001e e good evening good evening everybody this isn't very loud a microphone I don't like that that feels wrong hello and good evening everybody I would like to call this meeting to order oh we actually don't have to but I appreciate that look always uh roll Miss Richards may I have roll call please yes president Wade let the record show three board members are present we're expecting two more to show up shortly thank you please join me in a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance I motion to approve the agenda that would be miss jarmin seconding all those in favor I I I motion carries 30 okay we are on 3.1 um right now we are on 3.1 approval of superintendent contract do I have any questions or comments all right great
002I motion to the governing board oh sorry I motion that the governing board approve the superintendent Employment contract between David lsen Heiser and the Higley Unified School District second that'd be Mr glver second all those in favor I I motion carries three to [Music] zero go ahead Mr lonizer thank you governing board uh members of the community here I just want to say how excited I am to uh start my new role in July and how proud I am to represent our district I do want to say a thank you to my family we like many of your families are very busy tonight but she promised that my wife promised she'd watch it online so thank you sweetie I appreciate it and where wherever the camera is and um I'm just I want to thank
003them for their love and support as we've gone through this process and and I'm excited for the next three years and what we can accomplish here in Higley so thank you very much thank you Mr lsen Heiser we are excited as well miss Richards we're going to turn to you for points of Pride to start us off yes president Wade members of the board we're going to start with our points of Pride for the district office anybody that is recognizing somebody up here on the board please come forward and the board you're going to want to come down for pictures all right Marcus Burkshire who are you recognizing this evening good evening it's my honor to recognize Brian Campbell our assistant director of student information and assessment um a little bit about Brian Brian contributes
004in so many different ways to this Brian come [Applause] up if I have to stand up here you have to stand up here as well Brian contributes in so many different ways to the district but much of it is behind the scenes and rarely gets publicly recognized due to the nature of his work his knowledge of and work with Synergy is well respected both inside the district and outside he's regularly called upon to provide his insight to updates with Synergy as well as to State reporting in fact today he received an email from edu point which is synergy's parent company asking him to present at their National Conference uh this fall so so uh we're really excited about that opportunity um he is known in Synergy circles as Brian from Higley he provides invaluable assistance
005to our sites and Leadership with the functionality Synergy by creating reports providing guidance on enrollment and scheduling facilitating third-party Integrations and Advising on policies and procedures around student data additionally he has supported multiple District departments in their work including assisting PR with the new website Finance with student ADM and enrollment Trends and student service with reporting for student discipline Raptor and handbook revisions I am proud to work with Brian from Higley and know that we have a rare gym working behind the scenes to ensure our staff had the student information we need while also ensuring that our student data is secure and the state gets the data it needs to ensure that we are properly funded so congratulations Brian thank you very [Applause] much and I'm supposed to ask who did you bring with you
006tonight uh I didn't bring anyone cuz you know life is busy as David said so I've got to rush over to the hcpa to go see my son perform for the DLI showcase so don't leave don't leave he did bring his Department team though there here back [Applause] there am then do perfect Miss Miller you have some here you want to recognize and you have Mr Stefan Reed with you so this evening we have the honor of recognizing Jessica Hulen Jessica come on [Applause] up so before I hand the mic over to Mr Reed to read why he recommended Jessica I wanted to um just add that she is truly the backbone of the special education department I do not think that I would be able to do my job if she was not there
007to keep me on track remind me what was next answer my phone remind me that I haven't check my emails she keeps me doing my job so Mr Reid Jessica Hogan is such an amazing person to work with she is friendly knowledgeable intelligent and always willing to do anything to help the special education department and the district office Jessica invites new tasks and challenges whenever the need arises and regularly takes on new responsibilities Jessica Works closely with all department members ensuring cohesion and communication Jessica is also a thoughtful and helpful person making sure everyone in the special education department has what they need to do their job to the best of their ability Jessica embodies the values and mission of the special education department and Higley as a school district I offer my highest recommendation
008for the points of Pride employee recognition program for Jessica Hogan we are lucky to have her in the special education department and as an employee of Higley Unified School [Applause] District who did you bring with you um I brought my mom my sister Sylvia U my three boys Robert Jacob Enrique and my son Jak girlfriend Michaela and then I have my work family here [Applause] supporting the rest of them with Tyler yes yeah conat con all right Mr Tyler Moore it looks like you have a few Awards here to hand out and we'll wait and take a picture with all those guys together unless you want it done differently no thank you I believe the rest are part of my team so I get the opportunity to uh uh bring up a few individuals that
009we would like to recognize the first one being Mike [Applause] chismar so Mike is our warehouse specialist and I'll just read what the nominee wrote for Mike so Mike is always willing to help anyone he's extremely hardworking and consistently goes above and beyond to make sure the schools and departments receive all that they need to serve our students in between regular duties you'll find him organizing and cleaning the warehouse washing Warehouse Vehicles he is an asset to the district and deserves to be recognized for the many years to service an outstanding work ethic so thank you Mike Mike who did you bring here with you tonight Heather Brush his [Applause] boss all right next I would like to bring up uh Jolene [Applause] so I'll read what the nominee uh wrote about Jolene so Jolene
010uh is our budget uh control specialist in the finance department um I want to recognize Jolene in the finance department she's always willing to help me with any questions I have with sped positions control codes account codes and run reports for me there are days where I call her multiple times and she's always there to answer with a smile on her face thank you [Applause] Jolene who did you bring here tonight Jolene I have my husband Fred he's my rock and supports me in everything I do my two kids are joining virtually Jenna who is in the US Navy and she is stationed in Pensacola I have my son Jacob who just graduated from PA school and is in Savannah Georgia I have my finance team some of the warehouse team I think finan is
011on that side as well thank you [Applause] and then next up I have Alex [Applause] erso so Al is our uh custodial supervisor and I'll read what the nominee had to say about Al since taking over as the kodial manager and overseeing the plant forant and kodial departments uh we have seen major improvements most most of the sites have full staffed fully staffed custodial staff which is ideal on the cleanliness of the school sites he also works closely with the school plant Foreman overseeing them and helping succeed making sure their school sites are clean and safe on a daily basis so thank you [Applause] Al and Al who did you bring here tonight my wife of 24 years Kimberly and my kids are watching the Yankees and Diamondbacks so they didn't want to [Applause] uh
012next I'd like to invite up uh Mr John Stone the assistant director of transportation to uh share the two Transportation nominees thank you all right first I'd like to invite Aman to come on up [Applause] am's been with the district for a few years now he's had several different roles with us from route driver to mechanic um and now he's an alternate and he was nominated by our dispatcher Stacy um and she says aan has an an exemplary attendance record and almost never have to worry about him calling out he is willing to cover whatever I give him without complaint he communicates needs wants well with office staff and myself he even volunteers for after hours assignments all the time and is one of the few I can count on to do so he is
013personable friendly and very professional and with all of his co-workers [Applause] uh my wife so just my wife there and thank you for being here with me [Applause] tonight and next I'd like to bring up Dan shalinsky [Applause] Dan came to Higley this year from one of the districts up north not to be named um he's wonderful attitude great guy and I'm really glad that he came on to the team he was also nominated by our dispatcher Stacy and she says this bus driver is constantly cleaning his bus making it presentable for the students he always has a great attitude when involving dealing with students and faculty members always is professional and following the rules his attendance record is exemplary and I never have to worry about covering his route Dan who did you bring
014with you today I brought my lovely wife Brenda of 35 years and our granddaughter [Applause] Gracie e e e president Wade members of the board we're ready for Higley Adventures many of you were able to hear this trash cam band from cornado Elementary they are an awardwinning band earning a superior rating at their first wgac AZ competition thank you for showcasing your talents tonight for our meeting we enjoyed getting to hear you play as everyone arrived here tonight so will you guys enter please Mr Brewer [Applause] [Music] great job guys amazing performance tonight we appreciate you so much Mr Brewer how long have you been coaching these students these particular ones um uh well raise your hand if it's your first year in trash can band awesome raise your hand if your second year so
015generally in fifth and sixth grade that's when we do it and um but really it's your fault that I started this 2015 13 something so she's the reason you have a trash can band she insisted on it and this is what it's turned into so thank you Miss Richards for this opportunity thank you Mr Brewer we want you to all cram together and then we'll put board members around you to take your picture so miss Batista can probably guide you but if some people want to get down on your knees Maybe there you go got it [Applause] see [Music] was what schols do um several of them do Bridges to well we can take care of that all right next we want to recognize these williamsfield high school students Emily Baler and Dominic meletti seized
016an opportunity to apply for the internship programs at Georgetown University thanks to their participation as members of HOSA future medical professionals bioscience these two students apply and were accepted for these highly competitive spots Emily was a selected for the Advanced Medical and public health internship Dominic was selected for the Neuroscience internship program both of these students will be attending Georgetown University this summer we are so very proud of you congratulations and I think Dominic are you in the audience this evening well you need to come up here both of you all right tonight we were blessed and I was told it was Emily I hope that's right is it she's like I don't care I'm going to Georgetown we're very proud proud of you is your family here too do you want to say something
017to them about supporting you who do you have here uh my mom's in the back thank you for coming uh both my parents are on the back all right let's give [Applause] okay recently the Arizona music educators Association held auditions at Gilbert High School for the All State ensembles and two higgle High sophomore students made the ban Kyler are you in the audience canaa sitting back there come on up here Kyer all [Applause] right and Kevin just got up and did the right thing by coming up here Kyler was the first chair in the All Region band Kevin has now made every audition honor ensemble in Arizona he was one of 10 trombones in the All State jazz band and in the All Region band and one of four in the All State band you
018guys are amazing the only thing we messed up on was you should have brought your instruments so we want to say congratulations to you and do you have family with you yeah my like entire family back there mine are at home okay they're cheering from home congratulations you guys you ready for a picture thank you [Applause] next Alex schaer when I'll call your name please come forward Alex is a junior Air Force Junior Roc candidate at Higley High School school he received a scholarship valued at $27,000 to attend Fairmont State University in West Virginia to participate in a Private Pilot licensed training program we're so very excited for you Cadet schaer is one of 194 Cadets around the world who received the the scholarship so after you get this license we want you to come
019pick us up and take us on a ride we also want to recognize Caleb dway a senior at Higley High School and a fellow Cadet in the Air Force Junior RC ROTC program he's an alternate for this scholarship you're both extremely impressive the Flight Academy scholarship program is an Air Force Level initiative in collaboration with the commercial aviation industry to address the national civilian and Military pilot shortage what a great achievement congratulations [Applause] I brought my dad and both my grandparents in the back right there all right I've known Alex since you were how the test okay a couple of years right congratulations thank you uh yeah my mom right there so all right [Applause] a [Applause] we are also so proud to share that higgle High Air Force Junior rooc the unit had a
020formal assessment from the regional director of the program and earned an overall exceed standards which is the very highest rating attainable achieving this rating is no small feat and reflects the hard work of the entire unit additionally we learn that they recently earned the distinguished unit with Merit shown in the picture here are the cadets volunteering at Feed the Children the Gilbert half marathon and wreaths Across America congratulations to Colonel vau Cadet Hamilton Holt Cadet staway shaer and the entire Air Force Junior RC team so come forward we want to recognize you guys [Applause] there's a colonel out there I think I know that you have to come participate sir because we're going to sit here till you [Laughter] do I do appreciate I thank you would you like to say something my family's not
021here you have some Higgly High people in the audience I know we suffer from amazing support from our Administration on site Mr fields and all of our other administrators our Junior highs that allow us to sneak in and Recruit new flesh fresh blood every year which we deeply deeply appreciate it keeps the program alive um and gives us amazing Cadets that do wonderful things I double checked right before we left uh to come over here we just crested over 2100 hours of community service this year uh as a C Core they did um and that does not include the leadership development hours uh that our system doesn't track and worry too much about but it's an equal number give or take um okay all right he doesn't have family here but he has family here
022right I think we're all family it's right all right Bor I know there please Cadet vder and Cadet white can you come forward please congratulations you are not on my script so I am so sorry so sorry so all right do you have somebody here uh parents and their basketball team all right that's awesome okay my sincere apologies we have a little script and we were missing people so thank you for understanding you want to introduce Brandon so now we're starting the uh celebration of sasman middle school and so I'd like to introduce uh Mr Brandon keing the athletic director at sasman Middle School to talk about a I believe back-to-back championship team members of the governing board and members of cabinet thank you so much for the opportunity to be here tonight to celebrate
023our basketball team and I would love for them to come up here and join us so they can hear all these great things we have to say about them [Applause] um so many of you might remember it was just uh a couple months ago we were actually here celebrating our first ever back-to-back championship and it did not take long for us to get another one and so um these young ladies won the championship as seventh graders and then came back and defeated nine different opponents to have a fantastic season season um and win yet another championship for sasman um not only is that an incredible feat um but as I look down this line um these young ladies serve as Leaders on campus in different clubs um and committees U we did not have a
024single and eligible student all season long and so this group not only are ballers but they are um examples of what uh academic based Athletics should look like and I'm so proud of them and I'm so proud of Coach D for what they've accomplished thank you so much for your hard work I'm very very proud of you ladies [Applause] my mom's here my mom's also here my friend's mom is here um my parents and my brother my mom's here I don't I don't have anyone here my mom and my dad [Applause] Mr pots Leslie BK if you guys would come up here please so we're very excited about our night of San and of the first the first recognition that we'd like to talk about hold on okay so we want to talk first about
025and I'm going to let Mr pots talk in just a second and then I'll have him introduce his s and family to come on up and join him but the Arizona Education Foundation announced the A+ School of Excellence Award winners and we are so very happy to congratulate sasam and middle school for receiving this highest award for the second time please give them a round of applause there so this award is the highest state level honor given to public schools in Arizona and is a testament to San's unwavering commitment to educational Excellence so congratulations San I'd like Mr Potts to give a few words and please if there's any San faculty or anyone to come join him up on the stage thank you boss man thank you uh president Wade and the the governing board
026and cabinet that's super supportive so uh we're super proud there's a lot of work that goes into to having a great school from day one to day 180 so Spartan nation is far and wide I think we have a lot of I was little disappointed cabet didn't wear their shirts tonight they all should have a A+ shirt but that's okay that's okay I was hoping uh but there's a lot of work and I just want to thank you to all the parents students you can come back in this is all about you you're the one that earns this stuff too come on back in uh and so give them a round of applause because it's all about the students so we have an amazing staff we have an amazing students uh we have an amazing
027A+ committee that worked on the application process for an entire year and for those that don't know what A+ is U it's you have fill out a giant application process then they basically send six judges to your campus over a couple days and say all right you do all these great things now prove it and so they met with students individually they met with staff individually they met with different groups of Staff individually they had a parent panel so it's a pretty big process and so uh all the credit goes to our staff our students our parent support so uh this all goes to Spartan Nation so thank you all and let's let's come on up and celebrate also shout out to our amazing ptso they're not here tonight but our pcso is a huge
028part of that as well after this photo let's get some students in here too that'd be great sor you give the students [Applause] go anywhere stay here hey if you guys want to stay here you're not done yet yet we have one more recognition because like I said this is the night of sasma Middle School recognition so we have one more recognition the Arizona Association for middle level Education Works to support those addressing the unique needs of middle school students in Arizona Azle judges have selected sasman middle school as one of the five inaugural schools for the Schools to Watch program which recognizes continuous School Improvement tonight they will present sasma middle school with a banner in honor of this achievement one of the top five middle schools in the state of Arizona so give
029it a round of applause yeah yeah got some money here to spend let's go party uh so this was a this is pretty cool event too so lot a lot you this this is so A+ is every four years uh and the schools to watch opportunity uh came about and so I want to thank Dr kaplinger for you know encouraging us to uh apply for this uh it's very similar to A+ where they had uh some judges come on our campus for a few days they get to experience Spartan nation and the culture we have on campus and our and our dedication to learning and so uh again shout out to our committees our our staff our students our parents they had all those same panels that we had and so uh January and February
030was a busy month for us with all of our visits and then we get the cabinet to come here in a couple weeks to visit us as well so appreciate all the teachers for coming on tonight after a long day of uh today we started aasa testing and so uh appreciate all the staff for taking time to be here love you [Applause] guys the uh Schools to Watch program is a national program so it's a little different than the A+ and it has been around for 26 years and we've recognized over 700 schools Across the Nation middle school so it's specifically an award to recognize middle schools grades 5 through nine so saaman will be invited or has been invited to Washington DC and in June they'll receive their National recognition not only as an
031Arizona school to watch but as a national middle school that is a school to watch so congratulations [Applause] a [Applause] than I don't think I can get it go there now all right president Wade members of the board let's proceed with upcoming events Thursday April 3rd is the superintendent school board visit to williamsfield high school we hope you will all join us Tuesday April 8th at 6:00 p.m. there is a parent event on dress Trends and this is virtual Thursday April 10th there's a parent event building resilience in the boardroom at 6:00 p.m. Thursday April 17th at 8:15 a.m. you're invited to San Middle School uh which Mr Potts just referred to for a visit not only to the middle school but to the preschool as well and Friday is no school spring holiday and
032that concludes the superintendent's report thank you Miss Richards um I believe everybody already has done it but just in case for those who wish to leave you are welcome to do so and we now are going to resume board business Miss zimman we do not have any requests to speak today is that correct all right so we're going to move on to the consent agenda uh I motion to approve the consent agenda items 6.1 to 6.12 second that would be Miss Schultz seconding all those in favor I I I all those opposed zero motion carries 5 to zero I'd like to say with the consent agenda thank you to Higley instrumental Association Concord General Contracting and Higley High School parents United booster club for their generous donations to our students and our schools this brings
033us to 7.1 presentation of benefits for fiscal year 2526 Miss Johnson you're yes good evening president Wade and board members this evening we have um Jennifer Sherman and she's brought many experts this evening to share with us our benefits package for this coming school year can you all hear me okay okay hello and thank you all for the opportunity to present on the benefits that are offered through partnership with Higley Unified School District and chyos so we'll be going through quite a bit of information this afternoon or this evening feel free to please ask any questions as they arise um if you can go next slide okay so Kyra service model so my name is Jennifer Sherman I am director of account service I oversee all of the service model delivery for anybody that is
034enrolled within the kyos family of benefits um I am here today with a huge team of people but it is actually not even our full team but I wanted to bring resources to be able to answer any questions and also highlight the level of resources that you get by joining an organization like kyos on the slide above you'll see our husd Partnerships so our partnership with Higley comes not only with the health insurance benefits but it comes with a number of other things first and foremost we pride ourselves on best-in-class service so we like to treat our members like they're our family and um there really is a culture of um yes as much as we possibly can um certainly when we're in Insurance there are guidelines there's plan documents there's legalities and compliance but
035as much as possible we like to Shepherd people through their Healthcare Journey along with that um Higley joined um chyos in 2022 they came from a United Healthcare I'll call it direct model referred to as fully insured and when you choose a carrier Direct in that fashion it certainly provides some level of security but there's also some limitations on your ability to um customize your plan designs and can you actually look at Hidden profit centers and the like so being a member a self-insured member like Higley has chosen to do with chyos provides a level of autonomy to let Higley customize some of the benefits that they would like to offer and specifically to your um um participation so your employees if there's a specific need and I'll talk to some of those later that
036we've identified that might save money that might help improve better outcomes save money we're going to be able to offer that we're in a fully insured model direct to carrier you don't always have those extra funds to do so enhanced support I talked a little bit about that but we have a level a certain we have several levels of service so be it an account manager which is sort of the day-to-day contact with the HR team that is talking to them about do we have our sbc's out do we have open enrollment guides are we going to be having meetings do you need support can we come on site and help educate members we also have participant Advocates which answer our 800 number our 800 line goes directly to two people in Phoenix Arizona Peg
037and Dana they answer that phone number and they are the con it to help provide services to the employees of Higley so that could be I can't find my ID card I need help finding a doctor um can you help me figure out if I need to pay this claim so sort of that base level service we also have an enhanced level of service through our nurse Navigator program which is unique we've actually brought inhouse um nurses to build a program to help be more of a clinical concierge to the membership as well so for any member of chyos sorry for any member of chyos they have access to the nurse Navigator program however Higley saw such value in the program they actually brought on a nurse so that is Meredith Alber here sitting to
038my right um so we've actually seen some really great savings and I'll talk about that a little bit more in slides to come one other great thing I'd like to hit on is the transparency so you certainly have plenty of options when it comes to choosing your health insurance providers and the contract and who you work with but one of the best things that I've seen I've been in insurance for over 20 years now one of the best things that I've seen with being a member of chyos and a pool is the level of transparency that chyos brings to the table so because Higley is a self-insured member you actually receive monthly Financial packages including I'm going to say the terms wrong but I'm going to say general ledger and those types of things so
039it's a full accounting down to the penny of where your dollars are being spent If you're receiving rebates on Pharmacy if you're saving money on if we do a claims audit and we pull back some funds that were overpaid you're seeing all of that month to month so a lot of transparency that you don't always get in other models in other vendors cost management is another thing that we pride ourselves on so we take care of the procurement aspect I know in public entities procurement is always a big um thought and something that you need to navigate because we are a pool we actually take take care of the procurement for you so we actually every so many years take a look at each of our vendors and do our own procurement and then come
040back to the membership and share that information with them so know that we're always keeping our eye on costs and trying to make sure that we're getting the best cost but also the best contract details and the best benefits and then finally purchasing power because you are choosing to be part of a pool in this case or a trust um chyos is actually 82 member strong so all total we have about 23,000 belly buttons we call them so people that are enrolled within chyos benefits so you as Higley aren't just approaching the market and saying we'd like to get benefits for ourselves you're actually leveraging the buying power of being with chyos which is about 23,000 belly buttons so in theory better benefits um better cost management and then if we go to the next
041slide is it not working we'll get there there we go so there's a lot of information on this slide and it's really tiny font I'm not sure if you have a copy in front of you but I'll summarize it to say um some of the things that I've already talked about we focus on employer and employee services so as I mentioned we pride ourselves on providing a full Suite of financial package information primarily to Tyler and the team um on a monthly basis but we're always is available so to my right I have our accounting team Jeremy LaRon and Josh Landis who are available to answer any questions that you have regarding any Financial questions um or accounting services were also available on an Actuarial basis so if you were curious to know do we
042have the right types of plans is it time to increase our deductible or our max out of pockets we take those questions back to our Actuarial services and come back to you with those answers and the impacts um from a employee standpoint I think I already talked to you about a high level of advocacy on several fronts be it clinical or just you know things like ID cards and then finally Professional Services we also include in our offerings full compliance management that includes things like Cobra Administration for people that have terminated off the plan um we also take care of doing the things like the porori filing which is a fancy ACA term um Affordable Care Act term but there's a number of compliance um considerations that you've gotten take into place if you were
043to be working with somebody to procure health insurance benefits and chyos puts that all under their umbrella and it's included in our admin fees okay we go next okay self funding overview so I think I kind of stole my thunder a little bit but we'll talk about it and give you a visual of Who's involved in the self-funding structure so right at the top you can see Higley is the driver in this scenario so Higley gets to say to chyos here's what we want to do for the next year here here's what we're hearing from our employees um does this make sense financially and should we make these decisions so we partner together to make those decisions immediately below that you'll see that we hire a TPA or a thirdparty administrator to process our claims
044that entity is referred to ASR so if you have an ID card if you're on the benefits you'll see the UMR name and you might call them if you had questions about a claim but we always like to say call us first we're happy to help Shepherd people through those um scenarios we rent the United Healthcare network of providers so a lot of people get confused with that and think we're covered by United Healthcare um that's actually not the case we just go to a carrier like United Healthcare in the past we had Blue Cross Blue Shield and we rent their network of providers and that gives the employees access to who their doctors and hospitals and those kinds of offerings include and then finally we choose a PBM or a pharmacy benefit manager known
045as maxor plus I mentioned before that we um take care of the procurement um for our entities so this year we actually did do an RFP on pbms and got some very competitive information and offers back we utilize that information to go back and negotiate with our existing um PBM which was maxor plus we were able to save um several million dollars by renegotiating that contract and we know that some of our enrolled employees or members on the plan have already seen some of their prescription drugs come down um so that actually took place we were able to identify savings that actually took place in October so not even on our plan year schedule which is usually July 1st to June 30th we activated it immediately as soon as we identified the opportunity to save
046so that took place as of October 1st okay some of the benefits of self-funding so I talked a little bit about um the history with Higley in the past on the left hand side of the screen you can see there's a sort of a fully insured model and a dollar sign on the fully insured model you'll see non-refundable premium and while you can go to a carrier and be fully insured and there is a level of security in that sense that you can take your dollar and go over to United Healthcare as Higley did in the past and say we want to be fully insured with you please help us you know get the plan designs that we want they don't have the customiz customization that you have if your cell phone fed but it's
047very secure you go to United Healthcare and you say I want to get my plans and Away you go the challenge with fully insured is there's a lot of hidden profit centers I'll go back to the discussion about doing procurement on um our PBM So within this fully insured model you don't have access to see what you're paying for your PBM you don't have access to see what you're paying for claims Administration and the like so there's a lot of hidden profit centers in a fully insured model it feels sec sure you pay a flat rate um and you don't have any other expenses on the back end but at the renewal time frame you can also be rest assured that that carrier is going to not be shy when they want to increase your
048premiums because your claims have exceeded what they previously budgeted so there's not a lot of protection on those renewal increases as well now if you look at the self-insured model on the right um a couple years ago um Tyler reached out to us and said hey I'm really looking at if it makes sense to do a self-insured model so we contacted our actuaries our Underwriters we took the data that we had and said absolutely it seems like there's an opportunity to save quite a bit of money so when you look at how the self-insure model is constructed you'll see that it's broken down into different categories so administrative cost is the top claims is the biggest expense stop-loss Insurance stop loss is kind of like reinsurance so you currently have a $350,000 stop-loss level that
049means if you have a claim that comes in that's a million dollars higley's on the hook for 350 okay so we buy that reinsurance to make sure that there aren't too many unknown big claims that really cost the district um so that stop that stop loss insurance coverage and then finally down at the bottom what's left over is potential savings so in year one there was approximately $800,000 in savings by making the move from a fully insured to a self-funded and you can see that reflected in this chart so the Year bye financials this is a very pair down version of the financials but to kind of make it palatable for this meeting you can see in 2223 our gross contributions so I'll just call that premium that's kind of the checks that you were
050writing to chyos to cover all of the expenses were set at about $8.8 million the cost of primary and excess insurance so again that stop loss that we talked about before that's the 1.3% or sorry 1.3 million um loss expense that's the actual claims cost so all of the people going to the doctors having the surgeries and those types of things that's your claims cost and then finally Administration that's my team and some of the team back at the office that you don't see um in admin fees also included in the admin fees are things like compliance and those types of services legal um support as well and then finally non-operating income so additionally when you're self-insured with chyos we take the funds from you we um generate a number and say we think you're
051going to be at let's say 8.8 million this year as you send us checks we put it into an interest bearing account so that nonoperating income there is the monies that you were earning while that um premium was sitting in the bank account so about $122,000 earned okay and then at the end of the year there was roughly an $858,000 Surplus meaning there was money left over in your bank account for future claims for future years for health insurance so then we go into 2324 that was a little bit more of a a tough tough year where we see um gross contributions at about 9.4 million almost um with primary and excess insurance at 1 Point almost five and loss expense around 8.1 million admin stayed about the same 2 uh 255,000 and then again
052you see your nonoperating income and then um Surplus or deficit so this year we actually did have um quite a few claims that came through and then you'll see what we're forecasting for the year so far for 2425 so we have haven't fully made it through the year and we know that there's a claims lag so as we look at data right now and we're looking at claims that are coming through the system we have about a 60-day lag in those claims coming through and that's due in part because hospitals and doctor's offices don't turn around and submit claims right away or they're waiting to see if anything else is coming down the pipeline um then when they do get submitted the T the TPA um processes the claims so there's about a 30 to
05360 day lag there and that's why that number is sort of immature and you see claims data through January 31st I'll pause and ask if there's any questions not yet okay good all right okay so when we look at a population we want to know what's driving the costs and what do we anticipate for the year to come so we know some of the key demographics and cost drivers within Higley are the population so demographics and you can see that top line above so 989 employees but about, 1457 belly buttons so those are the family members that come along with the employees but all total kgle brings about 4 1457 people to the plan the average age plays a lot into um Insurance costs we know once you get up over age 40 um you
054actually statistically start to cost the plan quite a bit more money so average age of 37 is actually pretty favorable compared to other school districts in the state average family SI is about 1 and a half and then we know our schools are usually driven primarily by female um populations so 64% female 36% mail no surprises there within our population this year we had about 15 high cost claimants the interesting thing when we talk about the high cost claimants is those are really the cost drivers on the plan we're never worried about people going for their Wellness visit or getting their immunizations those are the low hanging fruit low cost options but when we get to high cost claimants we're looking at people that have claims over $50,000 in that year and we had 15
055this year so far roughly 30% of our total claim spend so far was spent on those high cost claimants if that makes sense um so that's something that we PID very close attention to and we do come and meet with the Higley Insurance committee um quarterly to share um reporting on those claimants and what's happening of course it's all Hipp aprotected so it's very just aggregate data not a lot of specifics we do have two high cost claimants that terminated off the plan this year and none of our members have hit our stop-loss threshold of that 350,000 so far this year so very good Pharmacy claims have seen a rise in cost at 15% over last year that is very typical for what we're seeing in the industry if you turn on the news at
056all you're probably going to see a commercial for a pharmaceutical drug or several um you'll also hear some sort of story about how pharmaceutical costs are skyrocketing in America that is something that really drove us to do the PBM RFP and um take a look at renegotiating that contract we've also brought on in-house Consultants to um keep an eye on our pharmaceutical costs and find opportunities for improvement uh 41% of Pharmacy claims are specialty medications that's 1 to 2% of your patients but because those medications are so costly it's driving 41% of the cost diabetic medications are ranked number one in our traditional class of medications and then msk is short for musculoskeletal um claims and that is rated as one of the top five conditions we'll talk about that a little bit more in
057slides to come next okay so for benefits good news this year we have made almost no changes to the plan designs with higley's um Direction so you'll see our four plan offerings on the far left in the green we have our grand father plan which is the richest plan it's my understanding we don't have people that are new employees that are able to enroll in the plan it's really a legacy plan that just the existing population can stay on once they come off that plan they cannot come back to that plan because it is a very rich plan also can drive quite a bit of cost so that is a $0 po deductible with a 6350 max out of pocket um we also have a $500 deductible plan which is a co-pay driven plan when
058you see a doctor or you pick up a prescription you're usually paying a co-pay for those those medications or for those Services the $4,500 max out of pocket is the limitation on that plan for members um should they hit it we also have another $5,000 po plan which is the far right in the blue and that um has co-pays again for services if you see a doctor or pick up a medication and then finally sort of in the middle that dark column is our 1650 High deductible health plan that is the one plan that had a little bit of a change and that was an IRS regulation so this is a high deductible Health Plan also known as an HSA um and that the IRS actually regulates the minimum deductible on those plans this year
059it had to move from 1,600 to 1650 so that is the one change on the plans here are the employee medical rates so I know this is p this page is a lot to digest we struggled with trying to fit it all on the page for you but you'll see top left is our $0 deductible plan top right is the $500 deductible plan what's in interesting in these is you'll see in the right hand column of each of those plans you'll see that there was an 8% employee increase given to the Z plan again that's our most expensive plan and it drives the majority of the cost so increases were shared to that plan on the $500 plan you'll see that the the increase to the plan was pretty much split so they got a
0604% increase to employee 4% District now if you look at the high deductible health plan on the bottom left you'll the employees on that plan had 0% increase which is very generous by way of hickley to offer a plan that didn't have an increase on the employee only level District paid um 8% and then for those that were covering dependence that that um increase was split and then finally on the $5,000 po you can see that the district absorbed the total cost that's our least costly plan and high deductible so the employees didn't see an increase on that okay M chairman can I just make a comment um the the when we evaluate these plans and how to assess increases right we look at prast um experience and how we performed as a self- Insurance
061Group and as you saw last year we did lose approximately $500,000 which um inhibit you know hindered our ability to absorb a lot of these increases and so um we did our best working with HR to offset a number of these um increases to some of these plans um but unfortunately with the rising cost of insurance and then um having a bad loss year um table those on top of each other we have to do something to move the needle up in terms of um bringing in enough Revenue to cover um Our obligation as a district to provide insurance so we I just want to point out to the board though that we take this very seriously and try to eliminate um if not all costs onto the employee um but at some point um
062we Face a financial restriction and we have to make some recommendations to keep solvent and not um go into deficit in terms of the self- Insurance Fund so thank you okay ancillary benefits so I've mentioned I've talked a lot about health insurance but that's the big cost um when we talk about employee benefits we also have a whole host of other benefits that are available and some new ones that we're going to bring to the table this year um for Delta we have Delta Dental of Arizona it is a rich po plan with a broad network of providers there was a 3% increase to that rate which equates to about $150 um per month for employee only on the plan we also have total Dental administrators known as TDA or Emi um that is a
063lower cost dental dhmo plan it's kind of a discount plan if you will but it's a lot less costly out of pocket for members out of paycheck for members um there was no change to cost in that plan a vision Vision Service Plan or also known as vssp is our our vision provider there are no change to rates no change to benefits we do have Health Equity that manages the health savings account as well as the flexible spending accounts and just to highlight you do have an HSA as well as an FSA flexible spending account Additionally you have a dependent care FSA as well which I think is a huge benefit to offer to your staff um voluntary benefits we offer um basic life ad and D there is a basic life that's paid by
064the district so a flat amount and then there's also a supplemental life so should somebody choose that they want to purchase more they can get that through chyos as well at their cost there's short-term disability and work site benefits there's been no additional cost changes to those benefits this year we're looking at offering some new um plans which we'll talk about in other slides but that includes Identity Theft Protection MetLife prepaid legal and then Nationwide pet insurance which everybody gets excited about for their f for babies um we also have a new program that we will talk about a little bit more in aware health and centers of excellence so I'll skip to Future slides ancillary rates you'll see as I mentioned Delta Dental does have an increase to the employee of 3% which again
065amounts to about a150 is um vssp no change to rates and TDA no change to rates okay and then newly add plan added plans that we talked about so the Identity Guard does have a cost this is strictly a pass through to employees to pay out of their own paycheck should they choose to elect the benefit the MetLife legal is the same they can choose from different levels of legal support and pay the cost out of their paycheck Nationwide pet again is a um pet insurance program that is kind of a pass through employees actually go out to the website and sign up for it so it's not even a payroll deduction and then finally the bonus benefits include aware virtual Physical Therapy that I'll talk about in a minute nurse Navigator and centers of
066excellence there is no cost um for any of those um services and then benefit enhancements we go next slide okay so we talked about Nurse Navigator that's our Meredith and Emily um to my right as well as others back at the office but um our nurse Navigator team is focused on providing advocacy in a couple different ways that can be inbound so somebody calls us and says I have a claim I don't know if I should pay it I have a diagnosis I don't know what to do um so we take those inbound calls and we advocate for the members based on that need we also have access to claims data so we're able to look for things like impatient hospitalization or impatient discharge emergency room utilization um and new diagnosis or high-cost medications so
067we will also Advocate and reach out to members and say hey we see that you're going through something um would you be interested in talking to us about it do you need help how can we assist you in this process so through that we actually have um engaged members year-over-year um this year of course was the highest rate but this year so far to date we have 113 opportunities identified to interact with members of Higley and of that we've made contact with 94 of them in quite a few of those instances it can be as simple as no thanks I got it I figured it out with my doctor but thanks for calling in other instances it can be something where someone like Meredith um Works alongside a member to navigate a long-term chronic condition
068in one of the cases you'll see down below um on the second bullet point highlighted we identified a member I will say Meredith identified a member that had a very high cost medication that was being infused they were also using an outof network provider for that infusion when you do that you face a whole host of other costs and the costs are not managed by anybody it's basically the infusion facility charging whatever they would like so to Meredith's credit she came alongside the member and tried to Advocate and work with the provider and was able to identify a way to save about $9,000 a month by interacting with that member so huge savings by having our nurses interact with members again sometimes it's not big dollars it's just really good feel good messaging um the
069first bullet point talks to um doing a claims audit and seeing that we had a high cost claim it hid the plan and realized they had terminated off Cobo we shouldn't even be paying for those claims so to Meredith credit she was able to terminate that and save $38,000 for the plan so that's a tidbit about our nurse Navigator program we go to the next okay so I mentioned to you one of our high cost claim categories was msk so musculoskeletal um through that data we decided to deploy um a virtual Physical Therapy practice called aware health and we've had um great success so far with Higley so we implemented a 90-day pilot that was no cost to the member no cost to the district and through that we were able to see um pretty
070significant savings and we've decided to turn the pilot on and keep it for the remainder of the year you can see some of the therapy services that can be treated through this but essentially the goal is to connect people with services for things like rotator cuff meniscal tears discar reations you you name it um but often times what we see is people don't know what to do and they might only have time for one doctor's appointment so they take themselves right over to an orthopedic surgeon and if you'll pardon the analogy if you are um a hammer a lot of times things look like a nail so if you're heading over to an orthopedic surgeon for something and you're not sure if you should have surgery a lot of times they're here to help you
071find that surgery and perform it so what we found by offering aware health is that we can partner people with a virtual physical therapist we actually have somebody that does come is willing to come on site as well but they can begin to do some physical therapy modalities with people through like a zoom and help alleviate some of that potential for Unnecessary surgeries unnecessary scans and MRIs and those types of things so to dat we've had um 57 evaluations completed in the 90day pilot um 159 total visits completed with members um the feedback from membership has been incredible everybody has loved the program I don't know that we've seen one negative um honestly I think one of the biggest takeaways is we make it convenient so because it's available via Zoom people can do it
072during their business day on their lunch hour and still be able to accomplish PT rather than the traditional model of going in for services um within the people the 57 evaluations completed aware was able to provide us some aggregate data to say that 16% of sorry 16 of the people that signed up for the services indicated that they were ready to pursue surgery for those services so we do feel that in some way we have either eliminated the need for surgery or at least staved it off to make sure it's the correct course of treatment we also had 18 that were thinking that they needed to go get an advanced scan so now through the help with a PT we will um have a better understanding if that's the best course of treatment so that's
073aware Health go to the next slide our centers of excellence is another program that um we're very proud to offer to participants this is a relatively new program and we're growing it so essentially what we've done is we've partnered with an organiz ganization named Kum to go out and highlight and find um excellent surgeons in their category or doctors in their category so you'll see on the slide things like joint replacement spine neck and back substance use therapy and Cancer Care So within Arizona we have a very limited number of providers but we're working on growing that but we have had some successful joint Replacements so a couple knee and a couple hip replacements and have had great feedback if a member experiences and us is the centers of excellence program and they're on our
074po plans or those co-pay driven plans they pay no cost out of pocket for those services so total knee and hip replacement at zero cost we also have a new offering you'll see the new on substance use therapy so we have seen a huge uptake in a need for mental health support and substance use therapy um kierum has actually partnered with an organization in Scottdale and a couple others in the state for substance use again if you're on a co-pay driven plan a member would pay nothing out of pocket for those services so great offerings um for membership albeit they might be very specific but um if we can find the person that has that need we D truly do see some um great outcomes and ancillary additions that we talked about so MetLife pre-
075prepaid legal support again there's two tiers of service that people can sign up for and they pay for it themselves so no cost to District Nationwide pet insurance again that's a pass through and then Identity Guard um I think every one of us has been exposed identity theft in some way shape or form and it continues to happen so providing that level of protection for people at least as an option and that is it I'll pause for questions thank you for all that inform um the portion uh where it mentioned I believe um 38,000 in savings due to reprocessed claims correct was that due to uh errors made by uh the provider by chyros as far as processing a claim in correctly I I would think that it's probably due in part to just General
076ad Administration um I think for whatever reason there was a breakdown in communication and a file feed from um Cobra administrator to the actual um TPA so claims continue to get paid that's part of why we are so big on compliance and auditing because um if you were with a fully insured carrier can happen just the same but having somebody put eyes and look at those costs and call them out and make sure it is somebody that's eligible still is something where we shine I hope that answers yes and I just I deal I mean I manage my claims like line by line because of of errors and uh we're all human and errors happen um but I was just curious as to where um where you guys see a lot of these errors coming
077from yeah I wouldn't see I wouldn't say that there were a lot of Errors um but when they do happen they can certainly be costly and again I think this one was a file feed breakdown so it was more of a technological but oh so good that we had Meredith um putting eyes on the claims and just happen to catch that that person should no longer be enrolled great thank you and I do love that you guys offer uh legal and pet insurance those are those are great benefits to have thank you thanks um well my question I don't know that you can answer it but it's for Miss Johnson you can answer me later I just would uh when you have time I'd just love to chat with you to see how our unless
078you have a unless you know for now how uh well our employees how happy they are with everything that's been provided if any of you want to comment or we can have a private conversation later whatever you like I'd be I can answer that tonight um thank you for that question I think overall our employees are um well served with the insurance that we provide the one comment we always will hear is how could how it costs so much but that is not something that as Mr Moore alluded to that we can really control so yeah that's a tough one but overall I think the experience our employees have especially this year we've heard nothing but positive things about our nurse Navigator helping them as well and having that kind of service available at your
079fingertips um is just a been a great benefit to the employee and to the district to save some money so um I would like to make one comment mostly because I think it matters to anybody who paid attention in years past comments that I've made those types of things one of the things I asked about is uh the way our state is structured is really not great for our staff at all um because we make it smaller groups and if we were part of a larger State and Mr Moore informed me that our state actually did a third party to look at what it would take to look at covering schools and staff as part of the state healthcare plan because the state health care plan is banging um and it is extremely costly and
080so ultimately I think to to staff and those types of things it's hard and we live in a society in which uh this is terrible and so we see some of these costs I'm appreciative for the ways in which we can at least split some of the cost or absolve some of that increase for our our staff where we can and I know not every plan that we are able to um just because it is it's really hard when you see your paychecks and how much of it goes to uh you know difficult things so I'm appreciative of that for our district as always and I I thank you for your time and all the explanations for today thank you thank you so much I do have one more question you mentioned the uh zero
081cost knee and hip replacement um how is it that they're able to get that at zero cost sure that's a very good question so as we looked um not only as Higley but as chyos as a whole at some of the big cost drivers um some of the um big expenses that can come into play including msk muscular skeletal Cancer Care substance use therapy is some of the providers out there charic reg numbers and often times for things like substance use therapy there's just a really small net and sometimes no specialists in the area so what you find is people end up going to the wrong places for treatment or they go out of network not necessarily through any fault of their own it's a limitation in the system but one of the reasons that
082we chose to bring on carum and the centers of excellence is to attack that um flaw in the Health Care system and to try to drive people to guaranteed um vetted out facilities and providers that have have been um I'll say um interviewed and um checked to make sure that they have certain quality standards they also um charge us a bundle price so there's tremendous visibility on what those costs are going to be and we know if we can help get somebody to a provider that's going to have better quality outcomes better services so they recover quicker and they're back to work um and it's a bundle charge so we have some predictability around those charges rather than what ever provider they choose to go to we know that chyos as a whole and Higley
083as a whole is going to save money by helping to encourage people to steer them to those types of providers so if you look at it a member if they were going to have let's say a joint replacement they might have a $500 deductible or a $4,500 max out of pocket it's worth it to us to wave that fee to help encourage members to choose the centers of excellence for those better outcomes and those bundle charges if that makes sense so we choose to wave that as more of a steerage to help people choose those providers they don't have to we still have quite a few people that don't use the Coe for various reasons um and they can do so but they pay the deductible and the max out of pocket like traditional insurance
084so it's the predictability it's the um Quality and cost control that lets us wave those fees thank you and uh one last question have you guys had any um experience with somebody requiring like an out of network exception um in a situation where they can't find a provider within the network that provides a certain service sure and actually because we are self-funded we have some flexibility to do either a direct contract with a provider that for whatever reason isn't contracted with our Network or a single case agreement so there have been um several times for chyos as a whole where we've found all use substance use therapy as an example they're just listen a specialist in Arizona so rather than pay the out of network fees and the egregious charges we reached out to that
085provider and said would you be interested in doing a single case agreement at a negotiated rate so we definitely do take that approach um Healthcare can move really fast and if you're talking about an inpatient treatment in theory people get in there really fast so it requires us to move equally as fast and sometimes we don't even get notification until after the claim hits so we try as much as we can but our health care System um all Echo is is broken and we're trying to navigate it as best we can but it continues to morph and change as we go so we're trying to do the same as much as we can thank you yeah it's it's great to be able to offer that option because a lot of times not I wouldn't say
086a lot but there are times where in network providers just don't cut it and we need somebody that can help thank you I have a question about the the hybrid physical therapy just what it uh kind of what that entails like if it's pre or posttop or if it's just if uh they can uh reach out whenever they need if that makes sense that's a great question I'll say that um what makes this program so exciting is it's completely flexible so um aware Health has um physical therapies physical therapists hired um one of them primary ones tied to Higley is Dr Tanner Conover and he's very Adept at saying I'm happy to treat you pre I'm happy to treat you post if it's post he's going to ask for medical records um and want to
087make sure that that's in line with your provider's um treatment options so we're not treating somebody that shouldn't be going through PT um but they are actual physical therapists so they're available pretty much as much as you need and they cover a whole host of um incidents so I mentioned some of the big ones like rotator cuff um and meniscal tears but there's things like pelvic floor incontinence for women that have had babies or maybe not even had children where they can help with that as well so that's not even a need for maybe surgery or a medical event but somebody can see hey I can do this and I can talk to somebody about that where maybe they haven't had that opportunity in the past so it truly is customizable to whatever the member
088needs I have not heard them say that they would refuse talking to anybody about anything I think they would politely Decline and say I think you would be best going here if it was something that wasn't in their scope wonderful thank you sure I have one more sorry it's a two-parter I think I can talk all night so you're good okay well I don't want to take all night um if I was let's just say I was hired in Higley uh let's just say a month ago how hard is it for me to find uh just to find out where to go uh to to to to visit a doctor and where would I find that President Wayne member Glover it's very easy our website is very accessible to our employees as well as our
089benefits manager has um onboarding sessions as needed during the school year but conducts them regularly at the beginning of the school year and if you were just hired probably within a week you were going to meet with the benefits manager and you are going to get all the information that you need from there as well as our website to be able to get um get your card get started with a you know primary care doctor everything thank you that's great that's better than where I work um thank you you're welcome I'm not bitter um how often would you say that something uh an occasion like this that has happened you know this is all very personal stuff um that a provider maybe was covered at the beginning of the school year and then maybe in
090the middle of the school year uh is no longer covered because negotiations and things like that and and is that updated because I found myself in a situation going to a place that I always gone to and I didn't ask are we still part they ask me am I the same health insurance I I made the mistake of not asking them if they are providing the same service to my health uh provider that's a challenge um in the industry and in full transparency you face it with any carrier any medical plan that you have um the contracts for providers can expire in the middle of the year um they can expire due to terms that we're not privy to so it does make it unfortunately challenge for challenging for members to navigate that system um
091I myself being somebody in the health insurance industry I know when I walk in the door every single time I see a provider I'm asking you still contracted with United Healthcare and you use the word contracted so this is where the education that the HR team provides there's certain terms that you can use but you really do in this environment again somewhat broken have to advocate for yourself and I know that's not always possible and I know still things can happen it's happened to me um but I do think as much as you can to be advocating for yourself and saying are you still contracted with my insurance carrier before services are rendered and that's true on dental and vision as well so I always highly encourage and try to reinforce that um it doesn't
092really matter to people until they're in the office or they get the bill so sometimes there's that sticker shock if that did happen we would highly encourage that members reach out to chyos so that could be Liz vesley the account manager it could be our nursing team our participant Advocates we are all Adept at calling that provider and saying no way you should have told this person before they receive services that your contract terminated and we usually have pretty good success rate negotiating those and putting it back on the provider to reprocess claims doesn't know what happened but we certainly try sure thank you for your time here today thank you so much it's been a pleasure have a good night you too thank you this brings us to item 7.2 first review of the
0932025 2026 capital outlay budget Mr Moore this is your time thanks President we members of the board tonight I'll be presenting the first review of the capital budget um we just finished up our M discussions and now we are turning our Focus to our capital budget so just a reminder of what what capital is and what the capital budget uh purchases um it's often called District additional assistance um we you'll commonly hear hear the term capital and that's referring to the proper term distri additional assistance um but that Capital versus m um essentially what capital fun um is able to purchase is athletic or physical tangible things so items that typically have a useful life of of at least one year typically repaired rather than replaced um and and and when evaluating that purchase is
094typically an independent unit that retains its original original shape appearance and character and so um keep in mind when we're talking about our capital budget that is what uh we are purchasing with the These funds um and is not um salaries and benefits supplies and services and repairs so looking at our capital budget highlights um on the on the left you'll see uh we actually will have potentially a capital decrease next year from the state so in fy2 the legislature enacted a onetime increase of approximately $300,000 to the capital budget in FY 26 right now there's no indication that the legislature will continue that onetime increase um the the increase was put in place from a law that was passed in 22 um they just Advanced it in 2025 uh and now they'll pull that
095back and wait until 2028 to to fill that Law's obligation of increasing Capital um by that one by that appropriation amount which is equates about 4% major maintenance projects um right now we are holding all major maintenance uh and they're all subject to sfd funding or the school facilities division uh which oversees the building renewal Grant fund um and they reward monies uh to fund P primarily building renewal projects that include major Renovations repairs building up upgrades Building Systems Etc things that keep your building operational um and uh in use and so um I have another detailed slide about our projects but um HC has most recently supported um major maintenance projects by transferring M dollars to Capital uh we did not do that last year but our previous years we have utilized that transfer
096to fund a lot of our major Capital project needs um we are not transferring uh we're not proposing any transfer of M to Capital as uh if you remember in our M presentation we are budgeting to a deficit for M next year um again and I'm going to reiterate this we're going to be 100% reliant on sfd to fund those major maintenance projects for 26 um we have continued to invest in our security upgrades and so when evaluating projects or Capital requests um one of the first lenses we use is safety and security um Mr Walker and myself we have a a small security team in terms of um reviewing projects um annually evaluating our safety needs uh we meet bi-weekly and um that again if there's something pressing where we feel there's a risk
097to uh the student or staff um we will look at ways to address that um as a first priority lens um right now our priority has been continuing to phase in our security cameras um we are moving into phase three for f26 uh we just wrapping up Phase 2 which included replacing all the outdated of vigilon cameras we still have uh believe it or not two other camera systems that we are operating um in phase three we'll look to address that and have us all on one camera system that creates some operational efficiencies in which we can um leverage to um better secure our sites and our campuses so looking at our capital budget in a graph form this uh represents what I'm going to cover in the next slide in a little more detail
098but um I just wanted to point out a majority of our capital budget um is is in the categories of Maintenance and information in a typical year um you can see maintenance is is around 18% and information technology is around 16% um so if you look at soft Capital needs on on an annual basis those two departments have the most um in terms of capital expenditures um our Middle School lease that's that's unique to us the board is not uh I've talked about this multiple times so that represents 22% of our capital budget but if you remember we transfer M dollars to cover that Capital piece so it's pretty much a wash um in the grand scheme of things Educational Services that fluctuates um on the adoption cycle and I'll go into more detail we
099are budgeting an f26 for an adoption which is why that Educational Service U piece of the pie is large slightly larger than it would be in years um without an adoption um you have a contingency uh about 18% um the school's budget is just under 5% um I'll talk about that's a funding formula in which we provide the schools some soft Capital um to allow principal some discretion to purchase items um that they see fit for their campus and then less than 1% we have districtwide Finance Warehouse print shop and then Transportation all less than 1% of the total capital budget so I'll go into a little more detail on this slide um so this is our capital budget uh there's two slides to this but how you read this is from left to right
100well uh left is our categories in terms of capital categories to the right of that that's our FY 26 uh budget that's our a budget number that we are propos or reviewing tonight um to the right of that is our prior year budget number and then I put a difference column and then on the far right we have adjacent ways um and the only number you'll see in that adjacent ways category is that districtwide um I will note on adjacent ways we are continuing to work and hold that money for the Williamsville traffic flow um improvements to the student parking lot uh we have made Headway with the town of Gilbert and they have uh emailed confirmation that they are entertaining putting a light by the pool um and so that would be a new
101new traffic light um and right now we are just serving um the student traffic flow in meeting some of the the asss from the town of Gilbert to continue to pursue that uh traffic Improvement which we feel will bring a lot more safety to that campus in terms of parent student drop off as well as student uh parking so um moving kind of down the list or I'll start back at districtwide and talk about Capital first so 18,000 so that represents our um uh PR department HR department um FR what else is in there there's not much in there um I think oh superintendent has a small capital budget so um that was reduced by 48,000 going into next year our building lease um that that is our our lease payment um that has not
102changed um 3.5 million moving to the educational service department um research and assessment that is uh Marcus's team um we had a slight increase in that um that majority of that cost is our Synergy um platform but we also moved to an annual ized um subscription model for online um software which is Florida virtual um that will provide us a a basically a hard number um of what we will be paying for and we can add basically unlimited licenses but we have a hard budget number for that and so in years past we were um utilizing a per license approach and we saw a lot of fluctuation and budget with that and so moving to a annualized um model allows us that flexibility and also gives me some peace in mind knowing that we are
103not going to increase from this number so um our textbook adoption as I mentioned that is um we are currently operating on a five-year cycle um we have postponed um social studies we did budget for that last year which is why you see a number in that prior C category but after further evaluation we have put that on hold um but next in the cycle is Ela and so we are preparing for a K12 Ela adoption for FY 26 and I know we have already kicked started with some meetings with that um as you know that is an extensive process and so that will take place a majority in 26 and we look to implement that new um curriculum material in FY 27 instructional AIDS supplemental curriculum uh we were able to reduce that by
104130,000 um this provides curriculum for our uh alternative um programs in terms of for example DLI um our traditional education programs that we offer that are not in our adopted material and so um that is that line moving to it or student technology uh we are operating on a replacement cycle for our Lenovo our student devices the 1.3 million represents uh replacement for our incoming freshman class for both high schools and so um we utilize that transition period when they come into high school to provide them a new new device and then they will um take that device to the life of their High School career so a Lenovo device those student laptops typically have a useful life about 3 to five years um and I would say a high school use of Life about
105two years the way they treat their laptops um but we we're able to um that is what that 1.3 million is funding is that new phase for high school students in the freshman class uh to get a new student laptop the districtwide network device refresh there is z budgeted to that um we have um talked to it and we're looking to support any um Capital needs from there with internal um fixes um or leveraging um spare parts and to make things work ultimately if there is a uh a need that's emergency we will look to tap that contingency piece of the budget but right now knock on what we are I'm going to operate at in the um zero budget category 4 uh districtwide Network and and device refresh I would say um I'm not
106saying we're not uh foregoing items um Our IT department has uh reassured us that we are in a good place right now to go ahead and forgo um implementing any upgrades uh to the our Network Andor District devices so uh I don't want to cause caution to the wind there um but we are able to absorb um an offe foray um to kind of Leverage some of the capital dollars in other areas in terms of districtwide software uh we continue to evaluate uh software needs u in terms of stuff that we are subscribing to stuff that we're using with the ongoing cost of of software increases so for example Microsoft Office is our um biggest uh obligation in terms of a district so that covers Outlook PowerPoint um and that has continued increased over time
107but we are able to reduce um or keep this software budget flat by reducing other softwares that we are not using either by um user levels if it's a subscription based piece or completely eliminating softwares that um we feel are not providing value to The District in terms of Safety and Security um as I mentioned before we've met kind of um a lot of Our obligation we're through our security phase in terms of cameras the 125,000 will be um kind of backpacked together with a cash fund um with our dual litigation money uh we are leveraging uh various funds to achieve some of these Capital initiatives uh that duel litigation money um that we received is a perfect um Avenue which we can um use uh to tap um on top of this capital budget
108uh to continue to improve our camera um replacement um and continue to prioritize our camera replacement schedule in terms of Support Services maintenance construction um we were able to reduce by 125,000 um again uh I think I mentioned in M presentation too but some of these things are we are going to fgo um maybe Replacements that we should be making and and repair some of these items um just to the fact of trying to meet our budget needs so um again we're keeping a when I get to the next slide a higher contingency knowing that we're going into next year um replacing items rather than or excuse me repairing items rather than replacing the same with groundskeeping um that is down 25,000 and then I highlighted major projects um as I mentioned in the previous
109slide Mo all of our major projects are going to be contingent on the sfd funding um the sfd funds strictly the instructional space of a school and so if you look at a school we have a lot of space that are outside of that instructional space in terms of classrooms we have um administrative buildings we have gyms we have cafeterias um so when a project does get funded for example the the last year we had the otherization of Higley High the dist it is an expectation that the district has to bring in some funds to cover those um areas that are not basically funded by the sfd so um I would highly not rec you know if we're going to weatherize a building we would weatherize the entire campus not leave bits and pieces un
110weatherized um and weatherization is not just exterior painting right it's cocking sealing um weatherproofing a building so we hold these funds um and I'll talk about the projects to to support those spaces that are not funded Grant funded by the school facilities division so um you'll see an increase in that is because last year we got no projects approved U we are still in that waiting phase for some of these projects that we have had in place uh for several years so Mr Mo can I is it can can we ask a question go for okay this just a a curriculum question so I think I was around for the last Ela adoption which was maybe 2017 is around there and you said you guys bypassed are going to bypass social studies when was the
111last social studies adoption or can you talk about I see your faces getting angry uh why can you talk about why it was why that decision was made and and when the last time we adopted social studies I'm going defer to birkshire or Armstrong president Wade member uh Glover the reason why we're moving to an Ela adoption is because every year the state puts out an approved list for Mau and our current uh curricular resource is not on that approved list so in order to continue to meet the requirements of M we needed to go ahead and adjust and move to ELA and we did not know that the state was not going to approve our resource on that approved list so we have to go ahead and make that adjustment because it's needed to
112be done within the next couple years God I just sigh gasp unfunded mandate kind of thing all right but social studies it has been a while correct like a like a long long time I can tell you it was way before my time is my understanding um and what was that 2012 2012 so your first year second year okay on the the second half of this capital budget we have a few more categories and so looking at Transportation um we are adding a budget this year for equipment um mainly we have uh Mr Crosby our transportation director has identified a couple buzzes we can extend the useful life of by replacing the engines um we have some very skilled mechanics and so um purchasing an engine um we can um basically extend the useful life
113of that vehicle um for another 10 15 years uh depending on the uh uh U state of the interior and the exterior but um we are prioritizing some of those um options for next year in transportation schools uh as I mentioned previously this is a Formula based um allocation so the furniture fixtures and equipment again it provides those site administrators some um allocation in terms of capital budget to provide um to purchase um items that they see fit for their campus that is at $45 per student um we use a 100 day ADM and so as our ADM has decreased that formula based calculation has decreased appropriately um in terms of um athletic equipment and instruments we have maintained those levels of support and so with the athletic equipment with Athletics being mainly at the
114high school and middle school um that split is is uh 40,000 per high school and 20,000 10 excuse me did my mouth wrong uh per Middle School um with instruments we have a five ume replacement schedule and so we've been uh con consistently working on uh fulfilling that replacement schedule with that um appropriation of $100,000 so that is K12 um in terms of capital projects uh that was a previously Bud budgeted item last year uh in order to meet uh balance our budget in terms of capital budget we had to pull that back um that was an opportunity for um site administrators to uh request up to District administration um capital projects that exceed their site allocation um but through this process that was an area in which we feel uh we were able to
115cut in terms of financial services um Finance Warehouse pit shop um the 20,000 supports some of the print shop software that we have in place um and contingency for 2027 uh we are proposing increasing that by a million dollars just by some of the things I mentioned we are looking at um repairing items rather than replacing and so um it's prudent to have a higher contingency in case some of those items do fail um that we have that contingency in place to actually replace those upon failure um so that gives us a total capital budget of 15.8 million 85 million excuse me um that is approximately a $500,000 increase from last year but a majority of that increases because we are holding uh the major projects budget for those uh schools that we have um
116in the grant funding application Phase and I have another slide to cover that so um how you calculate our capital budget so you we transfer um the 3.5 million for our lease if we take our uh formulated capital budget from the state which will be about 6.8 million and then we are anticipating carrying forward from this year $5.5 million and that's how you get 15.8 million so I do want to touch on those SF uh B projects um in terms of the school facilities Division and where those stand um so we have the sfd again has a program called um building a renewal grant program um and this is an example of some of the indicators that I have for that I'll share on the next slide for all our projects so um weatherization is
117one example of a project but the um a brg program funds a lot of other things that don't meet essentially what they call the mag the minimum ad adequacy guidelines U that the state sets so those are the minimum guidelines that they set to operate a building so for example uh for an HVAC unit to be to meet the minimum guidelines it has to produce um a cooling temperature of at least 68 degrees and hold that temperature so um for weatherization um these um it they measure basically um the amount of um uh efficiency that the building has and so when it doesn't meet those efficiencies in terms of holding air um leaking air out um underneath doors um underneath uh through window seals um then it fails those tests and then we can submit
118that application so um when we do an assessment we can we the sfd requires us to go through a third party um they conduct that assessment at the site um we submit that assessment indicating the deficiencies to the school facilities division um once they school facil school facility division approves that um they've also confirmed that you have failed these deficiencies they move that into the next phase which is design um by Design they do require again a third party to come and provide um basically specs on how we're going to bring our building or bring that unit up to those minimum adequacy guidelines um so that is what the design phase is um once you're 100% uh through design we have several meetings with our liais on state um they will approve that design and
119move us to basically a funding holding stage and so funding uh stage is waiting on the sfd to basically fund these applications they have a prioritization process they award on a by annual timeline um and they have objective criteria and data and so um rural districts have a higher weight than the Metro districts in terms of Maricopa County and so um we often as a Maricopa District get lower weighted um in in a lot of these application phases so you'll see um some of these applications go years without approval just because of the level of funding that the sfd receives from the state doesn't meet the the number of needs uh that this building grant program has in place so looking at our district as a whole um we have several four applic waiting for
120funding so that includes San's weatherization hta's weatherization power ranches Roofing um we have a intercom at higgle High um in the design phase we have a kolie chapparel and then approved assessments we have Gateway and bridges in terms of weatherization and then we are starting Power Ranch in terms of weatherization so this is approximately $5 million in in building renewal grants that we are um Pur pursuing in terms of application and so um trying to leverage the state's funds as much as possible with no bond dollars and no other Capital means uh to support these projects so the the major maintenance project again the 2.1 million will support the non-funded piece of these projects and so um like I said the there is a portion of these projects that are will be um requirements for
121the district to fund so with that um at the next meeting I hope to bring back attentative approval um of this capital budget at that meeting we'll also discuss the vacant land options so um I'll bring forth uh some information on the vacant piece of land that we have about Target and we can have a robust discussion about what that's currently being appraised at and what are our options as a district um to leverage that piece of land to basically maybe help our capital budget um I just want to note out too that this tentative approval again allows our maintenance to obligate funds for these long lead items you know our summer is very short we have six weeks to get in and make any um projects um and complete these projects prior to school
122starting and try to have minimum disruption to the classroom um before we get started early July this year uh and then we'll come back and officially approve these budgets in the proposed and adopted budget in June so with that I'll be happy to take any questions President W Mr Moore um as you know I'm very happy about the williamsfield traffic safety is this timeline for that still the first of the year I mean first of school year excuse me yeah so president uh Wade member Schultz um with the town of govern coming back and having a list of I would say um demands demand yeah or I mean they want to ensure that this traffic light is is something they want to move forward with and so um it is going to Crunch our timeline
123in terms of having something done over summer so initial discussions are are if we get some approval close to summer we can maybe phase something in um but right now we have no in writing town to Gilbert stamp of approval to do this and so I can't give you an accurate a timeline right now but um once we get that I would hope to go as fast as possible without um interrupting that campus's flow uh there's a fine line right between um doing construction when students are on campus and that that's so we maybe leverage our breaks um we have two week breaks in terms of phasing this project out but I'm I'm going to cautiously say like we do not expect this to happen over summer at this point in time unfortunately so okay
124I have I have another idea to suggest but I can later just something that um happy to have that conversation what I'm sorry you did another idea yes but we can have the conversation later um because I don't know if it's feasible um and then I have just a quick question I know this is such a small amount of money but the print shop the $20,000 what is the the cost the finance print shop and Warehouse are all in the same thing yeah yeah so it's there's uh software that we need to run the printshop it runs um essentially those copiers in that print shop run a a different software Finance also has a software that's our POS system or in touch is how you pay your um fees for classes and at tax credit
125and so that's what's lumped in that little section um it the prum does self- support in terms of the operational demands in terms of the staff in there but we do cover the these Capital needs so the The Print Shop um make like what are their funds from the outside sources as far as is there can I look at see that those numbers or yeah it's actually in M richards's um evaluation summary that you'll get a copy of so okay perfect as as alternative Revenue sources that we've brought into the district and so perfect yeah I just wanted to see how that's improved or over the years of being able to use that yeah we're we're close to 60,000 year to date okay um and we do have two members in there and that staff
126so it covers the the Personnel cost for that to run that so okay thank you um Mr Moore do we um get any revenue from The Print Shop as far as from outside of our district do we have any other districts utilizing yeah uh president Wade member of Van Hook um we have an IGA that the board approved with Chandler we have um an agreement with Queen Creek um Gilbert Public Schools also UTI izes us so we do leverage or other districts use us because we do offer services that they do not um and that is included in that $60,000 that I mentioned in terms of Revenue that we've received year to date so great thank you and then um Mr Armstrong you mentioned the state didn't approve what related to textbooks yeah so every
127year the the state evaluates what they approve for schools or school districts to use regarding their curricular resource in the K3 k6 setting to help with move on and reading and this summer I I want to say it was July Late July um August time frame they went ahead and provided all of us with information regarding what is approved and what is not approved and our current resource that we're using is on that non-approved list so we have to go ahead and find a resource on their approved list to go ahead and meet the requirements for move home re and before we select resources what is the um I guess the process why wouldn't we use one that is approved versus selecting one and then finding out that it's not approved is there do they
128have like a approved list that we would select from so they have an approved list and Marcus can go ahead and jump in they they have an approved list but we also have to follow our process and go through the RFP to go ahead and meet that requirement and then we hope that whatever the outcome is is they continue to approve that resource that we select see okay thank you so board member Van Hook the resource that we're currently using was adopted in 201617 so the state's requirements have changed if that makes sense got it thank you and just to make a um clarification they don't review those curricular resources on a yearly basis they review them every uh 3 to five years or so um it just happened to be that this past summer
129they they completed review of the what they call tier one curricular resources for that K3 move on when reading requirement and they are looking specifically are there studies that have been done in terms of effectiveness of improving student academic outcomes and U our particular resource hasn't had a recent study done to look at that Effectiveness and and has declined to do a study which is why they've been removed from the list and so moving forward with the adoption process one of the requirements that we will uh ensure as part of the RFP would be a requirement that the resource has been approved for the move on when reading requirements by the state of Arizona thank you and then uh Mr Moore you mentioned uh the athletic equipment um how much was it per school that
130was being allocated so of the 100,000 40,000 goes to each of the high schools and then each of the middle schools has a $10,000 budget TW 20 right 10 so it's 4040 10 and 10 which is where we get our got thank you that's all I have do we have any other questions or comments all right this takes us to item 7.3 review of uh fiscal year 2024 classroom spending report Mr Moore this is still you thank you president members of the board um I am going to present a PDF and so going to work with it to help me scroll through this um I'm going hit just some of the highlights but I wanted to um uh bring this forth as it was a board request in terms of reviewing um our auditor general
131spending report for fiscal year 24 and then um open it up for any questions but I do want to say this report is public on the Attorney General's website and so this is a direct export of our report from the attorney general so I did not prepare anything this is I'm just going to go over the exact report that the attorney general has and so um I'll cover again a few highlights um not the full extensive this report um and then open up for any questions so um this report again for fiscal 24 so I want to remind the board this is from July 20 July 1 2023 through June 30 2024 so we're almost almost a year removed uh when this is now published and so um during that time um uh several things
132can change in terms of operational spending from year to year and so um I'll highlight some of those throughout this report um some of the obvious ones in this were obviously County of Maricopa um our operational peer groups um in terms of the district spending operational areas I just want to point out they change when they compare us to Transportation with State Testing and so those peer groups are not the same um throughout this report you have to really look at what they're comparing and look at the peer group for that comparison so um that can be U misconstrued when reviewing this report um and not understand understanding the different peer group comparisons through each category so our operational peer group two for the spending uh category is really for like size so like Queen
133creeks in our in our group um Morana some of these schools in that 12,000 12,500 and up to I think 14,000 student enrollment number so um looking at um the operational spending a graphic um I'll go through these categories uh in detail and then uh most of this report is a different ways of presenting this information from this graphic so um in terms of the district spending by operational area um they classify it in two categories and so one being uh classroom spending uh that represents 70% of our total operational spend and again this is all funds um so this includes every single fund and every single expenditure of the district expensed in that classroom spending you have instruction at 58.1% um that includes teachers teacher aids substitute teachers um General instructional supplies instructional AIDS
134field trips Athletics you can kind of get the gist that includes um all that in that category and so at 58 1% uh we are the highest in our peer group um by several um percentage points and then you can see our instructional peer group average at the bottom 51.7% um we're well above our peer group average also in classroom spending we have student support and so student support means those are our counselors our speech pathologists nurses uh attendance service and so student support represents 7.2% of our total operational spending um instructional support that includes expenditures for librarians teacher training curriculum development um media Specialists and instructional related technology um that represents 4.8% of our spending and so you take those three categories and that's how you get that total classroom spending of 70% in
135the non classroom spending categories that the auditor general has indicated you have that represents 29.9% of our total spending um we have Administration that includes superintendant principles uh business managers and other staff who perform you know accounting payroll all this support staff um a large majority at the district office U that represents 10.4% of our funding uh plant operations this includes equipment repair Building Maintenance custodial services groundskeeping and security um our utility costs are in here um our costs to heat and cool the buildings um lighting property insurance and so um those are big um expenditures that are into this in this category that are may not be obvious in terms of of when you when you call it plant operations um that represents 11.8% of our spending and then Food Service uh this one's
136this one's pretty obvious um includes everything that we spend on Food Service uh and then Transportation also I don't think I need to go into much detail on that one that includes all our transportational spending and so if we scroll down um to the next page I get it um again as I mentioned throughout this report now it's just goes through ways to compare spending to previous years um and comparing those different categories and so um in some of our highest years in 20 uh 2025 our instructional spending was up to 65% um this current year we're at 58% um and you can see that's a 2% about 2% decrease from 23 um if you scroll down to the next page keep going uh they start to compare um spending on a five-year comparison you
137can also toggle this to compare it on a yearly average um but uh looking across this graph on a five-year comparison in terms of the categories so the total change in classroom spending is less than. 1% um with instructional spending being um down uh negative 1.7 and student support increasing 1.6 those kind of bounce off um um change in non-classroom spending um over the last 5 years is a .1% Administration down 1.8% uh and plan operations so those are again our utility costs um our reinsurance those continue to increase over those years if we go to the next page uh we have a one-year comparison um again this is comparison uh from 23 to 24 uh we see a change in instructional spending of 2.6% um as I mentioned previously this is a snapshot in
138time of this fiscal year um in 2023 we did have a large textbook ad option uh textbook ad options are classified in terms of expenditures in Tex in in the instructional category um and so anytime you bring an expense into that magnitude in terms of $2 million you can see you'll see fluctuations of instructional spending from year to year um we don't do an adoption every year we don't have the funds to do that um but that is one of the main drivers in that instr spending percentage decreasing uh when you take that $2 million out of the piece of the pi you will see that swing any one of these percentages uh you'll see a little variation throughout um the rest of the categories if you go to the next slide or next page
139excuse me again like I mentioned the the report just continues to do different comparisons um from prior year to this year and and shows these comparisons in different different uh methods and so um this is per student spending by area and you can see um each category listed uh prior year and current year and then the one year change over time and then you have total students spending at the bottom if you go to the next slide or next page um this is comparing the district spending uh to our peer average um and you can see how uh pretty much we've continued to elude that we do more with less um comparing to our peers our peer uh total student spending is about 14,500 uh whereas our total um average spending uh per student is
14012,791 so about 1,700 difference to our peer group average in terms of what we spend um in each one of the categories I do want to point out on other um that was a category that you may be wondering like why is that increasing um other is the non-operational spending primarily consisting of um adult education community service programs and Civic activities and so we've continued to do a lot with our community education program and and in terms of our Civic um activities with uh rentals and stuff in those Fashions so um that is why you see that swing um our Community Education that's just basically a kudos to Our Community Education program the more Revenue we bring in the more expenses we'll have in that category if you go to the next page um this
141is a again a comparison to the Statewide average um continuing to Showcase really how we do more with less our Statewide um uh peers in terms of other Arizona school districts have a total per student spending of about 15,300 uh whereas again we're operating at 12,700 00 with which is a difference about $2,500 per student um it's a pretty significant difference there if you go to the next page keep going so we look at operational efficiencies I want to keep going down to a average teacher salary so this is a description on how they monitor teacher salary and the definitions but if we go down to the graph to the next page keep going I'm going go right to the graph which is a better visualization of all that verbiage that was just on the
142previous Pages um so this is the district teacher average uh compared to State average um and you can see over the course of the last what is this three six eight years um our continued investment into teacher salaries and so um we've continued to leverage um our district resources in terms of you can see the amount on the if you look at a particular bar graph you can see the dark uh highlighted amount that is the amount from classroom site fund and so we continue to push those funds to teachers and increase uh the amount of money that we uh have in our classroom site fund plan um and then in addition the other amount from other funds we continue to leverage our funds in our district resources to uh raise our teacher average teacher
143salary and so this isn't a starting teacher salary but this is a culmination of of all our teachers and their average teacher pay if we go to the next page the reason also we continue to increase is because of our we go back up I think we missed the right here this one um is is we continue to have good retention numbers and so um I really like this uh chart here that shows the district average teacher salary and other teacher measures since 2017 so if we just look at fiscal year 24 and read uh left to right you'll see the fiscal year the district average teacher salary um you'll see the average teacher salary of teachers in their first uh year and again this is a well this will be fixed next year this
144is a this is a a coding issue on our part um they introduced new codes to track this and they did not make them required this year so we did not uh choose to do that because we were right in the middle of the year next year they are required to implement and we'll have that information a little more accurately reported but um the main point of emphasis here is our average teacher average years of experience of teacher and so from 2017 to 2024 you can see that increase about a year and a half um and that is a token to really what we're doing here as a district and valuing teachers and staff um and so the more 10year teacher you have the higher that teacher will be paid T in a typical um
145fashion and so again a kudos to um just this district and continue to prioritize teachers and um maintain some of those teachers uh who have those 10e experience and that is just going to benefit our district as a whole when you have 10 year teachers who know how to implement State Testing and know the process um it's just going to be a benefit to our district our students as a whole so I thought it was a very important graph to highlight um in this report if you go to the next slide I'm actually going to turn it over to Mr Burkshire to talk about the they they started implementing State Testing into this report and uh as soon as it stops talking about finances I'm out uh so I will let Mr Burkshire if you
146scroll down talk about the student achievement metrics that are now embedded into this report so so I want to begin with uh Mr Moore discussed earlier that there are different reporting groups um for achievement we are in what's called achievement group one um that is uh comprised of unified school districts that are cities or suburb Suburban districts that have a poverty rate of less than 133% uh so we are being compared to uh 19 other districts in our peer group that includes districts uh like Chandler Gilbert um but also uh Peoria diart Paradise Valley uh Queen Creek Scottsdale tank barity Bale um aachi Junction um wide variety of districts across the state that have similar characteristics in terms of the student body in which that that's being tested um you won't see a uh High
147School District or an Elementary District in our peer group because uh we test kids from third all the way up through through high school um if you want to go down what you'll see in the the charts are the uh Statewide average um of percent of students passing All State tests um including third through eth grade ASA aasa um act and then AI the middle one is our peer group and then the gold is our disc District passing percentages that's about it for the achievement side um as you can see compared to our peer group we are we exceed our peer group um average overall in all three categories I think there's that I don't know did you get the is or more on this one so these charts are going to show our percentage
148Passing Over The Last 5 Years you'll see that 20 and 21 there's no data available um and that's because of those are our covid years uh there was no State Testing in 20 and then uh 21 as well um you can see there there is we reflect Statewide data here in coming back from the pandemic um passing percentages declined across the state and we're all in that process of improving those um if you keep going down do we have Ela same same idea with Ela Ela seems to be improving better we came out of the pandemic better in ela than we did in math and again that's reflected Nationwide as well as Statewide and then the next one for science here the major difference here is in 2019 we were still administering what was called
149aim science aim science uh was based on the old science standards uh we updated the science standards in 18 uh the new science test was supposed to be in effect in I believe 21 2020 was supposed to be the field test um none of that happened uh actually I think we did the field test and then we all shut down um so in 22 you have the new test which is AI they are very different tests um I was part of the the group that set the cut scores for those tests a a and when we looked at what the results would be we all nodded our heads and said this makes sense because the shift and instruction that needs to happen in order to meet the new State Standards is dramatic uh prior state
150standards were a lot of fact memorization uh the as test was really a a test of reading comprehension I could predict how a student was going to do on a um science based on how they their their reading test scores with the AI we're now teaching around con uh phenomena so so we're asking students to look at charts and graphs and tables a and make um decisions based on what they see and they have to be able to explain those and they're doing that through multiple different types of test items um and so that that assessment is very different the instruction that also has to happen is very different it's no longer I'm going to tell you this stuff and then we're going to do a lab to confirm everything that I've told you now
151it's much more here's some Base information I want you to do a lab to inquire and ask questions and look and then let's talk about what you're seeing and what's that phenomena telling us about uh about science overall and so those shifts in instruction are happening but again the assessment results are going to be lagging that a little bit as well so that's what you're seeing with the science and uh just for anyone who might be happen to be watching this at this point science isn't every year anyway what are the years that we that we test Sciences so anyone who's watching that uh I forgot that little point we test in fifth grade eighth grade and then 11th grade with science and that those tests are also a test of grade bands so in
152fifth grade grade they are being tested on third fourth and fifth grade standards 8th grade sixth seventh and eighth grade standards and then high school they're being tested on what are called essential standards a and so um embedded within biology chemistry um um I'm forgetting some of the others the other physical sciences those kinds of things they have certain standards that are considered to be broad based and and across all content areas and those are what's being assessed so they're not being assessed specifically on biology or chemistry they're being assessed on the the these essential standards that that that cross cut across multiple content areas within science thank you Mr bshar with that I mean if there's any questions I'll be happy to try to answer um and then like I said this um report
153is publicly available on the audit General's website as well so if anybody want to go do some more research or comparisons that is is live on the a journal's website so um Mr Burkshire the um testing so are we are we teaching to test or are we teaching to ensure that the students actually have the knowledge of science um versus just the knowledge required to pass the tests so the tests are developed around the state standards a and so our instruction is uh based around the state standards and student understanding of the state standards and so what the tests are measuring is how well do Stu are students able to attack those State Standards based skills and Concepts um when they when they set the scores for these tests one of the things that they
154do is they look at each individual item and they identify would what are the competencies that a student should be able to show on this particular standard on an assessment item uh there are there it's very complex work um but basically they that we have what are called uh proficiency level descriptors for for every standard uh from minimally proficient partially proficient proficient and highly proficient a and so as a test item developer looking at um could the just barely proficient student answer this item correctly um and so when you get a score on ASA uh that score is reflective of not only did the student do it well or do it correctly but how difficult is that item a and so scores on ASA aren't raw scores um in fact we we push really hard
155for teachers and parents not to look at a raw score on a student score and I don't believe you even get the raw score on the parent report anymore uh as opposed to ases um it's a scale score and that scale score is is basically trying to to say um a student is proficient because they did these items really well and the difficulty on these items puts them in this level um it so in terms of instruction we are teaching those State Standards we assess around understanding of those State Standards that's one of the reasons why we we went out a few years ago and and updated our assessment platform from Galileo to to the DNA platform is the items within that platform more accurately reflect what students need to be able to do to
156show Mastery of those standards of our new state standards um but that's a lot there there's a lot of work that goes into understanding that a grade in a class versus a a score on a test are two very different things um a grade in a class is looking at multiple things Beyond just a a one-time test for example in a high school classroom I may give a grade 20% of that is a final exam you could look at our state tests it's very similar to a final exam in some ways um but only 20% of that grade that a student earns is that that final exam the rest of that grade is an accumulation of evidence that that teacher collects over a course of time to determine have students mastered what we expect them
157to master uh to be successful uh we have a a we have a grading system that says a 60% is considered to be passing for credit in a in a high school course that's not the same thing as what you would see on a state test I couldn't tell you what the percentage a kid would need to do on a state test to be proficient because that's not how what we're assessing we're assessing do they have the basic skills and Concepts in a broad basis around the standards we don't even have enough items on the state test to really say for each individual standard does does this child have an understanding because in order to do that they would be testing the entire month of April every single day because I need a minimum of
158three to five items per standard to to get that kind of information and as far as like you mentioned grading um it's my understanding that we're not we're not allowing kids to go below 50% is that is that what happens for instance if if let's say a kid's failing a class and and a teacher gives them like 19% um as a as a passing grade is that then changed somehow to uh closer to 50 to where um most kids are not getting below 50% that is not a district policy or practice as far as I'm aware okay um let's see um and and as far as comparing ourselves I I get that it's important to compare ourselves to other districts and our peer groups uh but I think the most important thing is comparing ourselves
159to ourselves um and and looking at what our numbers look like year-over-year and I understand the testing has changed um but to see how the level we were at in 2019 um especially the science proficiency rate to where we are today um it's it's quite disappointing um and I I'd love to be able to see us get back up there again uh and and be able to uh be proud of that I mean that like 70% was quite amazing um so I don't know where I mean do we do we go to the State Board of Education like how do we get um testing to where it helps kids understand the subject um and and be able to um just help that process along and get get our scores up to to go back to
160the science example 2019 and 2022 that's comparing apples to oranges they are very different assessments um again students were passing the the kinds of questions that were asked on AIM Sciences can you name the phases of the moon and ab c d they they needed to know be able to regurgitate something that I can Google and in 2022 what I'm now asking them is here are the phases of the moon here's a graphic image and now based on this information identify provide me with where on the earth you should be in order to see that phase of the moon and I I I'm totally simplifying this but the kinds of questions that kids are engaging in are very different and and so you do that the highest score in the state in terms of passing
161percentage on science at the elementary is probably in the um 60% range maybe at the high school Range we are closer to 40% um a and again that's because kids by the time at high school that started taking this test had been been engaged in science instruction that didn't prepare them necessarily for these kinds of items um it's going to take time for that instruction to shift and for students and you can see our science scores have been improving year over year over year um a and so we are moving in that direction but again our kids need to have that opportunity to to be engaged in that kind of learning and there is to some extent also learn how to answer these types of items um the same thing happened when a merit came
162came in the shift between ases and AZ Merit we saw a huge decline in student performance number one of those main causes was because students were being asked to to answer multiple choice questions and aims that were very much reading comprehension type of questions even on math um to a merit where they were now being asked to read a passage I need to now say um the main idea of this passage is this and part two is I have to provide the the evidence from the passage as to why I believe this I don't get credit unless I answer part A and Part B correctly that was not the kind of items that kids were being exposed to teachers didn't understand how they were being assessed um and so in some ways the instruction follows
163the assessment um once we it in in some ways as you were saying we are teaching to the test but what we are teaching is kids to have the understanding that the depth of knowledge to be able to to answer complex questions um a and and provide us that evidence of learning um that they weren't before we all know St stat statistics multiple choice tests there are kids that can answer a multiple choice test without having any understanding of what they are doing because they know how to read the question and eliminate answers and they do it naturally the new state tests in both ASA and um AI weed a lot of those kids out because they are required to do much more in a complex thinking in order to provide evidence of that learning
164um so I I believe we're moving in that direction uh I can attest that I'm having regular conversations with site leadership and and teachers around standards and when we start looking at the items that kids are answering on on our Benchmark tests and why are kids choosing the answer that they're doing sometimes it has to do with we don't have a full understanding of the standard as as instructors a a and so that work is ongoing with our district coaches um as well as our our site instructional coaches and site leadership in working with teachers at having that better understand understanding of the standard sometimes very easy the kids don't read the questions all the way through uh one of the most frequently missed questions in our benchmarks is where it's they they have five
165answers and it says choose the three answers that best answer the the question and they choose one or they choose two or they may choose four um but the kids aren't necessarily reading the the question itself and so there is some education there with kids in terms of how do you answer those types of questions one of the beauties of our assessment platform is we can go back and and kids can see their answers and they can see the wrong answers so teachers can walk kids through and have those conversations with students about why are you choosing the answer that you're choosing there's learning right there just in terms of their understanding of that skill or concept if they have to be able to talk about I'm choosing this answer or this is the wrong
166answer because of this um so those are all opportunities but but again it it it takes some time to to build that knowledge and capacity um but but I do believe that those conversations are happening what we're doing with professional learning communities moving forward I believe will make that even more powerful um the the updates to our curriculum apps that Miss Davis has been doing with her teams at the elementary level are making it much more clear for our staff um in terms of that expected learning where we really need to to focus in on um a a and so the the the ELA resource adoption I believe will also provide some opportunities um that as I said earlier the the current resource that we're using at the Elementry level the evidence of its Effectiveness
167in student achievement and meeting the the needs of the standards isn't there anymore a and and even the publisher is saying we know it's not there we're no longer going to to to do a study to confirm something that we already know um so so the the the resources that we're using with kids aren't necessarily as rigorous we so we we know that that's a need and something that we're moving forward with uh next year yeah I just I know it takes time but my fear is kids are moving along and then eventually graduating and and I fear that they don't have a grasp um in the subject and and they're just going year after year as we work to figure it out and um just the Miss opportunities for those students that are have
168moved on um and then just as far as the the spending in the classroom is concerned um I typically won't praise media but I do like the article that um Gilbert Sun News put out um breaking down the spending um so I do recommend everyone um find this article called instruction spending declined in Higley and Gilbert public schools in the Gilbertson news um great breakdown um and and the fact that our you know highest on record 65% in 2005 and we've slowly declined since then um for in classroom spending and yes you know when you look at a one-year difference it's 2.6% uh but when you look the bigger picture uh year-over-year uh that number is has decreased and then you look at Support Services uh and that has increased and I would like to
169uh be able to get a breakdown um you can look at this report and see the numbers but you don't necessarily get a full understanding of of what's encompassed into the support services and then a breakdown of the spending so if if you can um just to provide a breakdown of of what's included in there and what that spending looks like um because that's gone up I believe uh let's see 724 per pupil in 2024 um so about 9.5 million if I have my calculations correct if you take 724 by 1200 12,500 students um but I also um we approved in the consent agenda tonight an additional 300,000 um for this uh you know special ed services and that's huge and I understand and we've had conversations before that um unfortunately the number of those
170students are growing which means the these dollars are going to grow as well um but uh 7.2 uh% uh in 2024 and that's the highest on record um so I'd love to see a breakdown um that's all I have thank you any other questions or comments before I make mine I'll just say thank you audits are really helpful um because we can actually kind of see the nuts and bolts so I really appreciate taking the time and also follow through with the accountability and where to go from there so I really appreciate your guys' time on this uh I very appreciative as well before I move on I would like to say some things just for the folks listening at home at the very least um the First with respect to some of the in-classroom
171spending uh for those districts where you see the instru structional spending is increased uh often times their bonds pass so I think it is important to kind of keep those in mind that the school districts that are you know capable of having funds in some of these areas part of that is because they had their bonds initiatives pass and that allows for some of that classroom spending and we haven't had one in a little while and I still think that we're doing pretty remarkable considering all of those things that we have in front of us um as far as the the testing on the new test specifically science especially I have fifth grader uh who is thrilled uh with what is happening since we've come back from break in terms of number of days testing
172and the like uh and I'm actually very happy that we had this today and part of that reason is because he was talking to me about his science test and how it had topics that he was like I feel like we didn't even and I said maybe maybe what they're testing you on is your ability to read those charts that you were talking about and use critical thinking and I said because ultimately as teachers and for those of us who have taught for a while we haven't known really how to do that given what has been expected of us in terms of what we're actually being tested on and it is widely an area that we as a society lack the idea of being able to look at data look at information and extrapolate what
173you're supposed to take from that is lacking across the board and so I'm grateful that we have our tests that are are figuring out ways to do that much in the same way that we had pushed back when it came to uh Common Core math and the number of people who were complaining about how that math is taught and all this has done is make individuals who are not math oriented better at math because it teaches them how to do things that those of us that are good at math do automatically like chunking and so taking the time to have our students learn how to look at these graphs and extrapolate that information I think is is far uh better and Will Go Far and Beyond one thing I would like to express to just
174at least maybe hopefully give a hope for where we're going in the future for those folks if you see that when we started the new test we were at 37% which I agree is not great but I can understand it's a shock to get hit with something that you're not necessarily prepared for and if we are only testing Fifth and eighth and whatever else cuz I forgot at the present moment thanks what this shows is basically after our test and we can see that we now have our first grades our second grades our thirds our fourths changing how they talk about some of these things as well so that way then the next year's fifth graders have an opportunity to do better and we are seeing that Improvement albe it's slow but this would have
175to be a slow process because again for those of us who are not teachers scaffolding takes work it takes me going through this process to go oh that was less successful than I intended it to be and gives me opportunity to learn how to be better at this so I am grateful it shows that our teachers are responding quite quickly to some of these new changes and how we are working with that and so to all of those teachers having to deal with that I uh do not envy you whatsoever but I'm very appreciative of your hard work so thank you this brings us to act oh were you going to say something I was just going to say uh I believe Queen Creek had their uh override pass this last election yes they did
176and their in classroom spending has actually decreased year over-year so this would be from this is a year and a half ago so it'd be interesting to see what their future would be for that right but even prior to that I think that they had their 22 I don't remember if they had their in 22 it passed or not um I think their bond passed um not in 22 I don't don't anyway but yeah so even even their in classroom spending um is down too it didn't pass until this year yeah it did not um this brings us to action items uh we are at 8.1 approval of policy GC professional staff contracts and compensation second read any questions or comments before I motion I do have a question um in the so at the
177last meeting it was stated that this doesn't change the authority of the board to be able to approve but the last sentence on this policy it says the governing board reserves the right to act on a request for waiver of liquidated damages for a reason other than as stated above so if other than so we can approve other than the items above I don't know if that verbage need to needs to change or there could be incidents where it would come to the board for your approval if it doesn't fit under the categories of what the superintendent is allowed to approve sorry say that again so it could come to the board like we currently do for other reasons that aren't listed there because the superintendent would only have delegation over or power over waving
178this or not um in the cases that are listed above if there is some other reason I would bring that to the board and allow them to make the decision it doesn't give the superintendent all power it just gives the superintendent power for that or we could remove it but it still gives the board some authority over this right so currently M retire retirements and um am I hold on let me find it here um so if they leave for medical reasons or if they relocate those are listed on the liquidated damages that is correct so but now with this verbiage it says the governing board reserves the right to act on requested uh requests for waiver other than stated above so are we saying that we will no longer see relocations we will no
179longer see medic you know resignations add that to the information that's shared with you it just doesn't have to be waved by the board those don't have to be waved by the board they can be waved by the superintendent but that information could still be shared in the same format we share it now um with the board or in status we could also share that in status as well you're going to still see the resignations on on the board agenda under the Personnel action items you will always see those who is resigning who is terminated things that nature absolutely but we could add a code to it we could add it in status we could add it wherever you want what the superintendent has decided to do they just wouldn't be listed any longer on
180the liquidated damages that we appr approve correct that's absolutely absurd okay go ahead well just I in the old language uh and I'm familiar with a couple of instances that have come up this year which is why uh why I brought this to uh to the Forefront here um in the past I think some of the language was interpreted by Administration and in other school districts as well it said uh something like controllable circumstances may include but are not limited to and I think the superintendent I previously worked with interpreted that a little differently and his superintendency wanted um a little bit more clarity which is fine um as to when there are situations um where you know both parties admins and staff uh something has happened uh nothing criminal that's where're mandatory reporters all
181of that so um that's not what we're talking about here uh but there come sometimes comes a time when it's better when two parties part ways and when the superintendency can say look this isn't really working for us we should part ways and uh we're not going to also kick you while you're down and and charge these liquidated damages um I think that is all the authority that I was sort of looking for for a the superintendent to make those decisions with their admin team and in consultation um with the staff to be able to do that um you know if anybody has any other questions about that that's that that was my perspective right so why did we add all the other stuff to it if that was the whole intention this is crazy
182to be clear our process has already existed in which when an individual is resigning the superintendent ultimately is part of that process and for these situations is when the superintendent decides that they're going to wave those liquidated damages and they go through and it gets put on our consent agenda and we approve that from my understanding there's not a whole bunch of of changes to that process in that we are still giving the Authority for the superintendent based on the circumstances with each employee to decide if this is something we wish to pursue or not in efforts to make some things probably smoother or easier and we can get on with our process and yet it's still even through this with whether or not this passes but let's pretend it does for a second it
183still comes before us and ultimately at the end of the day we are still approving that on the consent agenda in terms of we accept that resignation do we not you will still be accepting the resignation correct correct I understand that it's not the damages I'm understanding that again this policy would entrust that we have assigned our superintendent to make this decision in their professional circumstance and their professional opinion given that they are aware of circumstances and information that none of us will ever be aware of because there are privacy protections for our employees and those types of things I just want to make sure that the very least that when it gets expressed that ultimately that that is the process that we are going on if if this were to be there to be
184clear that kind of already is the process and we just approve it this would essentially be removing a redundant step it would essentially be removing our job as a board as checks and balances of when a an employee is allowed to not have to pay their liquidated damages when uh they decide to break their contract we as as I explained at the last board meeting we obviously I I not going to name names we have had an employee who did something wrong was placed on leave pending investigation reported to the State Board of Education and the liquidated damages were waved and we didn't because we were not told names when we're told all we're given is an employee has in placed on administrative leave pending investigation we're not given any names so when their names
185show up on the liquidated damages we can't put one and two together and go okay this is the same individual and it with this specific individual it wasn't until after the fact that we that I found out that in in fact this was the person reported to the State Board these are situations that I fear that at the hands of a superintendent can be like okay we won't charge you and the the taxpayers in our district will end up paying the cost of you leaving hiring a temp the burden that it puts on on other teachers to have to step in and help until a sub or permanent replacement has been found but how could any of this be looked at in a good way other than benefiting I mean the way I see this
186this is like Scott I'm sorry but you are a union rep representing now I am a board member I am a board member man' same as you I a board member thank you this what you're doing here is what you're saying though is that already happened the situation you just described already happened does so I don't understand you're not either you're not understanding what I'm what I'm saying uh you just admitted that the situation you don't like was already happening so this proposal I I I I'm not I'm just not following your logic I guess to be clear I think it is important to address a couple of things um and maybe we can take a minute if you have other further comments we can say after and then we can vote and move on
187from here I think it's important to understand that you're viewing this from a very specific scope and again I think it is important to recognize that a you still ultimately have authority and checks and balances with respect to voting no that exists that is always possible and at the same time should we at ever any point in time View and let's pretend that the scope with which you have painted is the only World in which that this could happen we then still as a board retain the power and authority to change it at any time should we desire to do so that is the checks and balances that exist within our purview okay so whether or not you agree is fine we still retain that power and authority over with respect to this District let's
188pretend for a second your scenario again is the world in which we are there you just described a situation in which you have indicated that a teacher who is having their stuff and that should not be around and instead dead of let's pretend they didn't have anything firable there wasn't anything to remove their contract and so you have a choice here and that choice is keep a staff member on because they do not wish to do the liquidated damages or come to a mutual agreement of resignation so then we can remove that staff member and hire a new one all of these things exist and with respect to knowing when a teacher is put on administrative leave at no point in time should any of us know that information because again our job on this
189process it should something come before us in which there is an investigation and we do have to do these things we should not be privy to any of the information prior to that investigation if we do so we then have to remove oursel from that and we have removed our own personal Authority because we are no longer objective we have entrusted employees to do their job we have policies in place to ensure that they are and when they are not we then follow through with that process this is not Minority Report we cannot predict behavior before it happens at all in any world that does not exist other than movies so again whether or not you agree is totally fine that is okay I think that is fair but I also think it is important
190to recognize that we cannot look at entire policies and say this is the only realm in which that policy would be in effect and how do we vote on it when we'll still we might see the see the a name on the resignation list but we have we have no liquidated damages to compare to what do you mean to compare to I don't understand when we see a name on the liquidated damages form we can compare that back to the resignation form and be able to see the reason why they're leaving can you help me Miss vanhook please explain to me why that information is pertinent to you other than you care to know how does that impact our ability to do our job important for us to know the reason why somebody is leaving
191again that is not part of our job but it is not absolutely you might not care it's not a lack of care it is legal rights that employees have absolutely and guess what uh discipline records are open for public record whether you like it or not by state law they are open for public record so so then correct me if I'm wrong Miss Van Hook you have access to that information regardless of this process if that's true because again I'm not looking it up I I don't need to you're right I personally wish to continue my life rather than learn the business of others my question to you is is that not possible for you at this present moment in time your job here is to learn the business of others and to and to
192protect the community again ma'am again that is incorrect no it's not and we have moved on from where we are at so my question to you is as your job as a board member yes do you have anything you wish to express with respect to this policy then we can have you say it otherwise we will move on to whatever this vot is yes and I am saying it we are giving away our Authority as a board to the superintendent we were elected to do a job that we continue to give part of what our responsibility is as a board member to the superintendent and then we're allowing employees to break their contract if they're not happy and here I said it last time and I will say it again these are grown adults who
193sign a contract and they need to be held accountable to that contract but no we're going to allow them oh I'm not happy oh whatever and I'm just and then you know who says I mean the person that wants to resign could be the superintendent's buddy and I'm not speaking directly to our current super superintendent but to allow this doesn't allow the checks and balances that we as a board were elected to do and we've I've seen it happen and I'm afraid it's going to happen again and I shouldn't have to do a public records request to find out who that person was because it should come to us for approval like it has been coming except it there should be more transparency there instead of less now we get to see less with this
194policy this would be less transparency I would argue that if you've seen it happen it already happened under our policy so last week I I appreciate all the explanations tonight because previously I was against the changes and now I'm I have a better understanding of it after the second read of what it actually is that it doesn't actually change our ability and and what we're doing in our job of course it does we literally don't get to see them on the liquidated damages form so I don't know how you you could say that it doesn't change anything it's a policy change it literally says that we get to approve everything except what's listed above it changes a lot okay I'm moved to call the question so uh we have a motion to call the question
195now uh and it has been seconded by Miss jarmin just in case Miss Zimmerman was unaware of that all those in favor of voting on this policy i i i this is your motion to vote right now so we have to vote to vote because you motioned so are you saying no to not voting right now I moveed to call the question yes and I just motioned and I asked all those in favor to vote on it to vote on what's we're being asked to vote on I didn't motion to change anything you said I move and call the question yes all those in favor I just did that and I'm waiting I have not heard from you or Mr Charan I've got I I and I okay and then all those oppose is the
196next question no ma'am correct me if I'm wrong I move to is to call the question I have not motioned for this specific question I'm responding to the IM mov to that was seconded is that incorrect how I'm understanding that so the call to the question if you vote in the affirmative and that call that motion passes then the next action would be for the board to vote on the second reading that specific thing so correct what we're motioning on is your call to question we're not motioning on 8.1 right now ma'am we're motioning on your call to question I just need to know are you in favor of your motion to call this question yay or nay Mr jarmin same thing are you in favor of of calling what you seconded here cuz that's
197what the motion is in front of us my motion is to call the question which is to vote on the second read of this policy yes I understand that and so I'm following the procedural of the second which is your motion you did not motion for this specific policy you motioned to vote on it whether or not we can do two abstains I just need a yay or a nay it is not 8.1 I not I will motion right after on 8.1 that motion to vote carries three to two abstentions I motion that the governing board approve policy GCB professional staff contracts in compensation all those in favor I I all those opposed n pick a life I can't decide what I um I motion carries 32 on to 8.2 approval of independent PE class
198pilot program any questions or comments before we motion for this one I'm excited about this one that's my motion I just want to thank the two ladies that brought this to our attention um and also the staff that looked into it and um was willing to bring It Forward for us to be able to vote on it um and that's uh a great way to be constructive as a community member um and that's for the two ladies that brought it and without I have no other comment in thee of the game I motion that the governing board approve the pilot of independent PE class at the middle schools for the 2025 2026 school year that would be Sarah jman seconded all those in favor I I motion carries 5 Z 8.3 ratify payroll and expense
199voucher 1108 any questions or comments before I motion um I voted no on this travel coflin at the last meeting and um I'm going to vote no on the vouchers as well I motion that the governing board ratifies the payroll and expenses voucher second Tiffany Schultz seconded all those in favor I I all those opposed n motion carries 32 8.4 approval of overnight and or outof state staff travel SHRM conference any questions or comments before I motion um once again uh this conference uh I believe and I and I know that the district has an agreement um that staff signs that they won't attend such sessions but I just want to point out the statute ARS 411 1494 passed in 2021 states that um no public monies um can be used for such training um
200and this kind of training has been um approved and you know we've allowed them to be able to sign um that they won't attend it but again uh it is a violation of State uh state law and I just I can't ignore the fact that we allow it to continue M Johnson you have something you'd like to say yes I do thank you so I'm the individual attending this training and I would like you to know that the sessions that I I will be choosing there is over 300 different sessions over the four days to choose from my path or the track that I will be looking at there's two tracks legal um leadership and strategic planning and those do not have any what Sherm considers um they do not go Dei they go di
201now and I plan on looking at legal strategic planning and Leadership and I think that will be of value to the district and the HR department as well yeah I mean they can play all the word games they want um ultimately the state law specifically says uh and and now federally uh which prohibits political subdivisions of this state from using public monies for training that presents any form of Dei and so that is the law and again we can continue to uh to say we're not going there we're not going to attend this session but the statute is clear um that public money I mean if if somebody wants to use personal funding to attend any kind of training that's fine but it's specifically States public monies can't be used that's all I would like
202to uh reiterate that uh diversity equity and inclusion is a literal Cornerstone of public education um it I I literally as a teacher cannot do my job if I am not Equitable to all of my students if I'm not making efforts to include all of my students and recognizing that we have varied Learners it requires me to diversify how I present that information and what opportunity exists so a lot of times there are trainings that might say some of these things that feel as if it is not necessarily in line with some of these uh laws or uh efforts that individuals have to limit some of that and it's not necessarily the same applying to what we're talking about with respect to education go ahead M Johns I was just say Miss Johnson thank you
203for the clarification I appreciate that I motion that the governing board approve the overnight and out ofate travel request to the Society of human resource management conference and Expo 2025 second that would be Miss Schultz all those in favor I I I all those opposed motion carries 32 this brings us to Future agenda items does anyone have any requests for future agenda items uh yes I'm curious as to why we haven't seen the uh policy for proxy speakers yet well we can't have a conversation but um I would like to see that come forward um Miss Richards can you because you sent something out already or was in status or something president way we put something in status um can we just put it again in this week's status does that work out perfect um
204all right no other future agenda items before all right I motion to adjourn this meeting that would be Miss Van Hook all those in favor I I motion car I motion carries 5 Z are you a