were like wow what a great district um although i do want to say that i got bumped by dr mccord i had my ten books

121and i only got through three of them so i i could see why you got bumped i wasn't i wasn't i wasn't happy i have no comment [Laughter] and item 11.06 legislative committee there uh are several bills moving through the legislature about four in the house five in the house and four in the senate that will have an impact on our business at the district level and there are at least two if not three bills moving through the legislature that have a have or could have a direct impact on the way boards function so pay attention and make contact where you feel appropriate will we get paid what's up no are we gonna get paid yeah a cup of coffee maybe one day or a donut miss you jetty i heard they're gonna triple your

122salary for the public for the public unless you misinterpret that comment the board is unpaid and that is really all i have to add i know that you're all paying attention to asba and the organizations that you belong to they're submitting emails to you it's a pretty active place downtown right now item 12 future meeting dates mr corp dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members just want to include one that isn't there and that is a ford retreat number two continuation of our last board retreat this friday morning at 9 00 a.m and then march 2nd we have a board work-study brief board business meeting march 16th is a policy committee meeting and march 30th is our regular board business meeting [Music] okay thank you we are now at item 13 adjournment

123item 13.01 is there a motion so thank you mr carr second thank you miss eugetti typically there's a great deal of discussion for this part seeing none all those in favor of adjournment please signify by saying aye aye those opposed the same thank you board members thank you those of you who are here and on live stream this meeting is adjourned you