001e e e I think this is good evening I would like to call this meeting to order Miss Richards may I have roll call please yes president Wade let the record show that all five board members are present this evening please join me in a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance e uh I motion to approve the agenda second I'm G to be honest I have no idea whose voice that was so we're going to go Anna it's going to be on you all right thanks all those in favor I all right motion passes 5 Zer hello Miss Richards I believe you're up next for introduction good evening uh we have an opportunity this evening to introduce ourselves I want you to tell us why you're serving on the governing board and
002if you're not a governing board member and you're on cabinet you need to tell us why you're with the school district and then everybody gets to have one fun unusual fact so president Wade would you like to start [Laughter] well Mr Moore will start then sure I mean I can in that I doesn't matter if I go first or last go ahead Mr Moore all right my name's Tyler Mo I'm the Chief Financial Officer for Higley UniFi this is my fourth year uh with the district one fun fact for me obviously I don't serve on the governing board so um you want to tell us why you were working for school district this one okay yeah well I work for Higley because it's the best school district in the state um I've worked for uh
003four different districts uh Katon Elementary Madison Elementary Scottsville unified um and Higley by far has one of the best cultures um in my experience um shortlived experience I'm not very old but uh my short Liv experience is one of the the best cultures uh any District I've worked with so that's one of the reasons why I enjoy working with Higley um a fun fact um this is going to be a boring one but I ran a marathon in Switzerland up the Alps yeah that was fun how about how many miles you ran last year how many miles I ran last year like 750 miles so yeah I like running it's my Forest uh good evening my name is David liser I'm the executive director of secondary education this is my fifth year um I am
004why I have enjoyed working in Higley as the people in the culture I think we're relationship based business and the relationship so we've been able to build within our cabinet is very very strong and collaborative and I think that allows us to be prepared to make hard decisions to lead our district and a uh fun fact that many of you don't know but when I was in college I was a professional rapper at like what I would like to talk to you more about this at the end of the meeting that'd be great thanks um to be fair it was not um musically rapping but I worked at Dillards in the gift shop and I gift wrapped professionally and I got paid to gift wrap and uh I want you to know I was very
005good at it and uh I learned how with a double-sided tape I could hide seams and do bows and ribbons but when you say it out loud everyone assumed that I was like the next Eminem and we know that was not true I still have follow-up questions so thank you uh good evening my name is Jeff Armstrong and I'm the executive director of Elementary education here in the district uh I actually came back to Higley because I student taught in hi and as Tyler and David have said that the culture that we have in our district is far above many others I'm experiencing that one fun fact I did not run 700 miles last year however I was a part of an organization that we did a ride from Scottsdale Arizona out to San Diego
006over four days raising money for Wounded Warriors so I was a part of that organization so so I'm Jessica Bautista I'm the marketing and public information director um I will Echo the sentiments of my colleagues in that I work here because it is the best district with the best people um I live here my kids go to Higley schools so we're very invested in this community I also love um working in public service so I came from originally journalism and then I worked for the town of Gilbert the municipality and then school districts so um enjoy serving the public in whatever I do uh and a fun fact about me is that I am a h certified scuba diver so I used to live in Florida hi I'm Christine Zimmerman and I'm the assistant to
007the governing board um I was hired by Sher Richards almost 13 years ago and I'm still here so higgle is a good place to be and um I live in the community community and my kids have graduated now from Higley schools they graduated from williamsfield high and they're doing great they got a great education um fun fact about me my family goes back really far in Arizona in fact my great great-grandfather was the first mayor of Mesa so yeah we have long history here all right my name is Scott Glover I am I am here because I'm a a longtime public school teacher uh strong supporter of public Ed I believe in service to others and uh I believe our schools need uh more support than they ever have so I hope to contribute in
008that manner uh fun fact about me I just mentioned it to uh president Wade uh so that's what's on my mind my first paid teaching job was in post uh post fall of the uh of the Berlin Wall uh and the Iron Curtain in Warsaw Poland and I taught kindergarten to a bunch of kindergarteners that didn't speak English and I spoke no polish so that was my first Endeavor into teaching I'm Tiffany Schultz and I um serve on the governing board for my second term because I believe in public education I've always supported public education and I got involved because of the terrible funding that public education receives from our state um and I love Higley school district and my kids go to Higley school district and I am having trouble thinking of a fun
009fact about myself you rap I rap yes I WAP often in my car to '90s WAP yeah it's inappropriate but that's fine uh hello I'm Amanda Wade um I serve on the board because I believe in public education I believe we have a responsibility uh as a community to take care and provide the best education possible for the community because we are all better for it um having taught for most of my adult life um and being a part of those types of things when I decided to no longer teach and an election was coming up um I decided to you know go through with what I believe in and I think that matters it's one thing to say you care about something and it's something else to show up and put in the work
010and so that's why I'm here for um is the work I guess as far as a fun fact um I don't you know I have double-jointed elbows that's fun facts Anna Van Hook um I decided to uh run for Schoolboard um because uh my kids have been in this district for a very long time um and I wanted to ensure that um we are as transparent as possible with our community members and that we provide the best education possible um and to ensure you know our student achievement is um topnotch and uh we provide the best education and a fun fact um I used to be able to do a thousand push-ups and sit-ups at one time and bench 250 lbs but that was a long time ago that's all hello I'm Sarah jarmin I
011have been in the district for about 10 years I love this area I love this community I've been helping out in my church and the community members and scouting and church organizations Etc I'm a mother of five I'm a holistic practitioner which really drives uh this last decade which really drives my passion I'm very passionate about empowering moms and families and um putting put forth their best efforts in uh protecting the vulnerability and innocence of children I am grateful for Higley for providing a uh education and academic excellence and I just hope I can be a voice and really um Propel and and create help and ensure that hickley is the best District it can be and and the best choice for those who have the option to go here I love the feel of
012this District so I'm so excited to start this out I just barely started I'm a newbie I would call myself or a noob is what my son would call me but I am passionate about this area I really think it's the best kept secret so um and a little fun fact for me is I'm very sensitive to the cold weather even though I was born in Montana and um but I love the Sun and hot tubs good evening my name is shaa Miller I'm the execu director of special education I am in my 18th year in Higley I was originally recruited to Higley by a previous administrator that had worked with me in Mesa and I came over and I brought my four kids with me who all went to Higley schools who have all
013graduated and through those 18 years I this is more like a family at this point I can't imagine going anywhere else um I do feel like it's the best District because of the size and the ability to collaborate with each other and really work together as a team so not planning on going anywhere anytime soon um fun fact I've been here so long everyone knows all my fun facts because we do this a couple times in different Arenas but um I'll go to the when I was in the fourth grade my family decided to move out of Arizona to Alaska to Juno Alaska to open up the first McDonald's there and we broke the world record on opening day but then we most people most things sold but then Russia beat us a couple years
014later but fun fact I got to grow up owning a McDonald's when my family did so good evening uh my name is James Walker I'm the Director of Human Resources and student services I'm in my 14th year in the school district um I'm here because um I appreciate what the school district has to offer I'm a Higgly dad before anything else so I've got two sons that are in first grade and third grade in the school district so I stay because I think this is a great district and it has good opportunity and I want to support uh through my line of work both kids and professionals and the community and so I kind of have the The Good Fortune to work with with everybody uh in the school district so I really appreciate that
015opportunity um like to help solve problems and get to good resolutions uh across the board so um that's why I'm here I live in Gilbert like this community um all good things uh fun fact uh I did win the best dancer award uh in eth grade so hi everybody my name is Karen Johnson I'm your Executive Director of Human Resources and student services um I spent the last 37 years in some form of Education from K12 to K8 k12 and postsecondary uh next week I will celebrate two years here at Higley and I'm very excited about that I enjoy working with people obviously and I love to see the students grow and progress and that's I believe in public education fun fact about me I survived the blizzard of 77 back in Buffalo New York
016I was a child a small no I was a child but that was a three-day in the house blizzard that we didn't leave and so that's why they have basements there and they store a lot of food in their basement so uh that's just a fun fact about me well hi everyone my name is Julie bacon and I am director of leadership development for the Arizona School boards Association um I do well I was a board member um I served for three terms in the Paradise Valley Unified School District and so I call myself a recovering board member because you're never quite out of it um I do what I do at aspa because I want every District like yours to be successful and I want students to achieve all that they can um and
017so I believe deeply in local control I believe in the people closest to the community being the people who um govern the community community schools so um that's my commitment to um Arizona schools uh fun fact about me I have a daughter who's 31 and she's a sixth grade teacher in Arizona schools I have a son who's 27 and he is a mechanical engineer and my daughter was born on Valentine's Day and my son was born on St Patrick's Day and my brother said to me after my son was born be careful nine months before Flag Day because so it's all about holidays at our house uh Sher Richards superintendent here in Higley I always think about education and how important it is so I started my journey as a deed teacher and I love
018that so much because I would go home at night and my kids have language and they're learning and I can see it every day so I worked in Texas for a long time and when I moved out here Dr Nance hired me and he kept talking about Community Schools and I was like I don't know what you're talking about because we don't use that language in Texas well I learn very quickly what a amazing Community this is and how supportive people are so I've been blessed um to do a few different jobs here in Higley and every single one I learn so much so much and I want to say to the board thank you because you give of your time and your resources and your experience and it's a big deal a big deal
019and the pay is terrible right so you have to do it because you care um a fun fact I'm fairly tall but my grandmother was 4 fo1 she had a size 4 foot she was adopted into the uisu Indian tribe um right after she got married in South Dakota and she proceeded to work every day till she was a hundred and she died when she was 107 so I'm not wishing that on myself at all but it's kind of interesting to think because when I think about if I live that long I got a lot of work to do and a long time to live right so an amazing little lady they were glad when she quit coming to work cuz she owned a furniture and hardware store in Lisa Texas and I bet nobody
020in this room has ever been there nor should you but she just sat in the chair embossed everybody around at the end and they were like no you can go home so anyway all right that's it for the introductions thank you everyone all right moving on to 3.2 uh we'll now hear from Julie bacon with Arizona Schoolboard Association thank you Madame President and um we are going to have a conversation I don't want this to me to be me talking at you if there are questions if you want to discuss something just jump in and um let's have that done we're going to be able to skip a slide or two here I think oh no roles of responsibility so we'll talk about oh that is very fast um it's difficult believe me we have
021trouble so roles and responsibilities so when we talk about the senior leadership team of a school district or the governance team we are talking about the board with the superintendent and together the five of the six of you make up the governance team for the school district um Arizona rides statutes 15 341 and 15 342 um have what you can do and what you shall do what you have to do and what you may do um there are duties that are clearly not delegable in that list um but most of those Duties are delegated to the superintendent and whoever the superintendent delegates to do it um the things that cannot be delegated are approving policy passing a budget and the HR functions or the supervision of the superintendent um the five of you as one
022entity are the supervisor of the superintendent however you have five distinct personalities um you have five distinct priorities probably um many more more priorities and so the superintendent sure has a job trying to work with each of you and meet the needs um that you each have in the work that you do as a board member the day-to-day operations of the district are left up to the superintendent um and it is um important that each of you um adhere to the roles that you have the board stays in doing their board's job and the superintendent stays doing the superintendent's job so the board's job is to govern obviously um evaluate the superintendent another really important part is to set the direction that you think that the the community wants for the students in your school
023district um and that is the whole community and so sometimes a challenge that we have as board members is really getting to know what the community as a whole wants we all know what the people close to us want um but that's something in terms of setting directions setting strategic goals um and and um objectives to meet those goals that is an important part of what the board does providing oversight you adopt those policies in the budget and then you set goals and monitor progress on any strategic goals or strategic initiatives that you have in the district um one of the things that we have to remember M as board members is we can't really fulfill our role as policy makers if we don't monitor the impact of policy um that is one of the
024most important things that we do as board members or you do as board members I can't get rid of the wi that's why I say I'm a recovering board member I'm not a board member anymore I can't use that word we um but you're accountable to the community and if they don't like what you're doing they're not going to elect you again that is how they tell you that uh the superintendent's role is to manage the day-to-day operations of the district um implement the policies set by the board um and then develop plans to meet any strategic goals that happen and the superintendent is accountable to the board so this is just we have tons of different Graphics that help you kind of um visualize what this looks like but here are just some things
025that we have put together the board does the what why how much the superintendent is doing the how when where and who who's going to do these things the board sets that vision mission goals your policies Your Role is to Monitor and your other role is to vote that is why you were elected um the superintendent does those objectives action plans is needed um make sure that the regulations and procedures are are clear uh for everyone then Implement um and also recommend policy um and anything that comes before you as a board so we we get a lot of board members who get upset when we say that um board members don't have any individual power and and under a legal definition that is true so when we talk about power we're talking about legal
026Authority and legal power um you certainly have a lot of influence in your community you also have the perception of power a lot of people believe that you have the ability to do things that you may or may not in fact have the ability to do um so just knowing that as you're out in your community and I know higgle is a very close Community you're going to be seen um as someone who has power to make changes or do things differently and you do as a body of one not individually so we just want to kind of clarify when we say power at asba we're really talking about legal Authority and legal power any question about that okay um this is another graphic that we use um to talk about um how the board
027and uh sup superintendent interact with one another so the board authority the oversight of management and sets the expectations for um the way the district is run and the superintendent Authority is to make recommendations to the board um provide leadership and supervision and you can see that kind of continuous Improvement cycle on the outside um with dotted lines in the middle and arrows because you need to communicate with one another communication is key um that is what makes great teams be successful is making sure that each of you are informed about what's going on so um a number of years ago I was working at asba and a superintendent called me and he said hey I want to get that graphic that you use and I was like which one and he goes you know
028the hamburger graphic apparently he thinks that's a hamburger it is not it's just a circle but I don't know if he was hungry or what but so I we always called in the office the hamburger graphic do you have the hamburger graphic um I'm going to we're going to talk a little bit about upwood meeting law but I want to preface this with I am not an attorney so I've taken a very kind of basic overview of what open meeting law is and what it means to all of you and um would be happy to answer questions if I know the answers um so the purpose of open meeting law is to favor transparency it is we they call them Sunshine laws for a reason they want there to be Bright Lights um on entities
029that are responsible for public funds and public decision making um anything that doesn't pass the sniff test or if there's indifference about open meeting law really will bring scrutiny and suspicion um from your community members and voters and your staff um Everybody um so it really the law is intended to protect the Public's interests not the interest of the board or the district so it is to make sure that decisions are made in open Forum um and there are no kind of backroom deals being made so in the boardroom again the Power Authority of school boards happen when there's a quorum uh members at a publicly noticed meeting um that has an agenda and the agenda needs to be released 24 hours before the meeting so that you um your public has an opportunity to
030see what you're going to be talking about um meetings are used to have discussion that is what this is about this is about you coming together as a body as a public body to have discussions listen to information that will help you make decisions about things that are before you um once the board votes on an item board members support the will of the majority now I can say this having been in the minority in voting not a great place to be not fun necessarily um and it doesn't mean that you have to raah Rah cheer everything I mean you just your job um and I can remember PE people saying to me why did you vote that way and I would tell them why I voted that way and then I said but the
031decision has been made um and my job now is to monitor the impact of the decision so if the board makes this decision I need to make sure from a policy perspective from a budget perspective um from the supervision of the superintendent perspective that things are being done and it's not harming students so that is um supporting the will of the majority um the public must have access to a publicly noticed meeting you have to have the open room you have to allow for audiences um some some districts live stream there are other ways that they allow public participation other than in person um public comment is not required by Arizona statute um it is something that most if not all Arizona school districts do as a matter of transparency to their Community you're not
032sitting there because you don't want to hear what they have to say you're sitting there because you do want to hear what they have to say um and so there can be Place time restrictions time limit restrictions on public comment so you can say you have this amount of time to speak um and you can say you have to be in person to do that or you can be in person or you can submit something electronically so whatever it is that your board does just has to be done routinely and consistently so that everyone who comes your meetings understands what it's going to look like um if a board member is attacked in public comment um which happens um they may legally respond to that attack at the conclusion of public comment so if you
033have 10 people who want to comment and number one attacks you personally you need to wait until number 10 is done before you respond to that attack I would caution you to to be careful about the responses that you do I think often um it is just kind of uh continuing a conversation that maybe isn't true uh so how do you want to look at that um that's clearly it's up to you how you want to do that but um I would just consider carefully what that looks like for you the board can't respond to items that are not on the agenda other than to ask the superintendent to follow up or have the um topic or item be placed on a future agenda um and that is if the Committee Member is speaking is
034something not on the agenda do you allow people to speak on agenda items they have during the open call to the public yes okay but during the regular session when we're doing that no the only other time would be the budget when they're for that yeah the public hearing that's it okay I believe the district used to do that and then they stopped but no we we have not allowed um individual agenda item comments and and you can do whatever you want obviously because the there's no requirement that you do it the the way way that you um execute your public comments is up to is at the discussion of the board so the Board needs to make those um put those parameters in place there's a couple of things that have happened recently that
035you probably have seen about in the news one is was in Surprise Arizona um at a city council meeting um where a um member of the community criticized the City attorney I think it was and um was told that they were not allowed to do that they were taken out of the chambers by police um and were arrested um that quickly changed their policy around public comment um and part of that was they were saying that the um the the employee didn't do their job they didn't know what they were doing I don't know the exact things but it it wasn't it was it needed to be allowed um you know First Amendment rights are you know top of concern um these days in terms of what um boards and City councils and public bodies
036are hearing so um that's one and then um in brever County Florida there was um a case brought by moms for Liberty um about the way public comment was um handled in the difference between board presidents um so there wasn't consistency in the way one board president executed public comment versus The Other Board presidents so just thinking about that whatever it is that you're doing we really make sure you're being consistent no matter who is running the meeting um and so that's just something to be clear about um in your packet I also have a public participation um at your meeting it's just a handout that we made um during the pandemic and have updated um continuously so that we can give you some information that is um pertinent to the work that you do
037may I make a comment please okay thanks just to anybody I know people do watch this stuff believe it or not um but um you know public comment as a board member I appreciate it and I support the First Amendment uh but it's it's unsa satisfying I'm sure as unsatisfying it is to talk because we're as you can see from the slide we really can't respond we want to we have good ideas we appreciate the things they say but we're really not allowed to say anything at that time until it becomes like an action item so uh just know that it's hard for us sometimes because we really want to speak or we really want to say something I really do value people's input and also we got a we got a long email from
038a couple people this week um and you know sending us an email for me just for anyone who cares to to know I have time to read it I have time to digest it I have time to respond I'm able to ask questions at that time where I can't do that here so to me that's that's every bit as good I know it's public and and on camera but but email uh you know for me works just as well too and it's it's it's a public record too and we do read our emails so that's just a good way also to communicate with us especially we're talking about board meeting times and people able to make it but I like that because there can be a a sort of give and take yeah any other
039questions thoughts about public comment I do have a question but I'm not sure if legally you can answer it um but it's at our um last board meeting um we had a situation where a speaker um spoke by proxy and I know that there's no law preventing that I you know the the attorney that was at the at the board meeting said it wasn't allowed but I looked into it and I can't find a statute that says you can't um so um maybe it's you know better to ask an attorney but um that's definitely and and we don't have a policy against that um and I know we've allowed it before um and we do have a lot of situations where people can't make it to the meeting um but they want to be able
040to voice their concerns or comments or whatever um so I just want to understand the legalities behind Jennifer saying that it it's not allowed so board member then hook we've been in the process of following up and it's my understanding it's a practice that if you guys choose this we do this if you guys has choose that and so miss bacon should know that um like during Co we were allowing people to read other people's statements or even email them in and so that is one thing that hasn't happened a lot but has been a little inconsistent so I mean we took to heart what was shared and and put it on our request to speak form um and sent it to you guys last week saying they needed to be present but since it's
041a practice I mean how would you yeah so I think the best thing to do would be for the board to look take a look at that policy together and have a conversation about policy we don't have a policy we have a request to speak form right you don't have a public participation policy well it doesn't address that sorry they don't have a policy that says that yes so what I yeah okay I was a little bit like what you don't have a policy that it doesn't say it's silent on that right okay so what I would do is maybe look at some other school districts there are some districts that have policies that are a little bit more specific about that you know um I know in Paradise Valley we had one that you
042can't seed or give your time to someone else we didn't have a no proxy but we did have if you're there and you're talking and your speech is 15 minutes you can't get five people to give you their time so that was one thing we also had something in there about no solicitations during public comment that there was a way there was a time in place and manner for you to do that it's not at a board meeting so there are a number of policies that you might want to look at just to see what others have Incorporated some of them have also done we're only going to do 30 minutes of public comment or we're only going to do an hour of public comment comment and the board president will allocate the time per
043person at the time of the meeting we do have that yeah so I think there are things that you can put in there and the board should have a conversation about what the board's will is in terms of what that policy looks like and kind of digging into some of the specifics Rel other things right so so ultimately what was said at the board meeting is not factual um the fact that it's not allowed um and so I you know that's definitely something a conversation that I think should be had um and um I think that we shouldn't be updating the request to speak for form prior to having that conversation as a board um so if we can further have that discuss one thing I would like to point out though because in the
044two years we've been here we've had somebody else read by proxy and we've also stopped somebody from doing it so I think it isn't we literally have so there's been a situation in which somebody else came up and we told them we couldn't because the person wasn't here much in the same way that we had another parent who the other person couldn't make here and then we've moved on from them before so like I I do think there is benefit to us going through and having a conversation considering that we can move forward from whatever that is um I don't think there's any harm in in making a decision so we can make sure we're clear before it goes forward I just think part of the confusion in our lawyers defense is we literally in
045the two years I've been here had one person do that and then we sto somebody else after them because after that meeting somebody else and I would assume it was either the individuals who were on the board previously had talked about we stopped doing that because of covid and that's where that confusion came in and so then the next person that they stopped they expressed because during Co we made changes and again I I think we be human humans error and so I don't think there's any wrong in in being specific going forward so I'm gonna president Wade um ask a question would you like cabinet to look at different board policies that specifically address that and bring you our thoughts or how do you how do you want this handled I mean I don't
046want to make a decision for all I don't think there's any harm in presenting I you gave us what the updated thing looks like based off of the confusion from the co time to this time and what it should be that things were not clear that's fine we have that to go off of I don't think there's necessarily any harm in looking at other districts for some of that because there might be some things that we have yet to think about that we might want to just preemptively be like that's actually a good thing let's add that so I'm if if we are doing this then I think it would be benef IAL at least to see the other options that are available um I don't know how that would work for us because part
047of the joys of this process is that it's not really a work session and that we can't have some of these conversations to be like I like this part and this part until we're all in a room together so I don't know to give us the information and then when we come back um but then like I'm just meaning like when we we choose right cuz if we're all voting for different parts or whatever does that make sense so like I don't want to be like you like option A you like sample C but you're a big fan of sample B over there kind of deal that seems confusing does that make sense so I mean look you all do this so at the end of the day I think an information item on it
048I mean do we have to P if it's not a policy this is just a practice of choice that we have does it have to be an action item after that fact if so then maybe just make it an action item so we're not going three meetings just to solve whether or not somebody can read a piece of paper from somebody else okay so I it it would have to be approved if you change your policy there's there's nothing that you should do in practice that isn't in policy um so and and this in particular is very it's very wise to be um specific and let your public know and be intentional about it so I mean what I might recommend is here are three policies the cabinet has pulled you all identify the things
049that you like not the whole policy right here's our policy here's what they have what parts do they have that we could incorporate and then have that conversation instead of saying I like number one or I like number two what pieces and parts of one two or three would we like to include um I would guess that many of you will agree on what you would want to include one option can we just do it then as an action item and then that way we don't have it as two separate meetings or an information and then action later kind of deal I'm just all I want is whenever we get that information presented to us we make the decision in that moment so we're not kicking the can again essentially to make this decision I
050mean you might I as a board member I think I would appreciate having a discussion about it at one meeting and voting at the next so that then you have the opportunity to take it back rework it Wordsmith whatever the the cabinet can do that and your superintendent and then bring it back for a vote I completely agree I think it needs to be a discussion item um information item to have a conversation and and be able to go back and forth and then make a final decision and then bring it back for a vote um discussion is always important and it shouldn't be the day of the vote right considering we have um what you updated Us in status can we rock with what we currently have until whatever that situation and change so
051we're not going back through just to make a different change for the inter president Wade we'll keep what we currently have we'll set that aside we'll bring three four different options for you guys to look at you give us instructions we'll go back and modify so this this is good because we don't know we have a problem until we have one correct yes that's usually how it works I mean you might have a problem that someone else knows about but you know unless you know about it you can't do much about it so um no I think the and these are conversations that are happening all across Arizona because the utilization of call to the public is has increased since the pandemic and so to be very specific I think is is important okay okay
052so when does open meeting law apply it applies at any meeting of a quorum of board members and what's a quorum of board members three in a five member board um we do have some three member boards in Arizona and a a quorum is two so you're kind of on your own you're not talking to anybody about anything that's on the board um so it's an interesting Dynamic um um a quorum or meeting includes conference calls email and it may include other forms of electronic communication so if three of you are texting about something and you're talking about an action that you want to do that is a violation of open meeting law um what constitutes a meeting um a discussion a proposal of action taking legal action or deliberating with regard to any legal
053action so that is what um a constitutes a meeting and this is um a meeting also can include one-way electronic communication by one member of the public body so one board member proposing legal action to a quarum of board members so even if the two that so say I propose to two board members that I'm serving with even if they don't respond if I'm proposing legal action I violated open meeting law so you have to be really careful about those conversations um in exchange of electronic communication among a quorum of members that involves J I'm sorry if I can just clarify um so obviously every you know Scott's new on the board but he's been on the board and I just want to C verify for Sarah that um let's say you get an email
054and it has all the board members on it never hit reply all ever yeah um and and I have in fact once replied all and then I replied all again and said that was not intended to go to all of you please disregard I did not intend to break open meeting law so yeah so it just make sure and if if you get a text from the superintendent who has all of you on it don't respond to that go offline get in a a text message with the superintendent if you have questions so just being careful really careful about that there's also the idea of a perception of this so three of you are walking out after a meeting we always say be careful of the parking lot because sometimes the perception is that you
055are talking about things that have to do with board business when you're talking about where you went on vacation so you just have to be really careful I always joke that everyone thought that our board didn't like each other because we literally never spoke to each other in public or private frankly we just worked in a board it wasn't that we didn't like each other it's just that we were really concerned about that perception of doing board business when we weren't um okay so discussion deliberation of legal action um concerning a matter that like that is likely to come before the board and then also a series of one-on-one discussions intended to lead to an agreement among a quorum of members and this is something that staff has to be careful about um board members
056have been known to direct staff to share their feelings with more than one other board member can't do that that is a violation of open meeting law so not only has has the board violated open meeting law but staff has violated open meeting law so just be really careful about that okay um we're going to talk a little bit about effective meetings but can we take just a time out just any questions any thoughts anything you want to share uh yeah with permission I I have uh just just a comment I guess just to sum it sum up what we've all said but very you know to I'm a teach so I like things you know dumb down a little bit um you know so we as a just so the public knows we can
057I can talk to One board member about you know anything that I want uh it's when you it's it's things that are likely to be voted upon or will be voted upon that we can't talk to a second person which would be three which would be a quorum um so there's a lot of people especially in this community that talk about transparency transparency transparency and I get that and I understand that um everything we do pretty much that you see happens in public so um I can I remember there were times on the in on my previous term when I was kind of surprised by something because no one gave me a heads up and I didn't know it was an issue because we don't talk to each other deliberately and so sometimes you're watching
058and I'm not I'm not always very good at it you're watching us think in real time uh because sometimes this is the first time something's been brought to our attention and we have to kind of it's It's Not Easy you got to think quickly on your feet sometimes and make some pretty impactful decisions because we don't have the opportunity to talk to each other anywhere outside of here in public so I just want people to understand that it's it's you know there's no I'm not conspiring behind closed doors about anything you know we talk and we meet here and so I like to ask questions so and I would say to our our cabinet you know if there is a hot button item I just you know as a courtesy give me a heads up
059please I'm not directing you to do a specific item but I'm just saying I we appreciate it because it gives us a time to think and to to to act with knowledge MH well and I always say that about public comment if if you all know that something's bubbling up in the community let the superintendent know there's probably going to be a lot of people coming public comment about this and vice versa if the cabinet and superintendent know hey we're hearing you know talk of 20 people coming to talk about this particular item on our agenda let the board know so so you can be prepared for that moment when so that doesn't happen anything else um yeah so on Slide Five um as far as leadership team roles um I just the part for
060the board um and at the bottom where it says accountable to the community um I think often times uh there's a perception um you know not just in our district but in general um and I can't figure out where it's coming from but the accountability to the community I think a lot of board members forget that that's who we are accountable to um and the decisions that we make is for the community and for the taxpayers and often times uh we see you know votes being made um with not necessarily the community in mind and so I think it's a good reminder to um to board members to know that that is who we are accountable to um and and we just need to remember that um to our students to the parents um and
061community members um who voted Us in the seat to to their voice yeah I mean I would say Obviously you have you're indebted to your voters they they put you here um you have many clients though and they're usually um the they are the students in your school so it it is a very difficult line to walk um you know where where we how do we manage this but but what your job is to understand what the community wants that is true and that is something that you need you know to be thoughtful about as you make as you vote thank you for pointing that out and then um sorry I'm just going through my notes as we go through the slides um and then on page 10 yes um back room uh back room
062decisions being made um you discussed and mentioned um and sometimes I like I'll during board meetings I'll hear things and um and it's like well why wasn't the rest of the board notified about this um and you know somebody will say for instance like we recently discussed board meeting time change and um somebody said well staff members have been coming to me and asking for uh you know for us to change the time well doesn't that then have the impact of possibly violation of open meeting laws when there's cabinet members potentially talking to board members about something that we might vote on um well if it's just a we this is what we've been hearing that's really just an informational item if it was we want to move the meetings to this time I think
063that you have to be careful about that um and and you're I know you're going to go through your communication protocols and I I'm guessing that's in there is you know what one member the what one member gets as information every board members should get as information so um that's just something that's often just a management issue where do I how do we do this what do we do how do we take care of that um one of the superintendents that I worked with would you know say in their weekly update I got questions from board members about these three things here are the answers that I provided I had another um superintendent who had a Google doc and he would weekly update that with here are the questions I've been asked here's the information
064that I provided so that it was incumbent upon us to go look at that and find out what it was um but there that information was provided by them so that again that's another conversation and I don't know it's covered in your communication protocols but it's something to have discussion around Miss Bacon go ahead no I was going to say to be we do that yes we do I I think at least the way I took what Miss Van Hook is describing is no different than people in the community tell me kind of situation in that I agree with you in a formal process or of staff's doing that type of thing obviously especially talking to multiple board members about it or whatever but I also go we have a lot of of Staff who
065also live in this community or have kids who go to school in this community those types of things and so I think especially if you've been a part of schools or you've been a part of this district for a while those types of things I at least the way I took that is no different than when we say things like people in the community because you express that you have people in the community to talk to you I have people in the community that talk to me I guarantee they're not the same people we don't even live in the same Comm we're all in Higley yes but we're nowhere near none of us live in the same neighborhoods none of our kids go to the same elementary schools kind of deal as far as zoning
066um so I we do have a weekly whatever question one of us gets gets sent out to us in a status report sometimes the questions are a little bit more immediate so then we'll get an email that's said a board member reached out with this question those types of things that is definitely part of our our protocols yeah and I think if you as an individual board member have been hearing something specific you can say to the superintendent hey I've been hearing a lot about this why don't you let the rest of the board know um that way everybody has that information and they can they can go into a meeting knowing what's coming up and then again the um on that same Slide the law concerns itself with protecting the Public's interest not the
067interest of board members or District employees um and then um as far as once the board votes on an item board members um support the will of will of the majority um I do disagree with this and I've I've disagreed every year um I think that we as individual board members have a right to our opinion um about the vote um and we don't necessarily all have to be Kumbaya on a a specific topic that um was voted on and that we don't necessarily agree on um and I think that we individually have a right to um say you know yeah it is the majority vote I don't you know I don't necessarily agree but yeah you know it is what it is um and so uh I just don't agree with the with this
068you know let's all it passed this is it and we all have to be Kon by all about it yeah no I and I would I would not want to um implicate that you should be um like I said I've been in the minority before it's then it's my job to say I don't I didn't support it but I have that's what's going to happen and I'm going to monitor the impact of it it's not like Let it go you know and never talk about it again that's not you know and and if you're monitoring the impact and you think it's harmful then you bring it back and you ask for it to be talked about again so I don't want to ever say that board members should give up their individual opinions or um
069thoughts that is not at all the implication um but just like we do in the country that we live in once we once our elected people make decisions we can we we go on and that decision is part of our the fabric of our country it doesn't mean that I have to agree with it it doesn't mean you have to agree with it and we can be vocal about that but what I think what this is is um this is more about how you manage that disagreement that is disagreement because the way you manage disagreement is is important thank you yeah um else um as far as like uh when open meeting law uh does apply page 13 um I as far as for Sarah to to understand like and initially when I got on
070the board um Christine reached out and said you know when there's an emergency or something I text all the board members and I actually opted out of that um and I said just email me or call me um I don't want to utilize my you know this is my personal phone I don't want to do board business on my personal phone um so I opted out of text messages um and um but one of the um things is so initially that first year um I I I believe it was Chris Thomas that came and did the open meeting law training um one of the concerns was texting during board meetings um and one of the things at the time Chris mentioned was that you know if it's if it's not board business then they don't
071have to turn it over um but that's something that I think um could be a pretty fine line first of all we shouldn't be texting during board meetings um we should be concentrating on the actual board meeting and I think sometimes uh there could be people that are sitting in the audience possibly texting a board member on what to say and um and and what to do um and so with that in mind I think it's important an that um that we not text during board meetings um and then and then to have to open up those text messages to public records request um and to I mean any board member can just say oh it wasn't board business so I don't have to turn it over um I think it's wrong um so it's
072better to uh just not do it in the first place yeah and and I think the Attorney General is leaning towards it it doesn't matter whether you say it was personal or not if it was during a board meeting it's public record so just being thoughtful about that um you know I I have done training with board members and one board member in particular she came up to me afterwards and she was practically in tears and she said I can't use my cell phone and I said well no and she said but I'm a diabetic and that's how I monitor my blood sugar okay okay well there might be a reason for her to be looking at her cell phone and there might be reasons that you need to do that I you know I
073would often say during my board report U board comments that my kids who were clearly old enough to be home alone but were clearly not old enough to get along that my husband who traveled all the time I I might be looking at my phone and that would be why I would be looking at my phone I'm not I'm not talking to anyone about the business of the board so there I think there are ways you can do but in general I agree with you cell phones probably don't need them during a meeting thank you yeah okay anybody else have questions concerns so I'm going to warn you that there are some videos some of them are louder than others so brace yourself oh okay it it may come through very loud um these are
074just some videos that um I did a presentation at our law conference confence with the general counsil in Tucson unified um Robert Ross and these were some videos that we pulled just to kind of accentuate some of the things that happen at meetings um and the way they look I think one of the things to think about when you think about your meeting is this is how the public is viewing you this is a really a PR event and they want to hear what you have to say and how you work together as a team so um just bear with us during these videos to me a gun is like a American Express card you don't leave home without it I don't carry a gun to intimidate anybody and I really don't believe that Lauren
075dhy was intimidated by my carrying a gun in here I carry a gun because I'm seven shut up I'm talking oh whoa whoa whoa whoa let's calm down right now hold it stop it right now I've listened to enough so far I've never had this happen in my 23 years of Maring this has never happened you know you can go ahead and finish Mr Bush and I'm going to finish the cards okay but that I'm never called anybody down this is ridiculous okay this is not Council business this is political actions in this room right now right and that is not what we're here to deal with and that's not what these obviously we had to cut them off because you know board members City Council Members they like to talk um so this was
076just one of those things where the audience was participating in the meeting and that was that is not the intention of governing board meetings for the audience to participate the intention is for them to observe um other than call to the public where you set those parameters for participation okay here's another one the civility what about the civility piece when you sit up here and you say exact you actually twist what I said when it's in writing right there and it wasn't a slam on you so where's the civility there where's the civility when you attack a citizen who's up you did and the mayor wouldn't even stop it she has slandered me in public hey we're up here we're up here we take it right no we're up here and we take it right
077a 10minute recess until 10:00 years of my life par city council so this is a situation where you know board members are kind of going after each other which sometimes happens um but really we should be thinking about the issue that we're talking about not the people you know we really want to stay focused on what the issues are um you know I served on a board where there were people who really didn't like me um but we were always civil with one another and I think that is what's important kindness politeness you don't have to agree but you have to be able to have a a conversation that's reasonable because they're going to see what kind of representation they have on this board and president sard president sard theid sardo president sardo the voters
078I'll take the 96 to6 vote every day of the week they also know of the double standard where your police report says you threaten to kill your wife and this is m or I was not charged with anything trusty sigwalt I was not charged I was not charged with anything the questions been called and don't you ever defame me in public unless to Def unless you want to talk to my attorney oh please it's okay for you to defame us though no I'm not def question has been called you guys are a Senor trust do all from the convict at the end to the woman whose uhry son had sex with the convict's wife unbelievable what a town what a beautiful place I mean that's self-explanatory right I don't have to tell you what was
079wrong with that um and then this is the final one hopefully that story Alex in Monday night's meeting video shows councelor Robert Lombardo making gestures several times but he claims he wasn't the one who started started it I want to know what kind of circus you guys are running here how you can allow a counselor to sit there and throw a vicinities out so again uh why are we in a board meeting what is the purpose of a board meeting um it's the board for the board to do its work um meet meetings are vehicles for um members to have discussion around agenda it items provide direction to the superintendent and listen to information that will help them make decisions and vote on items so our job is your job is to vote when something
080comes before you it's either a yes an a yes A no um there are situations where you would abstain um for for good reason um extensions are not so that you don't have to vote the idea is that you vote on everything um once an item is voted on um board members should support the will of the majority and I can tell I know you're going to talk to me about that the will of the majority so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna think about that in the way we have this written going forward um so quick some quick tips to have effective meetings um Place agenda items strategically so if you know something is going to be you're going to you're going going to have public comment for 4 hours and normally you introduce
081new employees at the end of the meeting perhaps move that for this meeting so that those people don't have to stay for the whole meeting go through the whole agenda and then be introduced so there are things to do that provide Early Access to information make sure that board members have all the information that they need um so that any questions that they might have are asked before the meeting information can be gathered that doesn't mean you won't ask questions during a meeting of course you ask questions during a meeting but um just know make sure that there's enough information um advaned Outreach to board members do you have any questions is there anything you you have questions about for this board meeting that's coming up the use of those procedural rules consistently so whatever
082that looks like however it is that you do it going back to call to the public I worked with the board that they they decided that when someone was done with public comment no one was going to say anything except what the next person's name was for public comment because they didn't want to forget to say thank you to one person and not say thank you to another person so whatever they're talking about it has to just be consistent application of the rules and that is what happened in brard County also was inconsistent application of the rules during the meeting so just be careful about that um refer to one another and others with titles sometimes that gives you it makes it formal and it makes us think about what we're saying a little bit
083um obviously adhere to open meeting law all of you have that responsibility not just the board president but everyone so if you as a board member think something is going off the rails say something um and be Court courteous and thoughtful discuss issues not people the road maps your agenda is a road map so they provide you structure Focus transparency and accountability um this is an agenda rubric a copy of that is also in your folder this is just something we put together so that board members could say is this something I should put on an agenda or not so um just look at that when you have some time because I know I'm going over time call to the public we had a long conversation about that um when you have open call to
084the public you can't discuss um or you can't discuss items that the they're talking about it called to the public um The Rules of Order if you want to make changes to your Rules of Order that is the at the board's discretion um Mo most of the board policy around that is very simple it's you know the president May motion there should be a motion a second and a vote but making sure that everyone is in agreement about those Rules of Order um is important so I want to say thank you I know I took a lot of more time than I was supposed to sorry everybody thank you so much you have any questions for me um my contact information is there so if you'd like to email me feel free um I just
085want to say you know just over the last two years I typically will will go back and just watch board meetings because during the board meeting I'm concentrating on the topic at hand but afterwards I I like to watch just to see if I missed anything um and and what I notice is during the times where I'm speaking other board members are making faces at each other laughing sometimes and just being um disrespectful towards um myself and I I think that that doesn't come off to the public very very well um and it is disrespectful um and and I want you know part of this is be courteous and thoughtful and and we should all be respectful um and we're all adults and I think that everybody needs to act like an adult um and
086and nobody should be making faces or having sidebar conversations uh when people are speaking so I just wanted to point that out yeah you can that can be part of uh communication protocols or meeting agreements um as you're going forward and having those conversations as a board is a good thing to do yeah can can we just take maybe take a moment and just talk about I mean I I I heard uh board member van Hox you know say and I just want to share how I feel about you know my what my Approach is so you guys understand where I'm coming from as well um I think when we have board meetings I like to be prepared I read every I've read every you know my previous term I read every single page every
087single um expenditure sometimes at 300 pages I read them all all of them um so I think it's our responsibility or for me speaking for myself I should say um try and ask questions and get answers ahead of time I think that's really important and it saves time uh during a meeting uh so the people aren't rambling and and you know they uh the cabinet likes to be prepared for answers and sometimes you know don't have it and if they knew then they would have that um I think during the meeting bring up issues you have um make your stance known educate the public I think that's part of our job too a little bit so on some things maybe they don't understand why we think a certain way or why something needs to happen
088and you know if we can help explain it or clarify it I think that helps and then you vote and uh I also agree we don't all need to be Kumbaya I was I was the one in and some 4 to1 votes um that happens it's you know it's democracy um you win some you lose some some and you'll live to fight another day um and you know you can be visited another year but um I wouldn't publicly undermine a decision that that people made that I lost just because I lost I mean that's just the way democracy goes sometimes you lose um but it doesn't mean you have to give up either um but I I for me just speaking for me um you know I I I I'm happy to move on or
089to revisit it for another day but I won't publicly disparage or I didn't I don't think I did publicly disparage any of the votes that I lost um anyway so that's just where I'm coming from if you guys also want to say or have any comments cuz I don't I don't know these folks um I worked with Miss Wilson who's in the back here but I haven't worked with any of you but that's that's just how I approach things and I would love to I mean I'll learn on a job if you don't want to share it now but uh you know if you want to share your thoughts I would welcome them I appreciate that uh board member Glover um to board member van Hook's point I think um some frustrations I had with
090that statement is there are assumptions that are made that I think are a perception that's not necessarily based in reality in that genuinely I struggle to process auditory information only and so the idea that a board member is clarifying something happens routinely there are a number of times in which for example Mis Reese would turn to you or you would turn to miss ree for clarification and so I think it is important to understand that at the end of the day we all should absolutely be respectful but I also think there are certain human elements that genuinely happen so if things are disruptive I absolutely agree that those things are not there but sometimes statements get met or state stated or numbers get said Etc and in order to make sure that we understand that
091or is that something that's happening or what school I think those things matter they are important and I also think it is an appropriate fashion should you especially going through a meeting and feeling some kind of way about it it is also possible to talk to us individually and express how those things are are done or ask questions to make efforts to understand us I think would be beneficial especially for new individuals on the board or things are happening and questions arise I don't want somebody to feel like if you're lost stay lost because that's not a safe space to be in a lot of times there can be certain things that are a clarification or I'm writing down something and because I was writing down something I miss something else and so I I
092do believe it would be beneficial for us all to uh acknowledge the human element that exists in the room on a constant basis I'm appreciative of the efforts that we all make routinely to be prepared to show up with the stuff that we have ask the questions and all of those types of things at no point have I assumed anybody coming here was unprepared to do those types of things um because we are indeed adults as you've expressed and I think that matters um president Wade um uh we received an email from um the attorney that states that any we shouldn't be having sidebar conversations and that anytime we speak when we are on the dis that our mic should be on and um because of open meeting laws um that no matter what the
093question that is being asked while we are on the dis that that is heard by the public um so if if it's something that one board member doesn't understand or doesn't hear um then we should be able to ask that question and say hey can you repeat what you said or can you explain what you said um and to avoid uh the conversations that might seem to the public that um is we're not being transparent um and and that was explained to us in in that um email that we received from the attorney um and then another thing I wanted to mention and again I don't know if this is something that you can answer because I think it might lean more um of a legal question um but as far as your thoughts on
094for instance uh admin meeting with board members individually about something that we might be voting on um and just to whether it's to discuss ahead of time uh to possibly reduce questions or um to to or to have us you know ask questions ahead of time where does that I think that that there might be like a fine line being crossed as far as maybe them knowing where board members stand on an issue prior to a vote happening um do what does that make sense well yeah the superintendent certainly can't PLL uh board members or ask how they're going to vote that's I think that's known um but it you know I think there are conversations to be had about how you prepare for a board meeting so if a one-on-one conversation is helpful for
095you as an individual and the way that you process and learn I think that's fine but there shouldn't be information shared during that meeting that isn't shared with all board members so I think that is um kind of the standard and um it I'm going to let you kind of talk about how you do that yeah I sorry board remember Van Hook I think at times we want to meet with people so that they have a complete understanding and it's not polling are you going to approve this are you going to approve this are you not going to it's that's not the purpose and so when you're a new board member for example the budget is extremely complicated and even at for us that have been around for a long time I think sometimes hearing
096it more than once being able to ask questions or reflect is helpful so I know there are school districts that meet individually or the superintendent meets individually with board members before every meeting we haven't chosen to do that but I do like to meet with you guys periodically because it's it's a relationship right and I get to know you I think you feel more comfortable calling me when I SP spend time with you um so I I believe we're being very careful just to make sure that the in information is clear concise makes sense but not to say are you going to approve this or you not going to approve this because that's not right so I don't that's kind of where where we stand and sometimes we have two board meetings a month and
097I would hesitate to say do you want to come meet two times this month you know it's I want to be respectful of people's time but Tyler is excellent explaining the budget stuff but sometimes we and cabinet have to hear it more than once so I don't know that answer yes and and I'm not saying that that we've done that I'm just saying in general um to have have you know if it's if it's an item that the board and we haven't had the situation where we've met oneon-one before we've taken a board vote um just in general like if you know if there are one-on-one meetings um regarding an item that's going to be coming up for vote and whether it's a poll taking or not but sometimes based on the questions presented might
098bring up the situation on how a board member potentially feels about something or or that item and then um if that information is then shared with another board member that that you know the admin meets with um so I just want to make sure that when when and if those situations occur uh that we're careful um on how the communication happens to ensure that open meeting laws are not violated so board member Van Hook I appreciate what you're saying and we're very systematic in these conversations to the point of did I already say that you know what I mean it's like you're teaching a class and you've gone through it so many times so I try to be very thoughtful so do members of cabinet and you know there are things that are complicated or
099involved or you know and because you're you're the voice of the community too it's important that you have understanding of things so believe me we're trying to follow the laws and stay within policy every single day but just like this Pro y situation with public Comet I didn't realize that was something we needed to address but now we do right so anyway I very respectful and appreciative of the time you guys give all over the place president Wade Miss Bacon I do have a question just kind of a general question I love the art of the open meeting law just how the discussion are out in the public and all that kind of stuff do you have any tips and tricks on kind of because I understand how it's helpful to ask your questions before
100and all the things but do you have any ways to go about that because I do love open prompt to conversations so I see the value in both so is there certain tips and tricks like as a board member um on what to perhaps present more as questions and conversations for the open meeting law which helps our community really see impromptu you know oh I'm surprised by this too let me ask this question Etc I hope that made sense yeah I mean so I I always classifi the questions that I had for the superintendent as these are like just random I just am curious questions or these are questions that I think the public has to know about so even if you ask a question beforehand and you get an answer that you understand and
101think is satisfactory three you just tell the superintendent you're going to ask that in open meeting so that you can share and have that transparency and that would probably go for most meetings um or most questions that you have because your job is to provide transparency to the community so if you have questions I would just let the superintendent know which one you're going to be asking um in open meetings so they're prepared and have everything in front of them board member ger one other thing that I would add to that too that's beneficial is when you have the questions ask them because like it may be a question for you that I didn't even think about and then when I get to see your question because they email everything it prompts me to have
102a different one um and so that's beneficial right and then we talked like because you weren't here when we changed it over ultimately we put all of this up so people can see that yes we do in fact act ask questions because not all of them get asked up there but any of the time any you can ask I just think it's always beneficial to ask them ahead of time in that it gives us an opportunity to see that question digest that question because like there are times where a question gets asked and I'm like o I also am intrigued by that right or somebody asked the same type of thing but maybe in a different way that is better um and so I'm appreciative of that as like a board member and so you
103may find also the same types of things because especially early on there's so much brand new information that you can see some of these questions and it helps you to understand the ways in which certain people look at certain information that can help you better understand what you're looking at sometimes um so I think in general it doesn't hurt always to ask them ahead of time knowing you can ask them again if you need to repetitively kind of deal but it also is helpful to us to know what questions you have because I might not have thought of it okay thank you so we are on to 3.3 Communications protocol Miss Richards we'll uh review some of the communication protocols for hickley Unified School District president Wade um everybody has a copy of these communication
104protocols and just a little history these were developed in 2021 between the governing board husd superintendent superintendent Richards I'm so sorry I skipped a page you did yeah uh we're going to take a five minute break you better fall then I'm just kidding yes I was gonna say Miss Zimmerman's very good at following instructions everybody how long did they haveon okay thank you no I I went to the restaurant and I know you're on a break that Miss Bacon has to leave and so I wanted everybody to be able to I'd love to clap for honestly and tell her thank you for driving over here and we appreciate it very helpful appreciate it thank you and now I know where I'm was it two or three days it was two after after four hours I
105not it was an interesting approach to training I know yeah I I mean I I understand the concept I just didn't I didn't like his Deliverance of the material yeah and so a little bit more confrontational than I'm used to very yeah yeah so for sure you e e e all right I apologize Miss Richards that one's on me please review some communication protocols for the Higley Unified School District thank you president Wade you all have a copy of the these communication protocols and um board member Glover and board member jarm we went through this in August and we revised them and it was approved on August 6 we went from 13 Pages down to I believe it's six so we wanted it to be more concise you're going to see a whole lot of
106overlaps between what Miss Bacon just shared and what's in our document so rather than go through this document page by Page there were just a couple of highlights I wanted to go through so we're a team or we consider ourselves to be a team your District administration and the five of you so I think it's super important um that we're all on the same page and we keep learning together so board members will will adhere to board policy K and KB and refer questions and concerns to the superintendent you guys do a very good job of that um and we try to do it in reverse so we're all on the same page I did want to mention and I know this was brought up like we put updates questions answers and Status every week
107sometimes we'll send something in an email and sometimes that could be something I would call confidential so those are important things that you might have received an email from a parent and you all got it so then we get questions about it and we want you all to get the same response makes sense so if we put confidential on there I appreciate you guys keeping it that way um and then any any time you know we are providing statements for husd it's really nice if we know so if you're representing the district in any form or capacity if we know then we're not caught off guard and that can be a news channel a radio spot anything all right this is somewhat repetitive that District Operations emergency communication we try to let you guys know
108if emergency vehicles are at schools or at the district office don't go into tons of detail that make you aware in general of what's going on um you have the same access to the same information and your cabinet works really hard to ensure that from everything from board meeting packets and supporting documentation which we work really hard to get you five days prior so now that board meetings are on Tuesday Christine works really hard to get it out the Wednesday before and that gives you time hopefully to review it one board member's requests for additional information means that you're all going to have access to this same information and this includes legal advice special Communications are provided to all board members all right how about don't go backwards okay so the preparation and the processes
109um board members will call or email Chris with questions about agenda items or supporting materials before the scheduled meeting and we've already talked about that that helps us know hey we need more information to make sure we can answer this we do that prior to the board meeting that doesn't mean you don't ask questions during the board meeting because sometimes you'll go through that whole process and you'll get up here and you go oh I forgot to ask this so please do if we need to research something or get more information we don't have a problem telling you we'll get back to you um we post these answers questions and answers on the website and then this one I thought was important for Scott and Sarah to know if something's on consent and you want
110an indepth discussion about it you let us know and we'll pull it down to action so we can have a discussion about it and I don't know if that was different Mr Glover when you were here before so that's one thing I believe has changed and then um we also like it when you guys tell us during a board meeting that you want a future agenda item sometimes you don't know in the board meeting and you can request it um you can call and request it or email it the one thing that I think we need to think about if something's going to take a whole bunch of time then we would say to you hey let's take this to the board and make sure this going to take 10 hours of Staff time does
111the board want us to look into it does that make sense we haven't done that a lot um but I think it's it's important because if we're going to give you information we want to do it right so yeah I think that kind of contradicts policy BBA um because we as individual board members have the right to um Place something on the agenda you do and so um I think that and requesting for an entire board vote for us to be able to have that discussion publicly um goes against policy bdba I'm sorry for clarification superintendent Richards my understanding is that is when we ask a question like so if we want information I.E how many kids do we have in kids club right now if the information were requ requesting takes a certain number
112of hours at least is what we talked about at whatever meeting we had in the past if what we're requesting in terms of information or what we're doing that is not necessarily an agenda item because that information is being presented to us and anybody can add an agenda item if we're directing the superintendent or the cabinet to do something that requires man hours with respect to putting together this information if that information or if that requirement would require a certain number of man hours that is making it difficult for cabinet and everything else to continue to do their regularly scheduled job which is a lot that's what we talked about needed a board thing so it wasn't like an agenda item it was if we were making requests and the request required an ex an
113exuberant amount of work that request then has to come to the board rather than any individual board member being able to say I would like a record of X Y andz or whatever the situation is if they are reasonable requests we do them it was I don't even think we've had to do it it was just if there was something that was being requested that was going to take an exuberant amount of time and we had talked about it but we never actually ended up doing that and I don't remember for the life of me at this present moment in time what that specific thing was that we never ended up asking for but the question came down to the amount of hours that it would take in order to do that very specific request
114because of the amount of hours we have to decide as a board if that information is worth the m hour and so it it is in the protocol sh guys approved in August and so I sometimes there'll be something and maybe we don't know how long it's going to take so we need to come back and explain you know we've discovered this is going to take 25 hours of Staff time is that something you want us to do and we haven't done it but it is a scenario that could happen so yeah my my okay so I read it as as like an agenda item um so it doesn't apply to that but my concern there is um then how how do you expect the board to know the information um and so you say
115it's going to take 20 hours staff hours to to put that information together but it's information that the board should be aware of so do we just because it's going to take so long do we just as a board never get that information or I mean there has to be a workr for that because if if I as a board member I'm asking a question it's information that I think it's it's important for me to know as a board member so how do we work around that knowing yes it's going to take a long time but it's also important for us as board members to have that information board member Van Hook the work around about that is we would vote and if we all agree that it's worth it that's the that's the functionality
116that's in place the whole point because we I'm still talking for a second we are all collectively and at this point we've had this policy in place since you and I got on the board we've changed and updated this specific we haven't even used it should this scenario befall us we still as a board have the absolute authority to say NOP we still want that information thank you president Wade but my question was for superintendent Richards so how do we um aside from the board let the board doesn't vote to allow the admin to provide that information so again do we end up not getting the information because it's going to take a long time when it's something that we as a board should know so I do believe that a lot of times it
117would apply to Future agenda items okay and that's what I'm referring to that sometimes we don't know the Manpower it's going to take out of Finance or HR to gather the data so we haven't had the scenario but if we did I think it would be beneficial for the board to understand hey we had this request it looks like it's going to take X do you do you guys as a board want us to proceed do you want to modify the item or do you not want to do it it doesn't mean it's out or we say no okay it just means we're trying to say hey this is a it's going to take more time than normal you know a few hours we're used to that so right yeah again I just my concern
118is yes we haven't had that situation arise um we haven't had to to make such vote but in the future if there is a situation and we're setting ourselves up to require a majority aboard vote in order to obtain that information that we as a board should be privy to um then if we don't get a majority vote then the board just doesn't get the information um I have concerns about that board member Van Hook I would like to express again if it's something that the board should be privy to there is no world in which we would vote to not the idea or what it feels like or what I'm hearing you're saying is if we're in a situation and if it gets to the vot for whatever reason and we put it to
119a vote and the vote doesn't come down in the the way in which the individual who wants the information does that is part of the democratic system and the Democratic process we just went over for 40 minutes the idea of what our specific roles are so again when we did this conversation before a policy with you were part of some of those changes the intent was to say that there are some requests that we have to decide as a board what kind of energy we wish to expend towards that again we have not had that scenario I recognize that there is a future unknown that we do not know and let's say we create a system in which we then learn that hey for this specific scenario it wasn't great we can make those changes
120as it is but to say that just because you find it important even though the rest of the board doesn't and you still demand I mean that's part of this process it's why we were all elected as a governing board so I'm still anybody can add a future agenda item that is always going to be here I just think it is important for us to keep in mind with respect to our requests these individuals still have jobs Beyond answering our specific requests and so the idea behind that was to ensure that we're not disproportionately taking our time to answer specific questions rather than doing business so I I hear your concerns I guess my question is with respect to this policy knowing you've been on here for 2 years and it's been a large part
121of what we've done because it was part of the very first time we did this communication protocols you've not been negatively impacted by it so I I'm still struggling to understand why it has to be anything other than the practice with which we are doing if you have a request that request can get met if that request is taking an exorbitant amount of time we as a board have to decide that request because we are a governing body not a single [Music] entity um again it hasn't come up yet but it could potentially come up so I get you can continue to repeat what you keep saying but it could potentially come up to a situation and you might not care for the information but to me the information is important and to people in
122the community that might want to obtain that information is important to them then we should be able to obtain the information even if it takes some time and again not important to you but important to me so there needs to be the opportunity to be able to say okay you know it's not urgent but over time can we gather this information and pres you know be able to present it to the community um versus taking a vote and saying no you can't have that information and not necessarily that we might take that vote and say no but it could happen not now maybe not this board maybe five years from now that's all I'm trying to say and again ma'am I hear you it's not you versus me in this situation it is a board
123I'm struggling to understand why you're resistant to board approval when it comes to dictating information as far as agenda items the the scenario you just created you get to do we all equally get to add future agenda items and some of those items that we've requested to add have been informed to us that it will take a time and it won't come up for the next few board meetings because it will take time to collect I am talking about and that specific thing are issues regarding information that we wish to collect if it is a process that goes to the board I understand the sometimes democracy sucks when you're on an opposing side but like I I'm resistant to the idea that we would remove power from the governing body which is literally what the
124function of this process is that's all we can move on we each individual board members should be able to ask a question and get an answer that shouldn't require democracy to get an answer from the entire board board that's all I'm saying thank you we could move on so um board member Van Hook and president Wade and the entire board I think you have a cabinet here that is going to work very hard to supply the information the agenda items that you request and I have complete faith and trust that we're going to work together and work through these things so you know I only put that on there in case should it come up and you're right sometimes we don't turn around by the next board meeting because we need more time and you
125guys have been extremely patient with that and we do appreciate it so I have faith in this Higgly team everybody in this room so anything else that is a burning question or concern so repetitive of what Miss bake did but I appreciate her coming and you know taking us through this training so I think Finance is ready to go president wait so I will let you Mr Mo now has school Finance presentation for us thank you president way members of the board it wouldn't be a governing board meeting without a finance presentation uh I'll try to be uh brief in this but um several board members uh have have been through this presentation uh this my my school Finance 101 presentation where I attempt to uh simplify School Finance or at least break it down
126into uh uh an easier way to understand and maybe uh contemplate um it's especially kind of important for again our new board members who AR particularly familiar with school Finance um but it's also a good reminder for our current sitting board members as a lot of this I live and breathe it but a lot of this can be um omitted or forgotten and um it's ever changing so with that I'll go through this presentation so just to start off um I just want to give a summary of school district funds so first the one uh that we we've been talking about uh rather recently is our maintenance and operations budget um that budget limitation is Formula generated uh derived by ADM and then the state uh base level support so the per pupil amount uh
127it's Revenue sources local property taxes and then state aid um our local property tax base does not support our total um budgeted formula and so we do Oar supplemented by state aid our property tax um individuals are not picking up our total budget um in terms of uh property tax fees so the uses regular education special education pup transport people Transportation supplies Services those are some of the main uses um the district additional Assistance or better known as capital is what we more or less refer to it as as again formula controlled um just the last couple years was restored to 100% funding but it was in previous years during the recession area cuts um is reduced up to 70% so um again local property tax funded um again our base is not enough to
128fund that full appropriated amount and so state aid comes in picks up the difference that on the flip side is used for textbooks physical tangible things uh Furniture equipment library books uh computers etc and at any point in this conversation just like Miss Bacon just please stop me and ask your question um a couple more funds that I think are are preview to the board uh federal and state grants those are formula applications so um we have some of the big hitters are I'm looking at my computer not this one um thank you uh it's formula application the big uh federal and state grants that are preview to the district are one and Miss Miller's Department Ida that's to help support a special education um and then um Esa or Title One basically that's the
129other big one um with our demographics our fre r percentage uh dictates a lot of the title one funding and so our free to reduce percentage is about 20% um so we're not we're pretty high social economic status and in the grand scheme of things and so we do not get a a large amount of funding via that application because again that's formula controlled by that um derivative the revenue is federal state government um supports those grants that is not property tax based and then typically supplements educational programs so like I mentioned Shauna has a grant for special education because it's to supplement those students needs and help provide either services or support for those individuals adjacent ways um this is a uh levied fund by local property taxes and this is one of the
130few funds that the governing board solely can levy on property tax owners without a uh election per se um the sfb does approve anything over $50,000 um so they do have some oversight over the projects being uh funded from this funding source and then the typical uses are sidewalks streets curbs bus base perimeter fencing any kind of public RightWay use um we've typically in the past couple years have used this to enhance our uh Bus drop offs any um parent drop off parking more recent is the higgle High drop off with the light modifications the um massive changes into the parent drop off there so a couple more the students first sorry I'll just look up there trying to do better speaking my mic because that's what it said to do so got you Scott
131students first is um was basically the induction of basically the school facilities board and so a little background the students first was originated from a lawsuit in 1991 Roosevelt ver V Bishop claiming that Capital funding portion of the State education Finance system violated the uniform uniformity requirements of the State Constitution educational clause in 1994 the Arizona sueme Supreme Court agreed to that basically forming the school facilities board in 1998 the legislature and Governor U moved the responsibility of funding of school construction from districts to the state again creating that um uh venue or that uh third party and then in 2002 the courts uh lowered um the courts ordered the legislature restore the 90 million to the school facilities fund uh however on appeal the state Supreme Court held the plaintiff must show that the
132underfunding resulted in facilities that below standards so in summary the school facilities board has appropriated $90 million annually it's now up to $180 million um that is built into the state budget they have typically appropriated more money um based on need um but that is a uh the school forage board is uh supposedly the the only the Avenue in which school districts should submit up projects and um more most recent project approved with the was the weatherization at Higley High that was a $1.2 million application approved by the school facilities board um but in more recent years they've gotten more requests than they have read they have money and so um we have seven additional applications in with the state um several that have data back U multiple years and we've already been notified this
133year that they won't have they've already allocated other funding and now we're waiting to the next uh budget cycle which should start July so I'm sorry M Moore do we have to redo it each time or does it like stay in a queue or whatever yeah we stay in the queue so they they have improved their process um it is a prioritized process so if we have our application submitted and and kind of buttoned up we are in the queue and so then it's just about having it funded and so that's a part of the administrative um responsibility for the school facilities board and then again it's always comes down to in recent years is they don't have enough money to fund these projects um so that is also being litigated currently if you if
134you've heard in the news the glendel elementary is L is um suing school facility board or the state for underfunding um basically the the state State facilities board to to support these projects um that litigation I don't know where that's at right now but I know they've they've gone to trial and they've discussed that but I um as of right now I don't know where that's at but the other fund on this page is The Debt Service so that is for uh bonds a debt payments so uh this district has not issued any debt in some time I don't know the exact date um but we have less than um $80 million in um outstanding debt um this is a local property tax um fund um and again this is voter approved and so once
135its voter approved um those property tax funds pay down that outstanding debt payment the principal and interest on a yearly basis so all right one more the classroom site fund this is a Formula based fund um this is a state revenue so this is the 610 sales tax um and that is more recently extended Ed um all the way through 2042 um as a teacher Scott will would be well aware of this fund um this is really used for teacher salaries and performance pay and this is solely um this is we cannot use this fund for anything um above and beyond that and so the legislature did open up um this fund just more recently to allow for us to use it for uh student support so basically instructional coaches are are not eligible to
136be paid from this fund and we have taken advantage of that and the board approves this classroom site fund plan annually and so uh we'll be we're working on that right now and me confer myself and Miss Johnson um and we'll work bring the recommendations for this plan next year I do want to point out this is a different bucket than the maintenance operation in capital and so I think it's um kind of important to to remember that because um this bucket is something we can only use for fut salaries and and performance pay so um really restrictive in that sense the other Enterprise funds special Revenue funds I've just put some of the the main ones um these are based on basically the amount of Revenue we capture um participation user fees so gate
137fees um facilities rentals rental Revenue um these are some of the examples Food Service fund uh again facility rental summer school athletic bookstore um all these um whether they're School allocated or not are based on the amount of Revenue that we bring in um so we're restrictive to what we can expense um if we don't have a revenue okay uh the M budget I don't need this any um the M budget expenditure formula so I I wanted to break down the formula for ML um just all the way down to to the to the bones kind of um so this formula is takes in consideration um I will start at the top uh our weighted student count and again so what um I often bring forth in front of the board is is unweighted student
138count in terms of ADM counts um but once um I present the the total General budget number that takes into consideration all the weighted student count and I'll come to back to that on the next slide um we take weighted Su count times the base level amount U for our current that's $513 per student and then we add in teacher experience Index this is actually the first year uh in probably higley's history that we are we have now a teacher experience index above the state average so we actually get a an add-on uh that equates to this year about 180,000 um so our average teacher experience is over 9 years um and the state compensates you for that because typically your teachers the more experienced they're going to be higher paid so we take those
139U plus the non-federal audit expense so our audit we required to do an audit annually um and the state pays us back for doing that audit so um that is added back in that gets our base Revenue control limit we add in our transportation Revenue control limit and our current miles uh it's based on the miles kind of recorded um but our current Transportation Revenue control limits about $1.2 million we add that in that gives you our RCL and we'll get to our add-ons but before that this is the weighted student count and so um for every um student that goes through these two criteria um and so on add-ons preschool in K8 um preschool for every preschool student and for preschool the only state funding we receive is for sped preschool so keep that
140in mind U we would get a 1.45 add-on and that's so you take the $513 time 1.45 and then if they are also a group b we also get that addon for that student as well so I'm not going to go through all these because a lot of them relate to miss Miller's Department um because those are typically our highest need students which costs us uh the most money to provide them the services and the education that those uh students require so I do want to point out this 912 we get a little bit more funding than Elementary uh Mr Moore just you reminded me of a moment in my early teaching career the superintendent uh had come into my room we were talking about budgets and money and this is gosh this is the
141mid 90s so we were still concerned about money even then uh and I made a comment to him about you know the number of students and you know I had come from other states and uh he just looked at me he said this is Arizona one student student never equals one student and uh that's true when you when you wait them out like that so yeah people have to understand that one student rarely equals one student with all the multipliers that we have Mr Moore can I add something to this slide yeah um if you look at all those sped eligibilities why it does look like we get you know quite a big multiplier or weight I want to point out that the majority of our students fall into that dded mid sld section which
142is a point2 um that was recently raised from 0.003 was the multibot and it that still isn't enough um so I know there are people in the community who think that we get an excessive amount of money for our students but in reality we really don't so talking about our add-ons so again separate from our state budget so this is really our state budget formula um on a and this can be calculated again looking at our student count and then this would calculate our our Revenue control which is our state approved budget for the students we have any add-ons um or adjustments to the m budget are in this category and so um some of the add-ons that we currently have for the override but we're phasing down um that is an add-on to our
143budget um dag is only applicable to some districts budget balance carry forward is an add-on um we don't have a tuition income some of these others um are just add-ons to our state approved budget and so um I think miss manook when I kind of present it as a as a deficit right I think and again I can change that language but I'm taking our state approved budget and running it through um without the add-ons and so when we add on then yes we're not in a true deficit um but we do have an OP operating deficit in terms of that year so um this is the most recent school funding by per pupil um by the US Census and I just again I think we all know in this room that Arizona's 48th in
144funding and so I just snipped um kind of the bottom half and then the top half and you can see the the the discrepancies and on the far left is the total basically um spending per pupil and we're sitting about 10,00 300 as a state um and that's again bottom half of the the country in terms of State funding um override elections I wanted to talk a little bit again we've this is very prevalent with our dis right now um but we currently have a seven-year M override uh that was passed in 2019 um we are currently in the phase down um next year year 7 FY 26 um will will be phasing down to it'll be 9.5 million from the current um override and then year 8 at 427 will be 14 million about
14560% of districts have an M override um which is a interesting point I mean a majority of those are Central and Maricopa County are extending weding districts on the rural counties do not typically have overrides as um any additional funding those property taxes they can't afford to take the additional um add-on to support that override districts can also ask for a capital alloy override um those are seven years they don't have a phase down which is interesting um that's just it would be straight you're limited to only 10% of your RCL and uh if the district were to consider that there'd be approximately 8.5 million in additional Capital funding um talking a little bit about the capital outlay formula um again that takes our it's a formula controlled so it takes our um District unweighted
146ADM and then those are the breakdowns of the amounts we get um based on the grades that those students are in so uh we're currently at $549 for preschool through eight and then $600 for 912 and we get a high school textbook add-on of $84 per student uh that equals right now currently we get about $7.3 million in capital funding for our district I do want to point out Charters have additional a different formula they get annual inflation increases on their um Charter additional asss which is the equivalent of District additional assistance uh they're currently at $2,000 a little over $2,990 for preschool through eight and 2,400 through uh 912 if if Higley was funded at the charter calculations we'd have about $27.3 million uh in capital funding which would probably eliminate the need to
147go out for a bond but again this is this funding mechanism Chargers cannot ask for bonds or or any sort of overrides um and so this is part of the reason uh they get annualized inflation uh they don't have that local property tax base uh they tap the state budget for their um formula needs so classroom site fund I talked about this in the earlier slide but then again this just really outlines the the The Limited uses on this fund um HC receives $12 million annually um it's a non-s supplanting fund so what that means if somebody's currently being paid from M I can't take that and move them to this fund that'd be supplanting um and so what we can do is with our plan we've typically increased our BAS amounts or increased our
148um amounts from our performance plan or custom s fund plan um but we're never supplementing m&o for that um those dollars so budgeted control funds um again I kind of already talked about this but you know m capital adjacent ways uh Debt Service class site funds state and federal grants these are all budget funds um we typically you'll see a lot of these funds go either um on especially on our state and federal grants go negative as those are reimbursement based um our M and capital we've been able to maintain cash values for those but uh keep in mind we do um those funds receive cash we we manage cash in the back even though their budget derived but if that cash goes negative then we basically have to ask the county treasur to um
149take a loan out to cover either payroll expenses whatever expenses we have and so it's important to carry forward enough money to cover your basically expenses for the first part of the year before you get your Revenue in November and so um it's one thing that our team manages but it's not publicly well known because all you see is our budget but on the back end there is a cash that we have to maintain uh to continue to operate and pay our expenses so and then these are all our cash controlled funds I'm not going to go through these unless you have a specific question but again these are whatever Revenue bring in that's all that we can expense and so um we've done a good job of trying to leverage a lot of these
150funds as we did in our last presentation we've transferred some positions that were currently being paid from ml um to some of these cash funds that are are able to plant um and you know we work hard to to leverage you know some of these other additional Revenue sources to support and sustain some of our district needs the list goes on there's we have about 80 active funds that we manage um with my team and so um each one has its own requirements and restrictions the list continues but um just know that we're you know these are all on your monthly financials uh we present those monthly financials to the board um and consent and so if there's any questions that you guys have on a particular fund on what uses it may be you
151used for um I'll be happy to answer those so coming back to uh kind of uh property taxes so Equalization assistance um our this is basically a snapshot of um our m&o and capital so our local property tax is only basically we support 36% of our budget um 72% is uh Equalization assistance from the state and the reason is because if you look at our 24 square miles it's a lot residential so our property tax base is not high enough to support our our budget and so whereas other districts uh for example you know Scotts unified or Paradise Valley have huge assess valuations right they have commercial properties they have um large Investments there um they're large they're 100% supported by local property tax base um so just something an interesting fact I guess because
152I do this all day um there's also a miscellaneous Revenue in there that's about 2% of our budget uh 38 again 38 districts receive no state aid and this is just a graph that alludes to what I was just talking about this is our assess valuation um it's capped at a growth of 5% a year but um you can see as property values have gone up um if you look at your tax bill um that tax bill is is capped at 5% growth a year um and then um on the right your Zillow is going to continue what you can get on the market is largely different than what um you're being taxed on um and what this uh graph exemplifies is just the assess valuation of our district continuing to grow to catch up
153to current property um property values your property tax value sheet is probably half of what you can get on the market if you actually look at it um and so we have some time before that actually catches up um and so we'll continue to see unless we we go into a recession um this graph continue to rise again this is we're 83% residential um we have 14% commercial and Industrial assess valuation 1.8% Agricultural and vacant land and that 1.8% is continuing to go down as these lands continue to get built out um one of the the main reasons uh kind of I monitor assess valuation one is for the for setting the tax uh rate but two is it also is a main formula in boding capacity and so this was in the presented in
154the citizens committee if you look at the left column um you'll see the 1.6 uh billion that's our net uh full cash assess valuation um there's a formula to determine bonding capacity which is 20 20% of the net full cast assess valuation so our current bonding capacity is 320 million um but it's one of the one of the reasons that we monitor net full cash looking at total tax rate um we're kind of smacked out in the the middle um Queen Creek is is continuing um to be really high again it's because their property tax values have not cut up to the um increase in their budget for the school their enrollment is in a in a enrollment District that's increasing enrollment um their budget needs and demands based on the formula are a lot
155higher than your net 5% cap on assess valuation and so um and and then again Scot sell being a huge um I think they're 127 square miles with a lot of industrial um their tax rat is going to be lower when you have this large assess valuation you don't have to tax every R resident or commercial property as much to Garner uh the budget amount so and then I put in here the classroom spending report this is a report that's provided by the Attorney General's office u based on our annual financial report um I just wanted to highlight some of our uh key areas so instruction uh we continue to be one of the highest dist um in terms of spending within the instructional category um this report is public on the Attorney General's website
156it has a lot of good information and a glossery to look at peer groups um and what some of these categories mean um just highlighting us against uh the state you know again we uh prioritize um instructional spending heavily within higle UniFi that aligns with our strategic plan and our most recent you know board goal um and then you can see our other operational spending areas this report also touches on operational efficiency measures um I'm not going to touch on all this but you can see that we're either very low or low in a lot of the areas where um you can see excess spending or spending um exceeding um or being you know spent in an area that's not instruction and so this highlights Administration plant operations food service and transportation um if you
157want to call it non-instructional areas um but you can see that we operate very efficiently in these areas um we do have some advantages of being 24 square miles um within Transportation but um we do PRI ourselves and again being efficient in these areas and then the last kind of bit is teacher uh compensation and so since I've gone on uh this district has been priority from meet and confer to um get our uh average teacher salary up and competitive with our neighboring districts again you know maybe a disadvantage of us being only 24 squ miles is we're nestled in between large uh districts right Gilbert Chandler Mesa who have um salary schedules that are are a bun you know either higher than us or um at us and so we've done a lot to
158get in the last 3 years above the state average um you can see the the line and uh the black line across is the um trend line and then the purple is the district um average um or I guess it' be light plink but the amount from other funds which is again mainly m&o the bottom half is the amount from classroom site fund we've tried to continue to utilize that fund to help push up teacher salaries um and then you can see the state average I guess State average is the black back line sorry and us uh being above it for the last three fiscal years so and that's it it's kind of snapshot of some key areas I thought that would be important for the board and so um if there's any questions that
159be happy to answer any may I is anybody else all right thank you you put this in everybody's folder Mr Moore yeah just uh maybe for Miss jarm I don't know if you already saw this one or not but this is a really handy one if uh I would be happy to show you how I use that or read that if you're interested or anybody else can I don't you know it's uh this is really handy when we look at uh things that we spent on and I want to know like what school just got this this chart will help you identify those numbers so thank you for putting it in there yeah that's our cheat sheet that we use in our finance team but it's a yeah if you're looking at vouchers and you're
160looking at expense um fund you know codes um you can help it's it's kind of our our key um to help dissect what fund is being expended from and um board members um I just went blank German um there's a this is also available online that will help um to know like which I don't like which ones are restricted and which ones like you can um utilize funds out of um so I can show you where that you can find that as well thank you thank you Mr Moore does anybody else have any comments All Right Moving on uh future agenda items does anyone have any requests for future agenda items uh I'm going to add the the public comment thing that we talked about earlier um and the start time because I feel like
161by the time next meeting rolls around that'll have given us a month to get some Community feedback and then we can do that does anybody else have any requests for future agenda items what about the athletic the athletic um was that in status did you guys talk about that we're currently president Wade working on that uh Mr lots and hauzer working with the schools and the surrounding districts and yes we'll have we'll have that yeah we can we can provide you an update we've already reached out to Gilbert about what they're doing and seeing what those look at um yeah currently it looks like these are uh K8 programs not high school programs but there's some opportunity there and if it's a good idea then I want to embrace it and look forward and so
162uh we'll we'll give you an update and status and then if we need to come back in an information item present it publicly we're welcome to do that too the the question then you just becomes how do we change processes or add something to after having already gone through a course guide process but we can cross that bridge when we get there thank you president Wade it's not on here but I'd like for your cabinet to bring you an update on the Strategic plan and goals CU we had said we were going to do that quarterly okay all right then I motion to adjourn this meeting second thank you m jman seconded all those in favor I I all those opposed motion passes 5 Z and thank you everyone for staying late for