Gilbert Public Schools District Board Meeting 02/02/2021

00158 million dollars resulting in that 20 million dollars change are there any questions about that just an accounting requirement so again this is government-wide and then you've seen this pie graph numerous times also when we present the dollars in the classroom analysis you'll see something comparable to this but again it's important to note that this is the the government-wide look at what's happened in gilbert public schools year over year so this particular analysis does include debt service some other other expenses such as depreciation as well as such things as adult education and community school that are not included in the auditor general's report however note that year-over-year our dollars in instruction still has stayed the same 59 percent in instruction and so in comparison last year our dollars in the classroom with the auditor general's

002report was reported at 61.2 percent so we still seem to be in a very similar situation at the end of 2020 like we were at the end of 2019 so we're expecting that the auditor general's report will also report gilbert public schools favorably so are there any other questions about that all really positive results now again going to that next level where we're going to go into the governmental financials so the governmental balance sheet funds they include the general fund so if you every month we present to you our operating funds roughly that represents what we term here as the general fund it includes debt service bond building and non-major governmental non-major governmental would include classroom site fund our federal funds all those special revenue funds so just to give you an idea what's included

003in there so we're going to break this out into balance sheet assets liabilities deferred inflows and outflows i think and then show you the ending cash balances so on the governmental assets note the cash increase from 102 102 million up to 111 million that is largely due to the fact that we were able to preserve expense in 2020 in mno to put into the federal funds due to the enrollment stabilization grant so i wanted to make sure that that was clear property tax receivables are standard and then due from governmental entities the 55 million versus the 45 million that is that actually includes the enrollment stabilization grant as well as the fact that in public school districts we are not constrained in spending to cash and all of our federal funds are reimbursement grants which

004means that we have to spend the cash first and wait for the reimbursement so much of that 55 million dollars is due to that federal reimbursement and then so finally you can see our total asset increase of just about 15 million dollars year over year can you just tell us why is there a difference in the property tax receivable most most of that difference is due to um to timing i believe of when the property tax revenues are received a lot of times i think the other thing that's important here with the property tax receivable that dollar amount i believe represents the amount that we are able to account for during the encumbrance period so we are able to include that amount and then year over year much sometimes the property tax receivable more of

005the property taxes received during that encumbrance period and versus sometimes more of it was received after the encumbrance period which would account for that difference may i ask a question about that too when we were going through the recession after 2000 what 2008 2010-12 i know there was an issue with people not paying taxes just because of the of the financial things that were going on have we seen any of that during this period of time also actually a large part right why it's i went by yeah because when people don't pay their tax they're aren't able to pay their taxes then that makes a difference and then and then as things change and increase over because that property tax receivable can we hand her a mic oh sorry sorry so the property tax receivable

006figure is accumulative so each year the district has a levy amount and the collections are applied to the specific levy for which people who owe the taxes are paying and so over time although i don't believe you ever get to 100 you get super close to 100 percent you know a highly technical audit term um super close right um so so that over time um you know after about like a 10-year period you've by by that point you've generally collected everything you're going to collect but there's always a process that that happens down at the county um you know at the assessor's office and the treasurer's office with collections and then assessments change you know depending upon the property tax owners because you can contest what you were assessed at and and so there's always

007a lot of movement in that in that realm but but a lot of what this relates to is from 10 years ago right and the downturn to the economy at that time and we may see that again um when would it when we when would we catch up with what maybe is happening right now would be down the road that that could happen i i don't i don't know that i could speak to that specifically but but to the prior recession yes correct me if i'm wrong just going to that point generally people pay their property taxes in two installments and we would receive payments associated with those installments if they've not paid their property taxes after a certain amount of time the treasurer issues a tax sale the house can get leaned and they'll

008collect it through a third party we would then receive it so there may be some but almost everything you're going to get really within one year because most tax liens do sell but you always can have little bits here and there that trickle like you said but most of it and to your point mr jetty during the downturn these numbers were much bigger because we had to wait for tax liens to sell to collect those funds and if i if i could um although it looks like perhaps your asset decreased which would normally be maybe something that we we view as less positive it's actually a better position that you have less that you're waiting on people to pay so it's actually an improvement um if you think about it in those terms but you're

009absolutely right about the lean process and and that being because it's an asset for assets we're getting cash instead of receivable so the cash is in hand then moving into the governmental liabilities you can see the payables up there primarily my guess is primarily due to all the construction projects so remember that that payable is as of june 30 even though we have the incumbents period and we have through august to continue to pay those invoices and then the bond and bond interest payable generally i believe that that final payment is due july 1st so that's recorded as a liability the 12 million dollars primarily due to other funds that does represent i believe the federal dollars that we're waiting to receive and then finally note the tans so if you remember this was a

010year and a half ago now where we did borrow the tax anticipation notes due to trying to hedge against interest charges associated with cash flow and the intent of that particular tan was to have it paid off in may due to some accounting issues and and delays in how that payment occurred that's why it's still showing as a liability so i just want to make sure that that was clear the final payment that was recorded at the county level not that we paid it back but the final payment recorded at the county level was made in september so i just want to make sure that was clear so you can see that the total liabilities have increased slightly over last year and miss bets i think that shows up really in our cash line we

011have we have an extra you know 9.6 million dollars in cash year-over-year but we have a liability that in timing we will be paying off with that so when you consider that our cash position hasn't changed as much as i mean is it we'd always rather have cash in hand but it really hasn't changed as much as it would otherwise indicate because of that liability okay any other questions on that before i move on okay so the governmental deferred inflows of resources so the unavailable revenues that represents the tax collections that have actually occurred between uh september 1st and december 31st those are not they're not available to offset expenditures for um for the prior year and then the under intergovernmental unavailable revenues i am not quite sure what that is specific to do you

012remember at all oh it's your rate it's it's e-rate monies that you're due that did not come in within the first 60 days after june 30th so essentially it's it's a receivable to you it's reflected as a receivable but it's and similar to the property taxes the you'll note that the the decrease in property tax receivable is very consistent with the decrease in the unavailable revenues for property taxes so they they kind of work in tandem similarly on the intergovernmental what that is is that it's real specific to um like 90 of that amount is specifically related to an e-rate program because there were some um hiccups on the accounting side with the receipt of the e-rate monies that was that were owed by the federal government to the district and those have since come

013in yes they have so yeah okay thank you and then finally governmental funds the cash balances so we talk about budget balance carry forward and and budget balance which represents what we are allowed to spend and that's really related to maintenance and operations and unrestricted capital not to governmental funds so i want to make sure that you're aware this is all governmental funds cash balances grouped together so we do not have 112 million dollars available to spend so i just want that that to be clear but it does include you know it includes all of the debt service fund includes the maintenance operations fund all those special revenue funds are all reflected here so i wanted to make sure that everyone was aware of that so that truly represents our total cash balance but it's

014important that we have a cash balance just because of things that could go wrong in the future correct it also helps us to manage the property tax levy against our taxpayers where we don't if we don't incur interest charges it actually minimizes how much we have to levy against our local taxpayers i just wanted to add those student accounts that now they're asking us to put into this is those are not under our control those are under the control of the students that's correct and they make those decisions so that's um you know something part of that 112 million okay so other considerations so revenue comparison since we often talk about maintenance operations under capital i thought it was important that we remind you now coming down another level and getting to the details of

015maintenance and operations and unrestricted capital we are group grouping the two together even though they are separately accounted for in two separate funds we have control over how they're allocated between the two funds but they're still levied um the same and they come in in a group whether it's state revenues or whether it's property tax revenues it all comes really in one bucket and we decide how they're distributed by our adopted budget between understood capital and m l in addition i wanted to share our compensated absences and then the the details about the tax anticipation notes which i shared a little bit so this is revenues by source emino and unrestricted capital so you can see that our 2019 revenue was 225 million and our fiscal year 2020 revenue was 242 million that roughly 15

01616 million dollar increase was due to the governor's 20 by 20. remember this is a year and a half ago so going into 2020 the governor did contribute a fair amount of increases to the base level amount to account for his commitment to achieve a 20 pay increase by 2020 in addition to the inflationary increase as well as if you recall it was in 2020 that we anticipated a loss of 400 students but we gained over 600 students so that is also reflected here in our our revenue over the prior year any questions on that okay compensated absences as you know at separation or retirement depending upon certain criteria our employees are able to buy back medical leave or have an opportunity to be paid back for some of their vacation leave so this is

017reflective of that the salary and other adjustments is primarily anybody um that uh that that had a uh had a payout that was you know basically unexpected loss of a employee or something of that nature and then other adjustments as well there might have been an overpayment or an underpayment whatever the case may be that's in the salary and other adjustments the current year additions those are the value of all of the compensated absences that were added to the rolls so all of the earned um medical leave or the earned vacation leave and then the current year deletions are all of the medical leave or vacation leave that was actually used during the school year so you can see that overall the balance increased by nine million dollars and that is an ongoing liability for

018gilbert public schools just wanted to make sure that was clear it increased two nine million not buying i'm sorry increase two sorry it increased by a half over a little bit over half a million yes sir yep and then finally the short term debt this just shows that in 2019 we did borrow you can see the issued of 22 million dollars based upon our available cash in that year we did re redeem all the prior year the 18 tax anticipation note amount as well as the 19 tax anticipation note amount within the 2019 fiscal year with an ending balance of zero we did so and then you can see that based upon our analysis of cash needs going into the 2020 school year we made the decision to borrow 10 million again significantly less than

019the 22 million indicative of our increasing availability of cash in government public schools again a positive uh situation for gilbert public schools uh and then you can see where there's still an ending balance of 10 million dollars but that has has again since uh is has since been uh taken off the book so to speak because it has been accounted for and paid off so that is all that i have unless you have any additional questions i don't have a question but i do have a comment to make and that is that i know the legislature a few years ago just passed a bill saying that we had to change auditors and then they went back and revised it or whatever and in a previous life that i had i have to say that i

020think we are very very fortunate to have heinfield and meech still i i've seen the quality work that and the integrity which to me is probably the most important aspect of all of this is the integrity that i think your firm has and even though you develop relationships with the districts you also aren't afraid to call us out if we make a mistake and and i'm really really pleased that we're still able to have a relationship with heinfield ameech i just wanted to add a comment that i i do appreciate the um the hard work the audit to show that we are um you know going by the procurement code and doing the things that are required to be transparent about our finances and to to use taxpayer money wisely and again i think it's

021really good that we do have an audit firm that that does such a great job so thank you and thank you to our financial team because i know you all worked really hard in this very stressful year to make this come out so thank you anything else board members could just a quick couple questions um so the town notes even though we didn't pay them off until september was there any extra costs associated with that there should not have been because from the investor standpoint it was paid back it was an accounting uh situation that occurred we purposely wanted to have it set up to be paid back in may to avoid any additional interest charges so it was paid it just we just didn't account for it the accounting um was delayed the accounting

022at the county once that was delayed okay yeah was that the county okay great so it's not like we need to change something to make that happen better in a way we can't because it's with the county right okay and then also just wanted to thank you for the timeliness um i know that this is a little bit later than we had hoped right but that's because of all the different we were waiting on the grants we were waiting on different things to just make sure how we were going to account for it so i appreciate that we get it done on time and that the audit comes in and works and we all work really hard to do all that we can to to meet the obligations that we have so so when will

023we turn this in then so it has been turned in so we are not late we if you recall we did do a revised annual financial report which is something that jennifer is talking about a little bit with having to redo some things because we decided to revise our annual financial report which caused normally we shoot for a completion at the end of december that way we can meet the obligations of the asbo certificate of excellence as well as the gfoa those are due december 31st we were successful though at getting uh a an extension uh through the end of january so we've met that the most important thing is that we were required to have the cafe completed so that we can fulfill our obligations under the continuing disclosure associated with our bond indebtedness

024okay so that was due yesterday by close of business and all of the reports were filed and the disclosure was completed on friday great thank you anything else i've made most of my comments as we went but just again i want to say thank you to everyone and miss that's uh just a curiosity more than anything the idea of our tans that's kind of a an ongoing necessary evil for school districts is that correct we'll we'll be seeing that fairly regularly on an annualized basis just because we have to meet payroll in august is that a correct understanding and it's we we did not have to borrow in the current year so we did not borrow any tax anticipation notes for 2021 because our cash position was much better than it had had been in

025the past so it depends each year we go through an analysis to determine that but yes the answer is yes and it's further exacerbated by the fact that the state of arizona holds back almost 38 million dollars of state aid until like the 8th or 9th of july that's supposed to be received by the end of june and so that that further puts um pressure on the cash flow analysis for school districts here in arizona yeah just i just really wanted to make that clear because we will see that often and it oftentimes has nothing to do with our accounting or finance procedures it's simply how the calendar falls and what your budget balances happen to be from year to year that's correct and i too will echo the same sentiment that's been echoed here

026to you and to the entire finance team you have brought us miles and we appreciate that anything else no no thank you guys i appreciate it thank you we'll move to item 2.0 school calendars dr mccord anything you want to say by introduction yes i'd like to bring up next executive director of elementary and calendar enthusiast extraordinaire um mr jason martin he'll present to you tonight some findings of survey results related to options for calendars 20 22 23 and 20 23 24. so i'll turn it over to mr martin thanks sir thank you dr mccord dr santa cruz governing board colleagues and community members it's great to be back hard to believe that uh two months ago at the december first work study we went over different drafts of calendar options for the 2022 3

027and 23 and 23 24 school years and after that work study we told you that we would be conducting a survey with both parents and staff and so tonight i'm here to go over those results with you first of all i want to thank don in our communications and marketing department because she's the one that took the lead in getting this survey out to our staff and community and you can see here between december 8th and the 16th is when everybody had the opportunity to weigh in on their option if you look here too at the survey results too if you just look at we have a little bit of information from two years ago when there was the survey to the 2020 survey and you can see there are more respondents from both the

028parents and the staff that responded this year in 2020 was it single response yes it was because we made a big deal about that last time and i didn't i didn't see anything on here where we had to for sure fill out our own email and make it a single response i'd have to find out from dawn but yeah she's not here tonight oh she's not okay so i'm just interested because we can find that out for sure the details on that i did highlight then for you in the 2018 and the 2020 responses in yellow what was the majority and you'll notice that on the parent survey of course two years ago on the one two one calendar option there was 52 of the respondents in favor of of that and this year that

029switched then to the 222 option with just over half 50.5 percent so talk about uh squeaking it out but it basically moved if you look from 48 to 50.5 percent and then similarly on the staff responses two years ago they were already at 63 percent for the 2-2-2 option and this year they were 65 so both of these groups moved two to two and a half percent more in favor of the 2-2-2 calendar option the other thing that i believe mr carr asked too on the survey was what are some asking every survey respondent to give a reason one or more reasons why so dawn and i came up with some big ideas here student academic achievement vacation planning work schedule alignment child care options and other and so when each person took this survey

030they had to choose either one or more they could choose more than one option if they felt like that was the main reason why they were choosing that calendar option but it gives you some information i think the one thing that we've talked about time and time again with the calendars is it's very situational it's very specific to families to staff and so this gives you a little bit of information on why people and this first part here the staff chose either the one two one or the two two two and then um continuing on the survey there was an open comment area and so that's where we have it tagged here as other themes for choosing one two one and on the staff some of the um reasons for choosing the one two one

031they felt it was too hot to return to school in july the potential loss of learning over the longer spring and fall breaks which you'll see is also on the other so it's once again how people perceive things this one was interesting concern over no pay for two weeks during spring and fall breaks that came from support staff and that wouldn't be from our 12-month employees but like our paraprofessionals and other things they would get paid the same for their 181 contract days but it would look different and of course we know that if support staff normally have a job in the summer or something else this would be shortened by a week and a half to have that opportunity on the flip side though there might be opportunities for some of them to work

032at our school or do other types of jobs during the two weeks of break so once again very situational one of the things that i've chatted with otm and business services about is if we were to move to a 2-2-2 we'd want to be very up front ahead of these years so people can plan out accordingly for their paychecks especially if it was the two-week period fell entirely in one paycheck period so that people can financially plan out those reasons so those would be things we would want to look at if we were moving towards that option to help support the support staff in that change and then the final one that we saw themes coming up prefer they just prefer a longer summer to unwind and prepare for the new school year but then

033interestingly enough the staff for choosing 222 they felt like it aligns with many of our surrounding districts the shorter summer supports student skill retention longer spring and fall break promotes staff mental health with time to recharge and plan one thing we saw in there is that teachers feel like with that one week of break they're still finishing up things sometimes finishing grading those types of things and starting to plan for the upcoming quarter and so some of the comments were they felt like they could do that in one week and yet with a two to two still have a um vacation or a week off and so that was one of the reasons that we saw anecdotally come out in the comments for the 2-2-2 and then preferring just a shorter summer break overall same

034questions were asked of the parent survey so you can see there we gave them the same category so it's interesting too you can compare if the categories are similar how they answered with one two one and two two two and then once again the other themes for choosing in july very similar to the reasons why the staff chose their one two one or two two two um one of them of course with the one two one don't change stay with stay with what everybody is already used to because of course we are currently a one two one district and then the potential disruption to learning and routine with three two-week breaks during the school year there were some parents that felt like that two-week break sometimes makes for a harder time to get back into

035the swing of things but then once again with the 2-2-2 we see that how we align with surrounding districts and then shorter summer supports students skill retention and learning loss and prefer a shorter summer break so you can see everybody looks at it in a different way but those were the results that were gathered by over 9 000 parents responded almost 10 000 and for the staff there was almost 3 000 staff that responded to this survey so questions mr martin i do have a couple questions um if we chose the 2-2-2 calendar what happens with high school sports and activities during those breaks you know sports act you know football basketball soccer those those are pretty those are set by the aia and so those things would continue just like right now with the

036one week of fall break and spring break i know those seasons go just because two right now sometimes even for example mesa and gilbert are both on a 1-2-1 but our week of fall break and spring break are not always the same week and they would they would practice and play games um but again just like they are now with our breaks so yeah it's just harder if you had teenagers to plan a vacation if they're going to be playing sports so that's right one of the things in considering changing the other question i had was changing to the 2-2-2 we have talked about being able to help students during those breaks spring and fall what would that look like or what do we anticipate in being able to help or if some students are

037a little behind moving them along so that they're not getting further behind like we've shared we can do those things even right now too theoretically in the one week of fall and the one week of spring break but i think you would get more staff probably to volunteer this is just a guess if they still had a week off and then a week of interventions or enrichment and here we can use a number of different resources we could use our title resources differently and then also too we have instructional improvement funds which is another category where the district administration team and the school site teams could do some remediation or enrichment too during those breaks so would that look like maybe a half day for students to come back into the school i think when

038you say volunteer well they would get they would get of course they would volunteer to get paid just like uh just like summer school teachers that teach summer school they just want to make sure people understand they would get paid right it's not that they're doing it for free exactly right but uh you know would it be like a maybe the first week off students come in for a couple of hours or a half day or something is that kind of i think at least a half day you know if we're going to bring students in we would want to work with them for at least a couple of hours but on the other hand maybe we don't feel like we need to spend all six or seven hours or once again two if we

039have them for the entire day then we have to start planning for lunch and other things on those breaks whereas sometimes too you could bring in possibly two groups one in the morning and one in the afternoon as well and those teachers could still work that entire day so those are all options that we could explore and those are things that we could do with either the one two one or the two two two the two two two though teachers have said kind of like they said in some of the themes they like some of them would like the 222 because they feel like they could have a week off for themselves but they could also plan or work or in this case maybe work some of the interventions or enrichment that is going on

040throughout the district and how how long of a time is our summer school is that four weeks the four weeks of june usually you have kind of a week off and then four weeks in june and then um yeah correct some our summer schools are usually four weeks this year they're going to be july 7th through july or june 7th through july 2nd so that we get off just before memorial day this year memorial day is may 31st so there's about a week off and then they're here for four weeks some of them are monday through thursday program some of them are a monday through friday program depending upon the level and then they have basically that month currently of um of july off before we start back in early august okay all right thank

041you i just my questions are what would be the are there any financial costs that are different in either of them and then um what how do we make sure that the learning experience whichever way we go is the best for our students like that we're maximizing the time that we have in classroom every day that we're really focused i feel like we've we're i know partly it's been just this year has been the last year but i feel like we i want to get back to asking that every thing that we do is how is this impacting our students learning every single day and i i can see people think that it affects the student academic achievement so i'd be interested to actually see the numbers on that as we go um also if

042we start on a monday are we going to expect that that week actually we we start school and get into some of the work or do we think that that first week will be kind of a get to know you week kind of like it feels like that's what we do this right now with starting on a wednesday or thursday is kind of a little bit of a you know well i think because we ha historically the last several years we've started on our wednesday thursday we've done that but i also know there were years when i was a principal or a teacher in gilbert where we started on a monday and i know by that third or fourth day teachers were ramping up i know at the elementary level i can speak for myself

043things used to be grouped the way the reading program was a monday through friday program that is no longer the case you know we used to have spelling tests that were monday through friday that is no longer the case so things are are done a little bit differently so starting on a thursday in my mind is not as worrisome because they know they have 180 instructional days and one of the things with our scope and sequence documents that our teaching and learning department does very well is each year they help block out how many approximately how many days each standard or skill should be taught and what's the time frame as well okay and then i guess i also just want to point out that if we start so it'd only be about a week

044and a half earlier that was starting but we would need to do meet the teacher night it's really two weeks ahead of time that families would need to be back and teachers because two or two and a half weeks because we do open houses we do meet the teachers i mean it's right it's about a week and a half to two weeks ahead of time so for for example right now when we start on a one two one on a wednesday night technically at the elementary level uh meet the teachers on monday in this case when you start on a monday it's usually on that wednesday or thursday night that is um the previous week right so i'm just saying it's another it's a little bit earlier than even this year everything gets bumped up

045with that yeah so tell me financial costs what's what have been the analysis and what would you say well when we've looked at it we haven't seen a whole lot of change because we heat and cool the buildings during the summer that's one of those things those types of things so when we've looked at financial there hasn't been anything that pops out that's major because you're still you're still operating 180 school days 184 teacher contract days it's just in a different in a different time frame for lack of a better word but no major the buses are still running 180 days food services those types of things are still working that same amount of time what about um recess starting earlier or outside pe a lot of times are we don't have a place we

046don't charge for recess well i'm glad we don't charge for recess but when it's 110 we don't exactly have kids wandering around outside it's a good question so yes you know we use a heat index and so the earlier you start because as we all know here in arizona july and august are hottest months with the heat index the humidity combined with the temperature and it's interesting because some parents will say well i don't i'd rather have my kid in school because then they're not out running around in the heat whereas then you're thinking through the school perspective as a teacher or as a principal you might have a couple of more days where the recess is inside be due to the heat advisory so once again it's it's that perception for our staff though

047it definitely does make a difference i will say at the elementary level which is where recess occurs they've gotten incredibly well with making that um we used to call it a rainy day schedule and now we call it the modified indoor schedule because we use it for also the heat days as well too where many times most of the students are in another area of the building such as the library or they're spread out in the project room those types of things as well but it does take staffing to do that and what about outside pe because many of our classes will be outside so typically at the and then this is the elementary level i know secondary is different but at the elementary level pe for the first quarter is done inside the cafeteria

048and then after fall break is when they start to move outside and so that really wouldn't change here the fall breaks are in the similar positions it would just be that that nine week period starts a little earlier if we were to choose to go with the 2-2-2 and what about band camps things like that that start before school everything would have to be moved up a little bit well i think it's important to recognize too that they're generally practicing all summer to begin with so i think that's i think the camp is just more formal but right those kids are doing stuff at the secondary outside all summer long when it comes to sports and music okay mr martin thank you for putting this together i find the results interesting you know this is

049we did this 2018 and i know they did it a couple years before that before i was on the board and it seems like the the trend seems to be more and more each time uh towards that 222 schedule um i did find it interesting to see the reasons uh i was a little bit surprised at some of those results to be honest with you i thought vacation planning based on the anecdotal information that we've received and feedback two years ago when people made public comments i thought anecdotal or i thought vacation planning would be just the opposite amongst parents [Music] and i i think it's interesting and creates a different thought process of you know 51 of parents uh indicated they were concerned about the work schedule alignment you know and i think that

050probably particularly again i'm making some assumptions in this comment so be it what it may probably more impacts our single parent families uh or you know or families that have both mom and dad working um you know so that's that's that that's something to consider but uh it's it's interesting to see the results and thank you for putting that in well that that does remind me of another question i had which was um what we would providing child care through community ed um you know i think we've relied a lot on college students to do the vik in the summer those two week breaks don't necessarily line up with what colleges are doing so i wanted to ask about the prospects of hiring people to run a vik program for two weeks that could be

051a little problematic wouldn't you probably have staff that would be willing to do that like instructional assistance i would imagine there'd be a high number of people that would maybe want to that's exactly right and even now a lot of our breaks don't line up with the universities and so community ed has been very very good over the years at at acquiring staff during those times and and like mrs rogers said in situations like this there would be opportunities for staff that are on campuses during you know the regular day to be able to come and work during those breaks okay all right thank you that was something i had thought about our community education department does a great job of providing daycare child care options whenever we're not whether it's the summer or these

052the winter break the fall break or the spring break or even sometimes the one day holidays too and they've done that this year based on demand right now we're at the elementary level mostly at one location findlay farms but you know i think that's what the pandemic and everything normally the last few years they've ran it at three campuses but we've really based that on the demand and i foresee that we would have enough staff between community education and paraprofessionals to take care of those needs okay all right thank you of many of our neighboring districts that have used this 222 schedule seeing any uh reductions or improvements in the ability to perform capital improvements things like that i mean i know we use that spring break and fall break to do some really quick

053projects on campuses but two weeks can be considerably more than than one week and you can hit some different projects right i've talked to albert dutch over just about the 222 and he hasn't expressed too much of a concern with the week and a half or two weeks less and he has said that potentially some of those smaller projects where you only need a week or so they would be able to do some of those sometimes during the fall or the spring breaks contractors and he said the one thing we run into in the summer right now is of course every school district is out so the contractors are really busy so for some of these more minor projects that could be done they could utilize them in the fall and spring break when i've

054talked to i haven't talked to all the districts but i've talked to queen creek quite a bit about it because they've been on it one of the longest and they haven't i think it's become part of their culture so they don't even realize what the 222 versus 121 is because their culture has been 222 for so long so they get their projects done throughout the summer and the breaks as well too and higley's so new this is just it's first or second year on it too so they're just starting to go through those changes but when i've talked to them they haven't expressed any major concerns or anything anything else related to the calendars mr martin thank you for your work there i appreciate that next steps then probably is a february 23rd board meeting

055we will uh put it on the board agenda for an adoption because we do have parents that are wanting to know start planning next summer of course we have the calendar already for this upcoming school year so this is a year away but they're wanting to know when school starts a year from this summer in july or august so thank you very much for your time tonight thank you thank you for all your work jason all right we'll move to item 2.03 it's uh update on global dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members i will ask mr jared ryan to come on up and introduce this topic and then he can introduce some of the friends that are with us tonight good evening dr mccord dr santa cruz governing board thank you

056so much for the opportunity to be here this evening um i personally am very excited about this uh opportunity for some of the fine folks here who have joined us to be able to share with you kind of the path that global academy has been on not only throughout this school year but prior years peter has been invaluable in his leadership of all of us and teaching us throughout the year as we've as we've worked to support him and what had been a relatively small program for a number of years which because of circumstances outside of our control provided a unique opportunity two things i'd like to share before i turn it over to the team that's here tonight is um one kind of what i was just referring to this this unique opportunity that

057presented itself the one thing i want to say about the team that's going to present they have viewed this since the moment i stepped foot at global academy and met the group and listened and heard from them and watched them work that this isn't something they ever viewed as a patch or a get through a period of time but rather this is something that is that is a unique opportunity to provide to our entire community and with excellence in mind and while not every turn has been you know necessarily without its bumps they have absolutely called the challenge and stepped up in the time of need and done amazing work and the second piece of what i want to share is that as a long time school administrator and somebody who has taught in gilbert

058schools and and been a principal multiple schools in gilbert schools brick and mortar campuses i fought the fight of brick and mortar is where it's at i fought the fight of you need to be on campus to receive a great education and fundamentally you talked to me four months ago five months ago i would have told you the exact same thing what i've learned in my time at global academy and what i've learned in my time working with the leaders you're going to hear from right now is that there are students in our community there are teachers in our community and there are leaders in our community that excel in this environment and not only do they need it but it's something that we have got to be able to provide to them it's our

059obligation to provide this opportunity to them to be able to learn in the mode teach in the mode and lead in the mode that is most valuable and most productive for them and it's been eye-opening um for me to be part of it and a few months ago when um i was uh asked to to provide a little bit of support to the campus i don't think i had any clue what i was going to experience and so without saying any more i want to turn it over to peter amber and michelle who have been a trio of leaders amongst the pack who have been there this is a unique thing in that it's kind of taken a village um barbara and her leadership through teaching and learning sean and missy and otm marcy and

060and jason you know the list goes on bonnie and john this is really every day it feels like another phone call going out another support piece needed and every single time it's been brought forward dr mccord and his support it's it's the reason it is where it is today and has a really bright future so without further ado i'm going to turn it over to the team to come on up and give you their their presentation so thank you there you go all of our work this year has been focused on this goal gps global academy will provide a high quality personalized and flexible learning opportunity for all kindergarten through 12th grade students to illustrate this goal in action i want to read to you part of a letter that was sent to our junior

061high teachers from a student from global academy i would like to just thank you for caring and being there for me through these tough times everyone's experiencing you were so great to me and my peers even through coven 19 has been hectic and has caused deep trauma for everyone including yourselves still you guys put on a brave face so you could teach us what we need to know so we can be successful in life and i want you to know that we are all deeply appreciate you guys [Applause] here are what some of our teachers say about global we wish we had the time to share all the videos and statements from our teachers however the ones we are sharing truly embrace the community and connections that have been created here at global enjoy the

062challenge of creating materials and lessons that will both engage and set the foundation for some of our youngest learners each day my students use whiteboards manipulatives songs technology and a variety of other tools to help learn their academic goals i also get to come alongside families and help them think of strategies and solutions when working with their students at home i'm thankful for the opportunity that global has provided for me and others like me thank you my relationships with my students and my families are just as deep if not more than they were in brick and mortar and i'm working with colleagues that surpass any unit or team i've ever been a part of this has been nothing but a valuable rewarding positive experience i couldn't be happier and as some know i have been

063running around saying i'm having the time of my life i love being able to videotape my lessons so my kids can replay it until they understand it it's been a great year so far there are so many positive aspects about teaching for global one thing that has always been extremely important to me is to have the ability to connect with each and every student i used to have the mindset that in order to do this or the best way to do this was to be in person however i was wrong in all actuality i believe that building connections with students and their families is greater through online learning i've also really been able to develop the relationships between my students and myself and the relationships between my students and their peers i really enjoy working

064for global academy i have to say the best part about being a teacher here at global academy is the opportunity to rise to the call of duty it's been it's been truly inspiring to be a part of it and see what we can do as an organization to offer quality outcomes to our community and having colleagues and administrators all who share that common goal of wanting to rise to that challenge it's truly inspiring i'd say the most exciting part about this job is the future is what gilbert global academy could be years to come our teachers have really taken the bull by the horns when it comes to online learning and to say it's been a challenge is really an understatement they you know we've heard stories uh of especially at the beginning of this

065of this journey of teachers really just working very long hours learning a whole lot of things about their students that they didn't know before and really persevering to build something great uh and and i can say we are really proud of all of our teachers uh and the work that they've put in and and kind of the path that they've set forward for us i'd like to start first by going to the next slide i'd like to start with just a little picture of our history looking back over the past four years global was as mr ryan said a very small operation we had at any given time about 125 full-time students uh and a cadre of about 15 part-time teachers who were working our asynchronous classes on top of their day jobs uh and

066and you know they were a small but mighty group and and served a whole heck of a lot of students with the graph that you see here the bottom line shows you our average full-time group of students and then the top line shows the total number of students so you can see for all of our existence our part-time kids have made up a big component of our population and as you can see over the the first few years 2017 through 2019 our art school population grew but nothing compared to what you see that happened over the summer and going into this year we peaked at over 9 000 students a combination of full-time and part-time students and you know we had to build staff really fast and we learned a lot of things that we

067needed to build and improve and we'll share some of those shortly currently we're at uh 4300 students full-time students as of yesterday and about 2 000 more part-time students who are with us so still have a lot of kids still have a great opportunity and and we're still moving forward i do also just want to mention that global has brought in some out-of-district students as well i ran a report this this morning and and found that we right now we have about 156 students who chose global as their first gps school and we've seen students come in from all other districts but quite a few this summer came from queen creek we saw some from the traditional legacy traditional schools that are that are in our area so you know we're starting to see some

068some students pick global out of out of the pack so not only have we had a student change but we're fortunate to also have a location change uh as you know we we used to be housed out in the portables at mesquite high and while they were a lovely place we're super fortunate to be uh now at the former gca site and i just wanted to show you the transformation that's been done over there everything from a brand new paint job to some new offices for all the staff that we've had to to build up and put in place and we've got some some banners and logos that you know we're kind of cleaning up the school out there and making making it proud and making it known that global is is here in a

069part of gilbert as you know we use florida virtual school curriculum as our base kind of online resource and it's been used in gilbert public schools since 2016. it is an accredited and specially designed online curriculum it's designed with online learning online independent learning in mind it is ncaa approved and what we've done this year more than any other year in the past is our district curriculum coordinate coordinators have gone through and spent countless hours aligning uh the content to our arizona standards um you know moving things around bringing things in from other courses to make things line up a little better and that work continues uh as we speak our curriculum coordinators are are working on bringing in our our district district adopted curriculum um we're we're looking we're working with readygen for example

070and then we've found a way to bring in their content into our platform and so that'll be a highlight of our our ela courses and going into next year so we make that we continue to make that a priority and florida virtual has recognized that they have quite a few clients out here in arizona and and they're looking at some deficiencies in some of their courses and releasing some some updates that are are specific to our needs out here we for example just recently got a chemistry course that fits better what we need as well as some social studies courses which for a long time have not been up to up to snuff in terms of what we've needed we've realized as as we started the year that our kids especially who are full-time and

071especially our elementary kids just can't be online at the computer all day long and so we're making it a priority next year to to provide some to-go boxes including printables art boxes basic science materials we want students to have some hands-on experience in addition to what they're doing online and amber will talk a little bit more more about that as we go we're going to talk about what global looks like and what global will look like and we're going to base it on these these two models of of online teaching and learning so i'm first going to focus on asynchronous learning and so i wanted to share the definition up here and just share that the highlights of asynchronous learning are that the student is is the person leading the learning they can move at

072their own pace and the teacher is really there as as a support person students can participate in small groups uh and and the benefit of the last point of students are starting and finishing their course at any point throughout the school year so we have kids who are making up credits that they weren't able to meet in brick and mortar schools we have kids who are pushing ahead we just had a student graduate this past year who left gilbert public schools kind of dropped out and came back to us and said i'm getting to it and she was able to make up a lot of ground in about two years basically her whole high school career just pumping out courses once she finished one moved right into the next so right now as i mentioned

073students moving at their own pace is a highlight of our courses we have moved to a procedure of controlling class sizes just in the past month or so with the idea that that we need to make sure that we're not just piling students into our classes especially at the asynchronous level because students are going to get lost and so we're we're really prioritizing making sure that teachers have a consistent uh class size and as we move into next year we're going to push even more that teachers are really responsible for their students that they are engaging with them that they're meeting with them similar to how a teacher and a classroom that relationship would be right now we have 207 asynchronous class offerings we've we have honors classes credit recovery and this year we have

074a couple ap classes that are asynchronous we have so far this semester we have 9991 student enrollments compared to 2000 last year and what we've done with with our synchronous staffing as we've seen that there's based on student demand we've seen that some classes for synchronous are are more or less popular than others we've been able to shift some of our our full-time global teachers into asynchronous classes and and when we've been able to do that we see that those relationships that those teachers talk about still carry over um so you know we we think that that's an important piece to consider as we go forward in addition we partner with performance academy over at mosquito canyon valley school and all of our conventional high school center for success classrooms and so that's that support

075includes everything from answering phone calls and emails about grades to helping with buzz support and and getting those teachers uh trained and what they need to do and so in addition to all that first chart i showed you we have 1 600 more enrollments at the high schools that we support so we're quite busy right now but it's a good thing on the other side is the synchronous model so that this model is teacher-led leads the learning all students move together the teacher delivers the scheduled live lessons students participate in small group and the course length is fixed based on the district calendar so if we look at elementary model is the synchronous model we've changed quite a bit since the beginning of the year and currently we're offering live lessons daily for our students

076so they receive in the primary grades the fundations instruction every day and that is an adopted gilbert curriculum ela and math are also taught daily and then we also provide in the primary grade small group interaction so that those kids that need additional support they have that we also have assembled a reading team so we have an instructional coach and we have reading specialists that provide additional support as needed in the intermediate grades then they have focused learning groups so that they can come together and work on a specific skill or if they're struggling in a particular area based on parent comments from the beginning of the year we've also implemented writer's workshop every week we also have science and social studies was asynchronous where now we're offering at least one lesson a week of

077synchronist so that they get that opportunity to be with the teacher and get some feedback we do offer one-on-one support if students need them so that they can meet with teachers in order our reading team and we also have six traditional classrooms k-6 we offer asynchronous art every week and then the synchronous pe and music and they also plan special events that our families attend um we do vary the live lessons so that we can accommodate parents schedules because we know a lot of them work and they need that opportunity to have a little bit of flexibility so we take that into account and all of our live lessons are focused on arizona priority standards and really student engagement and academic conversations we don't want this to be any different than what they would experience

078in a brick and mortar our we are also offering professional development to our teachers just to build their capacity so that this virtual learning that they're able to implement best practices we do use and participate in the district benchmark and we've been using that data and analyzing it to make instructional decisions moving forward on this side these are a few examples of what you could experience in a primary classroom so on the top left hand corner there are this is a book in a bag so third graders are reading books and then they are presenting them to their peers and so working on that oral presentation skills and it's giving the teacher a lot of opportunity to assess our students and gain more insight to the top right hand corner is a kindergarten and it's

079just showing once again our foundations how do we really begin to help them with those foundational skills but also give them word sorts and some of that higher level thinking and then on our bottom um left-hand corner is one of our students actually presenting and sharing um with her her classmates and then we have some interactive games and this gives the opportunity for students to interact with each other to build community but also to work independently at home to practice those skills as well so the current model for global secondary 7-12 synchronous model we focus on a few different things we have a bell calendar that matches the campus as well many of our students choose to be enrolled on a campus and with global so far our students are concurrent enrollment the schedule allows

080them to do that as well synchronous format allows kids to have live lessons there's live lessons by teachers twice a week another days are a small group and one-to-one office hours and small group instruction time there's also when teachers teach a live lesson they record the lesson and then that's available then for students to refer back to who miss the class for some reason or who need to have additional instruction as well on top of the small group and the small one-to-one office times teachers also use our plc times to plan what they're going to be teaching so our curriculum is very consistent on campus with plcs know working together and planning their curriculum class offerings are pretty much the same as they are on a campus the core classes are all offered for content

081areas we also this year i've increased our honors offerings for a synchronous model for high school and junior high and then there's also the currently 20 ap courses being offered which 310 kids are enrolled in and then we've also added synchronous electives which is brand new for global as well secondary we have a child development toy box class being offered and the world languages of spanish and american sign language are live lessons we have an art program that has been designed for our self-contained special education classes and then logic creative writing and psychology are also offered as electives for our kids who attend global or sorry gilbert classical academy the one thing that we want to focus on this year we've seen aside from the academic part of it has also been students this year

082regardless of their background their skill level the skills we're seeing kids acquire what they can acquire by doing online learning is it's quite impressive from presentation skills to workplace skills to time management um it's just been a different set of skills i think they get from doing the online model that you don't see on a brick and mortar campus so we also have found success in students i've been very varied on varied levels of students so students have been very successful on campus that i think in the past they thought wouldn't have been on all my model for various reasons because i often struggle you'll see how do well on the online model and this slides just um another one is a sample of just some things teachers sent in for work samples um the

083things i've been doing in classrooms i will say as an administrator doing evaluations one of the biggest joys i get in my day is getting an hour to go into a classroom what you see online it's so hard to explain with visuals and uh pictures and a video but the students are interacting there's discussion there's hands-on learning there's um small groups breakouts so some of those are just some small samples they're showing like there's a dm board activity students did to answer a question a teacher asked about a video they watched the bottom one the middle showing just student choice there was an activity the kids had to do a project they had to create and it's providing choices to students the bottom left is a science physics experiment our physics class for seventh grade

084science students had to choose one of the three newton laws and make a video and demonstrating what the um the mall was describing it and then on the far side there's um students at home because they're obviously at home they're had to do a um user items in your house to make a friction activity and then write it that lab up as well so what we see in classrooms is just like being in person and it's really unique i've seen students interact with games with online live lessons and the instruction is the same as it is on a campus continuing with that in special education the continuum of services is just like it is on a campus um seven actually k through 12th grade for special education there's resource available at global there's co-teaching in

085the seventh through twelfth grade their self-contained levels of classes servicing the being c-level students the related services for speech ot no and then also paraprofessional supports available too from various grades and for academic and behavioral supports as well very similar to on a campus okay so the next two slides are going to be about things that we recognize as areas of growth at global from the time we all started there to where we are right now today so some of the things we're focusing on in areas of growth have been attendance so we have established processes for monitoring and communicating our procedures so we communicate our attendance procedures to students and to teachers and to parents upon enrolling when we also follow up with weekly communication to parents and students about their current enrollment and

086their attendance on sites from in person and for asynchronous as well accessibility and communication we also um so as you guys know we started off with i think us in the office and our support staff behind us right now our other colleagues and we've since then added a receptionist office manager a registrar and some clerks to help also so we're slowly improving our communication with parents and with teachers and with community members our class sizes we've established kind of a system or a program to talk about class sizes being manageable and then develop the wait list for students who want to enroll at global either an asynchronous class to protect those numbers and then for enrollment from general ed and special education as well in the course availability with the waitlist system we're able to

087deploy teachers based on our staffing numbers so where needs are needed based on the waitlist numbers we have so with the asynchronous format our waitlist has when the student finishes the class because they can finish at any time when they finish the next student gets that spot immediately so we've seen a lot of turn around in our asynchronous classes with numbers of kids getting back into a class when another kid finishes as far as teacher support we realize the reduction of the synchronous class sizes is important to be able to expand those live lessons because that's really what our families are wanting especially in the primary grades just and then looking at our asynchronous classes how do we continue to improve those we have been working closely with the curriculum coordinators so that we're continuing

088to align and integrate district resources so then that way there's that consistency between schools and also we've established that student intervention we we have students that we are concerned about and so we're making sure that we have an mtss system put in place that we can identify those kids that have needs and we're able to offer some services and help them along with a bht our behavioral health team we have that we do have a social worker and a psychologist that support us we have an inner a reading intervention team so like i said we have a full-time instructional coach and we have two reading specialists that service our primarily our primary students but support some of the intermediate students as well we also have begun a goal-setting procedure for those students that get off

089track whether it's that it's attendance or completing work that we're in meeting with families to really get them back on track and set some goals for them so that they can be successful and then curriculum resources at the beginning of the year we did just distribute foundations materials for our students notebooks we had math white boards and workbooks for our traditional program and next year we plan to distribute materials quarterly so that the families have those resources and can participate easily so can you just tell us what mtss stands for it's a multi-tiered um student support system and so it's just really looking at all aspects of what they're needing some support with thank you thank you for so what's next um i told my staff at the very beginning of the year that my

090expectation and all of our expectation is to be the best online school in arizona and i really mean it um i i think we're we're well on our way and we we've learned a lot and and we have some plans that we're looking at going into next year so again we'll think we'll we'll talk about our three models um the first is our 2021 vision of asynchronous classes and you'll see uh that two of these items remain uh and and we're holding these central and the first being that we still want students to be able to move through their courses at their pace we think that's a reason why many students choose asynchronous classes we have we have students who come to us with a variety of situations and and this really fits that flexible

091aspect that our online school provides again we we and this has been a theme throughout this right we want to control our class sizes not that we we don't want to bring in as many students as possible but we really want to to do that while ensuring that our teachers are able to manage the class load and able to provide a consistent level of service to all of their students we are we are planning and and hoping that we will be able to have full-time teachers teach our asynchronous classes while our our part-time uh you know teachers who worked on the side have done an amazing job um you know we we haven't been able to expect them to to have those really strong relationships with kids to be in touch with them regularly to

092hold be able to hold kids accountable and and to provide a high level of instruction so while you know we may still use some of them we we really would like to have our asynchronous classes be taught by a core of full-time teachers and then like i said they'll have student and parent meetings they'll be expected to hold live and recorded lessons maybe on essential topics that that will apply to students no matter where they are in the course to hold student success conferences that's that's research says that's a big component of successful online learning is you have somebody who's checking in with you who's really diagnosing your strengths and weaknesses and and setting goals on on how to be more successful and we'd love to take advantage of our campus our beautiful campus we

093love to have times and places for students to come in and get to in-person tutoring to get a really cool science experiment or to do a field trip together in person i i don't believe that online should be purely online i think we we should take advantage of in-person opportunities for those who can make it and when we can and lastly we want to continue as amber mentioned we want to continue to build our intervention program uh we know uh and we've seen that it's it's possible for kids to fall through the cracks when they're in this self-paced program right and so we we're continuing to think of ways to to make that not happen if if uh if a child is online and is struggling whom should the parent contact what is the best

094way to get a hold of someone when they're having challenges we have them start with the teacher and to have those conversations and then the teacher will reach out to us and it will it will depend if that is you know a behavioral health concern then we'll reach out to our social workers um if it is more of you know there's their it's compliance or attendance they'll reach out to our attendance specialist so being able to have that team in place so that we know where to filter those kids to receive the best service and the best support that they need and and just the communication among all of those people are key to helping our kids move forward and if they don't get an answer back from the teacher what should they do majority

095of our our prayer elementary students are meeting with teachers daily so they're having that check-in with them if it's not then we're following up either as the our front office staff or one of our the administrators are following up with our families through a phone call if we don't reach them there then we're going through um providing emails okay thank you so look looking at our vision for elementary we want to build on what we currently have um really be able to articulate what is our standard level of service what does that look like at global so families truly understand when they sign up and they're coming to global or choosing global they know what that means we want to expand on our district adopted curriculum and those live sessions so that it is reflective

096of what the brick and mortar is doing as well explore possibilities of adding electives because we want to do something that's a little bit different than a campus offering be able to assemble and provide educational toolkits so that our students one of the things as we hear from a lot of our families is printing of materials and and you know that's been hard and so by able for us to be able to provide these tool kits where kids can have the materials at home that that will make a difference build flexibility into our schedules even though we have done that we'd like to expand on that we'd like to be able to offer some reteach and enrichment periods and then have some on level um what we're calling on demand lessons we thought it would

097be really cool if we had a a library of different recorded lessons that families can go choose from in addition to those life lessons and small group that they receive every day so once again we're trying to do something a little different to offer to our families one of the things that we're very proud of here is we really have built a culture of community and connections and it's very evident as you walk in into any of our virtual classrooms from kindergarten to third grade to sixth grade it's it is happening our students have been able to participate in extracurricular opportunities so the district spelling bee the science fair oratorical mlk art show our pe department has family fitness nights and so it's really exciting to see families come together and have fitness challenges and

098dance parties and and they've done cooking challenges they go on field trips so it's been really exciting halloween parade our kindergarten team organized a halloween parade where the families dressed up they decorated their cars and then they did a drive-through where they really got to see the teachers and we had over 300 families participate so it was really cool to see the connection that the families got to make with the teachers um they do we offer virtual fun runs we had school pictures this year and we also recognize students and staff on a monthly basis future things that we want to consider is having reading nights or evening events that our families can participate clubs a student council a pto and psych council the esports teams debate team robotics coding steam stem whatever it is

099that our students would show interest in we'd like to be able to offer that for them as for the secondary model going forward for next school year we're looking at changing the format students we're looking at allowing students to enroll back on their home campus and then choosing a synchronous format by doing this they'll be able to connect with their home campus and still be able to choose the option of being a synchronous student or an asynchronous student with being enrolled on your home campus all the connection of their home campus counselors and support staff and teachers are familiar with and also be able to participate on campus activities and also with sports as well so a different change in how we're going to do the formats for next year um so the next slide

100actually will kind of show a little better but so we're looking at students who want to take an online course so when they're registering right now for next year they're choosing either they want to be a synchronous student an asynchronous student or a combination of both so how that would work would be if they choose to be a synchronous student they would enroll on their home campus and then their home campus would offer synchronous classes based on student requests and staffing patterns while there they were taught by their top of that is teacher and the student center on the campus or at home if a student chooses a center for success model they're on their campus and they're using asynchronous classes and they're taking those classes in a cfs classroom on their home campus and

101they're also taught by either a global teacher or a campus teacher the global academy-based asynchronous classes are for full-time global students for next year so these would be students that are taught by global teachers and then the work is completed away from a school site and for many of those students at school site or away from the school site could be you know our traveling hockey students are completing their homework while they're in a tournament in another state so lots of variations and opportunities available outside of just being at home and working on school work and just to be clear that the global academy asynchronous classes we will have full-time asynchronous students but students can still choose if they're they want to concurrently enroll they can still opt to do that as well so part

102of my role for next year as we move into this model where you know the online program is built into our campus schedules my role really uh one of my roles will be to support those teachers uh and make sure that they're offering high quality online teaching right and so we'll i'll be offering trainings starting over the summer and going into next year on everything a teacher will need to get going whether they have experience with us this year or whether they're starting for the first time so topics including proficiency with our platform buzz onboarding students what's the first day look like communicating and building relationships delivering effective live lessons one of our goals with this embedded model is live lessons will happen not just twice a week but perhaps more often administering authentic assessments

103and and providing meaningful feedback as we know those are really strong levers for having kids be successful online additional things that we are considering is having on-site open labs so that students have that opportunity to have a blended learning experience those in-person classroom experiences science classes you know a class cultural building field trips professional development budget and expanded resources for our teachers digital subscription budget and then offering k-6 asynchronous classes for acceleration purposes so that's something we've been thinking about for future we also for next year we're going to continue with interventionist teams that we have currently a math specialist or reading specialist and instructional coaches i'm social worker our school psychologist a special education instructional coach and a secondary counseling as well and we'd like to continue to build our instructional capacity to increase

104that full-time asynchronous online teachers with the additional responsibilities of meeting with students running small groups doing interventions and providing that more direct contact 101 as opposed to it is now right now the asynchronous really is a self-driven model with teacher interaction as needed whereas we would like to have it be a required portion of the teaching duty to work with students to reach out to them and have a set schedule to follow up with students on their they're working with so just to wrap it up moving forward as mr ryan said we we know many of our families will choose to go back to their brick and mortar schools once this pandemic thankfully moves on but we also know and we've heard from families and teachers that the global is a good fit for them

105and so we're building our school with that expectation that we still need to deliver excellence for them but that they come to us with needs and they come for us to us for a reason so our goal is to continue to attract district students who are seeking an online experience we would rather they not go to other schools if they're wanting to go online we want to make global the attractive option for them we know that we're hearing interest from home school students who who maybe want to come to global for a full or even a partial experience we hear interest a lot and hey can you provide math can you provide science we'll take care of the rest at home and we believe that we can attract students from around the valley and the

106state who are looking for a high quality personalized education so we'd like to thank you for this opportunity thank you for your time and and we'd love to take your questions and share more about what we're doing dr bartman just a a quick question and at me if it's unfair i apologize but my interest is simply uh what have been the greatest challenges as we use florida virtual and buzz in particular and can you can you speak to that because the place over these past few months where i've discerned the greatest criticism is that thing called virtual and not global global is not a part of that discussion but the idea of virtual has been highly criticized and highly suspect from my point of view can you speak to that at all yeah we i

107mean we hear we hear it as well um first of all let me let me uh attack that question in two different ways uh the first being our platform which is buzz right um over the years we we've heard that we've heard different criticisms of buzz and but what we found is is as teachers and as students and families get used to it they do find use in it um it is a top tier platform um it's not like it's the cheapest option right but it is a it is a powerful platform and and we have teachers who have who've they've admitted like they at first they were very skeptical uh you know they they thought that oh there's something out there that's better but as they've used it and as they've seen the capabilities

108um they found it to be useful uh with the curriculum you know i i think going into this year we did not expect the you know the the need for principles to to happen um and that certainly navigating that's been a challenge i think we found a success in and working with our curriculum coordinators and and really moving around curriculum so that it it was in a place that made sense to gilbert public schools um and and that work continues as i mentioned and and i think that's that's gonna help uh kind of bridge it a little bit right so that the experience that students are getting uh in school that the materials that they're using uh they'll see something similar online so the criticism as it relates to that idea of virtual instruction which

109is not what you do you're doing that certainly but that's not tied to you it's tied to the teacher out there using buzz as a platform and trying to teach electronically remotely what what's that criticism been about do you have any idea i i think i answered that a little bit after talking to a parent their day actually i think some of the confusion has been the platform we're using at global and then using it also on a brick and mortar campus as well the disconnect there has been um and in the very beginning our teachers are probably with the brick and mortar campus because we had teachers you know being added day of school day after school started um the lack of training i had to use it but as they had been with

110global full-time that's been a constant thing they're using as the platform and the training the resources our ties are amazing peter's knowledge is insane um so our teachers not global i think are very comfortable and they love the platform and they love the way it's being delivered i think the um disconnect has been the criticisms we've gotten is from the kids who are on the brick and mortar where teachers are using a virtual platform for using different platforms are you trying to incorporate google classroom or trying to incorporate a different platform altogether and that inconsistency there another criticism then on the brick and mortar campus it's a very different setup than we have at global or global the only option is to use buzz that's been i think the challenge there is that virtual and

111global are really two different things i think that's been the disconnect for some of the criticism that we've raised that we've been hearing as well if i could also add we know that we have work to do in onboarding uh students parents and teachers and so tiffany who's in the audience has been working really hard with our marketing department and really thinking through what are all the aspects that somebody needs to know when they become part of our community and a lot of that's technical right everything from how to log in to how to record my attendance to how do i navigate through these lessons that you know i've never had to experience before you know i i think i'm the first one to is guilty of kind of assuming that people have uh knowledge

112and understanding of online classes and online platforms and so you know i've really even myself had to take a step back and say what do we need to provide up front to make sure that our kids are successful going forward okay board members anything else i had a couple questions you mentioned kindergarten through 12th grade i understood that we have a pre-k option as well you want to talk a little bit about the pre-k option yeah the pre-k option actually isn't through global um it's it's through a different department i believe so we actually don't uh don't affiliate with them okay that's fine thank you um and then the other question i have um and i know you're expanding but i am i'm a person who really appreciates the arts and i heard a lot

113about your art activities i appreciate that what about music do you have music education also you know in on campus situation we would have the opportunity for band strings or choir so are there some thoughts about how we can provide that to these kids um in the online moving forward for next year next year or in the future because elementary elementary i'll amber speak to that god well and i i definitely think that something that having those conversations as our families are interested that we are really wanting to provide a comprehensive program or you know comprehensive experience and part of that is being able to have band and strings so we we do have music but being able to expand that to our intermediate grades is something that we we are definitely having conversations because

114i mean part of it is that people may switch back and forth you know as we come through this year of crisis hopefully next year will be much better um and people may return to a brick and mortar but they may switch back and forth and so if if kids are going to participate in music they have to get those basics um at some point you know elementary junior high and and prepare you know music is not a one-year thing it's it's kind of a long-term commitment so i think some of it too for the secondary um the model changing note for next school year with the students will be on back on their campus some of those kids would be ideal they could take their on-campus orchestra class choir class band class and then

115choose to do also academics online as well and i think you're right as as a knee continues as we move forward a lot of it right now is that the platform for online instruction through the bus platform we have in curriculum we have isn't there but there's no reason that that couldn't be pursued moving forward um if there's an interest from our students are enrolled in asynchronous full-time okay and then the other question i have is just because we do have i mean this is our biggest school now i mean this is a lot of kids so do we have some plans or some thoughts about graduation in the past we haven't done anything for graduation for those students that graduated from our online campus yeah it's certainly been a discussion [Music] i would say

116when students bring it up they really want to be with their their home school peers to be honest we face some uh some criticism like oh we're am i gonna have a global academy diploma or you know i'd rather have a one from my school so it's definitely something like i personally have dreamed about um and i think now that we have a large number of students that might be something that to happen in the in the foreseeable future but you know we're we're kind of balancing those two forces okay all right thank you go ahead ms wood thanks so what do you anticipate the enrollment to be next year because i can tell you i think i'll be significantly lower i agree i do um we are we are significantly lower we are planning

117to put out a survey um prior to spring break so that we can uh you know get a sense of that information uh prior to the district making staffing decisions and those kinds of things um you know i i if all goes well with with vaccinations you know who knows i i tend to agree i don't know and i think there's room for growing i just don't think i just i'm wondering if you guys are anticipating that it would be at these numbers i don't i i wouldn't anticipate that but i don't i don't think we anticipated being at these numbers so what numbers do we need to break even or is this going to be like an enterprise um where you where it funds itself or how financial i have a lot of concerns

118financially of how what is the funding um the state funding model right now when the students are part-time with us what is the funding for that all those kinds of things how are we keeping track of that and and making sure that we're sure so attendance has been a big uh a big deal for us and and that's the exact reason why um our our funding is based on the number of minutes that students spend working on their online courses and so it's been incredibly important for us to figure out effective ways to capture that information and and some of it is technical so we collect minutes every minute that a student spends working on their course in buzz that that those minutes are collected automatically the challenge comes when you know students are working

119away from the computer or offline then we have to rely on our families to to give us some of that information and and sometimes that's a challenge but we've developed uh procedures as as michelle mentioned um where we're reaching out regularly to families who are not meeting those minute requirements where we continue to educate we have a whole page on our website with videos for elementary and secondary students and families on how to go through this process and we're starting to hold kids accountable for not meeting those minutes um what we've also done is we we've empowered our teachers a bit too and we every week a report goes out to teachers on on you know where their class average stands and a lot of them have turned it into a competition uh to beat

120last year uh and and we've seen tremendous growth in that if we if we compare first quarter to the third quarter now you know in secondary for example we're up over 30 points in average attendance and so you know so we're near about 70 percent for secondary classes we need to get higher but you know that's tremendous growth from where we started elementary has kind of lived at 80 percent plus for the the past month or so and so that's where we'd like to keep it so you know it's it's kind of it is a lot of work to capture those minutes but that's what we really rely on okay i would love to see some details about that maybe mr ryan can help me with that at some point and then i do want

121to say how much i appreciate all of you and the way that you've just approached this the exciting things that have happened i appreciate the teachers the global teachers who have jumped in and i've heard great things from many about the experiences they've had and i do appreciate and recognize all that they've done to make good things happen and i think we should definitely capitalize on what we've learned and leverage it to move forward i'm just not quite i'm anxious to see you know kind of how it all plays out as far as numbers wise and i think too another thing to consider and remember and i think you've mentioned that is um i think a lot of the success comes if parents and families are understanding of what is required of them it's i

122don't know that this model would necessarily fit every student you know and that's why we still need a brick and mortar and need to be in person for many students but this is an opportunity that people are looking for and some really are but there has to be a commitment on you know by the families for sure but that we can partner with them in a great way for those students i think that's exciting absolutely i one other thing i was just wondering um in the past we've we haven't seen the success as far as completion of courses on the asynchronous or different measurables like that i just was wondering what have you seen as far as completion of courses and what other measurables do you have in place i'm glad that you're participating in

123the district um just evaluations and benchmarks i would love to see those too and see how you guys you know how that's been going but yeah our completion rate has been steady compared to last year um however our attendance for asynchronous classes has improved um we have we brought we have some amazing teachers who have you know some have really held students feet to the fire which is hard to do in an asynchronous setting um so that's been really encouraging actually to see that that it is possible and and part of it is we have to have teachers who are devoted to this whose time is not split between uh another school or another job and global because we've seen teachers who global is their focus are showing good progress both in terms of you

124know what what does their classroom environment look like what does their instruction look like and what are their kids how are their kids complete completing courses i don't believe we have benchmark data yet on asynchronous students most students who take asynchronous courses are taking benchmarks back on their home campus because we have you know that that large part who are part-time global students or concurrent enrollments um but you know i i think it's something we could look for yeah what and then what about completion do you have numbers on completions yeah we are so i looked at it this morning actually um for first semester we were at about 65 so uh you know room for improvement for sure but um you know i'm pleased that it's more than half for sure and it's certainly

125up over two or three years ago okay thanks anything else board members just a few few comments if i may um first i i'd like to thank you for all of your work i have heard positive feedback from parents who have chosen global and that has not always been the case for global academy the strides that we've made the last couple of years are showing and it's showing in feedback so thank you for for all of that work for listening um i think one of the one of the things that i really appreciated if i go back to my own experience with online courses for my kids the flexibility of start dates the asynchronous but yes it may have been asynchronous before but you still have to start and stop on a certain schedule and

126i think that's important because a lot of reasons that people look for an online course is that very flexibility um so i i i commend you for for offering that um i also loved hearing that you know i i think uh dr ryan started with the comment but uh uh mr ryan i just promoted it don't swell that head anything sorry please sorry don't don't need to stroke the ego but uh um there has i think for a long time been a sense of competition between the online offerings whether it be global academy or outside and the traditional and as we move into society whether it be in the workplace whether it be in education whether it be in the universities and now whether it be at the high schools and even elementaries with what

127you're offering it it really shouldn't be a competition it should be you know what i'll what i'll call a co-op petition meaning we're cooperating and competing at the same time so that we offer what's best for the students and i've sensed that approach in in your whole presentation um so i'm i'm i am grateful to hear that i'm also you know i do like the competition i think competition makes us better it makes us all com all be better um so if you're offering something that hasn't always been offered sometimes it's that change of pace that allows you to do something that's a little bit harder to change a culture someplace else now you see the success and you can change the culture so i hope both you know that our traditional schools are learning

128from your successes and we're learning from their successes and and that's that's what i'm hearing so i'm grateful to hear that and i especially love that we are reaching out as you indicated to homeschool parents to other districts um i know traditionally we have lost online role enrollment to other districts so to hear that we're getting it back uh and and being an attraction you know yes it it brings in funds and and ms wood brings up some good points that we need to make sure that it's a it's a positive flow um we don't need to bring in more people that we lose money on but but bringing students back attracting them builds our reputation and it's going to bring us not only to the online offerings it's going to bring us to our

129traditional offerings so just in general want to thank you for your presentation for the information and for for pushing the envelope it's it's a good thing to push the envelope when we're pushing it in the right direction so thank you dr santa cruz yes i i would like to also say thank you very much to you um all and mr ryan i was probably like you um six months ago i didn't think there was any way that that that anything could compare to brick and mortar however um i have a personal interest in this because i have a daughter who's chosen to be a part of it and i've been invited to a couple of different grade level plc's over the last couple of months and having participated in plc's for many years i can't

130even tell you that the camaraderie and the and the working together of these grade levels is just blowing me away um i tend to try not to talk too much about anything that happens to with the board at home because between emails and everything else that's all we would do but i do have one thing that i was asked to please read to everybody tonight this is from my daughter please make sure that the board knows that it's a real school and we have formed real relationships with the kids and often have better communication with parents because they are right there with us and she's got some pretty funny stories too about that so thank you for all you do i think it's been a wonderful opportunity for many people at many levels thank you

131i would like to just take a minute if i could to introduce my team back here uh while our team really please do please do uh christine laxo is our elementary dean of students alongside amber heather preston is our secondary dean of students she's really the guru who works with parents and families a lot tiffany pearson in the back i mentioned she is our extended education specialist i think you met her last year uh really focused on you know what can we what can we add to global to to really support our kids and she also facilitates in person summer school did i get everybody i think i did i'd just like to say that um you know the beginning of this school year was difficult whether you were online brick or mortar or wherever

132you were um and we we got a ton of emails at the beginning of the year about being online about buzz and and global and you know i just want to acknowledge the fact that i i think it at to some degree we almost set you up for failure at the beginning of the year and um and i apologize for that for the mere fact that we just didn't know we were getting into and where we were then and where we are today and everything that we've learned in between i think will make for a phenomenal global academy at some point in time as we move on every single day i know you're getting better and and where what i really appreciate is the fact that you guys are trying to do everything you can

133for kids i know global can't provide every type of of class available out there and i know that some people think that they can and and you do an excellent job of explaining that to everybody it's something that you know i i know at the beginning of the year my hair was not nearly this gray um but that's just because we're in situations that we we're working with unknowns and i'm just really really proud of all the things that you've done when we talk about people stepping up all you got to do is step foot over there and and see what goes on and see how they do it so kudos to all of you especially all of our teachers um you know there's i think what we have now the students that are there

134the staff that's there everybody wants to be there for whatever reason and i don't care what platform you're teaching in whether it's in a school brick and mortar whether it's online that that's 90 of it people that want to be there and i think that's where we've settled into on that at this point in time to miss what i think yeah we will lose students going back and and we know that we recognize that but there are a group that's going to want to stay and then there will be some over time that want to come and so we will try to serve those needs and um again just thank you to everything you guys done i appreciate it dr bartman thank you and your team we appreciate the hard work and i look forward

135to you fulfilling that dream of creating the best online school in the state thank you i'll move to item 3 3.01 is adjourning the work study portion just the work study portion we'll move to item 4 which is the brief board business meeting and item 4.01 is the call to order so we will call brief business meeting to order and we will do item 4.02 is calling the role and miss wilson would you please miss laurie wood here mr reed carr here dr charles santa cruz here michelle yujetti here ms jill humphries here mr president all board members are present you have a quorum the one omission that is not there and we'll include it as part of 4.02 and that will be approval of this evening's agenda for this brief ford business meeting so

136i'll entertain a motion dr santa cruz i move that we approve tonight's agenda is there a second second mr carr mr eugetti thank you any discussion seeing none then we will vote to approve this evening's agenda all those in favor please signify by saying i those pose the same motion carries 5-0 we move to item 4.03 and it's proclamation dr mccord thank you dr santa cruz governing board members we have a couple proclamations uh that we would like to acknowledge and read out loud these are from governor ducey i'll start off with school counselor week as you know we have some excellent people out there working with our students in the counseling realm and we would like to recognize them this evening whereas school counselors are employed in public and private schools to help students

137reach their full potential and whereas school counselors are actively committed to helping students explore their abilities strengths interests and talents as these traits relate to career awareness and development whereas school counselors help parents focus on ways to further the educational personal and social growth of their children and whereas school counselors work with teachers and other educators to help students explore their potential and set realistic goals for themselves and whereas school counselors seek to identify and utilize community resources that can enhance complement comprehensive school counseling programs and help students become productive members of society whereas comprehensive developmental school counseling programs are considered an integral part of the educational process that enables all students to achieve success in school now therefore i douglas a ducey governor of the state of arizona do hereby proclaim february 1st through

138the 5th 2021 as school counseling week so thank you to our school counselors thank you dr mccord and a vote of confidence to our school counselors we appreciate the work that you do in guiding students as they work through their school experience we'll move to item 4.04 another proclamation dr mccourt thank you dr santa cruz governing board members this is career and technical education month again another proclamation from governor ducey whereas february 2021 has been designated career and technical education month by the association of career tech technical education of arizona and national association for career technical education and whereas profound economic and technological changes in our society are rapidly reflected in the structure and nature of work thereby placing new and additional responsibilities on our educational system and whereas career and technical education provides americans

139with the school to careers connection and is the backbone of a strong well-educated workforce which fosters productivity in business and industry and contributes to america's leadership in the international marketplace whereas career and technical education gives high school students experience in practical meaningful applications of basic skills such as reading writing and mathematics thus improving the equality of their education motivating potential dropouts and giving all students students leadership opportunities in their career fields and in their communities whereas career technical education offers individual opportunities to learn new skills that last a lifetime which provide them with career choices and potential satisfaction and whereas the best education for all students is a rigorous education that blends the essential content of college prep studies with quality career technical education and whereas the ever increasing cooperative efforts of career and technical

140educators business and industry stimulate the growth and vitality of our local economy and that the entire nation be preparing graduates for career fields that are forecasted to experience the largest and fastest growth in the next decade and whereas deca educators rising fbla fccla ffa hosa and vica schools usa are non-profit educational student leadership organizations whose purpose is to develop the leaders of the future workforce now therefore i douglas a ducey governor of the state of arizona do hereby proclaim february 2021 as career technical education month that's it thank you thank you dr mccord to our cte educators and our cte student cadre congratulations and we only wish you the best as you move forward with your education and your chosen structured field move to item 5 consent agenda items and you've had an opportunity to

141review the consent agenda items is there a motion so moved thank you miss humphries is there a second a second thank you mr carr any discussion seeing none then we will move to approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye all right all those opposed the same motion carries 5-0 consent agenda is approved we moved item six which is adjourning this brief board meeting is there emotion so moved thank you mr jetty is there a second a second thank you mr wood any discussion usually none all those in favor please signify by saying i to adjourn this meeting aye aye all suppose the same meeting is adjourned thank you