HUSD Governing Board Meeting Dec 9, 2025

001[clears throat] Good evening. I would like to call this meeting to order. Mr. Lson, may I have roll call, please? [snorts] >> President Wade, member of the board, please let the record show there are four board members here in attendance in person. I know that Miss Schultz was going to be calling in tonight. Christine, not yet. >> Okay. So, we will notify. So, as of right now, we have four members in attendance. [clears throat] Thank you. Please join me in a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance. Okay, great. >> Uh, I motion we approve the agenda. >> Second. Uh, that will be Miss Gar seconding. All those in favor? >> I. Motion carries four to zero. [sighs] >> Mr. Lennheiser, you're up. >> President Wade, members of the board, uh we're really

002exciting uh to honor a lot of different people for our [clears throat] Higgley highlights and happenings this week. Um you know, we have an incredible student, staff, and families. And what a wonderful community we have. And so we have some different recognitions that we would like to do. As soon as we get the PowerPoint up, we will uh keep going from that. But we have a huge crew that's waiting outside that is going to join us in celebration of a state championship. Ah, there we go. Higgley happenings. And so for the very first one, I am going to invite uh Mr. Edgar uh and his crew, the marching band who won in the Abota marching band division 2 state championship, first place in their division and they are backto back state champions. So come on

003in crew and they're just going to fill it up. [applause] >> [applause] >> Good job. Good job. [applause] >> [applause] [applause] >> All right, we should probably just keep clapping, right? They keep coming. We keep clapping. But again, congratulations on the back-to-back state championships for division 2. And and if you know anything about the marching band, you know how hard these these students work to be a part of this program and how much time they're committed and it's so awesome for all of them to join us today. But I'm going to turn it over to Danny and he's going to talk a little bit about the season. And uh again, congratulations. >> Thank you very much. Uh my name is Dr. Danny Barcetti Nerland. I'm one of the directors here at Williamsfield High School for

004the marching band. Um we are so fortunate to have the support of everyone in the district. Um thank you to the board for all the support um coming out to our home show this year. Um, thank you to the finance department for helping um, create the opportunities to have our staff um, be paid for, having everyone um, all the things that we need to help run this um, ship, no pun intended, for the show. Um, um, but and then thank you to the transportation department. Um, thank you to the admin at Williamsfield High School. um John Dolan, um Daryl Stangle, and all the rest of the admin for the continued support of our program. Um it is it does take a village to get to this point. Um without the support of everyone here, we

005wouldn't be able to do what we're um accomplish all the great things. So, thank you very much. [applause] >> Before we jump ahead, I noticed some Danny, could you explain the smaller plaques that you see? Because if you've never been to a marching band competition, yes, there's the big show and you can see the picture up there, but there's a lot of different individual scores they get for different pieces of the entire performance. So, would you mind explaining those for us, please? >> So, the five extra plaques that we have um are the caption awards. These are um each of the categories is rated in terms of visual performance, auxiliary which is the color guard, percussion, uh music performance and the general effect. All of those get scored on a out of 100 and um

006for the the state championships we won all of those captions. So, we were the highest um score of the night for division 2 for those five captions as well as winning first place. So, [applause] Next up, um I'm having a little bit of a deja vu. Those you've been to board uh meetings earlier this summer, you've already met Colton. But I really want to congratulate uh pair of state champions, the first ever AIA Division 1 state champion in boys Beach volleyball, Gavin and Colton Mortonson. And so Gavin and Colton, if you could come up here and Mr. Stangle, if you could join them and say a few words, please. So congratulations to our state champions. [applause] right in the middle all by [applause] yourself looking >> president members of the board um Mr. Lotsenheiser and

007superintendency and cabinet. Um, thank you for inviting us here to celebrate these two young men. Um, what an amazing season. Uh, not only did they were they the number one pair, not only did they, uh, you know, both, uh, play on the national team and do very well. Um, these two young men went undefeated through the season, uh, and, uh, won the state championship in the in straight sets over the number one seed, Mountain View, um, which they happen to be related to, part of that team. So, um, it was, uh, it was quite a quite a night to see and and quite a quite a season for these two and for the inaugural season of boys beach volleyball in the state of Arizona. Um, and these two will forever be the first two to

008win the pair of state championship. Congratulations. [applause] All right. At this time, I would like to invite Higgley High head football coach Eddie Zubie up. And I'm going to have him stand in the middle and then we're going to talk about him and his team. So, the 6A All Central Region Coach of the Year, Coach Eddie Zubie. So, Coach Zubie not only won the uh the region coach of the year, which is voted on by the region for the performance of what happened on the football field, but we're going to take this time to celebrate and recognize something else that's really really an outstanding um recognition for not just uh coach Zubie, but for his players and for the fans at Higgley High School. So, the Arizona Intercolastic Association, the AIA ranks sportsmanship in three

009different categories, coaches, players, and fans. And at the end of every game, the referees score them. So, they actually the referees give the schools a scorecard. We also give the refs a scorecards, but vice versa, they score us. Okay? And this year, for the first time ever in 5A or 6A, during the regular season, Higgley High had perfect scores from referees for every single home and away game that they played for sportsmanship. And so, what an outstanding thing for Eddie as the leader, but for our coaches, our players, and our fans and their participation at those games. So, let's give them a round of applause. [applause] I will say, no, no, we're not done yet. We're going to have pictures. Okay. So, for this 6A sportsmanship award, again, I I did get notified that one

010referee in a playoff game gave him a 4.5 instead of a five. So, it wasn't exactly perfect, but I don't know what you said, coach, but we were close. Anyway, um, congratulations to Coach Zubie, um, and and the entire staff and everyone on the sportsmanship award as well as the coach of the year again, Eddie Zubie. [applause] All right. At this time, we are now going to do our points of pride. And so, while we're getting ready for the PowerPoint to come up, uh, Centennial is going to be first. So, can you guys come down and let's uh let's celebrate the centennial crew. [snorts] [applause] >> All right, President Wade, board members and cabinet, thank you for having us. This is one of the best nights for us because we get to recognize our staff.

011Um, and I just want everybody centennial, will you wave and cheer? We have a lot of centennial here. Um, [applause] so thank you Centennial family for being here. We're going to kick it off with Victoria Curio Leos, our student. Points of pride. Come on up. [cheering] So, I have to say Victoria, every single day that she arrives at um parent drop off, she gets out of that car with a big smile, greets myself, Mr. Rogers and everyone on duty. Says good morning in the hallway. She'll say good morning. Has a smile on her face, works hard, and is an outstanding Centennial Cardinal. Phenomenal student. I do want to read a message from her fifth grade teacher, Miss Ray. She says, "Victoria is a true example of what makes our school shine. She is a positive

012bright light who greets every day who greets every day with a smile and brings joy to everyone around her, students and teachers. She's known for her kind nature and sweetheart. She is always ready to help others and be a friend to everyone. Her dedication to learning is evident in the way that she models leadership. She works hard and consistently produces quality work. She seeks to understand. She makes meaningful friendships and she li uplifts everyone around her with positivity and warmth. She truly is what makes Centennial excellent and she is a proud Cardinal. Congratulations. [applause and cheering] All right, Victoria. So, who did you bring with you tonight? >> I brought my mom and my two brothers, Martine and Miguel. >> All right. And one goes to Centennial, [applause] right? >> Oh, yeah. And one goes

013to Centennial. and brother goes to Centennial with us. All right, up next we have our teacher points of pride. Stay with me, Miss Holloway. [cheering] [screaming] All right, Miss Holloway is a sixth grade teacher. She truly is a remarkable educator. She shows up every day for Centennial. She builds strong relationships and connections with her students and their families, creating a classroom environment where everyone feels valued and supported. Her lessons spark curiosity and keep students excited to learn. The impact Miss Holloway has on her students lasts well beyond elementary. Former students often, and I mean often, every event, return to Centennial during their middle school and beyond to visit her. at our annual pumpkin lighting event. I can't count how many times I was stopped and asked, "Where's Miss Holloway? Where's Miss Holloway?" I said, "She

014will be here." And then they reported back that she was there and they saw her. They're eagerly awaiting her arrival. And that is a clear testament to the love and admiration that she has for what she does. Not only is she an outstanding teacher, but she's a dedicated team player who supports her team, modeling the best practices of learning and professional learning communities. And her leadership to our staff, and her commitment to share that same message. Her passion, dedication, and ability to connect with the students and our staff make her one of Centennial's most loved and respected teachers. We're super proud to celebrate Liz Holloway. [applause and cheering] All right. So, up next, we want to recognize our um classified staff points of pride, Miss Kelly. [cheering] So, Miss Kelly, um she is a dedicated

015par profofessional. She supports our kindergarten, first grade, and fourth grade students with an incredible care and skill. Miss Kelly has a kind and compassionate heart and her ability to connect with and support her students is truly remarkable. She knows each child so well and helps them navigate challenging moments and big emotions with patience and understanding. Her warm smile, positiv positivity, can do attitude and kindness make her a true asset to our Centennial family. We are so grateful for all she does. >> [applause] >> All right. And we'd also like like to recognize our volunteer points of pride, Miss Nelson. [applause and cheering] From the moment that she joined our PTO, she jumped in as a key member and quickly became a huge part of our campus community. Her dedication is so strong that you might

016think that she's an employee. She's often on campus lending a helping hand wherever needed. Miss Nelson brings fresh ideas, endless energy, and a heart for service. Her generosity, kindness, and love for Centennial shine through in everything she does. Parents and volunteers like Miss Nelson make a lasting impact on our students and teachers, and we are beyond grateful for what she gives back to our school. Thank you, Miss Nelson, for being such an incredible part of our Centennial family. [applause and cheering] >> Who did you bring with you? >> I brought my husband, my current cardinal, Theodore, and my current little Spartan future Cardinal, Montgomery. [applause] >> And Miss Kelly, who'd you bring? >> Uh, my family and my awesome co-workers. >> [applause] >> All right, Miss Holloway, who' you bring? I have my parents here

017and both my kids who are former former Cardinals as well and lots of my awesome staff. Thank you, co-workers. Thank you. >> Woohoo. [applause] All right, I'll give the mic back. [laughter] >> You don't want me to keep this too long. >> I don't All right, big rig, you're up. Madame President, members of the board, members of cabinet, thank you so much for the opportunity to shout out these Coronado coyotes. At Coronado, we have a saying, we are one. one staff, one school, one community, and and the folks here would say, "Hey, it's a team effort." But tonight, we're going to shine the spotlight on these four individuals. And so with that, the first person I'm going to introduce you to is Miss Packer. So come on up, Miss Packer. [cheering] [applause] So in Higgley,

018uh, our vision is to make sure that students have limitless opportunities. Miss Packer is one of the huge reasons why Coronado Coyotes have limitless opportunities. So, I'm going to talk straight at you. What I appreciate about you, Miss Packer, is from day one when you set foot on our campus, your enthusiasm for kids and for learning and the constant growth that you show for yourself as well as elevating everyone else to that professionalism and that excitement for kids. So, I really appreciate that. And with that, you represent a number of great certified people and they have cheered you on as well. And so with that, thank you, Miss Packer, for all that you do for kids. [applause] Now, Miss Packer, who did you bring? >> I brought my entire coyote family. [cheering] >> Thank you.

019So sweet. >> Okay, I get the honor of introducing our parent volunteers. So, Miss Aviar, Sharon Alvar, will you come on up, please? Okay. Miss Alvar has been a volunteer and has supported uh students and staff at Coronado for many, many years. She has served as a classroom volunteer as well as a hospitality chair for PTO. Uh she is constantly working behind the scenes making memorable events for both students and staff doing everything with excellence and really setting an example of positivity and student centered priorities. Thank you for everything you do. [cheering] [applause] >> So who did who did you bring with you? >> I brought my husband Ryan, my two children Sophia and Jacob, and my mom Diane. >> Cool. [applause] Miss Diane, nice job. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, I'm gonna

020introduce our classified staff, Miss Alyssa Grotto. Come on down, Miss Alyssa. [cheering] >> Thank you. Now, Miss Grotto, uh something that I appreciate about you is no matter who you are working with, that compassion and care that you show to every single student. Um you cheer on every single individual and you also cheer on other certified staff and and really just all the people that are a part of Coronado. And I know that with uh some of the students that you work with, even the the fact that they're non-verbal, they are still connecting and communicating with you and that level of professionalism. So, I know you stepped into a new role as a pair professional, but I knew you'd be a fantastic pair professional because of just the care that you have for kids and

021that professionalism that you carry yourself with. And so, you have shown a great job with that this year and all the other years that we've worked with. So, thank you so much. Now, who did you bring with you? >> I brought my husband, my son, my daughter's at practice, and then my coyote team. [applause] Okay. And last but certainly not least is our student. Come on up, Cassandra Hayes. [applause and cheering] And we received lots of comments from teachers for Cass from Cass for about Cassandra. And so I'm just going to read those and let them speak for themselves. So Cassandra is not only a dedicated student, but a dedicated friend and partner. The effort she puts into her classwork goes above and beyond what's expected. She puts in extra work to make sure she

022fully grasps the concepts we are learning. She treats others with dignity and respect. Cassandra has always been a model student who is respectful, passionate about getting involved and participating at her highest potential. Cassandra would always lend a helping hand, setting up activities, volunteering to help her peers without any rewards. Cassandra is not afraid to think outside the box. She is a talented artist. I appreciate that she always is respectful when talking to others. She continues to be a leader in our band class. She is dedicated, reliable, and hugely talented. Her musical growth has been amazing and I know she will continue to be su successful in everything she does. And I got like two more cuz she is that amazing. Cassandra is an incredible example of creativity and determination. Her character shines with wonderful qualities

023that she never strays from. Cassandra makes huge strides in all that she does as a drama student. She's always prepared and goes above and beyond in her role. She is confident, competent, and is a friend and example to all. Thank you for everything you do, Cassandra. [applause] And who did you bring with you tonight? I brought my parents and my brother. [applause] Congratulations everybody. [applause] [cheering] So, we'll take just a little bit. If you guys want to go ahead and exit, you can. Then we'll talk about upcoming events and move on. But we appreciate everyone coming and supporting people tonight. Sounds like it's a little loud out there. I don't know about you guys, but upcoming events. So, on Wednesday, December 10th and the 17th, we continue to hold fast nights at Williamsfield High School

024to help and support those collegegoing students and their parents. I'm sure no one's counting down, but December 22nd through January 5th is winter break when we have no school. When we do return, we have Thursday, January 8th at 5:00 p.m. is our district spelling bee at the HCPA. And our next board meeting after tonight will be Tuesday, January 13th at 5:30. And that concludes the superintendent report. [snorts] [clears throat] >> Thank you, Mr. Latzenheiser. We will now move to a public hearing to discuss the fiscal year 2026 budget revision number one. Mrs. Rush Camp, >> Amanda or President Wade, I'm sorry. >> Yes. What's up? >> Um, could we just Tiffany's online could we please check that she can hear us and we can hear her? Miss Schultz, can you hear us? >> Oh, well,

025hello. Can you Can you hear us? >> Okay. Yes, I can. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Okay. [clears throat] We will now move to the public hearing. Go ahead, Miss Brush Camp. >> All right. President Wade, members of the board. Um tonight we are going to look at the current year FY26 um budget revision. This this was not a required uh revision from ad. >> Okay. So again, this for the district was an optional revision. I don't know if they're still working. >> Okay. So again, that's >> that sounds better. Yes. Thank you. So again, this is um an optional revision. We were not notified by AD. Well, we did receive our letter that we did not require a revision for the December budget because we were within the limits of the budget. However, the

026district did choose to revise it just to catch up on a few things since the June 24th adopted budget, which if you remember at that time there was not a state budget in place. So, there were several unknown factors that we are going to try and capture here. So just the timeline of where we have been with this current year's budget. June 10th, we had a preliminary budget which we then took on June 24th and adopted that budget. That is what we have been using to this point. We did not revise in September and now today December 9th is what we are looking at. And the main thing is to adjust. We had received some one-time funds and then also adjust ADM to where we were at for our November count was the latest that

027we have from AD. So a few of the highlights that have changed since June. Um we will we've received our budget 75. So that's something that AD sends out once the AFR has been completed. They take our actual numbers and then adjusts that to what budgets we had put in place and that picks up also the carry forward for both M and capital and then also reconciles our 2580mm which was down slightly from what we had adopted in June. the budget 25 that looks at the current year and every month it checks what the district is projecting against what AD is projecting for the budgets. So our actual ADM is down 259 or 2.16% from the prior year. When we had and this is unweed and when we had adopted the budget we had 11,711

028ADM we are down 16.8 for that. So we are going to adjust for that as well. And then we also are phasing down the override. So with that we had picked up because in June we did know that. So um that's just trueing up the numbers from what AD is projecting. This slide just kind of shows the history. The top brownish orange color is the K8 students. So or it includes preschool as well. So you can see historically for the last five years we have been steadily declining in enrollment and then the bottom blue line that is our grades 912 high school where we have been pretty stable. We we did increase this year. This looks at surrounding districts in the East Valley comparing the unweighted. So again, that is just the actual students in

029the seats before we add any weights to them. Looking at the different districts from 25 to where we are in November of this year, you can see there are two schools that have increased. Queen Creek and then Benjamin Franklin and then the rest of these schools have been declining in enrollment. And something to note is ALA is only one CTSD number. So we cannot break out for comparisons to the East Valley um what their enrollment would be. And private schools do not have to share their enrollment. So looking at the budget revision and looking at the differences from where we were in June to where we are today. Again, as I'd mentioned, our ADM went down slightly from what we had budgeted. So we will adjust for that. That's about a loss of $130,000. the

030revenue control limit, which is what our budget is before we have any add-ons or transfer any money. That actually went up $412,000, which is unique since we did lose enrollment. However, what we did have happen was our schedule B weights, specifically sped. we had taken in several higher need sped students that the weights are higher on them. So that has ended up being about an increase of $621,000 in sped funding. And if you remember last month, we did take to the board an increase for our private day schools of $400,000. So you can see how the two of those tie together. That is why we had to ask for that increase because we do have a greater need. And we also adjusted for there was a slight reduction in the K3 weights. So when it

031all balance out uh it's slightly over 400,000 addition as we do every year we transfer 3.55 million from M over to capital. That is so we can pay for the middle school leases. they have to be paid from in capital. So that's why we make that transfer. We tred up the override. So about another $39,000 we will be receiving from that based on AD's calculations. Our budget balance carry forward where we projected to be in June was 20,000 20,700,000. We came in at 21,869,000. So, we've increased about 1.17 million. Part of that has to do with the one-time funding that we had moved on. We had taken some of the one-time funding we had placed it in capital, ade placed it in M. So when the budget 75 came up to true up our numbers

032from last year, there was an increase of a little over half a million dollars from that one-time funding. So we are following what AD has done and that has accounted for that. We also had savings about quarter of a million dollars from ESI that we had those expenses in place. We had that the funds encumbered. We did not end up using as much as we expected for substitute teachers. That saved us about a quarter of a million. And then we had about $150,000 in savings from some of our sped POS that were out there and weren't fully utilized. So again, that's from where we ended 25. That money then carries over into this year. So that's what makes up that 1.16 along with several smaller items as well. For this fiscal year, we are going

033to receive three different one-time supplementals. Again, we did not pick these up in June as they were unknown. So, for M, we are going to take the free and reduced funding. It's about $157,000. We are going to place that in M. We have the option between M and capital or DAA. So, we will place that in M. So when you compare where we were in June to where we are today, M will be going up about 1.778 million. Looking at the district additional assistance or what we call capital from June to December, uh we had that slight loss with the ADM. So that affects uh what we will receive for budget. Again, we have our transfer coming over for the middle school leases. That did not change. We have carry forward in this uh budget

034as well of slightly over $1 million. That was from again about a half half a million that we had placed in the capital fund in our general ledger but did not come over from ade. And then we had maintenance had well $350,000 in unspent construction projects. And for it, we had security cameras that we have been doing for the schools. We budgeted for that money last year, did not spend it knowing that we were going to get the cameras in in July. So that had to carry that budget over. That was about $170,000. And then we also had some funds in ED services that were not spent. So as I mentioned, there were three one-time supplementals. The one we will pick up in M. The other two, one is the state aid supplement that is

035similar to the Prop 123. And then we have a one-time DAA supplement that's just under 1.2 million. We are choosing at this time to put that into capital to help um with some needs that we have coming up for the buildings. So the capital budget is going to go up about 2.2 million. And then looking to next year for fiscal year 27, we will have our first budget review at the January 13th meeting. That that time we will talk about recommendations for budget reductions due to enrollment loss. We have been running around 300 ADM loss every year. So every year our budget is naturally declining for loss of ADM similar to as you could see the other districts in the east valley who are also declining. And we will also have recommendations for the M

036override phase down due to the second renewal failure. And then at the January 27th meeting, we will be finalizing the budget reductions that I just mentioned. And then by March 6th, we will have our third review for M. And that will be so that we can get the contracts sent out by March 15th or next year. And then on April 7th, we will take our first look at the budget for the capital. [clears throat] And with that, I can take any questions. Do we have any questions or comments from the board? >> It's in order of what's on here. So, it's there after that we have any questions before um I was just curious if we'll get the uh three-year financial impact that we discussed. Mr. Mr. Lenheiser, I didn't know if you were going

037to present it tonight or >> that's going to be when we get to the information. >> Oh, okay. So, it will be tonight. Okay. >> Yeah. So, this is the public hearing that's going is it this is actually a great segue then into the budget discussion that's coming up within the um within the information items. And so, that's when that bar chart that we talk about, I'll display that. >> All right. I'll wait till then. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Does any member of the public have any comments or questions regarding the fiscal year 2026 revised budget? [snorts] >> Can can you um hit your microphone on for me? I appreciate it. Travis White. Um, I wasn't actually planning on asking a question here, but I saw um that line chart and I think

038the ADM is something I've seen before when I was growing up in my neighborhood. Right. I think I'm interested in like how you guys are thinking about that number going down and what things we can potentially do to draw people in, right? like as our district becomes um more expensive, which it naturally has, and people are not moving out, right, the kids are going to phase out of the schools. Like that's certainly going to happen. Like what what other things have you guys thought about doing to try and bring more outside people in to try and you know fix that curve of or that you know that trend line. Thanks. >> In in response um to to the question, I think that's always the question we have is what can we do to our schools

039to attract more kids, right? whether we're looking at specific programming to have happen or how can we look at and yes as a district we are exploring different models that we can do things to help promote what we have because we al some honestly have some really excellent programs that perhaps are not being discussed as much as they could be. So we want to make sure people do know all the different opportunities they have as well as what different kind of programmatic changes we can make to attract more kids within our district. Uh I'm not prepared to go into any specifics because I don't want to bind us to anything as we're looking forward as we're going through these budget discussions for next year, but those are definitely conversations that we have internally as well.

040>> And go ahead. >> Okay. [clears throat] >> All right. Oh, do you have a statement? Um I I agree that um you know that is something that we need to look at. Um as our enrollment is declining. We see that Queen Creek is increasing and so we need to consider, you know, what else can we do or [clears throat] excuse me or what are we doing that we could potentially change in order to attract more families or prevent um a future loss. Um, also I I know I've mentioned this before um and I believe that when students are um when families do withdraw that they are given documentation that asks them uh reason why they're uh leaving and I believe that information is is saved in Synergy um which I don't know if we

041can pull reports from Synergy that shows these reasons. But again, it's something that I would like to see uh what reasons families are giving. Um [snorts] also, [clears throat] um I'm I'm glad to see that there's, you know, additional money uh that is being added to our carry forwards. Um, and you know that that gives us more opportunities um more funding to utilize. Um, but I I'm looking forward to um the next conversation um to see projections. Thank you. >> May I? Um well, thank you for bringing up that point. uh for my money I it's important for us all of us as we uh address these budget challenges to hear from as many people as we can. I really don't want it to be just the the the people that s sitting right here

042making any or all of the decisions about uh things that we can cut or uh things that we should beef up etc. It should be a combined effort. So I am I really want to hear from people that have ideas. Um, I particularly especially want to hear from our staff as we discuss um budgets and to to find out what is working, what do they like, what can we do better, uh, and what's not working. Uh, I think I've been part of districts where that was heavy-handed and it was done [snorts] by administrators and without buyin of staff. and that uh I think the wounds of that from gez 2008 still I still have scars uh and I think a lot of people do. So my focus as a board member is always make this

043a great place where kids want to come to learn and the people who work here want to come to work and the people who drop their kids off want to drop their kids off. So I'm open to any ideas. It's difficult when you're cutting budgets, but sometimes that's an opportunity to get rid of some things that are, you know, dragging you down. Um, so, but I've always believed that and in any business, if you have a great product, people will come. And our focus should be on making our schools as as great as they can be. Uh, so that people want to come here because word does get around. Um, I just wish to echo obviously I agree that we need to look at what we can do to continue to attract families. I also

044wish to reiterate what ADM loss means. Doesn't mean that we're necessarily losing families. In fact, we saw from Mr. Moore the number of families that we've had leave. It doesn't mean that we've had zero, but are very, very small. It was like less than 15. Um, ADM loss is enrollment based off of our leaving senior class and our incoming kinder class. And so that disparity matters and it's something that the nation is dealing with because we have a lower birth rate. And so it doesn't mean that we don't continue to look at our programs and continue to look at ways in which we can make Higgley desirable. I just think it's important that we always are remembering why it is that we are in this position because it's not as if we're having a mass

045flux of folks leaving our district so much as we are having less children as a result of you know life. So that's important. [clears throat] We are Go ahead. >> No, go ahead. >> I was going to reconvene an open session. Um, as reported in this presentation, we did lose 259. Um, and that's that's a pretty large loss. uh when we're looking at what's incoming and what's outgoing and the difference um then it looks little. But if it would be great to concentrate on the whole picture of the 259 that left um and what's coming in and if we were able to keep all of it then that would be a huge amount of money coming into the district. But also when we consider uh birth rate uh we also have to look at um

046we can't really say it's it's birth rate considering uh we have schools that are around us that have waiting lists um for those age um levels and so it's not necessarily all birth rate I that is an issue do. Um but when we look at our surrounding schools that have um enrollment going up um and birth rates not impacting them uh but it's impacting us that that's also a a problem. >> Again um I agree with you and I think that matters but to be clear the 259 is based off of our leaving senior class and our incoming kinder class. So that does not mean that we've had 259 families leave. It means we have 259 less students overall because our outgoing senior class was greater than our incoming kinder class. Am I wrong in

047those numbers, Miss Rush Camp? In terms of how we decide what ADM loss looks like, President Wade, members of the board, [clears throat] um that is part of it. And I mean there's several things that go into it as well, but you're right, the cohorts have been smaller. So, as we continue to go up, they are smaller cohorts moving up. Yeah. >> Each year. >> I appreciate it. And again, I I do think we need to continue to make Higgley competitive and I think that is always something that we should keep in mind. I just wish to express we're not having people leave our district in mass numbers. Uh maybe we don't have as many coming here as we would like and that is definitely something we should address. Mr. Do you don't want to

048say anything, Mr. Glover? Are you sure? All right. Great. Good talk. Okay. >> Yeah. And just there was a um [clears throat] I don't remember which board meeting it was where there was pres we were presented with 200 and some that left and I believe it was like 3 316 that came in and the difference was like 21. Um so that was different from this number but that did show over 200 students that left. Um, so, uh, I might not, you know, I'm not going necessarily off the 259 here. That's the difference you're talking about, but we've also been presented with the number over 200 that have left. >> Uh, President Wade, can you guys can you remind us of the protocol um of how we do reach out to people who do leave the

049district, what their discrepancies are? I'm sure there's privacy constraints on that, but those are great questions to have. I'm sure there's a little flux and all that we've mentioned tonight. It also may be moving, but is there can we just get an update on what the district does when people decide? >> Yeah, we we we can definitely look at that and please know that it's it's an optional thing for parents to provide us that information. And so if it comes back to you and you say, "Wait a minute, I expected a lot more than parents don't tell us." Okay. But yes, we can look at that. >> Okay. And then also maybe the principles, more of the um the on-site admin, they might have more insight. So yeah, I don't know if we need a

050direct uh superintendent Lenheiser, but that would be helpful information. So thank you so much for bringing this up, >> Madam President. >> President Wade. >> Yeah. Go ahead, Michel. >> Sorry, Mr. Glover, if you wanted to go first. >> I I'll just go ahead. Um, I just want to say I think the focus is on the wrong thing right here and what the speaker was talking about. And I know um that Mr. Lsonheiser has ideas on um expanding our programs or being able to attract more students. And the real issue is that people can't afford to live in Gilbert, so we're not getting as many students. Convenience. If you live in Queen Creek, you want to go to Queen Creek. So, how we can attract them with our great programs? We know Bridges is on

051a wait list. Um what we can do with our other schools to get them all on a wait list as well. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. The only other thing, you know, as as Higgley approaches, you know, build out and uh we all are wrestling and and many of us in the East Valley are wrestling with declining enrollment. The only other challenge I have for uh the cabinet is at some point, you know, some of this adjustments when you lose students, it means moving teachers around to where the enrollments are. Uh and so just to make sure that we have a very solid framework for how we move people and how we deal with attrition. This is one good way to to deal with with budgets. But it's it's difficult. I think it should be

052done in consultation with the teachers and and so that they understand and it's not just you know moving people that are that are blindsided that have maybe spent 20 years at a school but there's no more there's not you know four fifth grades there anymore so somebody's got to go how do you do that? So, just to make sure that we maybe revisit that plan and make sure it's clear for people and uh it involves uh the staff who's doing that work. Okay, great. Thank you, Miss Rush Camp. Uh we're now going to reconvene in open session. This is the last call for request to speak. [clears throat] Next on the agenda are the requests to speak. So, please play the video. >> [music] >> We value input from our constituents. This time on our

053agenda has been set aside [music] for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board. Those that wish to speak [music] should have filled out speaker cards which are due prior to the start of our meeting. Members of the board may not discuss, [music] comment, or take action on matters raised that are not specifically identified on the agenda. Therefore, pursuant to ARS 38-431.01i, [music] action taken as a result of public [music] comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter, responding to any criticism, or scheduling [music] the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date. Also, we ask [music] that audience members practice proper public meeting decorum, refraining from either negative or positive [music] responses, including clapping or verbal outbursts to ensure fairness to all points of view. Those that

054refuse [music] to follow these rules may be asked to leave. In accordance with policy [music] beedh public participation at board meetings, if considered necessary, the governing [music] board president shall set a time limit on the length of the comment period in order to ensure that each individual has an opportunity to address [music] the board. The president may also set a time limit for individual speakers. Thank you for your cooperation. [music] [cough and clears throat] Up first we have Jill Skolred. Yeah screen it's on. Thank you. Um governing members, superintendent cabinet, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Jill Skullroo and I'm the orchestra and choir teacher at Sausman Middle School. I moved to this position this school year after teaching the elementary orchestra for seven years. You heard last month from some of my

055colleagues about the value of music in a child's education. It provides those students with better cognitive development, mathematical skills, emotional expression, time management, and social skills. For those students who play an instrument, studies have shown that they develop even greater in these areas. What you may not know is I was the original before school teacher for the orchestra program when Higgley pulled orchestra out of the elementary schools. We were K8 schools at the time and grades 4 through 8. We met at the HCPA 7 a.m. class in a 7:45 a.m. class. That was 2007. It was then 10 years 10 years before Higgley was able to put elementary orchestra in school day again. 10 years of affecting our high school orchestras. During those 10 years, we did develop and have the middle schools and they

056did or offer orchestra at the el at the middle school and high school level. But once we put the orchestra back in during school at the elementaryaries, we saw big growth in both uh middle school and our high schools. In fact, Higgley High School orchestra is so large, it really needs to be split into two right now. Yet, here we are. For you to decide what will stay and what will go. And I fear if we go backwards, we will see families leave for districts that do support the performing arts. I just want to remind you of two things. First, some of these decisions will have long-term effects, not just a year or two. Second, for some of our students, it is their music class, orchestra, band, choir that get them to school each day.

057That is where they feel like they belong and are accepted. In closing, I want to personally invite you to my winter concerts. It's this coming Monday at Sals Middle School, 6:00 for choir, 7 for orchestra. Please come and see my amazing students who might be affected by these decisions. see these students perform, hear all their hard work. I hope to see you there. Thank you for your time. [clears throat] Thank you. Next, we have Travis White. Good evening, President Wade, members of the board, superintendent, district leadership, and community members. My name is Travis and I'm a proud parent of a kindergartener in the Mandarin dual immersion uh program at Coronado Elementary. I know that some of the conversations you're having right now are difficult and tonight is not the night for answers. Um however, I

058hope that you are working to prioritize creative solutions to keep our Mandarin program and our elementary specials intact. like she said, you know, I think that the specials and these things, it really gets the kids excited for school. And I know that that is something that is really important. In a global economy, language skills open doors. Our Mandarin students are gaining not just vocabulary, but cultural understanding, confidence, and opportunities that will follow them for the rest of their lives. Thank you for your time, your advocacy, and your belief in our students. Let's keep showing that together we got this and that our community's values are measured not only in what we say but in what we choose to fund. >> Thank you. Next we have Jeremy Brewer. Good evening, President Wade, Governing Board, Higgley District

059Cabinet, and all in attendance. My name is Jeremy Brewer. I'm a music and band teacher of 23 years uh now in Higgley and I've had the pleasure of serving at least over 7,000 students in my time here including teaching uh governing board member Van Van Hook's uh two daughters band and music years ago. Hope they're doing well. Um and I'm not saying it that way like we're old or anything just it it has been a little while. Um I also come as an extremely busy father of 10 adopted children with special needs. 16 family members in my house currently we are taking care of. I'm a busy music teacher with four extra clubs. My hope is that realization of how busy I am and I'm coming a second month underlies the importance of why I'm

060here again speaking to you and that you will seriously consider my thoughts tonight. I come because music and all specials and electives are essential for children. We must make hard decisions in order to keep these programs thriving. Some key numbers I'd like to share tonight. Uh there are roughly about 1,850 combined fifth and sixth grade students in our district. Of that 1850, almost 800 fifth and sixth grade students attend band and orchestra, which comes out to about 43% of our fifth and sixth grade population participating. Why this matters? Music engages the entire brain, one of the very few activities in this world that does so. Reese research shows students in these programs succeed more in life compared to their peers who do not. The Arizona Department of Education requires K5 students to have a minimum

061of at least two arts disciplines for 90 minutes weekly. Sixth grade, the requirements are even more, and I don't remember what they are exactly. Cutting these programs and any other elementary specials would overload our classroom teachers, reduce their prep time, and drive both teachers and families away, worsening the budget crisis. These programs and the teachers that run them often are the reason why parents and families stay with Higgley. Um, on top of the amazing educators that we have here, we truly have the best staff and I'm proud to say I work in Higgley. I urge you to use creative solutions as last time. And here are a few suggestions. Uh, one, let's not tie elementary specials funding to future overrides. That should be something we provide no matter what because these subjects matter and make

062a difference for students. Uh, two, we have a large carryover of M funding that we could use to sustain programs for at least two years while we work on refining our budget. Three, this is a thought I had when I was looking up some stuff. We could explore re reallocating surplus funds. Like for example, um, if I read it right, we have extra capital funds of like $10 million or something. If that's the case, could that could we possibly pause the M transfers for the middle school leases that are three and a half million for a couple years to offset that, use that surplus, and then use that M to help balance stuff until we refine everything and really get the budget where it needs to be for our current um ADM situation. Now, I

063don't have all the answers because I don't work the budget um but you do. And um I just want to re reiterate in Higgley we got this and we want students to say that too. Thank you. [clears throat] >> Go ahead. >> Yeah. >> Um I just uh I didn't hear the date of the Sman event. >> Monday. if we can get that added to our calendar, please. Thank you. [clears throat] Okay. Um, this brings us to consent agenda items. I motion to approve the consent agenda items 6.1 through 6.10. Sec. That would be Miss Garing. All those in favor? >> I. >> Miss Schultz, was that an I? >> It was. >> Okay. And did you say I as well? Motion carries five to zero. We would like to thank Asbo, Higgley High Booster

064Club, Ashley Bramble, and John and Shereice Lunt for their generous donations to the district and its students. [clears throat] Next, this brings us to item 7.1, uh, K through 5 ELA highquality instructional materials adoption recommendations. Miss Davis. >> Good evening, um, board president Wade and members of the board. I'm going to walk you guys through what we've been doing so far with our adoption and our, um, recommendations. So what you see before you is our process that we've been going through um starting off with developing our scope and sequence or I'm sorry our scope of work for what will we what we would go through and look for in an adoption for ELA. Um also developing the evaluation tools and then forming our steering committee who would oversee or who does oversee the process and

065make the final recommendations and just ensure that everything's running smoothly. And then in that next phase is where we um released an application for community members, teachers, admin um and other staff to join the district review committee. And that committee is the one who evaluates um all the materials that come in through the RFP. Um lots of fun reviewing those materials. And that is also when we open that RFP. And sorry, I just combined phase one and phase two. Um and in phase two, we also did a lot of trainings with our district review committee to ensure that everybody was stepping forward on the right foot with the same knowledge base um of the Arizona standards of the science of reading and research best practices for instruction around ELA. And that brings us now to

066phase three. We have our final um recommendations or we have our first set of recommendations to then go into our 60-day public review. So we're here for our first read of those recommendations. So to kick it off, we do have laws around an ELA adoption. So I just want to highlight those, especially around K3 because we have the move on reading law. So that means that we need to have um a diagnostic and a screener assessment that gets to evidence-based core reading curriculum, teacher training, evidence-based reading research, time to um explicit evidence based core reading instruction. So we have to have that included in whatever program that we would adopt. And then um we also have to ensure that it is supported by AD. So AD gives us a certain list of materials that they

067have approved based on efficacy reports that the um vendor has supplied. And then we also have to do um per ARS 15721 a 60-day public review once we have brought those materials to you similar to what we did with the novel committee and the supplemental material committee. And then of course we also take into consideration um ARS 15120.0 03. However, this was also written when we were doing like the whole K12. This really wouldn't play any effect here in K5. Oops. Sorry. Oh, I'm clicking the wrong way. Can you move me back a couple slides? It won't let me reverse. I don't think it's letting me reverse. There we go. Sorry. Okay, I just want to take a quick moment to thank our steering committee. Um, it was full of um some great people from

068the district office and also representatives from our sites just to again ensure that we have um a group that is overseeing the process and ensuring that um all the eyes are dotted and tees are crossed and making that final recommendation. So, thank you to that crew. Um that's basically what this slide is saying as well. So I apologize that I went ahead. Um this group also I didn't name this out loud. They are the group that reviewed that scope of work that was created in the beginning process beginning of the process and that evaluation criteria. So they are kind of like the final read before that goes public into the RFP. Wow. It is I don't do well with animations as you can see and I forgot to take the animations out. So then we

069have the district review committee and this group had a very tough job. It was time there's a lot of time involved in this. Um they had to come to a lot of trainings as well. So just to talk about the makeup of this membership. Um it was done via application. It was out on our website and in newsletters. Um and we wanted to ensure that teachers had a good voice in this because they are the ones that will then be using it. Um so we selected one teacher per grade level. um via application and then site admin approval. And then we also wanted to ensure that our parents, guardians, community members also had a say um in reviewing the materials and same things with our administrators. So we ended up with 15 teachers across the

070Higgley school district um representing each grade level um AP courses and special education. We had four administrators um including an instructional coach. And then for parents and guardians, we did start off with eight um parents or guardians um or community members with two alternates. However, um we had two of two parents um withdraw, I'm sorry, withdrew right away once they found out how much was involved even though that was sent out in advance. The dates didn't line up for them. And with the alternate also withdrew because she got a new assignment. And then as we went through the process, three others had to resign due to personal reasons. So we ended up with four and they really spoke up quite well for what was what they wanted as parents. Um so that's where we went

071with [clears throat] the district review committee and here are some of their roles that they played. Like I mentioned, we had the mandatory training for them. So they came three evenings um to talk about our state standards, the science of reading, what best practices are based on research for ELA and what makes up a good um core curriculum for both phonics and um K5 throughout the rest of the grade levels. Um the big thing that we really pushed with them was the confidentiality and conflict of interest. If you are a member of either committee, you had to uphold that confidentiality and not go out and talk to your colleagues about what adoption you were excited about, what material came in. It had to stay locked down. And then um just being part of the process

072and completing those evaluations. We had three full days of evaluation. Um, you can see all the dates up here, dates and times. And we also provided a makeup day in case anybody wasn't able to complete all of the evaluations because everybody had to evaluate every material in order for that to count. So, our trainings were held um August 20th through September 3rd and then that set us up to be able to start the reviews on September 10th and we completed those on November 7th. So up on the screen you will see our evaluation um criteria. We had a Microsoft form that they completed and we used a summit of score at the end. They were evaluating on a skill score one to four um one saying there's little to no evidence for being there is

073strong evidence of these existing within the um instructional material. So in K3 for our core phonics we were looking to see that there's strong evidence of the science of reading that they are aligning to the Arizona state standards and that there is a explicit and systematic um scope and sequence um for all the phonics skills and the core phonics is really getting at the foundation foundations of reading phonics skills uh phological awareness phmic awareness even getting into fluency practice as Well, so that we're setting a solid base for our K3 students as to how to read so that when we move them into um the next phase of reading, the what are we reading phase, they are ready for success there. In K5 for that comprehensive core ELA um evaluation, again, we're looking at the

074science of reading. We're looking at um alignment to the Arizona standards. We're looking to see if that program has complex text, a variety of texts, chance for students to engage multiple times with that text, engage with um text dependent questions. Does it actually have a writing curriculum built in there as well? Because we want our students to be both readers and writers. Um and just ensuring that it builds with the students. And if those texts are um rich and um I think I already said the word complex, but I'm just going to repeat it again because that is the biggest part of this that we're building their background knowledge for the students. And it's that is true for kindergarten through fifth [clears throat] grade. It doesn't start later in their years. It starts at the

075beginning of kindergarten. So now I get into the really fun part of the recommendations. So K3 core phonics, we have three recommendations and those come from their top summitive scores. So really great reading has a phonics program that came out in one of our top areas. Um to summarize what their product looks like or has they have and this will be true of all of them, they are all systematic and explicit um programs. They all just vary a little bit differently. for example, they all have decodable books. So that allows students to practice the skill immediately in a text that has that skill. So say they're working on the long a. So they might have a book that has a um a y. They might have um why can't I think of another one? Um

076an ae in there as well. So it be a decodable book that is 80% um decodable. meaning it has 80% of words that can be easily decodable by students. So they can practice that skill right away and not go to a complex text where they're not going to have success. I can immediately go in and and code with that. Um so this program is really designed for preventing those gaps for students and there's a lot of multiensory built in there. So they're using different manipulatives to help them identify different sounds in the word visually and tactile. Then we have 95 core phonics by 95%. Um, similar in design again there's working with manipulatives in there so that they can um identify their sounds as they're moving it through. Um, there is both decodables and readables

077in there. So the readables are more suited for second and third grade [clears throat] students. So there's moreformational text that can be involved. And then Wilson um, by foundations. Nope, I said that backwards. Foundations by Wilson. Um, their program is very similar as well, except for they add in a handwriting component, a stricter handwriting component. Um, that ties to how they are processing and learning the sounds and letters and tying it to their handwriting so that there is more fluent handwriting involved. We have four recommendations for the K3 comprehensive core or I'm sorry the K5 comprehensive core programs. The first one being amplify um their product is CKLA and this one follows two strands. The first one being in K3 um a skills strand. The skills is really building up their foundational uh literacy skills.

078So, that one is a phonic. It does have a built-in phonics program, but that one did not make the cut for us. Um, however, in addition to phonics in there, they have um some writing, language, grammar skills involved in that section. And then it also goes into a knowledge um pathway as well. And that knowledge pathway is building background knowledge, rich complex text, a variety of text. So that they are building knowledge. If let's say if it's a space unit, they would have a mixture of different books on space including bothformational and um non-fiction orformational and fiction texts. Um we're [clears throat] building a lot of vocabulary with this um program. All of those things. Then we go over to emerge which is by McGraill. I will note that this is a brand new product

079from McGraill. It is currently on the AD Mau list as um yellow for temporary um or yeah temporary approval pending their effic um e efficacy report. Um this one is um strong with their uh notes their science of reading and again that background knowledge building and um ties to science and social studies. So not just focused on literature there's other subjects that are being transferred within there. And then the next two we have wonders another McGraill product. Um this one is um com this product combines the foundational skills and the authentic reading and it's more um thematic than it is topic based. So when they're reading about space there's probably going to be more um fiction texts on space with a few sprinkled in non-fiction. So, they're basing it more on a a theme than

080a topic where the topic is going to really dig in deep and build that background knowledge and start with um some baseline text for them. This one is just going to kind of get in that surface area for them. And then Wit and Wisdom by Great Minds is another um background building. You'll notice a theme here. They're all background building. Um and that also has a writing built into it and even some speaking skills built in there. Um and it is an inquiry based program as well. So with that I have some next steps. So starting tomorrow only because it's the evening time we will launch our 60-day um public review. So we'll go December 10th to February 10th. It'll be held here in the district office boardroom. We'll take up that back area. Um,

081and we have also included special hours in the evening and over winter break so we can help accommodate for um, people's schedules. And then toward the end of that 60-day review, we will have the vendors come in and do their presentations. And then after all that we will take the steering committee will take the feedback and any additional information from the vendors to compile and make our decisions from there with the best and final coming in from those vendors to see which is truly going to be the best option for Higgley Unified School District. And then on March 3rd we will come to you with our final recommendation for your vote of approval. Any questions? Madame President, may I? I do. Thank you for all that. I four is a lot to go through to

082the next phase, but uh I have a really hard time hearing when Tyler was there. So, I was looking at your mouth. I heard I was there cursive was cursive discussed in here. Does any of these books cover >> handwriting in general? >> Okay. So, but in in the state, so for people that don't know, Texas and Florida is uh their standards are really what most textbooks get written for. Uh but Arizona has a grade level where we have to uh the kids have to be proficient in in cursive handwriting. So, it's an additional expense if none of these cover it. So, >> if my memory serves correctly, Foundations does have that in their level three kit, which is third grade. >> I'm sorry. Could you say that again? >> Yep. If my memory serves

083correctly, third grade for foundations foundations of >> Yeah, >> thank you. And then I had some other things if it's okay. Um, so just I just want people to understand and I also want to thank uh you know the cabinet uh for something. I'll get to my point. It'll take me a minute, but um we we did have an adoption recently uh fairly recent in recent history for ELA. Uh more recent as Mr. Walker knows than social studies. Um, we did that in good faith. It was approved. It was adopted and it has been used. Um, and we just last meeting celebrated all of our schools getting A+ ratings. Uh, as far as I know, and Mr. Burkshshire, you can correct me, but I don't think we have any students not moving on by third

084grade. Uh, okay. So, none. And yet this the department of ed has changed the criteria that we cannot use these books anymore that our students were being successful for that we've already paid for. They did not allocate any new money for that. Um so this is something that we have to absorb. The original thought was well you might as well do you know the whole thing K12 but since the override hasn't passed we have scaled back to K5. So I applaud that. that will allow us to put resources toward important things that I agree with the people who've already mentioned specials, electives, uh, and th and those kinds of things. So, but this is why people get frustrated with government. Um, we have a product that works, that we've paid for, that we've trained people

085on, and here we have to do all this work again. Um, I would say for almost really no good reason other than somebody changed their mind about something. Um, so thank you to the people on the committee who are doing all of this extra work. I appreciate it and thank you to rethinking instead of a K12 scaling it down to uh K5. And anyway, I just wanted to say make those comments. Um, I [clears throat] know that we've been using 95. Um, and but my question is the really great reading. Is that a full ELA program or is that just phonics only? >> It is just phonics only. The three um that >> we showed you, never mind the PowerPoint's not up. Um but really great reading and 95% in foundations are purely phonics programs.

086>> Okay. And do I know that um some of these uh uh curriculum companies are willing to work with districts as far as uh making sure that the curriculum does not include any ideological content. Um, is that something that we can find out if these companies are willing to do if there's content in there? Um I know for instance uh the same curriculum, not these but there uh Poria had curriculum um with Savas that SAS went in and removed uh ideological stuff out of there and was willing to work with the district um on that. So it'd be nice to know if any of these companies are willing to do that. I know um CKLA has uh a lot of um content that uh I would say overstep school's authority to be um teaching minors

087about um their one of my biggest concerns, but there there are several others that have similar things. Um, so I'd like to know if they'd be willing to do that just to be able to have neutral uh, curriculum. >> Yeah. Um, board me board member Van Hook, they are I can't say every um, vendor, but there are vendors that do work with the states in the district to ensure that they are there's alignment to meet our needs. Um I don't know how deeply they go into that but some of them do have don't quote me on this. So but like an Arizona specific book list given our um state statutes and things like that. >> Miss Vanh I'd also like to add that as part of our process those vendors come in and do a

08845minute presentation with our steering committee and then there is a 15minute period for questions for us to ask them. So, we will be aware of a lot of the feedback that's come in from the public that will allow us to provide questions to the vendors specific to the products, including concerns that may come up around certain curricular materials. >> And may I submit questions for you to ask during that presentation? >> I don't know the rules about board member involvement. We'll have to check on that. >> I mean, they're where they come in. So >> unless unless we have an opportunity to hear from these presenters, I don't see why it would be a problem to have questions for them. >> I think what I would also put out there, and cabinet, please correct me

089on this, is we also have the 60-day review out there, and it since you guys are members of the public, you would also be able to do the 60-day review and include your questions there. >> Okay. Thank you. President Wade, um, thank you so much for the presentation. I'm so excited about the phonics aspect and all that kind of stuff, but yes, I'd like to echo how it's kind of politically neutral. This is a big deal and a lot of eyes are going to be watching the next review and stuff like that. So yes, and I've heard a lot of curriculums are having to adapt to this politically neutral aspect where they create options where they eliminate certain aspects that really kind of push the line with certain parents of the community if that makes

090sense. So thank you so much for touching base with that. And I don't know if you mentioned this in the beginning, but uh we're only doing um we're not doing K through 12 because the other grades don't need it. Did you mention that? >> Correct. And I realized that I did not I just got really excited about talking about the recommendations that I skipped over that. So, thank you for my chance to go back and address that. Um, no. When we launched the adoption process, it was to do K12 and that is because HMH is no longer doing um one that curriculum is no longer in print and they're no longer doing the efficacy um paperwork that the state requires in order for it to be an approved um curriculum for Move On when reading.

091and we opted to go K12 initially so that we had that continuity of programming and with the standards. Um however 6th through 12th grade does not um have any constraints on them um where the primary grades do with the move on with reading. So that's why we stuck with the K5 um because of the failure of the override and and all of that. >> [clears throat] >> Miss Davis, I wish to express my my gratitude as well as to all staff and community members who participated in that. It's not easy to give up your time. Um it's not easy to go through what is a lot of the same information over and over again and figure out ways to do that. Um for anybody who is interested in coming in during those 60 days, correct

092me if I'm wrong, it's a lot of material. So I think that is important for you to know before you arrive here. um is that there is a lot of information in front of you. Again, there's a lot of grades, there's a lot of aspects to it. Um I encourage uh community members, even if you're not really interested in in going through things because you recognize that you can opt out of stuff or that at the end of the day, individuals who recommend certain things are the ones who are the experts in that area. I still advise you to come in. And the reason I say that is because I think it's important to take a look at just how much effort and what kind of planning goes into the curriculum that we choose goes

093into how staff plans and how we use that material because I think there's a lot of things that kind of get missed and that I don't think people really pay attention to just how much labor is involved in educating the youth. So I appreciate that. >> This bring Go ahead. >> One more thing. Sorry. Um were the uh was the schedule for the committee shared during the application process? >> It was it was part of the application. It was um both in the when I say it was also in the newsletter blurb what that would be and it was in the application. Um, but while I have a second, I would also just say for whoever is listening, if you go to our district website under community and then district committees, you'll find the um

094K5 adoption committee link. And that's where you'll find all the information about the public review and the schedule for the public review as well. >> And will will there be online curriculum that can be reviewed? Um there are digital components to each of the um instructional materials that were submitted but the d the access codes will be here um to ensure the integrity of um those codes for the companies. >> Okay. So if they so if they come here will there be computers that they can log into? >> Okay. Um, I just know it's it's a lot of material. So, to be able to review it, uh, I think we would have more participation if people had the ability to do it from home. >> So, none of the materials are 100% virtual or digital.

095Um they would be a mix of the physical like teachers edition, student consumables and um some online components for teachers. Uh, so it would be they would only be getting a fraction of that if they just did the digital codes. And like I said, for the integrity of the review, um, we would need them to be here because those codes have been distributed in other school districts, not Higgley, have been distributed and then they've received feedback from people in other countries. >> Oh, >> and we want to ensure that we are getting Higgley feedback. >> Got it. Okay. All right. Thank you. >> Yeah. And the other sorry the other thing with that is if their books were online and we wouldn't need to buy them anyway. So some of this stuff is you just

096have to touch physically touch the ancillary materials and like that. But I also wanted to compliment you. You included Mr. Schroe and some adoptions uh forget about the tech person and then it becomes a problem afterwards. It's good to make sure everything works and will be functional here in Higgley before you adopt something that you then have to go back and fix. So good job Sorry. Um, and the physical books, will they be kept in the classroom or will the students be able to take them home or how does that work? >> It would really depend on the adoption that we went with. Um, because each one is unique. Some of them is um, that was really poor grammar. Some are um, an anthology, so it would be like the actual big textbook that we're

097used to seeing. Some of them are individual trade books, so it just depend on the grade level and the adoption. Some of them are readalouds that they participate in in the classroom. Some of them are independent reads where they might need to take them home, but more than likely not in K5, they would stay in a classroom. >> Okay. I just worry about these kiddos carrying heavy books in their backpacks. >> Absolutely. [laughter] >> Thank you. [snorts] Okay, this brings us to uh Oh, thank you, Miss Davis. Item 7.26 2027 maintenance and operations budget discussions and timeline. Mr. Latsoniser, >> President Wade, members of the board and members of the community listening, one one thing that you know the goal of the discussion today is so that you as governing board members can have an

098open discussion amongst yourselves about the priorities that you have going into the budget process for next year. I think you're receiving a lot of feedback from the community, from our staff about what are the priorities. And I want people to understand that while I can meet with each of you individually and we can have these discussions, you are not allowed to get together and meet and have these discussions unless we're in a public forum, which is where it is today. And so the idea of our it's really a minimal presentation of what I have and it is what I've had in our one-on-one meetings with you. I try to digitize it. We'll see how it goes. Okay. Give me a whiteboard and we've been okay. But uh go through this and and then allow you

099to have discussions about what your priorities are so that I can with the members of the board and the cabinet then come up with plans that help support the ideas that you have help as well as when we get feedback through our meet and confer process with our teachers and uh any community members that continue to reach out. So the goal is to just tell you this is where we're at because we hear a lot of different conversation about things and to allow you guys to have a discussion together uh about what then next steps because then when when I come back in January would we down bring different options for us to discuss in beginning of January with ultimately at the end of the January making a decision about what our next steps are

100or what our budget's going to look like. The reason we're doing January because that gives us time then to have conversations with people where we might be reducing positions and so we can do that before contracts come out. So here we go. All right. So the reason I put up three years here because I think we need to look at the three-year impact of what's happening. But first and foremost, all right, we need to talk about enrollment reduction. Okay? And I want to be very specific. When we have less kids, we need less teachers and less supports. This is not related to an override. This is related to our ADM. And when we looked at our ADM and saw how there's different reductions that happen to that, we know we're going to need less. So,

101if I have less students, I'm going to have less teachers. Typically, in the past, we have gone through with attrition to help fill those because we know we do have people that leave and we just don't fill when they leave. This process would be happening if we were gaining kids. we would be coming instead of instead of saying a three million approximately $3 million loss every year we' be coming saying we're adding to our budget because we're gaining kids so this idea of enrollment whether it's reduction or loss is something that happens every single year okay I think it's been emphasized to us over the past three years because we've seen that about 300 ADM decline as it goes through so when you see that $3 million it's not an exact amount and the reason

102it's not an exact amount is because we have group of B weights And so we know that some of our students require more funding and get more funding because they require more services. And honestly within public schools and public district schools, that's a huge thing. When you just saw what happened in terms of our budget where our ADM went down, but our budget increased. How does that happen? Because the kids who came had different group B weights which then provided us different money. The flip side is going back to last month when we or two months ago when we approved changing our sped budget because we're using that money to spend it when we're outplacing them to different programs. So the $3 million is a conservative estimate in there. It's probably somewhere between three and

103$4 million when we go down to group B weights, but we're not going to know that until the kids are here. And it's hard to anticipate that early. All right. So, I just want to make sure that we understand through all of these discussions, the enrollment loss is going to be something that's going to be consistent and separated from the override and the reduction based on the override. What are we anticipating over the next two years for the override? Remember, the totality of the override was around $15 million. And so if you think about that from a five-year commitment because we got it fully funded for five years, that was $75 million that we had spread over five years. Now that we're in the reduction phase, we already reduce this year's budget by a certain

104amount. Next year, we're anticipating needing to reduce due to the override by an additional $4.8 million. The year after that, the override will be completely gone, which means we have to reduce by the last $4.2 million. And so when we start talking about where does the override reduction aligned with the reductions that we made in totality, you can see that 3 million is going to stay about consistent. That's our 300 kids. As long as we're staying at 300 kids, 300 ADM, excuse me. But the loss in the of the override is where you see the green. And I want to again just reiterate those two things because with less kids, we're going to need less teachers and less supports. But the override is where we're going to look. There's been a big question out there

105mentioned by our speakers here, mentioned by you as as um board members is carry forward. Carry forward in layman's terms is your savings account. When you don't spend everything that you budgeted, you get to keep it. This has been our savings account. We're anticipating going into this process of being about $17 million. Now, you just saw in the presentation earlier that going into this current year, not next year, we anticipated about $21 million, but because we've been given some onetime funding, it's going to increase. And that's what you saw in that earlier presentation. While we anticipate a $17 million carry forward, there are also some things that we, and I don't think this is creative, this is just ways that we could increase the carry forward. Should you want to spend the carry forward down

106on some of these programs, for instance, by us reducing from a K5 K12 adoption to a K5 adoption, we're anticipating somewhere between 500,000 to a million dollar savings. Where would that savings go into? That would go into carry forward. We would be allowed to add that into the carry forward. Therefore, increasing that amount again, that gives us the buffer to offset the loss of the override. And so while we would love to say that it's easy for us to predict 16 to 18 months in advance exactly what that number is going to be, this is not an exact science. We're dealing with estimations when everything's finally added up well and done in October when we truly can figure out what our absolute carry forwards are moving forward. But I think for us and for me

107specifically the directions I've been giving our staff is if there is a way to hold on and save to increase the carry forward then let's look at that knowing that that is an option should the governing board want to do to spend down the carry forward to help reduce to help help look at the losses from the override. Two meetings ago we talked about possibly having uh you know one of the goals would be let's have a discussion on what the appropriate side of a carry forward is. And so when I talk with other districts and talk with different people, how much money do we need to keep forward in a carry forward? And there's a couple different factors that come into place, but honestly, ours is on the larger side. And so we do

108have that opportunity if we want to take a look at it moving forward. And so there's about $17 million in there, possibly more. Last meeting, we also talked about the classroom site fund. Now, the classroom fund is not generated necessarily off of what the state's giving us, but it's off the sales tax. And that the thing about the classroom site fund is that it can only be used specifically for a few people within the district. So, classroom site fund can be used for our certified teachers and some of the supports for those teachers cannot be used for for classified and it cannot be used for administration. So, that is very limited scope onto what we have. We do have a carry forward within the classroom side fund as well, but remember when we go to

109look at spending those monies down, it's only for a certain member of our employee groups, not for all of our employee groups. One thing that's hanging out there that gets discussed every now and then and that I think uh you as board members need to be aware of, I know we're aware of it as cabinet members, but for the public to be aware of it is something called the AEL, aggregate expenditure limit. This is a legislative mandate that for the past few years has been put on pause. It's something that the leg this is legislators are the ones that can make that decision whether to uphold us to the AAL a law written in the 80s or not. If the legislature through their process adopts a budget where the AAL is enacted, we would immediately

110then be required for us the impact of the AAL is about $15.5 million that they would turn and then take it out of our budget. Take it out. we wouldn't get the funds for it. So, that's been an interesting dynamic for districts to try to navigate knowing that going through a budget cycle if it's put in place, we we could possibly if we have less than the AEL run out of money. However, for for the idea that where we are in terms of Higgley, I don't know of another district that has enough money in savings to cover the AAL loss. If the AEL honestly was enacted, it would be u a very negative thing on all of public education, not just in Higgley. And so, but sometimes those conversations come up and say, where does

111that have through the budgeting process through our legislatures? And that's not something we have control over yet, it would directly impact us if it were to be put in. And so I guess my questions to you are as you have this discussion today is I would like to know some guidance on your thoughts on how you would like to look at the carry forward and what specific things you can look at because there we could look at the $4.8 million and say we are going to reduce our staffing amounts and our budgets by $4.8 million or knowing that we have a carry forward. Are you interested in what would your priorities be in terms of spending some of that carry forward? Again, I can have these conversations with you guys individually, but I think it's

112important for us as a district and as a governing board to have those conversations out loud to help give us direction to then come back and give you options to be able to choose from for the best direction of our district. Hopefully that made sense. And now I'm going to turn it over to you to have the discussion and and help identify for us what as board members your priorities are for the cabinet for the finance team so that we can know where we're what direction you would like us to head. [clears throat] >> Uh Mr. Lenheiser, just as I understand it, do we have a statement from Miss Schultz for because I know it's difficult via >> she did send one in just in anticipation and that if something happened and she got disconnected,

113I'm happy to read the statement from Mrs. Schultz to be able to be read instead of trying to do it over the phone. Um, uh, so she's there and so if you'd like, I can start with that statement and then you guys can go further into having your discussion or moving back and forth. U Mrs. Schultz, if that's okay with you, just to make it easier for people. I know you'd sent a statement ahead of time. >> Yeah, >> that that's just fine, Mr. L. >> Okay. I'm I'm more than happy to >> to have you say it. >> I said I said that's just fine. I I can hear you guys very well. I know it's difficult to hear me. >> Okay, then and then I will read this. So, um this is from

114Mrs. Schultz and I'll do my best. Uh, this is this is not the position I had hoped our district would be in, but I believe much of it stems from false narratives that have circulated in our community. Regardless, we must move forward and I hope our community will understand that these funds are necessary for our schools to function at the level our students deserve. I want to be clear, I do not want to see our specials or our dual language immersion programs eliminated from the school day. These programs enrich our students experiences, broaden their learning, and are part of what makes our district special. Preserving them for as long as possible must remain a priority. We do have carry forward funds available and while they will help us get us through the next couple of

115years without extreme cuts, they will not last long. I would like superintendent lotser, the cabinet and our finance team to work diligently to ensure we are not eliminating specials DI or any programs that make our schools exceptional. My hope is by the time this carry forward is exhausted, we will have secured the resources needed to sustain these programs long term. We must also acknowledge the real risk. Surrounding districts pass their overrides and if we eliminate these valued programs, families will leave. I do not want to lose students and we cannot afford to lose students. I want to maintain the vibrant, well-rounded education our community expects. I understand that any cuts we make will primarily come from K6 or K8. Since additional programs at the high school level are funded through other mechanisms, including targeted funding

116and boosters. In addition, this is where we see the most growth. I am comfortable bringing our carry forward balance down to 10% of our budget. I recognize the importance of maintaining a reserve and that cuts are still necessary, but this approach may allow us to make the smallest cuts possible right now. There are additional items I believe we need to evaluate in the future future, but today my focus is on what we can do immediately to preserve the programs that matter most to our students and families. I know that our superintendent and staff have been working diligently to do what is best for our students, teachers, and staff. And I appreciate that and look forward trying to work through this so we have the least amount of cuts to what matters the most, our students.

117I urge our community to seek out reputable, factual information about how public public school funding works. We must move forward together supporting our amazing programs, teachers, and district and advocate and advocating for the adequate funding our legislature has failed to provide. >> Want to talk, but go ahead. Well, I was going to say let's just get started and everyone can express where they're at and then at least we have a starting place because if we are all of a similar page then makes it easier for cabinet. So, >> okay. Well, uh well said Miss Schultz and uh well delivered Mr. Latsonheiser. Um you know it's important to understand and remember that uh the huge a huge portion of our budget about 70 to 80% of a school budget is M and then of that about

11870 to 80% is uh is uh staff and uh and salary and benefits. So when you talk about cuts, I mean you can, you know, you can cut all, you know, you can cut adments, you can cut all this stuff ultimately, uh, you know, class sizes are going to get larger, class offerings are going to be fewer, um, and we'll probably have fewer teachers. All right, but having said that, I am strongly in support of uh, elementary specials. I would not like to see those cut at all. Uh and the same thing I think our dual language program is something that I'm very proud of. Uh obviously the the folks that are in that program really see the value in it and I just see it just uh growing. I understand you know sometimes there

119have to be adjustments. So to echo what Miss Schultz said to draw down the surplus to between 8 8 to 12% uh seems reasonable to me to do. Um that'll get us through. uh but we will still have to continue to work on demonstrating the necessity and importance of of funding so that we can offer these things. So for this coming year, I would love to see specials just not be talked about anymore and just continue on as they're doing. Same thing with dual immersion um or the dual language program. But I also just want you guys to hear me and I I cabinet everybody who's in an admin or a coaching role whenever you're talking to staff take the time to ask them what things can we take away from you that are adding

120stress whether it costs money or not. Um because when you're starting to make these cuts and you're cramming more and more kids in classrooms, it's a harder job for people to do and we want our teachers to stick around. It's expensive. Miss Johnson, you to test this. It's expensive to have to retrain te new teachers year after year. If we can keep them, that's a significant savings. So, I really think when you're meeting even with your your textbook committee, what are things we can save on? What can we take away? What can we get rid of? Um, and just to continue to have that conversation because if it's just the five or six of us making decisions, uh, that's just that's just not a recipe for success. involve people, listen to them. They're not always

121going to get their way. I mean, sometimes things are going to have to be cut. Sometimes teachers have to be moved from a one campus to another. And that stinks and it's terrible. But did we do it the right way? Did we communicate with people? So, I just want to encourage uh our leaders to do that, to ask those questions to everybody to I mean like even our custodians, what can we do better? Um they'll have ideas, there are things that they think about, but if they're not asked, then they're all then they're not they don't feel valued. So, we make a serious effort to do that. It's really important when you're making these decisions. >> You guys, honestly, this is so hard. Um, I'm so grateful for all the time that Superintendent Latson Heiser

122has taken to individually because, yeah, it is kind of challenging because we've all got to be individual when it comes. Um, I am all about keeping as much in that carryover. I think it's really fiscally responsible. I mean, in our own personal lives, who doesn't have a savings? I've learned, you know, firsthandedly that that's very important. Um, I'm okay with kind of knocking it down a little bit, but also be realistic. I don't really know the foresight of the next couple years. Um, so we also have to plan accordingly and kind of cover our bases that way if worst case scenarios do happen. Um, and I might, this might be an unpopular belief, but I've talked to a few people about these um, dual language programs, and a lot of people rave about it. And

123you guys, honestly, I've read the research. Um, brains usually develop and advance so much, and it really can um, just propel kids and really uh, do such great work when the bodies, but then also sadly, I've heard some rough situations where it can be a little bit too much on some of the children's plates. So parents, please touch base with your kids. Make sure that these extra kind of dual language programs are actually working for them, not kind of, you know, bombarding over or overwhelming them um to the fact that it's affecting their core curriculums. So I think if we can also touch base with the parents and just make sure these extra specials are very appropriately utilized by people that encourage the that it encourages their students to thrive if that makes sense. Um,

124and then once we have those solid numbers, then we keep kind of uh keeping these these specials, music, all the research is there, you guys. All the um movement, all the things with these younger generations. Honestly, that's my biggest gripe in general with public school is our kids are meant to move. They're meant to get kind of more of that physical kind of aspect. they're young and so really utilize that um because it helps them grow. It helps their growth and also you know just sometimes less is more when it comes with those younger grades. Okay, let's see. Utilize superintendent utilize the attrition. Did I say that right? just utilize what you can and um if cuts need to be made just be as speedy as you can with that because I am very mindful

125but I understand that certain things you know we it's you guys this is a hard decision we got to make and I'm not envious of your position at all but I do think it's very kind to give people adequate heads ups to give them adequate time to go look at other districts and hopefully it works out in their benefit um but I really if something needs to kind of be addressed or anything like that. I do think it's polite thing to do to give them adequate time to adapt if that makes sense. I mean, it's a hard call, but it it is kind to kind of um let them know ahead of time as best as you can. Um all right. I think that was it. I hope that was good, you guys. Oh. >>

126[clears throat] >> So, um, [snorts] obviously this is never easy. As a staff member, uh, who worked here the last time the override failed and felt what that felt like, uh, two [clears throat] things that I will express. Thing one, at the time, we did not have a district office that I felt cared about what that impact would be on our staff at all. Um, and the cuts that were made were things to staff and only staff is what it felt like in that elementary you didn't you were on duty every day. Um, that's ridiculous. That's hard. That's a a a very difficult expectation because we all get overstimulated. We all get overwhelmed. And we look at those parts as being vital to our ability to continue to do our job well. For those parents

127who love it when teachers update them or they send the classroom notifications and those types of things, it's because we create space in the day for them to be able to do that and that matters. We also look at and we have people on the outside of here who say that we need to talk about and focus on academics. I agree with you and if you want to focus on academics that does not stop with talking about specials, with talking about recess, with talking about lunch and the amount of time that we have for these types of things. Every single one of these aspects go into the development and their performance academically. So if you want to look at why Higgley does well on our tests and why we continue to do well is because

128we offer programs that other elementary schools still do not. And to say that we need to keep them. It is so overwhelmingly frustrating to sit on this side for an obscene amount of time to have community members continue to say that they are upset with a lack of transparency. I challenge you to go to other public school districts around here as well as every charter district you send your children to. We are more transparent than we have to be. We go above and beyond in all of these. Look what you're doing right now. This very thing is part of that. This matters and how we decide what decisions we're making and whatever we decide no matter what comes to some sort of harm because if we clean out our savings right now we are paying

129for cooling towers at two of our schools. We're renting equipment that is going to be costly because their AC units have broken. We have aging buildings and so part of that savings is a result of those aging buildings and we work hard to go to the state to get those things done but we have to wait for the state to provide those fundings and I forget the threeletter uh you know SFD look at me remembering letters. We send those out and at the start of the year they already have more requests than the money they have available and we cannot pay to fix these things if we hope for the state to then reimburse us money on the back end because if we do they go well then you didn't need it to begin with

130this is a poor system. Our laws for the AAL which I agree with you is is held hostage. is held over our head in a way that again we have no say in this and it is a large portion of our budget because the law was written the year of my birth I believe in 1987. That's crazy. That's crazy. And we also just recently had a court case in which we've shown that public schools do not get equitable funding when compared to other public entities like charter schools as well as public funds that go through the ESA. This impacts us in every decision we make. This matters. You talk about academic performance, Higgley is remarkable, especially considering how small we are and what we have to compete with. I cannot convey enough and all of

131us are going to figure out in the conversations I have had or how can we do better to get our community to understand how amazing Higgley is because it's easier to listen to the negative than it is to the positive. every time. It is easier for me to pay attention to the things that are upsetting me than it is to pay attention to the things that are going well. And we are all victims of it. And we are all experiencing these problems. And at the same time, it comes down to it hurts kids. Plain and simple. It hurts our students. I will not support anything that gets rid of specials. I won't I won't do it because it harms kids directly. It harms their performance. It harms their mental health. It harms things that every

132single person, regardless of what side of some ideological spectrum you exist on, we all can agree are things that matter. So, this should be universal for all of us. We should all be on the same page to say specials must say English or uh and math and science and I'm going to throw social studies in there even though it never is included. All of those things matter, but if there aren't opportunities to create space for kids to be creative, to look at things in a different way, move around all of that, it will harm their academic performance. Band, choir, orchestra. Also, I I don't support getting rid of those things. I don't and I won't when there are options in front of us. And right now I recognize that we have community members and in

133some cases board members who say things like, "Well, this is what we need to do." So then let's talk about that. And if this is what we end up doing, then it is my expectation that every single one of you going into next year when we say we no longer have the carry forward that we do, we are no longer living with a savings that you claim we need to solve this situation because we are looking longterm, not just one year at a time. And unfortunately, all we are looking at right now is one year. That's it. And we have to look at one year because again 15% of our budget that is huge with what an override provides and that's for seven years and I get that it starts to fade out. So really

134we're getting five of fully funded that matters to our community. And so I agree with those who are here in terms of specials should be something that we look at and figure out what kind of ways we can and how much is it really going to cost us to say our specials should stay. Especially considering the fact that we are trying to get more people to come here and other places have less specials to begin with. Not to mention whatever cuts they may find themselves doing in the near future because they are in similar boats. I support DLI programs and other programs that not only bring students in from outside of our district but show how amazing our performance can be and to add to the science of that absolutely help academic performance overall especially

135once we get through because I agree with you Mr. German there are some difficulties especially in their earlier grades and then they kind of make up for it on the back end but it is hard during that time frame and I think those things matter. The other thing that I hope that we will look at and it's part of the reason that I think that it's on there is our classroom site fund in that we have staff that we did not give raises to. And if we're sitting here and we say we care about you, what you do matters and we are looking at every single way to show that you matter, then we should give them raises. I don't know how much that costs and I don't know what that looks and at the

136end of the day that is what you all are going to provide for us. But how do we look at our staff another year and say continue to do a profession that is harder than it has ever been in a world right now that feels harder to live in than anything because it's as if it's an entire history book at once for our lives in these last seven years. And how do we say stay? You matter. We care about you and we need you to continue to do the exemplary work that you have been doing. So for my my vote, my focus, my goal is absolutely how can we get creative with what is available to us and understand that this is literally only a stop gap because when this is not here, this doesn't

137come back. This is not as if this exists every single time. Beyond that, we have last year's cut combined with next year's cut and then the cut after that that continues. It's not as if it's just a small amount because that 15% adds up. we just phase it out a percent at a time so it's not such a shock to the district. Those things matter. So specials are my number one which I believe is what you asked for in terms of importance hands down because that helps our students above and beyond. I think DLI programs are great and I think there are ways that we can change how they look so the impact of that isn't as financially big as it needs to be with whatever kinds of combinations or things that you can do

138to be creative in that area. But I also look at how can we reward the staff who are the ones who are doing their job remarkably well continuing to put Higgley in where we are at which is top performance. And again, we are small and I don't think people really recognize how remarkable it is for us to be the size that we are and do the things that we do. And I again cannot emphasize enough. So for every staff member, every parent that we have who cares about this, every person who sends their kid to this, talk to your neighbors, start communicating with them. And I know that we live in a world in which that doesn't feel comfortable anymore. It's time to start getting uncomfortable because if you don't want to sit here and

139you don't want to continue to make very difficult decisions for your children's future, then maybe you be a little bit uncomfortable on the way to the mailbox today. And if we can all do that, then maybe we no longer have to continue to nickel and dime our children and say that you don't matter enough for us to figure out how to show you that you matter. Your interests beyond math and science and English matter. Go ahead, Miss Van Hook. Okay. Um, just a few things. uh that I would like before we make a decision, if I can just read them off, um I'd like to see a breakdown of the um specific schools and grade levels um contributed that contributed to the decline um in the ADM. Um, if we can get uh an updated

140list of uh where students left um ESAs, charters, other districts. I I know we got one several weeks ago, but I'd like to see an updated one. Um what actions we're going to take to address the elementary level attrition. um list of the capital savings from unspent construct uh construction projects. Uh a breakdown of what positions the 4.8 and the 4.2 um would include. Um, and then the um we're not using any of the one-time funding to make uh to offset any of the reductions that are permanent. Correct. the onetime funding as we're putting them in there, they just go into the carry forward. >> The car form. Okay. >> And so knowing that we have it once we can put it in and it like I said that 17 million, right? If that the

141additional onetime funding or goes to any way that we save, we'll just increase that. And so by maybe being making choices where this year instead of purchasing something in examples the LA adoption we can say let's hold off of that because we can take that savings and put it in there. So maybe that 17 million becomes 18 million becomes 19 million. Obviously it doesn't continue on perpetuity right because we're not getting funded for it but it can put in there. So then when you look at these stop gaps and you start slowing the decline that we need to do because of the 4.8 and 4.2 too. And so, you know, again, my goal in coming to this today is I I need your voices to help drive your priorities. And that's what I need to

142hear. And so, that's what I've heard some of them, like what is your priorities, but what is your priorities in terms of where we want to do those things? Um, and and then I can come back and bring back options when we're in January. And so, you know, I'm hearing loud and clear from three members for sure. four members that says elementary specials, I don't want them to leave, right? I I want DI programs. We talk about what kind of programs attract people to our schools, right? How do we look at differentiating that? When you look at a DLI program, we know that a DI program adds to our schools, right? And so, again, regardless of all of that and lowering those down, that 3 million, we're going to have to be though we're going

143to have to reduce that. And and I want to make that very clear again. There will have to be staff reductions based upon enrollment. And if attrition works, then attrition is where we go. If we don't have enough by attrition, then we'll come back to the governing board and talk about what does a rift policy look like. And that's a reality of where we're at. >> Um >> yeah. Does that if that makes sense? >> Uh yes. I just I just wanted to make sure that um there's no permanent um decisions being made with onetime funding. But I do have more questions um or things that I would like before we make a decision. Um I'd like to know uh you might have mentioned it but us which specific group B categories um in increased

144um and the operational implications of those increases. I think you might have mentioned sped. So when we look at our group B weights, right, the majority of our group weights weights are providing exceptional services for students who have IEPs and unique situations that they're looking at. And so um as was referred to in the budget, even though we saw an increase because we saw an increase, there are certain students with certain group B weights that that get funded not at the $5,000 but might get funded at $60,000 because of the needs necessary for us to be able to support them. And so yes, those group B weights when I did mention that that and those are hard to predict because that's not just like one number, right? You have to get that that's very student

145specific in terms of how that is managed, which is a huge shout out to our special ed department and Mrs. Miller for what she does to be able to manage all of that and manage the funding. And it was great that we could come back and say, "Hey, we know we're going to need more because we're on top of it, making sure that we're following through." >> Thank you. Um, and obviously I don't need answers now, but again before uh a decision's made, I'd like to see a program cost versus revenue analysis, especially for our elementary programs, um, where we're seeing the declines. Um, and then also a vacancy and turnover analysis showing how unfilled positions impacted um, our carry forward. If I can address part of that just so people understand that cost we

146have something we call it vacancy savings right when someone leaves and we don't fill them we have budgeted for them within our budget and this is for the public as we go we budget them but if we're not paying anyone because there's no one in that position where does that go where does that vacancy savings go again that's that's how we have carry forward or the carry forward can be a little bit different just so people understand that if we have open positions that aren't filled for the length of web they're not filled. We don't have it. Now, some costs get offset by it. Like, so let's say I have a teacher that leaves, but I still have to hire a sub, but typically the subs don't cost as much as what the teacher would

147be. So, the difference would be vacancy savings that we can turn around and put within the entire kitty of our carry forward. Um, [clears throat] and I just back to part of the conversation that we had at the last board meeting with the classroom site funds. Um, I do want to point out that there were se several people that said, um, that the current action pertains only to the 202526 school year. Uh both board member Glover and Wade said exactly that, but I want to make sure that it's clear that an increase to base salary is permanent. It's not for one year. Um, and I'm happy that we can do that and we have the funds to be able to do that, but it is permanent, which means the following year the contracts start 6%

148higher. So, it's not just a one-time fund. Um, >> can I can I cl jump in and clarify something really quick? I know you've used the term 6% and I've heard that quite a bit on looking at it, but in the compensation raise that was given to our teachers this year, it was not 6% of their total compensation at all. >> No, it's that's not what I meant. It's 6% just in the base salary. >> No, but when we say the term base salary, because I've been asked this question quite a bit. Where does I didn't know we were getting 6%. And I just want to help clarify that. Right. We have what's being paid out of M and last year none of that increased and that's the majority of what a teacher's funding gets

149paid for out of that and then out of the classroom side fund I'd want to say correct me if I'm wrong Karen 400 some dollar increase >> 487 I know I was in mean confer then I just don't remember the exact number >> 500 >> under $500 that the teachers was increased out of classroom side fund and so when but that classroom site fund portion of it's only 8,000 and out of the whole totality of what's happening. And so I think to hopefully help clarify from the community some of the questions I'm getting that's saying, "Hey, I don't understand. Did teachers get a 6% raise?" No. In their terms of their total compensation, they did not. What they did is there was $500 that was added through the classroom site fund portion of everything. I

150think when we start looking at it, and these are conversations that I've had with each of you guys individually, you ask [snorts] what does compensation what does raises look like? Right? If we were to say, you know, to go to board member Wade would say, what what does it look like to increase compensation, right? And so when when we looked at it, we looked at what does it look like for a 2% on not just the classroom siphon, but the the everything a 2% raise, just so you know, for the district is about $900,000 for certified teachers. Okay? And uh Sharon, if I'm wrong, correct me, but we've talked about this a lot. But at the same time we also look and say we can compensate teachers but I think it's important for us to

151compensate everybody in the district because you know when you talk about morale and culture when you only give to one group and not give to the other group when that teacher in the classroom is getting a raise but that para in the classroom who is very vital to small group instruction and supporting the needs [snorts] of our individual students doesn't. I want to be very cognizant that for me as a superintendent I support giving those compensation increases to everyone. And so when we looked at it, just for your point of reference, about $900,000 for our certified, about $600,000 for our classified, for our non-certified people. And so when you look at a compensation raise, and that's 2%. Why did I pick 2%? Because 2% is typically what the budget increases by from what the state

152gives us. And so when you look at a 2% increase, okay, it would be about $1.5 million districtwide to compensate all members in our district looking at it. So, and that's based upon not just CL can I use classroom site fund to support teachers in it? Yeah. But we can't use it to support the Perez, you know, or different people. That would have to come directly out of the M carry forward. >> Yes. So when I say 6% the difference between what it was in the base salary on that document to what it was increased by $400 $500 that portion is a six is is 6% >> is is six 6% of the $8,000 coming out of specifically classroom site fund not their overall total compensation. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. And I just

153got I got a lot of questions about that. So I appreciate you bringing it up. So hopefully we can help clarify for everyone where that percentage came from. >> Um and then >> right, >> you know, we we've talked about uh the [snorts] need for funding and the override. Um but our we can see that our carry forward continues to grow, which is great. Um, and we do have the funds that we can utilize uh in order to cover the 4.8 and the 4.2. Um, and as I've said before, we have the funds. We should be able to utilize that. uh and I've also mentioned before where there used to be a cap on M and that cap was removed and our M has grown to be last time it was you know 18% of

154our budget our M budget uh where we used to be 6% 4% was the cap and and being able to manage that Um, so we do have the funds. I'm happy that we're able to be able to use that. Um, but I also would like to know what positions would fall in those categories because for me as well, um, I do not support, uh, cutting any programs. uh programs are what you know bring students into our district. That's what attracts families into our district. Um and that's what you know helps students uh enjoy the the activities that outside of you know basic classes that they enjoy doing. So, um I can't support any cuts to that. Um but at the same time, we have the classroom site funds. Uh our M grew by an additional

155$2 million. We have the funds. we can still be able to have after spending the money in order to pay for those positions in order to save programs, we still end up with quite a bit in our M um to be able to carry forward into next year. So, um, >> board member Franko, can I jump in for a second because I want to reiterate what you're saying because I agree, right? Looking at it like we do have money and I think this is the question that we as a district are looking at and you as a board what we'll bring to you as a board, right? We do, can I look and say, "Hey, I'm going to just take $4.8 million right off the top. We're only going to cut and make adjustments determined

156by loss of enrollment." Nothing about the override. But this goes back to the one-time versus continuous that you talked about before, right? So by doing that, where does that $4.8 million go? It goes to the next year. And so now instead of looking at a 4.2 million and alone, right, it goes to 4.2 plus 4.8, so about $9 million then that we know that we're overbudgeted from what's coming in to us. And but and then we would have we would have savings down to maybe 12 million. If we're fiscally conservative on spending now, maybe it's about 14 million. You're right. So, we can do that decline and and those are the things that we have to be very cognizant about, right? Like how much are we committing to, you know, robbing Peter to pay Paul?

157I don't know, you know, like how much are we kicking the can? I've heard that term as we're moving down. And that's why I appreciate you giving us guidance on where we can do that, you know, and I've heard when we individually talk about what is an appropriate percentage, which is a conversation we wanted to have anyway, and how [clears throat] do we work if it's 10%. Let's say it's 10%. Then that means that would be about $9 million and we're sitting at 17 right now. So, how do we take that 8 million and spread it out to help reduce what's happening in the cuts that are looking at that we're looking at to get us down there? But we know though, where's the cliff? the cliff's when we reach that point right and that's

158the cliff then you have to look and say what are the then you know how drastic are the reductions going to be none of first of all thank you very much for having this conversation I know no one wants to have it but I appreciate you guys coming on the dis right now and help giving us direction then to turn around and come give you guys options and plans that you as a board can say what's going to be best for our fiscal health moving forward And I I mean, one of the biggest concerns is just talking to community members was the fact that we did have this money uh in our in our M. And so I think that when we can be this transparent and show them, hey, this is what we have.

159we can, you know, we're going to utilize it to be able to protect our programs. Um, but we still due to declining enrollment, we are having to make cuts and we're showing that separately so people can clearly see the difference between uh the cuts. Um, and then when it comes time to, you know, possibly considering another override, then we can show the community this is what we had. this is what we use and this is what we have left and the conversation could be different at that point. Um and at the end of the day I think that uh we do need to make a huge effort and I um being able to identify different ways to be able to attract more families. um that is going to help with obviously more money coming into

160the district because we have more uh families bringing their children here and look at you know other revenue streams I know we haven't talked about it but the sale or of the the land that we have are we selling it are we leasing it uh that's another conversation that needs to be involved um and what the potential revenue could be from that. And at that meeting when it was first presented to us, I had asked, you know, did we have an analysis of, you know, the cost, what it would look like, and I was told that couldn't be provided until it was approved. Well, now it's been approved. So, uh, you know, we need to see what that looks like, uh, and what our options are there and the the income that that could bring

161to us. Yeah, if I can jump in. I completely agree with that. Now that it is approved, like what are the next steps? And I know Sharon, I'll be honest with you, there are people reaching out to us every day saying, "What are we doing with the property, right? What are we looking at that?" Like they're they're chomping at the bit, right? To get in. So, I think the discussion is going to be what what are the short-term effects of having for a sale and what are the long-term effects of going for a lease and how would we balance the two of those things together, right? That because that ultimately will be the decision. Do we sell or do we lease? Right? In terms of that, the hard part with that by going through this

162process, when do we start seeing a recoup? Probably two years, two to three years from when we can do that. That that process does take a little bit longer in terms of what we're going to do with that property. However, I agree that needs to be a conversation that we have and then we can bring forward. And so, where does that land? Well, sorry, where does that fall in terms of the process in making some of these decisions? I agree. Are you done? >> Thank you. Yes. >> All right, Superintendent Lotser. Um, okay. So, what do you need from us? Like, should we kind of just communal and agree kind of like on potential percentage in >> carry over or what are some decisions we need to make tonight? I'm all about getting more information

163and kind of cross analysing and have you dig in deeper and to see what programs, you know, and how much they draw people in and all that kind of stuff. I love But yeah, what do you need from us tonight? >> Uh, you know, since it's not an action item, I don't have anything for you to vote on or anything like that. I think what you've given me will allow us and my staff to come and give you some scenarios and say, if you want to spend down $5 million out of the carry forward, this is what it would look like. if you want to reduce it by $3 million, if you want to give a 2% raise, I can provide you for those when we come back in January, some specific things. So, honestly,

164the the feedback that I'm giving you from you now is very much important. You know, I'm hearing loud and clear, don't eliminate elementary specials. Okay? So, when I put the plan together, that's not going to be a part of the plan because every single one of you have mentioned that specials are very important to what happens. Loud and clear, right? Uh, look at DLI. DI is a program that brings it in. Is it going to be exactly the same because of enrollment? Because our Spanish enrollment DL at Santan is [clears throat] not small, but our Mandarin is smaller. Do there need to be adjustments that are made there, but not eliminating it. I'm hearing loud and clear from all of you saying we need to have programs that bring keep people into our schools. I

165get so that's what I get. And so, you know, again, I the feedback that I'm getting from you, and I again, I appreciate you doing in a public forum because I can get this one-on-one from each of you, but I think it's important from a transparency standpoint that all of you have the opportunity to explain to the community what your priority are. So, I don't need necessarily any of that specifics because I think you've given me when we come back in January, then I can have plans that you guys can talk about, right? That was that was my intention by today is to be able to have this discussion moving forward. All right, thank you for all of that. Um, and thank you everybody for everything that they contributed. So, just to uh I mean

166we're kind of tap dancing around it, but if you if there are personnel decisions that need to be made um just to be you know you know straightforward and honest it for me it would be cutting not cutting reducing uh I hate to say that word but maybe some of the non-classroom teachers um for example uh I think if you're going through an ELA adoption you kind of need a coordinator for a couple of years till everybody gets it. Um, but since we haven't had a social studies adoption in many years, um, you know, if I was looking to maybe, you know, it can come in cycles. Maybe it's a maybe it becomes a three-year rolling position, you know, at CLA and then science as you adopted or math if you need to make those

167cuts. Um, I think those are important positions. I don't I've done those jobs. So, um, to to even talk about it is is uh I know that I don't want to devalue the work that those folks do. And then we Dr. Mr. Lotser and I talked, you know, instructional coaches is very popular. Um, but you know, if for a year or something and here's the thing, we usually take our best teachers out of the classroom and that pains me. Um and then sometimes the intention is always good but when we don't differentiate when we have these [snorts] PLC's and and things like that we don't differentiate like we do you know for example like we were we were laughing like a P you know a PE teacher doesn't really need to know about Socratic seminars

168um but we do that and so maybe some schools have done have gone back to the old you know find a find a teacher that's a lead teacher um that does the things that maybe some of our PLC's times or instructional coaches do and just give them a small stipen to look out for the people in their department for whatever initiatives we have. Um you know and then you know early release too is that is that effective? Um I my bias is at the end of a long day I'm just not in the head spa like you I got p missing papers phone calls to make all sorts of things. My headspace is never in a good place at the end of a day. I don't know why we do it to ourselves, but uh

169once a Wednesday's LA for the last two years at sixth grade was my least favorite day uh of the week. And that's mean to say, I don't mean it in a mean way, but I it was exhausting. You're packing a full day into a shorter day and then it's like you have two hours of extra work on top of it. So anyway, those are things I also think we should review our technology programs. I know we do that, but maybe just re-emphasize it. And I don't want pe I don't want to scare people, but as an example, like we pay for Canvas. Google Classroom is free. I don't love the idea of making everybody redo all that work because I'm talk I mean I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth here about stressing

170people out. But are there programs that we just maybe don't need or are outdated or we've just been paying for them? Really look at the usage of them. And I know that some people will be, you know, near this is near and dear to me, but if it's 10% of the people or 20% of the people and 80% aren't really using it, maybe that's something that we look at to go away. Um, and then I know it's been talked about, nobody mentioned it, but we do we are different from some of our neighboring districts with our elementary uh assistant principles. I think the stress level is super high and you can never be gone. I've I've worked at all all the elementary schools where I have worked in another district never barely almost never had

171an assistant unless they were gigantic. Um but those folks whenever they leave who's in charge when two kids get into a fight like it's the it's the front office staff that are not paid enough to try to handle those things. Um, so the other thing that I just it sounds great on paper, but in practice splitting at admin admin at two schools is a really tough it's tough. No one survives that. I don't know anyone that's done that for more than a year or two as a stepping stone. That's a really um that's a really hard thing as we talk about those. But but I know that assistant principles at the elementary was talked about in 2008 and um that was one thing that the people were really um the people that were doing the

172jobs really wanted that preserved back then in that conversation I remember. Um so anyway as we talk about that anyway to get to my point sorry if I'm rambling if you are going to cut admins you do have to simplify the evaluation instrument please and that's takes work but the board can approve a different evaluation instrument. Um, if you're having the number of people that have to do all these things and we want them by the time we issue contracts in March, simplify it for the people that have already been here for seven or eight years and that are doing a good job. [clears throat] Um, again, I'd like to add Miss Schultz. Yes. >> Go ahead, Miss Schultz. I I wasn't saying anything. Did you? No worries. Then I appreciate it. I If you

173have something to say, Mr. German, go ahead. >> I do have Sorry. [snorts] >> Go ahead, Miss Schultz. >> President Wade, at this time, since Mr. Glover talked about this, u I appreciate you bringing up the fact about the assistant principles and the surrounding districts. I actually didn't realize that. So, um I know Mr. Lson read my statement, but that's something I would like to look at explore, you know, how they're doing it and why we find a need for it, I guess. I know that won't make me popular with assistant principles. >> Oh, and I I should clarify, too. So, at there's a size number at some of these other districts. If you're over, let's say I I don't know the number, I'll make it up, but if there's more than a thousand kids,

174then you get they used to have like a dean position, and then if you had like 1,200 kids, then you had a full-time assistant. But if you were down to like four or 500 kids, I mean that that that was manageable. But I think like a 700 800 maybe was a number. >> President Wade, I just wanted to thank board member Glover. Those are some great ideas. And I thank you admin. Thank you everybody for like digging in and really kind of seeing where the wiggle room is where we can kind of maybe adapt. and also the community, you know, and the and sweet parents. You know, it's so hard because everything gets so charged up and their sweet students are in these schools and we've got to make kind of some hard decisions. So,

175please be gracious and um for all these hardworking admin and staff. And I'm I'm so grateful for all the teachers and everybody who's in the classrooms that do the good work. And I really feel like some teachers are second parents. I mean, honestly, their work is so cut out for them. And so I'm I'm grateful that we were able to kind of really propel them um with and show them kind of where [clears throat] it counts, you know, uh their salaries and making sure that we show the value and that we're able to really sustain them in that that way they don't feel the need to, you know, go elsewhere at this point. So I'm grateful that we can kind of prioritize also that and really support the people who are doing the hard work.

176So all right, thanks Uh before we move on, there are some things I'd like to uh reiterate again just for folks who um may not be uh understanding that aspect. And we had somebody speak in public comment tonight about that. Whatever decision we make now has consequences. There is no way around it. Whatever choice we make, there is going to be a consequence on the back end. um things to keep in mind with respect to how some of these decisions are here. One of the things Miss Van Hook brought up is that we used to have a far lower percentage in carry forward. Things also used to cost a lot less. And so when some of these major incidents would happen, they are a lot less. Here are some things to keep in mind. Higgley

177needs a new track. That's just real that that's a real thing that has to happen. Both of our high schools have gyms that can't fit the student body in forms of assemblies and those types of things. These things matter and so we have now for a couple of years at least the time I have been on this board had to make decisions of things that we had planned or that things that we wanted to do i.e. social studies curriculum for example that hasn't been touched in forever and we've had to put them to the side as means of saving. We already as a district have done great steps in doing what we can where we can and clearly here today we are having further conversation to continue those steps. I cannot emphasize this enough. Whatever

178steps we make right now is not a long-term solution. Even if we decide to sell that land, that is a one-time payment of something. It's not as if that revenue continues every single year. That is an override. That's what matters at the end of the day. And so we can take the position that we have and create it for ourselves. And thank goodness that we had smart financial planning when it comes to some of these things because it's as if we saved for this. We saved to say, okay, we are going to do what we can to continue to have Higgley be where it's at. Because if we don't do these things, I can tell you what happened before. We lost seasoned teachers. They go elsewhere. They go elsewhere to get raises and they go

179elsewhere where they're appreciated or they at least have a community that seems to support what it is that they do. and then they don't come back and all we get are new hires. And what's real great is as of late, thanks to recent legislation in the past few years that I have lived here, anybody can teach kind of deal. They don't stay. They don't. They get here and they go, "My god, this is miserable or this is harder than I thought it was or this is just way more things than I was expecting." And then they leave and now we have to find a sub and we have to figure out what we're going to do which is costly and is harmful to our students outright. So I am appreciative of the work that we

180are doing to try to create a solution. But I cannot I cannot leave without making sure that we understand whatever decisions that we are making and whatever we decide come January we are creating a situation that we cannot come back from. There will be an end to how much we can save because 4 million from last year and 4 million from this year and then 4 million the next year. as that fades out is cumulative. It's not as if it's a one-time thing that matters when it comes to how we deal with that. And I appreciate Mr. Lenheiser that you have in the yellow the 3 million because again I don't think people understand this. Every year as a result of our ADM loss, we staff teachers accordingly every year. I know this because they

181went from having five kinder teachers to now four kinder teachers as well as there were other grades that were impacted and those types of things at least at my elementary school and I know this is true for all of the other elementary schools in that we staff for the ADM loss. That is literally how this works. So when we come down to having discussions about what staff we're looking at, that is after we have already reduced staff to meet the student numbers that are here. That happens every single year. Every campus is given the amount of FTE that they will have and it is up to that campus to decide how best to utilize it for what their specific needs are. Everything else after that ADM loss is purely ML loss. So, our decisions to

182look at what positions we don't have to fill or how to utilize staff that we have in different places or what positions that we cut are not positions that are there for your students. They are positions that are there to provide your students with extra things and provide our staff with the support they need to continue to be great. So, at the end of the day, our staff still gets harmed and our students still get harmed when we don't have some of those things. And that's important for us to keep in mind come January when we ultimately pick whatever plan that you guys have put forth. So again, I'm appreciative and it feels as if we are at least all on the same page and that when we go, okay, let's use our carry forward

183to solve some of these problems, well then great. Then that means every single one of us can be on the same page as we talk about an override in the future because there's no way we're going to get around it. So I'm appreciative of that. This unless somebody else has something to say, we can move on to action items. Is that enough or sufficient, Mr. Lotsenheiser, for your steps going forward? >> Absolutely. And thank you. Thank you for you uh [clears throat] expressing your opinions and for that transparent discussion we just had. >> This brings us to Hold on, let me cross off on my list 8.1 approval of 2026 2027 course guides for high school, middle school, Higgley virtual academy, and special education. Do I have any questions or comments from the board before

184I motion? Yes. Um I just uh for the uh special ed curriculum. So it was said that the castle framework is not being utilized. Um do we know when that changed? >> President Wade, um board member Van Hook, I do not know when it changed. I do know that when you brought it up in the last board meeting, I took note of it and decided to reach out to my team leads at the high school to kind of get some information on that and they shared with me that they don't use it. They don't reference it. It's it's not part of the curriculum that they use within the communication strategies classes. Okay. >> Do you know what framework they do use? >> They use a lot of different resources. It really is based on each

185student's individual IEP and the needs that student has in that classroom. I can tell you that the communication class is primarily set up [clears throat] for kids that have behavioral needs and struggle with communication and dealing with high conflict situations or um situations where they need to deal with their own personal frustrations or struggles within a certain context. >> Okay, thank you for that. Um, and then, um, the HVA, I'm guessing because sensitive material wasn't added to that that it did not include >> any of that material. >> That's correct. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Madam President. So, uh, Mr. Lotsenheiser and I talked there is a little section in there on p I don't know what pages we're looking at. We have a new interface here. It's like page four. It says about audit

186status and it talks about um missing more than 10% of the semester and uh we talked about it but I just want to remind Mr. Fields um you know postcoid we hear from a lot of teachers about absences. This is a tool that your you can use if uh if a student has excessive absences and I think we should start to use it and people will start to get the message that it's important to show up to school when we have and I'll talk about my wife different district but you know when when you have a kid that has 40 absences I mean I question number okay and there's exceptions to every rule so I'm not talking about that but if you have a kid that just doesn't feel like coming to school and their

187parents don't feel like making them come to school, I would put them on audit status at some point and have a discussion and if you know attendance improves great but that is something that teachers are yearning for um because it's a lot of work to make up stuff and and you know when a kid misses class and you have an experiment or prepared or whatever you're doing a writing assignment uh it's difficult so our teachers are begging for that you have that tool and I would just encourage you to have your uh admin in teams at the at the high school level. Just revisit that and you would have my support uh in enforcing that a little bit more than maybe you know we have since co >> President Wade. >> Go ahead, Miss Schultz.

188>> Mr. Glover, um I see where you're coming from. Um but I disagree with you. I think that as we're looking for kids and attracting kids and people looking for flexibility, if a student is doing well in a class, I don't see there's any reason to penalize them for missing for various reasons that they might miss. And I think it will only deter parents and make them want to homeschool their kids um if we're if we're doing something like that for kids that are getting good grades. So, I would think that it would have to be on a case-byase basis. >> Well, yeah, I don't I don't think we necessarily disagree. I mean, it's a case- by case basis is fine, but I I'm not sure that we're really I I'm saying this about Higgley,

189but I think I'm applying it to all the schools that I read about is um I just think that um I mean, I guess we could ask for a report and find out how many how many how many students do we have at a Higgley High at Williamsfield that have more than 10 absences? Well, I would say even 15, maybe more than 15 absences in the in in the last maybe two semesters. And then we could know if it's a problem. But if we I think we do have some kids that have I you [snorts] know what I don't want to say that we have it but I have heard of instances in other places where kids have missed you know 40 days of school and I that concerns me and if it's that unimportant

190then I I mean why come anyway >> President Wade um board member Glover that's that's a great point and I'm all about kind of that accountability aspect and it helps teachers do their job. I did notice though with COVID um I have a lot of empathy for people who are going through health conditions because it seems like especially parents have to be more cautious and all that kind of stuff especially with COVID and just so a case by case basis but I do love that how it would support the teachers in general. Thank you. Um, I do know that AD is trying to work on something possible. I mean, we already have legislation, but I know uh they've been trying to push for more accountability when it comes to absences. And I I don't know

191if we still do, you know, chronic absence forms for the um students that need those. Uh but obviously those are um few and far in between. Um but again, I think unfortunately co [clears throat] created a mess uh when it came to when it comes to, you know, people not feeling like they should attend. Um but [clears throat] also for families to understand that uh that also impacts our funding. Um and so it's important that we have um students that you know attend their classrooms and not create extra work for staff to have to catch them up. Um and you know all all of it is is important for not only the students themselves in order for them to learn uh but also for our teachers so that they're not having um extra work to

192have to do. Okay. I motion that the governing board approve the 2026 2027 course guides for high school, middle school, Higgley Virtual Academy, and Special Education. >> Second. >> Uh, I'm going to give that to Mr. Glover, even though both of those were quiet. All those in favor? >> I. >> And I'm as well. Is that enough, Miss Zimmerman, or do you want me? Okay, perfect. The motion carries five to zero. This brings us to item 8.2, approval of fiscal year 2026 budget revision number one. Any questions or comments from the board before I motion? Okay. I motion that the governing board approved the revised expenditure budget number one for fiscal year 2026 as presented. Second. All right. Miss German seconded. >> All those in favor? I >> I >> did you an I as

193well? I motion carries five to zero. This brings us to item 8.3 approval of 2025 2026 HUSD goals. Any questions or comments from the board before I motion? >> Um yes, and I this has come up a few times now. Um, but I just want to reiterate, uh, on page six, uh, you know, again, finding more ways to, um, retain and attract more students. Um, and being able to earn community trust. Um, and that has got to be by actions and not just, um, just by words. Um and then indicator 4 4.4 on page 7 um enforcement and accountability uh I believe needs to be a part of that and a part of our best practices. That's all. Okay. [clears throat] I motion that the governing board approve the 2025 2026 goals as presented. All

194or I need a second. >> No, I said I need a second. >> Second. >> All right, Mr. Glover. >> Mr. Glover seconded. All those in favor? >> I. >> Miss Schultz is an eye as well. Motion carries 5 to zero. This brings us to item 8.4, approval of overnight and/or out ofstate travel, ESA. Any questions or comments from the board before I motion? Is this President Wade sorry is this um kind of needed for that staff to uh for their professional development and then um do they sign the DEI waiver that they'll every staff member who has a cert in order to maintain a cert in this state you have a certain number of years to get a certain number of hours so PD is always needed for maintaining a cert as far as

195I understand it and cabinet can correct me if I'm wrong our specific staff member is presenting at this one So, not only are they presenting, they get the PD aspect of that and then for every single one of our trainings, every staff member is aware of what our curriculum is and what it is that they need to bring back in terms of into the classroom. >> Thank you. Um [snorts] just based on my review of the 2024 conference again they just the organization's very heavy on DEICRT and um just race-based ideological um concepts. Uh and I [sighs] understand that this is being paid out of um I forget it is M. Um but I think they said like school level I can't find it right now. Um but whether it's M uh whether it's a

196grant grants are taxpayer money too. It's not just some random money. Um, so just based on that, you know, obviously I don't have we don't get like a a breakout of all the sessions or whatever. Um, so I can't go off of this year, but based on last year's, I don't I can't support spending taxpayer money on such organization. >> To be clear, uh, this is for uh dual language. Yes. Is that >> President Wade? Yes. Miss Harvey from Santan had submitted a proposal to discuss the shifts in daily language when it comes to dual language immersion and the program is available for this year's conference. It is up and it focuses in on federal funding from title one to title five and provides different instructional practices within that. >> Awesome. And as far as

197the DEI is concerned, that is literally going to be the structure of a multiple language course, right? The idea of inclusion and equitable practices for folks who are either a non-English speakers is the primary language or b learning a different language. So as far as those conferences having a lot of DEI language, again I it is hard in that that is a structure of education. We as teachers have to differentiate our instruction and make sure that we are being equitable and inclusive to all of the students in front of us. And a conference that is an education conference and is about multiple languages is going to include a lot of that uh uh language in general that gets flagged in other areas that is a cornerstone of education. So I I respect everybody's right to

198feel some kind of way, but I think it is important to keep in mind that we are talking about uh education and what our responsibilities are in terms of being equitable and inclusive because by law we ought to be and that's kind of the structure of that. Um go ahead. Um, there's being inclusive and equitable, but the fact that it's racebased concepts is the problem, which is why I can't support it. [clears throat] >> Sure. I motion that the governing board approve the overnight andor outofstate travel, the ESA. >> Second, >> Mr. Glover seconded. That was a weird S I just drew. All those in favor? >> I. >> All those opposed. >> Motion carries 4 to one. This brings us to 8.5 approval of intergovernmental agreement IGA between Higgley Unified School District and the

199Arizona Department of Education for the teaching partners program. Any questions or comments from the board before I motion? >> Yes. So the only reason I had this pulled is because I wanted to understand what the uh impact was going to be on teachers um and based on the answers that were provided um were sufficient. Okay. I motion that the governing board approve the intergovernmental agreement between Hegel Unified School District and the Arizona Department of Education for participation in the teaching partners program. Second, Miss German seconded. All those in favor? >> I I >> I motion carries 5 to zero. >> This brings us to future agenda items. Does anyone have any f requests for future agenda items at this time? Okay, great. Uh, we're going to at this time take a brief recess while the

200board transitions to the floor uh for their board self-evaluation as well as this gives us an opportunity to use the restroom. Definitely need to refill water, all that jazz. [snorts] Okay. [sighs] So, this brings us to 10.1 governing board self-evaluation. uh in my head and so somebody can tell me if they viewed this differently. Um it was my expectation that we would just express what our overall rating was and then if there was a comment you wanted to make on one of the specific standards or at least why you chose the rating or whatever then you are capable of doing that in that moment and then we'll move on to the next one rather than do each one individually. Um, but I'm open to suggestions if somebody finds that that plan isn't the wisest. Okay,

201great. Um, so does anybody want to start our first one? Standard one, responsible school district leadership. Um, for those of you who are still paying attention, we have seven standards essentially within there. Um and this is a board eval about how we feel individually the board as a whole is uh doing I guess so anybody would wish to start. >> Sure. Go ahead. I appreciate it. >> All right. Uh well I'm always tough uh I'm a tough grader on myself. So, I rated us overall as a two because there's always room for improvement. Um, I think after the um recent uh election results that number five on here seeks to build consensus and environment of trust is some something that we all everybody should be should be working on. Um, you know, I don't know

202what else, you know, I can do. I mean, I I feel like I try to be transparent. I I feel like people know where I'm coming from, but um but it's obvious when overrides fail that there's an element of trust. So I I think that's one area of improvement. And I don't always think we um we are an effective and collaborative team and some of that is, you know, how we come into to meetings and the different ways. We're all getting used to each other, but uh but I don't think it always shows that we're an effective collaborative team sometimes. I my assumption is he just did overall average rather than adding it all up. So take your total points or whatever you had in terms of his overall rating was a two >> and

203that's for the [clears throat] overall board. >> Yes, we're on standard one. Sorry, my microphone's off. Yeah. So, I I think that there could always be efforts kind of more um collaboration probably together, but I do find as a board member sometimes that's challenging in a way, but um yeah, Miss Van Hook, would you like to go or would you like me to go first? >> Um I have us at 2.25. 25 as well. Um I think there are some things that we do well uh individually and as a whole in that I I I think we show up, we're prepared, we attend the events that we can attend. Um issues that I have or or areas I think I align with uh Mr. Glover in that our seek to build consensus and an environment

204of trust uh as well as works as an effective and collaborative team. Uh it doesn't always feel as if that is what we have a as a board are uh working hard to do. Um I do think that you know there is always areas of growth. Um, but I think some of that consensus of trust starts with us and how we respond to staff and how we respond to community members when they talk to us about issues that we even have within district or areas of concern and those types of things. Um, and how we go about that in our current positions. So, I too uh didn't really give us a a great overall score. those those two areas as well as I feel like considers the perspective of all stakeholder groups in determining district

205priorities that doesn't always feel like we're capable of achieving that. Um whether that's just by structure or choice. Um I don't know. I don't know. [snorts and clears throat] Go ahead, Miss Van Hook. And then we'll figure out where Miss Schultz is. I have a similar score. And I think um the biggest issue I see is um the I guess more of a attempt to just silence or um judge versus an attempt to understand. and um the uh lack of professionalism sometimes um and understanding what our uh roles and responsibilities are as board members. um and just the frustration of um of all those things. So I like I said I have a similar score. >> I What was score on that one? >> Two. Okay. >> Miss Schultz, are you still with us? >>

206Yes. I am a two barely. Um and uh number seven I gave a zero and it was for a lot of the reasons that Miss Van Hook just stated. Um and so I definitely think uh it needs improvement. All right, [clears throat] this moves us to standard two. Does everybody or anybody care to start for standard two? note takers. I'll start on this one. That's fine. Um I also again think that there are certain aspects that we are doing in terms of I think ultimately the policies that we still have passed as a district and the the efforts that we have made as a district um are still trying to be student centered um and we are continuing I think to ask that we challenge our students and continuing to be academically uh aligned with

207being a challenging school district as well as one of success. Um I think we can create an opportunity. I feel like sometimes there are areas of focus that we have or individuals within us have that tend to be personal preference rather than what that impact looks like as a policy and a change on those policies or understanding at least what some of these uh requests mean in terms of staffing hours and the expectation of some of that. We also a lot of times as uh board members we often ask repetitive uh questions to information that we've already gotten answers for. And so like I I think it's great that we have the ability to give some of the information back, but I don't think that we're always um as cognizant of what the resources are

208in terms of being able to look at how we identify or address areas of concern. Um, [clears throat] and so yeah, I still did not have a great overall, but I do think there are at least as a whole the policies and things that we are looking at. I think we are still doing what we can to try to pass policies that are as successful for our students as they can be. >> I can go. Um I um I'm probably a 2.5. I don't know if I'm grading these right, but um I think the district's doing great, you guys. I really thought about this and I um I mean there is always room for effort and I' I've learned that also with districts and kids, but I think we're doing overall pretty good. Um, I

209also reflected on this and I thought about, you know, there are a lot of options out there. There's charter schools, ESA, homeschool, all that kind of stuff, but we do need a good neighborhood school. We need a good district schools. A lot of those other things are more specialized and all that kind of stuff. And so, it's it's finding that wiggle room where there are options. I'm all about giving options to parents. And so I really um we're doing it and I love how the district touches base with the students and I feel like we're very co cog cognizant. Did I say that right? Um you know just going in the schools and doing the tours and just all the hands-on and all the principles and uh teachers, they really meet these students where they're

210at. And so I feel like overall 2.5 that's where I'm at. I hope that makes sense. I also have a two for this. I think the board needs stronger commitment to um defining and monitoring academic goals. Um I know you know we have a lot of presentations that we celebrate. Um, but I want to ensure that we're reviewing, you know, progress gaps, um, and things that need improvement. Um, and I think that the board would benefit from being kind of more engaged in student data um, and accountability conversations. Um and we can absolutely celebrate the great things that are happening. Um but we also need to pay attention to um metrics and our concentration should always be on uh student achievement. >> Miss Schultz. Well, I don't want her to have to always be last.

211Miss Schultz. >> Oh, thank you, Mr. Governor. But I was I was I don't think I was last last time. Maybe. Um uh I did a uh 2.75. I actually think that we're doing a good job in this area. I the what the teachers are doing and just the growth this year alone that we had and just the information that I get. There's always going to be students that fall through the cracks that we need to be able to um look at that and how we can help those kids and how we can help um move things up. But I think overall with our A-rated schools and what our teachers and our admins is doing, um, I'm always happy with the results and want to celebrate the wins as well. >> I mean, I don't

212want to belabor [clears throat] the point, but yeah, I'll go probably like a two and a half. I I think I want to say that Higgley celebrates the achievements of students and staff as well as anybody. They do a really good job and make a strong effort to do that. And uh I always appreciate that. Uh item number three on this list says works with the superintendent to define clear goals for student achievement and effective instruction. And that's just a reminder when I read that to me that by state statute our job is to hire and evaluate the superintendent. But the day-to-day operations of things uh is for the superintendent to do and then our job is to judge you on how well you do that or not. Um and then the other one that

213I had is um I just think it's a worth talking about. it ensures that all decisions are made based on what is best for students. I think that's the challenge as we deal with these um the budget issues that we're about to have to deal with. Um that we just keep make sure that when we make decisions that the first thing we thinking about is how is that going to affect students because that's what we should all be here for. So a little bit more work to be done. This brings us to standard three, board responsibilities. Who would like to start us off? Miss Schultz, do you want to go first on this one? >> Um, sure. I didn't add up my total, so I forgot this one to add. Um, I think there is

214some confusion about what a board does and what we're supposed to do and our roles and our responsibilities. Um, there's I mean there's confusion when you we run for this position and confusion among the public on things that we're allowed to handle and things that we're allowed to do um and what our role is. So I think understanding I also think I don't I personally and I don't know how much of board professional development um I don't know what a good amount would be. I mean I I've attended things and paid attention to things over the years but I don't know that one I wasn't sure exactly what to give us on that one. So I gave a um a two. It's actually more of a 175, but I didn't add it up. Um, but

215I think um, for the most part though on on number 10, we there I know that I personally and because we can't talk to each other on some things, it's hard on this one for me to know everything. I just know what we publicly do. And as far as directing complaints to staff and the community and the appropriate channel, I know that I always, if not 97% of the time, do it. And I know this is a board evaluation, but um some of this stuff it's hard to know exactly what everyone's doing due to the fact that we can't speak um about certain things. Hopefully that makes sense. No, it does. I appreciate that. Who would like to go next? Um I do agree that uh I think that there is a huge misunderstanding as

216far as what our responsibilities should be and and are. Um I personally do professional development constantly if not weekly. Um and so and and just with um all the training that I do do uh and it I understand what my role is and I I feel like um you know there's constant uh you know deferring things to whether it's administration or legal counsel and not and the board not um exercising independent oversight. Um we are ultimately responsible for everything that happens in this district. Um everything comes down to the board. Um and so the decisions that we make, we have to do that with that in mind. Um yes, you know, only the superintendent reports to the board. Um but ultimately how the policies that we make, how they get implemented um throughout the district

217and how things take place within the district ultimately falls on the board. And we need to understand that um and and function in a manner to where uh we take that responsibility seriously. I give this probably a 2.5 or um yes the board has a lot of responsibility but I also notice when it comes to public governance there is an aspect of communication and respect and we um it's very helpful when it's received by all parties. Um and so touching base with the admin and seeing um keeping those communications and those lines of respect very open um because we are all adults here and so keeping that standard kind of up. But yes, constantly learning what our duties are, being very mindful of that in our actions and our votes and our governance. Um, it's

218very helpful. [clears throat] Look, I'm going to round up to a two in that I think there are aspects of this as a whole that we are doing all right with. Um, I would like to uh at least reflect if not challenge perception on what our responsibilities are as a board on a later standard because we have one that directly deals with the superintendent and what the expectation is of the relationship between us as a board, individual board members and the superintendent. Um I do not believe that we have uh a situation in which all of us board members equally process and respond to complaints in the same way. Um there are aspects of uh our job in which we get emails or conversations with people randomly when we run into them about specific aspects

219of things that are happening on campus. And our first role always should be to contact the superintendent and have the superintendent look into what things are going on. Um I think in general when dealing with people and especially if some of those people are students, not every information that we get or how the information is presented is always an accurate representation of that. Um but beyond that, part of the reason that that protocol is in place is to not um set ourselves up for policy or procedures that we have or might have later as [snorts] a result of some of these complaints. I.e. if I get a parent who is telling me this specific thing is happening or they're up unhappy with what's going on or even a staff member that is in a situation

220in which they feel that this is something that's not going well or they have a complaint. it is my responsibility to pass that off to the superintendent or the relevant cabinet member if it is for a specific position which if we don't know who that is I always send it to Christine because that's not my job to know who that goes to that's somebody else's and I don't believe that we always do that and as a result I I think let's pretend one of these staffing issues ends up coming in front of us as a board leader we run the risk as a board member of not being able to make a decision on that because we now have kind of entangled led oursel in something that uh could cause problems or a conflict of

221interest which again comes to another part. A lot of these kinds of standards over overlap a little bit. Um and so for me on the board responsibilities one I I think following through that process uh matters and us doing it consistently um is important. Um [clears throat] I do think there are benefits to us as a board going through professional development. I think individually there are some things that we can sign up for and do that with different organizations but I I think as a board sometimes it's helpful so we can make sure that we are understanding our responsibilities in the same way and that helps us govern how we you know dictate policy. >> Go ahead Mr. Glover. >> I don't have much to add. Um, you know, I rated [clears throat] us as

222a two. Um, the only thing, and I like what Miss Schultz said, and I just will echo it. Um, you know, number four, item four on here says works with other board members to establish effective board policies. I just because we can only talk uh with open meeting law to one other member. You see us doing our thinking and arguing up here. It would be I it would it would be a lot more smoothly if we could just call each other and you know have some of these discussions but legally we can't and we and and I would if I if I did do that which I which I I'm not talking to more than one board member um I would always feel like I still would bring it to the group and then discuss

223that as a whole but we're flushing things out in front of you and that is uh ugly and messy sometimes and probably not terribly fun to watch. So, um, but that's the system that we have. So, okay, great. This brings us to standard four, board effectiveness. Who would like to start? This one. We'll start. Um, for this one I um the overall 1.5. Um, I think that the board can do um more to center discussions on student outcomes and long-term goals. Um, and then just, you know, preparing for board meetings. Uh, I put in a lot of work from the minute I get the agenda. Um, I research every item and I feel like, um, that, you know, that not everybody puts in that much effort. Um, you know, part of it could be because,

224you know, certain things are just approved no matter what. No questions asked. And I feel like if I wasn't the one asking questions that um there wouldn't be much conversation at board meetings um and that we would just vote and leave. And so, um, I think that there there should be, uh, you know, prep preparations for every board member. Um, with the agenda items and questions asked, uh, when you look at the Q&A for the agenda items, uh, I would say 99% of the time I'm the only one asking questions. Um, and so if questions are being asked behind the scenes, then those questions should also be added to the uh to the Q&A. But as far as I'm concerned, every agenda, all the answers we get back, it's just my questions. Um, I don't

225see any other board member asking questions. And the whole purpose was that if they are asking questions, then it should be on there. if if they're not asking questions is it because nobody really has questions about agenda items. I can't be the only one that um is asking questions. Um so that is very concerning for me. Um I'm at like a 2.5. Um, this is where it gets really frustrating because it's kind of like, um, I come from a family of addiction and codependency and manipulation techniques and bullying and all that kind of stuff. And I like to be very clear with how kind of we communicate. I don't like gaslighting tech tendencies. I don't like kind of backhanded negative whatevers. Um, so I really think that it's helpful to understand that we operate differently.

226I have been trying to meet as many people as I can on the board or the admin and such and um I'm trying to do my things differently and um to toot my own horn because apparently we're tooting our own horns. So overall I am also a very optimist p optimistic person and I um it's helpful when we kind of like stay focused I think on the board agenda um and just if we can really get kind of focused to what our thoughts are and be very strategized and be respectful also of other people's time and not kind of drag things on or repeat ourselves multiple times. I think we could really be a little bit more um effective with our time management when it comes to board meetings. >> Sure. Thank you for the

227um Okay. So, I rated probably I rated a two overall. Um uh I focused in on here for conducts board meetings efficiently and effectively. Um I think our meetings are too long and sometimes too unfocused. Um, as for myself, I ask lots of questions. Um, I think it's helpful to ask them in advance to the superintendent rather than when we're up here because that gives them time to look up the answer. So, that's my approach uh that works for me and if it is something uh that needs to be shared with the public then then when that item comes up then I do. Um I think it part of our role is to educate people uh and answer questions. Um so that that's one item I I felt like we could do better. And then

228supporting board decisions once action is taken. Um we talked about this at the beginning of the year. We had a training and uh that is a critical role. Um you know you don't always win when you vote. Uh but the agreement of a functional governing board is win or lose once you walk out the door you you got to support it. And I mean I've seen the same thing in committees that I've been on in various school districts is you know you speak your peace and if you lose then when you walk out the door you got to support the decision that was made by the by the whole group. So um that's just something that I think we should keep in mind. Uh for me that improvement on that would improve my score next

229year. >> Miss Schultz. [clears throat] >> Um yes, thank you President Wade. So I rated as a 175 and um as Mr. Glover said um number five was a zero or a negative zero for me. Supports board's decision once action is taken. um that is important and essential to a governing board. Uh there's things that I don't like sometimes. I mean, I've been on the board for 5 years now. And so my questions have already been answered a lot of times or I can figure it out on myself or I do ask questions ahead of time as Mr. Glover said because as Miss German said, I want the meetings to be efficient and run effectively. So we are the longest running board meeting I think in the state, maybe the country, I don't know. Um,

230but our meetings do need to be run more efficiently and effective and asking questions ahead of time. I often don't need to ask the same question over and over again because they're things we already understood. So, having a Groundhog's Day conversation would just be a waste of time for me. There are things that we ask ahead of time or that I want to reiterate or make sure the public knows. And I think that I do I do that. But speaking over as an overall board since that's what we're talking about is um a 175 for this. [clears throat] Um I have probably in that same range of the 1.75 to a two. I just rounded up to a two cuz I didn't want to do the maths on that. Um I agree. I think the

231fact that we have um board members who speak out in varying public outings about things that are counter to what we as a board have passed. I recognize that that is a frustration um in that if you are on the side of voting or you have a policy that you don't necessarily agree with and yet that's the policy that we have in place. Um that is part of our job and that's part of the requirements of being on here. Um, [cough and clears throat] we as board members sit up here every board meeting and we work hard to hold staff and students accountable to our policies. Um, and I believe that that starts with us and I believe that we also should be equally beholden to our policies. And I feel that [clears throat] we

232have gone over in the three years that I've been on here our communication protocol which is item seven for me >> [snorts] >> um multiple times and yet we still uh do not adhere to it and I struggle to sit up here as a governing body saying that we have expectations of staff and students to follow and be accountable to our policies and yet we are not held accountable to our policies. Um, and there is great frustration in that. I also have a frustration with the expression [clears throat] that just because uh we aren't asking questions, it means that we don't do the labor or the work to be here. That's just disingenuine um and is a poor representation given that when we show up it is apparent that at least the board members know

233the issues that they are talking about. Um, I don't have many questions on a fair amount of things in that I worked in public schools. I have a master's degree in secondary education. And so, a lot of this information is all things that I'm greatly familiar with. And I do ask questions when we're here in the meetings. And I have asked questions when they arise or have specific issues for my person. I just don't have them all the time. And that doesn't mean that I am any less prepared to be here. I also wish to bring up communication protocols again because it is my interest and intent to uh hold ourselves accountable and the next thing that I'm going to discuss not only impacts my rating for this standard but honestly it's in a few

234standards in terms of how it is uh multiple things kind of overlap essentially is what it is and so I'm choosing this one um and my issue is that we have a situation in which we have staff [snorts] members who are human persons and we have a staff member that made a post on their personal social media page and on their personal social media page they discussed that their political ideology which in this case happens to be conservative but it's irrelevant to the overall argument and with that they also talked about the funding situation in the state of Arizona which honestly I think they did a pretty decent job of explaining kind of the inequities that exist and that are that are available. But then they also went and made comments on behavior of a

235specific board member. To be clear, that board member is not mentioned. It's not named or any of those things. This staff member emailed me and the reason they emailed me is because they feel that a board member went beyond what communication protocols that we have in place. And I do think it matters. And so when you have a situation as a board member in which we are being criticized by the public, we are political figures. That criticism is going to come quite frequently. I get emails on the regular that tell me how ridiculous it is that I choose to have my hair in different colors. It is not my responsibility, nor is it my uh position as a board member to comment on every time I receive criticism. Now, in this specific case, this was

236a personal post on a social media in which every single one of our staff members, just as every single one of our board members, have rights and protections for us to exist and behave in the way that we are. And then we had a response and board member Van Hook, it is you that I am expressing in which you used your HUSD email to email this staff member and their wife because their wife shared it as well who also happens to be a staff member and I'm specifically not using their names because their names are irrelevant to this. and you emailed them to respond to the criticism that they had about your person on their social media page and you included their administration. I struggle with this. Not only is that beyond our communication protocol,

237I find it to be an abuse of your position. I find it to be dangerous and as a board I find you put us in risk of liability. And I think it is unacceptable that if you have a situation in which you feel a staff member has done something that is against our staff policies, again, our first approach every single time should be to contact the superintendent. And the idea that we would take our own personal HUSD issued email to send an email out to their work email and include their bosses feels it feels vaguely threatening. It feels again as an abuse of your position and what our roles are. So I think it's important and that maybe us collectively because all of us have talked about knowing what our roles are and what our

238responsibilities are that going into this next year we set up training for us as a board to reiterate why our communication protocols are the way that they are so we don't open ourselves up to problems. We also have many complaints in which we have had board members that have gone out in the public like LD14 for example to talk about our override. We also have had an individual at a public comment express that board member Van Hook you have given presentations to them at Trilogy. Whether or not that is accurate from that person, I'm not really here to to to express one way or the other. My concern is that we have behaviors that are putting us at risk. And my question is what are we doing to make sure that we adhere to these

239protocols and and a large part of some of these and again it's other standards in in in different areas but for standard 4 insurance decisions are impersonal objective and professional. I struggle to see how that action and that use is within our standards. And so for me, I don't think that we are being effective as a board. And I don't think it is easy for us to sit here and expect accountability if we cannot hold ourselves accountable to our own policies. And the benefit for staff and students is there are policies in place and repercussions, but there is none of that for us. And I I just think as a as a board, we should absolutely have training. So we are ensuring that we as individual board members are not creating a situation in which

240we are opening our district and ourselves up to liability for things that we should never have done in the first place. And because you called me by name, I will respond to that. Um, I am very well aware of my role and like I said, I do trainings constantly, but the messaging that was used was so inappropriate that I am also a community member [snorts] and I have every right to address it. And so I know what my role is and what our policies are and I don't do anything that would put the district at any risk. So saying that and assuming that you're absolutely incorrect because I'm also involved in the community. Yes, I'm also APC and I am allowed to have conversations outside of my board member role. [clears throat] So, your accusations

241and your assumptions are absolutely incorrect. >> Ma'am, it's not an assumption. >> You're going to call me. We're here to discuss overall, but if we're going to get personal, I can get personal, too. So, would you like to go personal or do we want to reflect overall ratings? [snorts] I I I think both are available here when again, ma'am, if our expression is that I am a private citizen and using your HUSD email to email their HUSD email about a social media post, how is that you acting as a private citizen? That's That's not And I'm not saying that. >> Okay. But you went beyond that with your accusations. >> Okay. So then let's make it that's the only accusation I'm leveling here today because it's the one I have proof of. >> Yeah. And

242and it was warranted. Where I'm struggling is that in this moment, your statement seems to not recognize the inappropriateness of that behavior to begin with. I'm not saying that you weren't upset. I'm not saying that you weren't hurt or frustrated or desiring to correct that issue. For example, when we talked about the dress code, I had somebody on a social media post express that I was a pedophile. That's alarming. I did nothing to that person because at the end of the day, it is a social media world in which that is not what I can control and how people feel. I'm not saying that you weren't frustrated or upset by that. You could have contacted that individual via their social media. And if you are not friends with them, then it makes it even more

243so a question of your choice in responding to something that was done separate of in a boardroom to use your board certified email that is provided to you from the district to respond to criticism. And you can't see why that is not only outside of our communication protocols, deeply unprofessional and an abuse of your position, >> but also unprofessional on behalf of a teacher >> to use their first amendment right to say that they have an issue with the board member that they did not name >> to be unprofessional is what I said. They can absolutely use their first amendment right, but what they did was also unprofessional. And you want to talk about unprofessional. Let's let's discuss your behavior on the dis. >> Sure. >> With your facial expressions, your body body expressions that

244you can't seem to control. >> Yes. >> And and behave appropriately and professionally on that dis. And that has been a problem since day one. And we have people tell you that that's a problem. I I >> why can't you act professionally and be able to agree to disagree? Instead, you if if I didn't say anything, there would be no conversation on this dis. But instead, you take the opportunity to lecture and pretend that, oh, I'm a teacher, so I'm going to lecture you. You don't agree with me, that's fine, but I'm not here to be lectured by you. If I'm if I have a concern, I have every right as a board member to have a concern because I've done my homework. You show up with no notes in front of you ever. >>

245That is correct. >> Yeah. And that should concern that should be concerning for everybody. [clears throat] >> So again, a choice of preference. >> Yeah. A choice. This isn't >> Yes, ma'am. I I would like to reiterate again. I have ADHD and I am autistic. I genuinely process very diff difficultly just straight audio information. So when somebody is just talking for extended lengths of time, it is difficult for my person. In no way have I done anything to go out of my way to be disrespectful to you. I would like to point out not three weeks ago at our last meeting, you told me to grow up when I was taking my time before I decided what I wished to say. It is apparent that there are frustrations and in no way, shape or form

246am I trying to express that there aren't situations or desires for my person to be better. I I struggle in these things. That has always been the case. It's why I sat next to every teacher's desk in every class I have ever been a part of. I don't show up with notes because I don't need them. I I don't know what you need from that. That is not a criticism. That is not a critique. That is just the way and the functionality of my brain. What I am struggling with is the stepping outside of what is an appropriate protocol and the fact that we still do not recognize that our staff have rights to post something on their social media and in no way, shape or form is our response as a board member to

247be to email them from our board email, including their administrator, and expect that that is the policy of professionalism. in the protocol with which we should follow. If you felt that what they said was unprofessional, your only course of action is to contact the superintendent. That is literally our policies. There is no policy that says I must show up with notes, but I did today. If that helps for this overall argument, I I am not saying that we are going to get along. It is apparent from the very beginning that we do not see much of anything eye to eye. You are not the only one who asks questions. You are not the only one who perpetuates and continues these board meetings. In fact, before yours and mine existence on this board. They had comments

248and questions that went just fine. You are not the only person who is capable of handling that. But again, I do think the specific action with which I am talking about begs us to not only follow up so we again as a board can recognize why this puts us in a position of liability but furthermore as a board if we sit here and say we expect accountability that starts with us. >> Yes. And I believe you're the last person to speak on professionalism. >> Okay. I would like to change my point total to one. Um if you know the only thing I want to add to this is um I I don't know member if it's policy but it was a it was an eth set of ethics that we had agreed to uh in

249my previous term. if you were going out as a board member and representing Higgley, uh you it was always uh I don't know if it was policy, but it was just accepted that you notified the superintendent. Um it doesn't mean the superintendent could tell you no, but that you just out of a courtesy told them like I'm going to go talk to Xgroup um as a courtesy. So that's just the only other thing I would >> Mr. Glover, it is policy. >> Okay. I thought so. I couldn't remember. I hadn't thought about that. >> I can [clears throat] go. Can I go >> for standard four? You want to go on standard five? >> No, I'm just going to kind of the same standard. >> Great. Continue. >> Um, it is wonderful if there isn't

250kind of like personal tax. I mean, I think it's great here and there because we're talking about the underlying like what's going on. Everything that we actually are feeling at each board meeting, each board meeting, we're actually talking about. So, this is a great thing. I think this is great. So, since we brought up the ethics, the communication protocols, should we read it? Should we read it real quickly since we're talking about this? >> I don't [clears throat] believe we can given what our agenda item is, but we can for future. And again, I I do think we absolutely should review what our communication protocols are 100%. Okay, great. And then yes, just in general, we've got to tread lightly on these topics because it is a freedom of speech, but also, you know, be

251respectful of the the district's policies and all that kind of stuff because the last thing we want is, you know, it to affect the district's pocketbook. To be frank, I don't know how else to put it. Standard five, board and superintendent. [clears throat] I'll start on this one. Um, again, I gave a low score of two seems to be my average in that a I don't ever really give zeros because there are five of us. Um, but I think it again piggybacks off of what I expressed previously in that it is not part of our daily executive responsibility of this superintendent if we are not notifying them of issues or areas of concern that we may have about a staff member, a student or policy in general. works with the superintendent with mutual respect, open

252communication, trust, and confidence. I have that real low. And part of the reason that I have that real low is because just because we differ in opinion or we don't like the answer does not mean that there is the absence of that communication or that trust or that respect. Um, and again, we also literally delegate our authority. And so maybe given where we are or how we have expressed so far what we view our responsibilities are as board me uh board members maybe we include that in our future PD along with communication protocol which is what our responsibility in fact is and that again is to input policy and to hold accountable the superintendent to making sure that all aspects of those policies are adhered to. Um, and again, that goes down to delegating authority

253for the administration of the district to the superintendent rather than feeling what personal situations we should make as far as decisions. >> Uh, sure. I just uh I don't have anything to say really. I mean, it's obvious. I'll just give us a two. Hi, President Wade. Is it okay if I go? >> Absolutely. Um, I in between a two and a one. Um, because I mean, personally, I feel like sometimes I might get a little bit upset about things and so maybe I don't always effectively communicate on some things, but I try to be open and talk things through. But I can do a better job myself of that. Um, but I think overall as a board then we definitely have some shortcomings when it comes to that. Um, as far as evaluating the superintendent

254on clear and focused expectations, that's a three to me. Um, delegates the authority doesn't happen um all the time. Uh, so I gave that a one and a half. Um, but overall I think we we need to work on it in some aspects for sure. Personally, I try to do my best to do to do these things and understand my role. >> I'll go to um I I need to kind of work on it and communicate a little bit more and stuff like that and figure out kind of what how more I can support or um do that or just ask questions or get more clarity on certain things. I could do a better job personally. Miss [clears throat] Van Hook, >> that's up. All of us have done it. I put zero. And that's

255because I truly don't know. I don't um I don't know what others do. Um, and I know what I do. Uh, when a complaint comes to me, I contact the superintendent um, and I encourage the person coming to me to contact the principal to um, go through the chain of command. But unfortunately, a lot of them are fearful to do that. Um, and so I report it. Um, and whatever is done after that, um, I don't know cuz, you know, I mean, it's not necessary that they follow up with me if they have a a student or a parent and they know how to go through there. But, um, I do sometimes follow up if I hear back, um, that they haven't heard anything or nothing's been done. So then I'll follow up. Um but

256I think that u the relationship is often imbalanced. Um I think that there's information information being shared with some board members and not all. Um and the fact that um we just need to uh ensure that there's proper oversight um [snorts] and a collaborative effort between um everybody um and not just between the superintendent and one or two or three board members and not everybody. Um but it's it's clear um in the past and present um that certain information is not shared across the board um and that's only being shared with certain board members. But that needs to change in order to um improve the dynamics [snorts] of the entire board. >> [clears throat] >> I'd like to express that we could include that as far as our communication and that we absolutely should be

257getting information that is questions from all board members and those types of things. I I don't uh I I uh yeah, this will bring us to standard six, community engagement and advocacy. Does anybody else wish to go first? because I've gone first several times. Cool. I'll start it off again. >> Sorry, [clears throat] M. >> Oh, go ahead. Miss Schultz, come save the day. >> Um, okay. So, I think that we, um, do allow for community input very well, um, through public hearings. We're very transparent. Um uh I think over my years on the board that Mr. Moore has been very transparent and we as a board make sure that those things happen and so um staying informed about educational issues and participating in programs provided by the state. Um yes staying informed on educational

258issues and media and government and all of those things than I think we do or it seems that we do. um [sighs] uh attending district and community events when possible. Yes, all of us has different schedules and things, but I think that we still do a good job of that. Um abstains from speaking on board issues for which the board has no official position. I know that I don't I don't know what others do. So, I would give this a two and a half in my opinion or and in my rubric too. So there, Mr. Glover, do you want to go? >> Well, I'm all over the place here. Um, yeah. I mean, I probably I mean, two, because we obviously uh with the override not passing. I I mean, to me, that's that's speaks

259that, you know, we've got more work to do to engage and advocate for uh the things that we feel are important uh for this school district. Um I will say for um item number two allows for community input through public hearings, advisory committees, etc. Um I have received sometimes things that I disagree with, but I welcome it because I actually do believe in the first amendment. And so you can criticize me all you want. I just would ask that, you know, when we do when we do disagree, it's respectfully. So the people that don't hear back from me have, you know, maybe stepped over a line, I think, of decency and and uh and civil discourse. Um, you know, I think we should strive for civil discourse, especially nowadays the way things are in this

260country. Um, so yeah, I mean, more work to do. I I think and and I intend to do it. I thought, you know, I always thought I was doing my part to help with the uh the override and the perception about um transparency and and all of these these some of these things we've been accused of of not not being or not doing. Um but more work to do and I'll I'll own that. Um, I have probably like a two and a half on this one, although I did not score on that one. Um, I think areas of improvement definitely can be had. Um, I I would like to echo the failure of the override. I think means that I have a greater responsibility to try to do more things and helping to convey some

261of that information or how we get that out of there. Um, I think that we do a good job with respect to the community and how many opportunities we provide to be involved with our community and have community members be involved in our process and our policy because at the end of the day, um, I work really hard to try to make decisions for the community as a whole, recognizing that we have a larger group to serve rather than my own interest. Um, and I think that matters and it's sometimes difficult to do. Um, I also again think that the the the areas that I have scored the lowest are areas of 12 and 13 because again I think we have situations in which we have board members who are doing things that put us

262at risk as a board, as a school district. Uh, and that matters and it matters in the behavior that we do. it matters in how we see that behavior and how we view what our actions are. Um, again, I I recognize that we have more important things coming up in January with respect to looking at the budget, making sure that we do that. Um but I absolutely uh will be making sure that we at least get on the agenda to discuss again communication and what that policy and protocol should be because for example I have gone and have spoken to uh other groups that have invited me to do those types of things and I follow our protocol by informing district that I will be doing that ahead of time and I also follow protocol

263and that whenever I am there I make it a point to express that this is just on behalf of Amanda Wade and nothing else. Um, and I also have informed district when I have uh given comment to media um and let them know that I have commented to media on some of that. And again, I think it would be beneficial for us all to make sure that we are looking at what our responsibilities are and more importantly how our actions impact the functionality of this board. This is kind of a hard topic. Um, it's I feel like the district is doing a a pretty good job of transparency. Obviously, I'm I'm feel like I'm still learning and I thought I knew a lot, but I'm realizing, you know, I'm just still learning kind of stuff

264as life as to life. Um, what's hard with the override and stuff like that, since we're kind of, you know, beating around this, a lot of people don't want taxes. And so, a lot of these kind of broad brush strokes that it's like certain board members or something like that, that perhaps is not necessarily true. Um, so I'm just going to be frank about it. Like people, you know, there were certain things, utilities went up, there were multiple, you know, facets. I'll be honest, I was surprised at the results of the override. I'll be honest. Um I So setting that aside, um I I am grateful for the training that I've taken that reminds us to um you know, I I don't want to compromise the district over something that I say, etc. because I

265am working so hard to keep as many funds in the district currently. And so um I know that but I I fear kind of when we are so like this that it just kind of we also got to be very mindful with I not encroaching on the freedom of speech. Um yes, we should do our due diligence, be as transparent of what the offerings of the district and all that kind of stuff. And overall, I felt like the district did really good to kind of um, you know, do what they can. But I've also learned that you can't, you know, there's certain it's hard with certain things and certain accounts and being transparent because, you know, then you're tied to those specific accounts and all the all the things that I'm learning. So, it really

266gives me a lot of empathy for the admin and all the things that they've got to claim and all the, you know, things that they bring towards the community. And then if it's if one thing's off, oh, guess who's going to hear it, you know? So, um I hope you guys can uh be respectful of my transparency that I'm trying to do my best as a board member and to kind of contribute. I've been I think it's been 12 or 13 years that I've been in this district. So, anyways, I'm grateful for y'all. Um, for this one I put uh one. Um, [snorts] I do appreciate the the presentation that we gave tonight. Um, I think that that is a a great way of being transparent um with our finances and uh showing everybody um

267exactly what we have um as far as M and classroom site funds. And I think that that needs to continue um so that you know all the stakeholders um feel like they have everything that they need in order to um make decisions. Um I would like to figure out more ways to uh have parental involvement. Um, I know it's not always the case where um, you know, all all parents can be involved, but um, it would be nice to be able to figure out ways to to get more parents involved. Um, kids do much better uh, when [clears throat] their parents are involved in their education. Um I think that uh we need to concentrate on what matters and that's our students um instead of personal attacks or attempts to silence. Um, and we're all

268adults here, and I think that, um, we need to be able to agree to disagree, um, and have conversations that help improve our district. um and create an environment that um I guess you know where we can have trust instead of lack of it. So because of that um I gave it a one I believe is what I said. That's all. >> Yeah. Yeah. I just want to add something. I I said it privately to Miss Garm, but I I just want to say it publicly um here. You know, being new to education and public service, um I can see that you've learned a lot this year. She's she's the only one of us that hadn't served on a board before, but um it's obviously you're interested in learning. Um I can see the growth.

269I just wanted to compliment you on it and the manner in which you do it. I remember the first time you spoke and how I remember, you know, it's a lot. and uh I just wanted to thank you for the way that you approach the role and and the job that you've done so far this year as we're evaluating one another. >> I wish to second that, Mr. Chartman, in that I three years ago remember what it was like to be new to how much information and I at the very least had some background in education and Higgley for that matter to know it. Um, and I know that you've met with so many different folks here cuz we've talked like when we go on the school walkthroughs and those types of things and I

270it is a lot and I'm appreciative of all of all the work because it's not an easy position to be in and for those of you who have it is not there's a lot of information that comes your way. Um, so I wish to second that. Yeah. >> Thank you so much you guys. I feel like this has been the hardest thing that I've I've done to be frank. So I really I really appreciate your thoughts. Um so it it does look like we as a board have work to do and I think at the very least given uh statements that have been made. we're at least uh in alignment that we need work and uh I think that that will matter and hopefully we can put in the work and the effort that needs

271to get done to help continue to make Higgley a great place. Anything else from anybody before I motion to adjurnn? I'm taking that as a no, Miss Schultz. I motion to adjurnn this meeting. >> Second. >> That would be Miss German seconding. All those in favor? >> I. >> Was that an I, Miss Schultz? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. I'm an I. Motion. Five to zero. Drive safe everybody.