001may I have a roll call please oh good morning calling this meeting to order Mrs Richards roll call please president Anderson let the record show that all five board members are present thank you uh please join me in a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance e okay a motion to approve the agenda second and a second all those in favor I I I motion carries 5 to zero uh we're going to move into a public hearing to discuss the fiscal year 2025 proposed budget and we'll be getting a presentation from Mr Moore good evening president Anderson members of the board tonight presenting the proposed f25 proposed budget and as they pull up the presentation um this proposed budget was um is the final uh budget with utilizing the budget forms from the
002auditor general um as you recall all through January February March um I walked the board through um estimated um what this proposed budget would look like so we can issue contracts in March Etc so what I've done in this presentation is show you the difference from what the board tentatively proved to what we are officially proposing uh to adopt um and so I'll get into that presentation so again our our school budget timeline we are at the start of the year we are in the process of proposing a budget and then as statute outlines we do have to adopt this budget um at a later date and before for J uh July 15th so we will bring back the same Budget on June 26 to officially adopt um one thing to note um in this
003legislative cycle there is no official K12 budget approved at this point in time so what we're utilizing at this time is tenative budget forms that the auditor general sent out um those budget forms kind of leave everything flat because um the auditor general is very conservative if there is no um increases right now now and the legislature they're not going to include include that in the forms and so I'll go through that in a second on some of the assumptions that I'm taking that are I'm pretty 99% sure that are going to happen um and that I'm taking into this proposed budget so with that being the case there I did put a September date in this kind of budget timeline because at the point in time the ca the legislature does finalize a budget
004they will give us final forms and so if for some reason um during now and the time they produce the final forms there is maybe new funding um I'm optimistic um we would have an opportunity to revise our budget before September um to take to capture that new funding that the legislative may have passed in the time between right now and they finally um approve a K12 budget for next year so um that's what that September date is for um again I'm optimistic there may be new funding but realistic Bally um there doesn't look like uh there is much available funding to maybe do some of the things that happened in previous years like the onetime supplemental funding that came this year um and so but it's on there and we'll wait and see as
005they work through that process and then in December um again we have the option because we're taking in this proposed budget takes in assumptions on enrollment and our budget is directly based off enrollment that's the main multiplier um if we're off by 1% in December ad will tell us hey you're required to revise your budget um prior to December 15 so in years past we haven't but we have um I think three years ago so that date's always on there so as we look at the 25 proposed budget highlights um I'll start on the left the legislative conversation like I just alluded to uh the fy2 budget from the state that is not approved yet so we are using tenative budget forms um a part of that budget conversation um this has been the kind
006of expectation now is every year the the AAL limit gets either um Exempted in that legislative cycle during the budget conversations or Exempted at a later date and so I put that bullet point in there because we're currently exceeding um the aggregate expenditure limit uh schools in total by 1.3 billion um so that would be again we would have to look at Cuts approximately of like 6 to 19% to our budget if that AAL is not Exempted by March again I put it in there I I'm confident that they may come to a resolution where they exempt that but again right as it stands right now that is not Exempted for 25 so uh an important bullet point to note the last bullet point there it does look like um again with the funding concerns
007at the state level I think we've all heard about the deficits and and how how are they going to make up some of those deficits um there has conversation again I'm being a presumptuous that they're going to look at reducing um the school facilities division allocation um specifically in the building renewal grants program um currently they're appropriated um $19 million that's statuto and in previous years they've been through the legislative cycle and the K12 budget cycle they've been appropriating additional dollars to the tune of um 183 million uh in this current year where we anticipate some of the cuts being made to make some of the deficit of the state are this building renewal grant program so um we could potentially see $183 million less in that program um that program has been um very
008important to to us as a school district who doesn't have Bond funding um higgle high for example we were appropriated 1.2 million to uh complete that weatherization so without that funding there that really puts an emphasis and a strain on our on our capital budget um to remove you know that Grant potential um again it's just another Avenue in which we will have to navigate with um funding concerns going into 25 what we do know again and what I'm taking in Assumption onto on these budget forms because I'm 99% sure these are going to happen um is the 2% inflation adjustment again there's a statuto formula that outlines when the legislature needs to appropriate that um everything right now is showing it's at 3.5% so minimum I know 99% sure they'll put 2% when they
009finalize this f25 budget so I'm taking that into consideration and also the 4.62% increase in capital that was previously enacted by Governor Doug Ducey that was a three-year program this is year three of three and so that those are the only two assumptions I'm taking into consideration um like I said if something optimistically were to be added to the budget that affects K12 um we can revise in September and capture that um you know optimistically additional funding for for schools if that were to be the case and then the last bullet point as the board is is is aware the board you know approved a resolution calling for an override election this is our last year of being fully funded um so if that election does not pass in November in fiscal year 26 we'll
010have to start the phase down uh approach and again that's approximately $3.5 million we'll have to phase down that first year and then it grows um on the next two successful years so the last section there the budget transfer um I've I've talked about this um many times but we transfer M dollars to pay for our Capital leases because our leases have to be paid for from the capital fund um and so this year um in the past we have transferred more dollars to cover um major projects but um again with our budgets being tightened um right now we're just uh transferring the minimum amount needed to make our Middle School lease payment for next year which is $3.55 million again I the bullet point there no additional transfer for major projects okay so looking
011um at the fy2 budget um what the board last approved was our revised Budget on May 8th 2024 so you'll see that number um up top that budget um included the 100 day ADM reconciliation which we ended up um down 226 students or ADM and then um I just want to note out too again last year we were transferring more money from emo to capital for major projects um we had the lease payment but we also had a little more in there for major projects so that total was 5.6 million that we were transferring looking at this proposed budget um like I've talked about we're trying to be conservative and and um noticing that we've had a a year of student loss um we're projecting um in this proposed budget um 100 ADM loss um
012looking at enrollment numbers we look at them kind of weekly and how we're trending um I'm optimistic that we won't we won't see that 180m law so it is knock on wood U we are trending um kind of flat right now and so that is uh very optimistic considering we're only in June early June so um again this proposed budget includes the 2% inflation in increase to the base level uh and then again this is a the M transfer to Capital of 3.5 million instead of 5.6 so uh you'll have more money in M when we're not transferring as much out to Capital um and then estimated budget balance carry for of 22 million uh coming down slightly from where we were in 24 so you put all that together um that does show an
013increase in ml um of 1.9 million um again a lot of that increase was discussed with with our compensation approvals um a lot of our utility increases so that 1.9 million will cover all those um tenative approvals that the board approved in March looking at Capital or sorry one more slide average teacher salary this is a prominent um uh uh point on the on the budget forms and it's been now we have posted on our website Etc so I wanted to highlight um the average teacher salary calculation um and why you see a percentage decrease essentially there's a typo up there sorry say increase should be decrease um but anyways uh the average teacher salary is calculated by taking um all teachers employed in 24 the prior year um and then looking at the budget
014year which is our proposed budget in 25 um and then you see the the either decrease or increase and so we are seeing a slight decrease um approximately 2% decrease in average future salary um but I have some comments below that kind of explain how that happened um so again our average teacher Sal years of experience has decreased um by just under half a year so taking cumulative um teacher experience from last year to this year we have we have come down um this shouldn't be new news as you've seen many teachers leaving the education field um and so we've had new teachers hired that has less experience than teachers that um are leaving the field and so that um de is probably 5% decrease in average teacher salary experience um we also had two
015very tar teachers moving to uh contracted teaching um so that takes them off of our payroll um between the two there was over 55 years of teaching experience so that's going to swing um that's going to swing the the average in addition um this calculation um does not include supplemental pay so it's just a base pay um and just a reminder the board approved um a 1.5 increase from M and then an additional 2 to 3% from the classroom site F base amount so with those increases they were offset by the decreases in average teacher experience and then some of our longer 10e teachers moving off the program so it's not a again this calculation is in statute that's the one we have to use um but again it's not a reflection of kind of
016what the board has done to increase teacher pay so much as a is a reflection on um where teachers are moving um in terms of the experienced teachers right they're moving away from the profession um and again that that should not be news that's been nationally uh documented um Across the Nation and and then Arizona is not immune to that so um looking at the capital side again um you're going to see some larger decreases here as we've allocated a lot of our Capital to uh major projects we're putting our Capital dollars to work um so what we the board revised to on May 8th was um we had 26 just over 26 million um just a note a footnote that the capital budget formula uses prior your ADM so little easier to kind of
017budget for as you're not you don't have this huge swing in a middle of the year we can actually look at prior your ADM and know exactly what our Capital fund will be um again last year we were transferring Capital was getting a little boost from ml because we're moving more funds over to cover major projects um such as Higgly High um and the williamsfield track um in 25 again that that's not the case we don't have the funds available the re are available to transfer over for those major projects um and so um the main thing that the capital budget includes in 25 is that 4.6% increase um again than previously enacted legislation um less money being transferred to Capital so you're going to see a lower dollar amount and our budget balance carry
018forward um because we are putting those dollars to work to C to um again pay for projects and and the maintenance needs that we have we're bringing that down to $4 million and so all that that total 15.3 million was highlighted um when I did the capital plan um capital budget plan to the board um and if you want to go back and look at that it has all the details on how that 15.3 will be spent throughout our district so that's going to show a drastic decrease um from our revised 24 revised to our proposed of $10 million um but again we we are using our Capital dollars for the needs um of our district and just uh kind of next steps is again today we're looking at our proposed budget and then later
019on the agenda we have an action to approve this um again we're using preliminary um school budget forms that the auditor general has issued in conjunction with ad uh this must be approved by July 5th but um the way our Board calendar Works um June Jun 5th is meets that deadline and gives us enough time to get back for June 26 which is when we have to have an adopted budget approved so um what we're proposing today on the adopted I can only decrease I can't increase any of our numbers and so like I said um the legislature did give us that September date in case there is legislation approve where there is increase in K12 funding we come come back in September but I cannot include if something were to happen in the next
020two weeks two three weeks I can cannot increase what I'm presenting tonight um to what what I'll present on the 26th I have to come back in September include those increases just the way statute reads and how I have to present the budget form so with that I'll be happy to answer any questions any questions from the board okay I'm going to go ahead and open up to the public for public comment or question anybody wants to come forward not no okay thank you Mr Moore now we have a public hearing regarding the instructional time model and this is going to be from uh Mr birkshire thank you good evening Madame President members of the board um today we are bringing uh the first of our two required public presentations on revising our district instructional
021time model uh some background in 2021 ars1 15- 918 authorize school districts to adopt uh instructional time models to provide some flexibility in the method and manner in which instructional hours are provided to students this actually began before the pandemic but it became really necessary during the pandemic and so our current model is really focused on that pandemic response uh recent changes in ad guidance around funding for homebound students required us to start looking at our instructional time model and as a result we started to look at different ways we could use that instructional time model and not make it just focused on homebound so our context what we really want to do is provide students in unique attendance circumstances with a continuity of learning so these would be students in homebound situations chronic illness
022situations uh specialized Athletics in performing artarts for example if a student is um a an athlete and they're gone two days of the week on a consistent basis we could provide continuity of that classroom instruction without them actually being absent um and then Advanced academics so some requirements around the itm uh we have to provide ad with the modes of instruction so how will students rece receive their instructions we need to provide them with how are we going to track attendance and then finally we have to provide these two public hearings so what we are proposing for our modes of instruction um is that we can use a u multiple models uh of instruction with students currently our primary model is in person uh what we are proposing is that we students would have the
023option of a blend of different models depending on their particular needs um that could be remote where it's facilitated online by a certified teacher asynchronously U Mastery based learning where a student has to go through and prove that they have mastered certain competencies uh and then finally Project based learning where that student learning is around a project or problem with the final product or performance so uh for example with a home Mound student student ideally that instruction is in person but there are days where they've gone through chemo uh and they're unable to to participate in that in-person instruction by allowing us to do a remote option they can still qualify for the hours necessary for attendance but not have that burden of trying to work at a specific time on a specific day that
024we've supplied for them so how would the attendance tracking look uh currently in person it's taken by a classroom teacher k6 is daily 7 through 12th grade is uh every period so for remote student for when the student goes remote the hours will be tracked and reported in parent view uh by a family similar to hbaa um and something I forgot on the prior slide and I apologize these are unique situations um so they would have to be approved by site Administration there would be a contract between the student and the teacher um really trying to make sure that this is the right thing for that particular unique student and that unique circumstance so if a student was required to go in a remote again it would be asynchronous learning and work completion that would
025be tracked and measured if we were looking at Mastery based learning uh then that would be um for an example a student in HL they're currently working with Apex and Apex has certain Mastery competencies that they have to accomplish through that Apex this would allow us to basically say there is a certain amount of time that they're expected to be engaged in that uh work on apex and by accomplishing that work they've met the hours and the minutes required for their attendance um Project based learning would be very similar we would identify this is the amount of time that a student would need to take in order to accomplish that Project based learning and by doing setting those milestones we would identify that as that that attendance tracking and then finally how would students be
026assessed in this environment um classroom assessment would be identified in that initial contract between the teacher and the student and the family uh it can be done either virtual or in person district and state assessments those would be required to be proctored in person at the students's Home School site and that would include finy exams District benchmarks and State Testing and obviously with unique situations there are accommodations that might be made in all of these any questions president Anderson um I love the idea that parents can decide what type of education their child gets um whether it's online or in person and and I I love that we're um able to offer that um one question I do have is um will a child be able to go back and forth between online and in
027person and also as a parent of an athlete who does club sports and has to travel sometimes during school um I I think I heard you say that they will have the ability to make up the work if you can correct me if I'm wrong so the idea in this is for those students in very unique situations so that um pull them out of the their their classroom for um for example with a uh I remember we had a student at one point when I was at Coronado that was a dirt bike racer and they would be gone two to three days every couple of weeks um and and that would negatively impact their attendance they would get those attendance letters those kinds of things um this would allow us instead to say those three
028days you're in attendance in person you are engaged in that inperson instruction those two to three days that you are out at your competition there is remote learning available for you by completing those remote learning tasks you'll be counted for your attendance but we want to make sure that this is really used for those students that really genuinely need it and so that's where that contract piece comes in so it it's initiated by family with Administration but then making sure the teacher is involved in that plan and how that's going to be created and and then ultimately administration at the site and District level will have to approve it in order for it to move forward uh we want to again we want to make sure that there we have students out there that have
029this need it's a very small percentage for example home bound I believe shaa we have eight kids um so this is our our objective is really just to to find help those unique students in those unique situations we also have students at the high school that sometimes attend um what's considered to be summer learning at Harvard Yale those kinds of Institutions but for them summer is August and so frequently we have to make accommodations for those students in terms of when they start school um and what we can do for them this would allow us to provide some additional um support and and and have them start at the beginning of our school year even if they're not here thank you this is a great uh great move uh to support all those needs for
030families and students I'm sure as instruct instructors Professionals in this room we all have those kids in our head right now that we thinking how it can and does benefit them can you Mr Brookshire explain to me what a day would look like for a teacher that's balancing this is this one teacher that may have to do the project based or Mastery learning or will it be another teacher um taking on the load and if it is one teacher what what resources and what um help is is being given to them to help them be successful I think it's going to depend on the student so it's very individualized um the most frequent application I see of this is going to be that in-person and remote and so at the secondary level especially our teachers
031are already using canvas a and so this basically just says you're not here what you're doing is on canvas and available for you um it it it the student is basically doing that work that they would do in class at home or in the hotel or wherever they are um uh in terms terms of the Mastery based and the Project based I see those as very much specialized um that those are probably going to be most likely our kids that are um enrolled at hlc and our htap kids um where and maybe some CTE applications as well um but very limited on those two um and so again because that limited basis that's where that teacher and student and administration collaboration piece come in and identifying what it is what's the responsibility on each side
032it's very similar to what we do right now with students that are on a chronic illness um form there are certain things that they all agree to each side um but it's a collaborative effort um in how that's developed um and we are still working on what that form will look like um but we will certainly bring that to you once we have it thank you that would be good to add I'll add it to the later agenda items or status updates on their list thank you Mr Brookshire are there any other questions or comments president Anderson I do have one more question um how will this impact um let's say a child with a 504 and IEP um decides to do online and their accommodations aren't NE necessarily Hands-On that would require them to
033be here um but they do require some sort of accommodation um that could be supported online how would that work so anytime we have a a governing board member or sorry vice president man hook anytime we have a special education student that reaches out and wants to do the online learning or some sort of different type of learning than is typical and that we see we require that the IEP meet review those students needs and identify how those needs can be met in that online environment unfortunately we do have some students where the online environment is not the best option and we have those difficult conversations with those families and then work with those families to come up with an option that they're happy with and where we feel the students needs are going to
034be met um sometimes that involves changing the IEP to clearly identify which things can be offered in person and which things can be offered in that online environment but just like Mr Burkshire had said everything's unique and individualized to that student so it's part of that IEP team process uh president Anderson I just wanted to make a comment on I I recognize that this is such a small number of instances in which this would actually be used um because it's not intended for all of our IP kids or or you know the large bulk of our population um but from a teacher perspective from a student perspective from a parent perspective I I think it's really great that at least the state allowed us these options to be able to accommodate because in these circumstances
035what often happens is all parties involved from teacher to parent to student spend so many hours trying to figure out how do we not penalize these kids for the circumstances they happen to be in according to State Standards so I think not only should it save teacher time on how we can do some of these things because we already have the canvas or it's set up ahead of time but I think overall from parent to student at least feeling as if you know you can live your life dealing with the other things that you're having to deal with while also trying to not have to prove yourself from doing these things I I think is really great so awesome thanks thank you okay it's open to the public now for comment or questions okay thank
036you Mr Brar uh we'll now reconvene an open session and we'll move to the consent agenda I motion that we approve agenda items 4.1 to 4.17 Second all right pass to Tiffany for a second all right all those in favor I all those oppose um I'm actually going to abstain from this vote but I'd like to explain why if that's okay um so part of the reason is because we didn't get our answers to to some of our questions in time to be able to pull items off the consent agenda um but related to 4.3 Personnel action items um I disagree with giving performance pay to teachers that are placed on administrative leave um and I was told that we do that because of our between Higley and haa um and I think that it's
037it's absurd that um we give incentive to a teacher that might be on administrative leave um and I I don't see any employer any other employer you know incentivizing an employee um for for such actions but um that's one reason um also on voucher 1102 um I did notice there was two books on that list um there's 12 books purchased from perab bound um one book is Big Nate and friends and if you're reading this it's too late um there are cont you know there's content in the book related to sex um disrespect towards adults teachers eating disorders and alcohol use and I don't find that appropriate for students um there's also 4.6 staff travel to as Biosphere 2 um there's a lot of information in this conference related to climate change um and I
038know that this is a Hot Topic and there's a lot of debate that happens um and if our teachers are going to be bringing that back into the classroom I want to ensure that these that they're teaching um and allowing you know critical thinking between amongst the kids um and that it's not just a one-sided view um so the students have the ability to make up their own minds um there's also Adobe Max uh it looks like we're spending about $4,700 for one person to attend this conference um and I understand that professional development is necessary um but I have concerns about the amount of money we're spending on conference fees lodging meals Etc um and you know if it's something that we can have find something local um to be able to eliminate some
039of that cost um I think it's it's definitely important to keep them mind um you know being mindful of that um and that's it thank you okay thank you uh motion carries four with one exstension next is the information items and uh we'll be getting a report from U Miss Johnson for the ESI cour I apologize I did I did skip that Miss Johnson uh I'm Sorry Miss Richards and Mr do you have any introductions you would like to make sorry I got thank you president Anderson we want to take this opportunity to share our formal recommendation for Mr Jeff Armstrong to be our new executive director of Elementary education he has completed five years as a principal here at cornado elementary and it would be a mess of me not to acknowledge this past
040semester he did that without his AP and all of us that are principls know when we've done that it's extra extra fun and extra challenging so I want to uh acknowledge him and give him a round of applause and if you don't know who he [Applause] is in addition sitting next Mr Armstrong we want to announce our formal recommendation from Mr Brian Griggs to be the principal of cornado Elementary Mr Griggs has nine years of service here in Higley both as an AP and as an interim principal this past semester and you know what Brian we appreciate that so much your graciousness your leadership and now you better take care of that school cuz the guy sitting next to you I'm not sure he'll take it if you don't but [Applause] congratulations congratulations to both
041I was just kidding but I just wanted to say congratulations to both of you but I will hold it until the end oh thank you I I appreciate it president Anderson members of the board uh very excited to announce two deans uh being added to our middle schools and so at this time can I have Leslie cook please stand Leslie cook is going to be our new Dean at San Middle School Leslie has previously been a teacher AED a site coach a mentor a title one specialist and inclusion teacher this preast year she was at Paran brch and currently she's a summer school administrator she has very many different hats that have helped prepare her for her role in stepping up as the dean at sasma middle school and this year she was also part
042of our Higley Leadership Academy and was very involved with that she uh is a proud wife of 17 years and a mother to two children who attend Higley our Higley schools we're very excited for Leslie to join our team at [Applause] sasman and now at could I have Kenneth day Lera please stand for us this is uh Kenny's 15th year as an educator he started as a seventh and eth grade math teacher in Phoenix and he has served in administrative roles at both the elementary and the junior high schools this past year he taught math at williamsfield high school and we're very exciting for him to join the team at kulie um working with the outstanding administrators that are here today so welcome to the team Kenny thank [Applause] you we good I can congratulations
043to everyone and um I just wanted again to the core a because this has affected my my children and Mr Gregs I've stated before how he made a difference in our household um it's it's very emotional to see that this is happening because you you truly are a gift and it's a gift for a lot of the faces I see here to have you in our district and it's great to hear you share the growth from their leadership program so that we can actually see that happening right now so thank you and congratulations all right next on to the ESI report good morning president Anderson members of the board for you you have the ESI report for third quarter and I want to thank Sharon Rush camp for always assisting our HR area with this
044report as you can tell um third quarter we were at uh spent 775,000 just over $775,000 and to date uh we still have some remaining dollars available on that purchase order but we are at the fourth quarter as you know and we look to be doing pretty good so far the return to work any questions on those um those are the individuals that are retired to rehire so some of those folks um will be either coming back with us or not and we'll have I believe we have for the new year about six individuals that have selected that retire to rehire program so you'll see those next year on our reports as well any questions on this report thank you thank you and to confirm the carry the what was remaining gets put into the
045bucket for next year no the bucket ends and we start a new purchase order yeah we always end with June 30th and then you know we'll start in July when we have somebody come on board to retire to rehire program and Subs okay thank you thank you thank you okay we will now uh do a short recess about 10 minutes and then we will reconvene um I I invite those participating today to help themselves to Refreshments we have Refreshments in the in the kitchen okay I like I didn't want to say it if it wasn't there half a mile uh we'll join a district leadership we're going to come down to the tables thank you e e e okay we're going to go ahead and reconvene um and begin with our work study on on
046the uh item 6.1 the progress on the 2023 2024 governing board initiatives beginning with Mrs Richards I believe thank you president Anderson we appreciate this opportunity for all of us to be in the room on the same level of the floor so we can discuss and you know ask questions and move forward so today you're going to have four mini presentations aligned to our strategic plan um that where we focused on the four anchors so you're going to hear a lot of different people talking and we're just going to kind of ping around and then you can't get bored or anything else all right so everything we do really needs to be tied to our vision our mission and our values keeping those in front of us continually keeps Keeps Us focused along with these
047governing board initiatives and goals so this morning like I mentioned you're going to get some progress and highlights from this year so when we adopted this strategic plan in 2022 we were committed not to sticking it on the shelf and forgetting about it we were committed to revisiting it so some of the things we share probably a lot of them you've already heard or seen and that's okay because repetition is good for us this presentation will focus on strategic anchor one teaching and learning and of course Student Success as you know higgle helps was aligned to our portrait of a graduate so throughout the year you've been updated on numerous things our schools have done like the junior Roc Midwest Food Bank Gateway worked with residents at Eternal Springs in Gilbert Coronado collected care packages
048Centennial collected items um to send to solders that were overseas williamsfield has its famous stuff the bus hva collected and delivered baskets of food to families and HTA had a toy drive this is just a few a few of the things we did align to higgle helps this year and we appreciate our schools and our students and our families okay within Anor one there are five indicators within our strategic plan and this year we focused on three of them um and today we're going to share some data and highlights within these three indicators the first one is on the screen providing exceptional opportunities for personalized instruction including differentiation acceleration Innovation and Leadership opportunities the second indicator is providing guidance and support for College and Career Readiness and then the third is supporting a collaborative culture
049using data and research based practices so now we're going to go in depth into each one good morning um for the first one develop and Implement grades prek through 12 instructional maps for all specials and electives um our district coaches met with representative teachers from k6 art music music orchestra band physical education and technology and we came together three different times um throughout this past school year to create instructional maps for their given content area um and they also met with their plc's to um seek feedback on the maps and then make any revisions from that feedback um our instructional maps are aligned to the state standards for that um specials content area and they include vocabulary skills resources and assessments um to support um what is being taught each quarter um we were able
050to create and update 16 instructional maps for our k6 specials um and then we did learn some valuable lessons through the process um and part of that was the time that we needed to devote to ensuring that our Maps um were thorough and included the feedback cycles and because of that we wanted to make sure that we um had the time needed for the 712 Maps so we are moving that to the 2425 school year um because we want to make sure we give it all the time and attention it's needed to turn the microphone sorry we started Higgly Adventures this year and honestly sometimes that's my favorite part of the meeting seeing our kids so happy and proud of the leadership opportunities they've been involved in we also highlighted some staff members but you'll
051see some familiar Folks up there on the screen from thesbian Leadership Camp our Higgly High football team that we Contin continue to brag about we celebrated this year along with uh Gilbert PD youth leadership kids club assistant leaders Williamsville yearbook some of our Mandarin teachers um along with students that really shined above and above and beyond like Tyler Bella and it would be a Miss if I didn't acknowledge Tyler Moore and his certificate of excellence for f find fincial reporting in Higley we have our Lighthouse schools of Chael and Santan and then we have individuals like David lenher and Nicole Johnson gustafa landeras and Jennifer ignazio that went through Gilbert leadership I think we have some other individuals that are going to sign up for Gilbert leadership this year so we're excited about those opportunities
052um you also heard about future Business Leaders of America so when we went to schools we were able to see Kids In Action from our superintendent visit to kie San's National Junior Honor Society Gateway of course has its no excuses University where the kids are talking about College learning cheers songs and getting ready to go to college college and we already talked about leader and me schools whoops that's there in action item uh 1.1 strategically communicate honors dual enrollment and Advance placement pathways through 712 uh this is an effort by all of our uh secondary schools to help inform parents and students about different opportunities that they had different things we did this year included our freshman or orientation and curriculum nights including our AP and dual enrollment nights at the high school to make
053sure that we can inform parents about options that they have for their children evid field trips on October 18th as well as College and Career Fairs on September 19th and February 29th were additional examples of how we highlighted trying to make connections uh with colleg and careers uh this year we Tred to expand our FASA and College Planning nights around uh not just ones that happen in the fall but we had spring nights available as well um our College and Career Specialists work hard with University admissions to make sure we had reps out of there uh at least three times per month when you talk about honors dual enrollment and AP again we did curriculum nights and AP dual enrollment nights to be able to inform parents what the choices was especially in January when
054we go through the registration process additionally high schools held AP and honors freshman parent orientations um at the middle schools we talked about um once again making sure that uh students understand that the pathway is from 7 to 12 and the beginning of that starts in 7th grade and so through the course guide process you can see the 712 development of those programs additionally uh academic opportunities we're going to talk about CTE the AP Capstone our diplomas and diploma seals I really want to brag and highlight our CTE programs that are on our campuses uh this year we set an industry uh a record for our industry certifications with 502 industry certifications earned by Higley students that is an increase of last year from 364 so I need to give credit to uh Craig Pearson
055and all of our CTE people for really focusing on that not only did we earn 52 the most that we've had 95.6% of our students who were in a class participated in the industry Certification testing and we passed at an 85 5.5% rate this is outstanding and so it's really kudos to those CTE programs for developing students that can have an industry certification that truly can go from school to work immediately over the past three years we have focused on uh different uh seals and Capstone and AP scholar diplomas and this is really accumulative work by uh our our teams to make sure that students know that these are available as well as performance moving forward so as you can see on the slide the AP and campstone diplomas we had 27 over the last
0563 years AP Scholars 156 the Seal of proficiency the Arts proficiency is 62 our Arizona seal of by literacy has really gone up to 142 over three years which is outstanding and Rebecca Rodriguez needs to give recognition for her work and and allowing and notifying students of the availability of that you see our Civics literacy had three Arizona seal of personal finance had two excellent and academics diplomas we had 37 our stem diplomas up to 60 and our service learning Excellence seal 7 so we're really proud of the movement that we've had over the past three years and getting recognitions for students uh above and beyond Mr lot sneer can ask a quick question for you or anybody would' like to answer so what do you what do you think you all did effectively in
057order to increase I'm thinking of these uh certifications that's phenomenal so what do you think you all did well in order to get such a great increase I think Mr Parson lead LED his team to make sure that they were well aware of what the U necessary requirements to get the certification was and so that it was really working with the teachers and so he would pull in the small groups of the teachers to make sure that they knew what to do to be able to prepare the kids and then he's the one that actually goes out and tests the students out on the campuses so it's not something that just gets to the end and be like hey if you pass the final you're you can do this no it's building it up as
058we go through the year and making sure that we're aware and so when we look at our programs specifically designed to make sure that they pass those and it's it's working with the teachers to know with work with the kids under Craig's guidance and so I think that specific thing has seen that growth additionally I think our numbers improved because of growth within our police science in our early childhood two different programs that have really taken off and so as those programs get bigger we were able to see that jump as those students are coming through more and more but we speak to all the variety but those were two that showed growth this time thank you one of the things we expanded upon this year was our parent information nights so we offered a
059variety of uh after hours parent nights at both the district office and school sites uh addressing uh pertinent issues like social media use um drug drug abuse and Drug dangers drug trafficking suicide awareness and prevention um registration for preschool and welcoming in for uh new families into the preschool program pring and a special education Academy to help parents understand ins and outs of some of the nuances of special ed uh for 1.3 increase awareness of Fielder pattern programs and academic planning for postsecondary Pathways this idea of feeder pattern programs is very important as as we really want to maintain our students as they start in elementary school through our middle schools and then graduate from our high schools so how do we develop those relationships in that sense of community effective ways that we have
060done this this year was making sure that we had program visits both um some programs from higher levels going down to uh down to the feeder schools or feeder schools sending students up and so uh highlights that we had we'll go ahead and switch to the next slide so I'll start with some of the elementary um opportunities as part of Kindergarten Roundup this year we uh had the opportunity for our Early Childhood Development Centers to visit our elementary feeders they got to take field trips which was the first time we've done that since prior to the pandemic so that was a great opportunity for kids also our sixth graders had an opportunity to visit middle school so they get a taste of what middle school life will be like um and then new this year
061coming up in a few weeks two weeks actually at the end of June for the first time ever we're going to have a Kinder kickart so incoming kindergarteners get an opportunity if parents signed up through Community aded to um have a taste of what kindergarten life will be like when they come to school um in July and our hope is that we get some of the Jitters out and they can be leaders among their classmates as they start their kindergarten experience within Higley additional things that we looked at this year to highlight the district supported actually our Arts programs at the high schools going down to the elementary schools and spending times on those campuses and with the goal that we get them excited for multiple years of being in the Arts and so that
062was a highlight for us additionally our air of course our Junior RTC program visiting the middle schools and working on recruiting through that and it's such a violent piece that the students get to see their older peers or older groups and what they're accomplishing and so um additionally obviously we have our visits from uh kolie up to williamsfield and sasman up to Higley and trying to really build that connection kolie added this year a williamsfield wall nice black and red right in the middle of Campus so they can be students can be aware of what's happening at Williams field so that they know that what they can do to be supported okay moving on to our third and final indicator under anchor one supporting a collaborative culture using data and research-based practices um one of
063the things that we really um spent a lot of time this year is reflecting on how we're driving continuous Improvement across our district and within our schools the Department of Education um revised their continuous improvement process so all of our um targeted Title One schools were are required to follow that process but we decided we wanted to have consistency with the way that our schools identify needs set academic goals and then supported um action plans so this spring we uh developed a process modeled after the department of EDS process and our sites are in the process right now of drafting um schoolwide um continuous Improvement plans that are are centered around feedback from their staff as well as recent academic performance data so um at the admin Retreat this summer they will Pro um present
064those proposed plans and those those plans will drive continuous Improvement efforts at the site level next year and give us an opportunity at the district level to help support them and then with that so additionally in this one we look we were looking at ways to ensure that our plc's were um effectively using data to to drive instructional decisions and so some uh examples of some of the the ways in which we did that this year Benchmark data dialogues where uh Miss Davis uh um Dr Lindsay and Mr lonizer and I all went out to our sites following benchmarks uh met with site leadership and and engaged in uh what's called a Collaborative Learning Cycle where we looked at the data elicited questions and and really tried to understand what's the driving cause behind some
065of the things that we were seeing um additionally that allows us to provide our lead site leadership with some professional development professional learning um on tools that they can work with their teams their plcs at their site on using our new DNA platform as well as just analyzing data in general um a a a great example has been the work that Chapel's been doing around plc along with all of our other sites but specifically with chapparel uh I had the opportunity uh to collaborate with individual grade level plcs uh we were able to to work through building PLC learning cycles and and and specifically uh working with the fifth grade team in math to align the work of their tier one and tier 2 instruction um was a great learning experience for for for them
066as well as for me um in terms of how we can better improve our plc's a as a district and finally as DNA is new this year we wanted to share some of that usage data around that formative assessment creation uh within that platform um we had 1,948 assessments that were created that actually had students engage in the assessment and have data that teachers could act upon within that assessment Cortina had 295 they were uh one of our leading elementaries in the the use of DNA and then Williams Field had 385 of those so we just wanted to share with you as well that that we're seeing that usage of DNA begin it's was year one of that implementation and we will be uh sharing year two um and how we will be working with
067that moving forward later president Anderson um I see this this word collaborative in in education now all over and I'm just curious by saying like collaborative culture like what what exactly does that mean um to you know it's it's all over the document collaborative like what is that exactly mean and what do we do to be collaborative so Vice President Van Hook I'll say something and then I think Heidi's ready to talk too but I believe we're all better when we work together then an isolation and that starts with District leadership as well um we learn from each other all the time and I know teachers specifically can get in a room and and Del deliberate argue sometimes and come up with a beautiful product that they couldn't do on their own and so I
068think the Strategic use of data planning together and understanding what to do with that data is a huge piece of that because we talked about it earlier our kids are all unique and they don't all need the exact same thing so that's my thoughts I agree with that Mrs Richards and I would just add you know there's the saying the smartest person in the room is the room so it really depends on the audience and so um it could be groups of teachers collaborating around academic performance data it could be a group of principles um collaborating around a problem of practice or um working towards one of these initiatives that we talked about and just strategizing Next Step we do that with our ad Services team from a teacher perspective it also includes parents when
069parents come in for parent teacher conferences a lot of times our students are are a part of that process too so there's collaboration on what's working well for that student and having the voice of the parents and the kids as part of that so it really depends on the circumstance and who's a part of that conversation but yes it's um we don't want to make decisions in isolation um president Anderson um I also uh I I don't see anything in here related to parents um and I I would like to be a be able to add something on here to to include parents but also I don't see anything related to um student achievement and increas increasing proficiency rates um it might be included in different bullet points um and differently um but that's I
070think that's important to also um to ensure that it is included because that's something that we need to ensure considering only you know we have 60% uh proficiency rate and um what are we doing with the other 40 with the district agreed no you can go first if you want I might have lost my train of thought but um I would just say that all of these initiatives are with the goal to raise student growth and achievement with academics um that's why we're all here is to support student learning and achievement um and as and I forgot what I was going to say after that so M Richards please go ahead Vice President Van Hook when we get into these suggested goals and initiatives for next year then that's where we want your input on
071additional things to focus on or tweak the wording a little bit but what Dr Lindsay said is correct and um these comprehensive needs assessment that the schools are all doing it dials right into student achievement and increasing student outcomes so it gets real specific per School per classroom per kid but I appreciate that input because we want to make sure that we represent well what we're doing so um if I could give input on collaboration since um I've worked I worked in the district and what collaboration look like and how it was very important um our team we would meet before during our break or after school to discuss um at the time we were using Galileo so go through Galileo questions and make sure that the testing um aligned with what we were teaching
072that the test that the questions were um valuable to uh determining their proficiency um we met to um go over our weekly plans um any labs L science any labs that we plan on doing um then we' also collaborate with our instructional coaches um Miss Horn was a coach at the time I don't know if she's still science is she still it it doesn't matter anyway Miss horn was who and she would come to our to our school and we would meet so many times to and she would go over um how we're doing and how it it met standards and and how we were working together and any give us advice on how we could be more efficient and more effective in our teaching and then um even though we be grumpy and go
073after school to um meetings um we uh would meet with saaman because I was working at kie at the time and then we would collaborate with the saaman teacher and we would um see what they were doing and what we were doing to make sure that we were aligning and we would work together share ideas go through again Benchmark questions um and um then of course the uh uh work with the uh admin where they would come into our meetings um and more more not in my experience there was more of listening than really anything just to know what we were going on and provide input as needed um the I just input from experience for collaboration but I did want to ask a question whoever is willing to answer um regarding benchmarks so as
074a teacher um it was it's the data is there but it's always difficult to get true buyin from students to take these benchmarks really any any test I don't know if it's here if it's a line or if they are given a grade or scor that affects their average um some places do some places didn't when I taught at Quin Creek High um we tried to find ways to motivate them through scoring but we didn't want to um affect their average based off of a district test what I'm leading to is to get by and a lot of times you have to give it value so are are is this District or is Higley taking the time to take the data from the benchmarks and show the students who are College Bound or think they're
075College Bound hey if you get this proficiency or hit these standards this is what we have researched to find how it'll affect your act or SAT scores how that aligns to show um Proficiency in those or to align it with certifications for career bound um you know that way it's not just hey I'm just taking this test take the test and it doesn't affect my grade I don't care it's not going on my transcripts but oh dang you know if I really learned this standard or or it showed I know that standard then I feel like taking the act or the SAT or the career bound a certification exam I feel like I would do better and and um I want to do better next time if I did me meet that Mark I'm going
076to jump in and then let Heidi and David probably jump in as well uh the benchmarks that we administer in third through 8th grade those are mimics of the state assessment um and there's value to them at different levels in different ways so one of my goals has been to work with our site leadership to really understand that the value and the teacher level of those those benchmarks is really looking at what are we asking of kids to show that evidence of learning how are we asking students that to to should demonstrate that evidence of learning in what's called Next Generation assessment so they are engaging in items no longer that are multiple choice they now have to drag and drop they have hot text where they have to pull down and and and um
077or d uh drop down hot Tex where they actually select a passage within a a reading passage a sentence and and and those are all new skills in some ways um and they are higher complexity skills and so trying to ensure that in terms of our instruction is there alignment between what we're asking of kids to engage in every day and how they're demonstrating that understanding um a and so that's this classroom teacher side uh the what we get from those mimics from those benchmarks is not very detailed standards based information in order to get that kind of information an assessment would have to be 70 to 100 items long uh because you need three to five items per standard in order to really get at standards understanding and Mastery state test our mimics there's
078one to two items per standard they are really it's a broad-based assessment so at the district level what we look at with those benchmarks is how are our kids going to perform when they hit the state test and and are there large gaps that we need to be addressing at the district level in terms of our resources our instructional Maps those kinds of things um down to the student level that's the age old question um one of the reasons why the state went to ACT Testing um as the high school uh assessment was the belief that students would take act more seriously than an end of course assessment like AZ Merit was um there's varying evidence as to whether that's actually effective um but the real dver of student engagement in that assessment has to
079do with the relationship a and the trust that students have in the teacher that's administering that assessment if they have a good relationship with that teacher and they believe that that teacher is going to provide them with valuable feedback on their performance like you were talking about they are going to perform on that assessment um using external motivations to try to motivate them to do well your compliance students will continue to do well but your students that come to school and they struggle with learning or they struggle with with just being in school those kinds of external motivations aren't going to impact their performance on a on a test and it's going to give us some not some dirty data related to the state assessment because I can't use an external motivation to motivate students
080to do well on a state assessment so I really want to create an environment when they're taking the benchmarks that mirrors what it's going to look like when they take the state assessment so we've actually told our our sites they can't use benchmarks as a grade um so uh long worded answer um I'm going to let Heidi and David jump in I hope I got most of what you were looking for though I would just add that um teachers often after the assessments completed will take specific test items questions that um you know of many students got incorrect but they spend a lot of time teaching that and really unpack what that question look like with the students because it may have been framed in a different way so they can use it as part
081of their instruction and I think for next steps for us is now that we've gone through DNA for a year and it's our first time going through those mimics it's analyzing and seeing how did the mimic performance and actual performance coincide and how are we fixing and making sure that what's happening there and our ability to disseminate that information to the teachers so that they can know more clearly about where the students at is an important step for us next and that's one of the great things about our relation ship with Renaissance they're actually doing a correlation analysis right now on our internal data so so they're looking at our per student performance on the mimics and then they're looking at our state results and basically saying Bas for Higley Unified School District alone here's
082where students need to perform on each of those mimics to show that they're actually going to perform the same way on the state assessment um H in terms of act uh within DNA we have uh a benchmark for act as well this was our first year using it um we've already started working with Renaissance and in terms of what kind of professional development do we need for our site leadership at the high school level in terms of helping teachers and students understand those results better and how to use those results so so that is something we've already I've already met with uh Mr banck and and Miss Wallace talking about for next year and and um setting up some meetings with the their professional development at their level to help us better understand how to
083use that data to impact student achievement president Anderson I want to comment on something you said because I think it's really important like I don't ever want to get away from being a teacher myself but I know those conversations I I had with kids like hey let's look at this and how you did and two more questions it sounds crazy that they want to hear the detail of how they did and how they can improve so I appreciate you saying that question and I apologize because I struggle to comprehend what I cannot see um especially at the elementary level is where my question is if some of these the test questions that d where they are looking at a new type of question right where you reading a passage and dropping it down it's just
084not the standard multiple choice do we have beyond the DNA or at least can teachers access it for like unit quizzes or tests or whatever so that way it's more than just these benchmarks that they're getting at because I feel like from a teacher perspective not only do you concern yourself with the content but maybe part of the reason everybody's missing it is because it's a new skill that we're asking so like do we have those things I'm assuming we do yeah cool awesome thanks for all the head knots yes that was one of the most exciting things about moving to DNA is the item bank so teachers can create their own classroom based assessments um aligned to the instructional maps and do just that and then they can um utilize multiple questions around the
085same standard and then unpack those findings with the kids and it's considered to be one of the best item banks in the in the country it used to be key Data Systems now it's inspect um but the the quality of the items the it it is far superior to what you used to see with Galileo um and and and they spend a lot of time and effort on continuously adding to that bank um a and one of the exciting things for me is that they're actually adding social studies items uh so it right now it's very limited um but at the high school level they do have access to some of those items so um in terms of the other exciting part about DNA is it's very easy to use uh compared to Galileo Galileo
086was was was a nightmare to use uh DNA is very simple I can filter based on the standards I want it will pull up the the items and it goes into detail on the different like the rationale behind the answers as well um and then at the other side of it the data reports that we can pull out of DNA are phenomenal uh and so actionable data related to where students are uh it's got subgroup reports so that we can look to see is there a difference between how where the the average score is and are there certain subgroups that are scoring below or above that average really diving down into individual students um so president Anderson oh were you done I'm sorry no I cut her off to ask question oh sorry just separate
087go I was just going to ask for some clarification um you know we talk about Ure plc's utilize benchmarks um and the collaborative what are there certain expectations for how much plc's meet who tracks that we use the word insure who who's insuring um and what are what are the expectations how are those communicated and how are they followed up on how how often are plc's meeting what is that expectation from an elementary perspective that was um one of the things that I've been working with the school principes this year on unpacking in terms of how often are they needing their involvement and um what that looks like moving forward is it meeting our needs so we did kind of a root cause analysis around that work um as part of my support to sites
088I would visit those plc's on occasion with the principal um so that was one way that we monitored moving forward um we have a common expectation at the elementary level that plc's will meet for an average of 45 minutes per week grade level content teams um and that looks different sight to sight if they're using their early release Wednesdays for that time or they have it built into their common planning time during the course of the school year so um we had a little bit of variation sight to site um they were they were of course all utilizing the professional Learning Community process but we um through the course of um investigating that over the course of the Year identified areas of both celebration and opportunities to tighten things up and also ensure that the
089way that we're um utilizing professional learning communities is consistent across the district at the secondary level when you talk about who's responsible or overseeing the PLC process that is site Administration that is driving that to make sure that the people are meeting and that they have their PLC documents and their PLC folder and their PLC data connected and so the oversight of that is at the site Administration standpoint from a district perspective we support with professional development and or allowing them to determine what times they can meet um a little you know when you look at an element or excuse me a high school math teacher who might have three different preps it's going to look very different from a PLC pers perspective in terms of how can they find the time to meet with
090all the three different ones and so typically they focus on one for the year and continue to meet as groups and that's decided and and supervised at the site level to be able to support additionally it gets a little harder when you start having Singleton classes and so those people can be on an island so as a district we try to find opportunities for the two islands to come together districtwide so it might not be particularly on the campus but districtwide as well can I add and thank you for acknowledging the teachers that had multiple preps because that that was really difficult not only for that teacher but the other people on the team that really wanted that person there um but um I worked under one of the best administrators I've I've had the
091honor to teach under in all my years um Dr Wolf over in Queen Creek High School he's now since been promoted to assistant superintendent here and nor there but he would tell us whenever you're collaborating in the hallways you're PLC at lunch whenever we would really try we' like we're not going to talk business at lunch we'd always talk about how the students are doing and what are we going to do and how can we make that you know this didn't work he's like you're PLC you know and so I don't know if you have the same mentality here and that's at the secondary level but um I I agreed because it really was it was having not organized time but it was definitely time spent where we were collaborating and and talking about our
092plans and what worked what didn't work what do you want to do what how do you plan to do what do you do if they didn't get you know going through the questions for PLC well no I appreciate that and I I'm curious about the organized time um I think in any organization you're dealing with people and using this as an example if you have four teachers teaching a subject and the three are coming together all the time and someone is not um this is an expectation of Higley and if you have someone who just doesn't participate in that um and I I get different time restrictions but we also and I know we have to have a further discussion on the high school but we have late starts we have early releases we we
093have tried to carve out some time in recognizing professional development in recognizing time for people to get together and um again when you have you know you have those teachers who I mean they're ready to go and and they're they want to lead it and they want to get everyone together and they are having those conversations just in you know a lunchroom or in if they're in a classroom just them having lunch and and you have that and then you also have individuals who just maybe don't participate rarely participate and if this is an expectation of Higley and and what we want um that's where I'm where are we monitoring this where are we making sure that one time we're carving out is being utilized and two that all of our students are getting the
094benefit of this expectation so um that's why I was wondering where where it is how are we monitoring it what is the expectation um because in my opinion if this is an expectation then there should be a a specific time dedicated ated to it and expected and then I think that that should be seen within um the Danielson tool I mean that should be part of a performance review on how much they're participating in plc's yes and there is a direct alignment with that within domain four of professional responsibilities as well as domain one with planning and preparation so and we're making those connections um for our teachers and for our administrators so board member we she'll see that in proposed initiatives and goals for next year too because it's kind of like the Strategic
095plan if we don't continually revisit and communicate expectations it'll go away so we have to keep supporting board member ree I wanted to add to when and while we're not talking about the calendar committee today one of the thing that came up quite a bit in the calendar committee is that professional development time and holding people accountable so I want you to know that the members of that committee that was very important to them and I've been working directly with Miss Davis and talking about what that professional development looks like what those expectations are and how we're going to keep track of those so it is something that's being discussed right now quite a bit and it's it's a work in progress it does it takes so much time um because Queen Creek was very
096is very big on on plc's and um it started way back before I even worked there full-time and it it has transitioned and grown so much and of course it has to do with the different leadership at the schools and um and I don't know if we do it here and we have a trickle of admin in the in the crowd but we and uh Queen Creek we had to fill out a spreadsheet that was shared with admin to say which we which room we were going to be in when we were meeting um because it it was if it was early release day there were hour choices we could put and then admin that time they were dedicated to walking the whole school and popping in and coming in and listening and discussing and
097it wasn't helicopter Administration it truly was and just being involved in asking questions um and so I imagine it's it's pretty much similar here too as well admin would schedule ahead of time if they were going to be there for the whole meeting so like sometimes you would know they would just pop in but other times they'd sit in for the whole meeting so like we have the same thing here yeah president Anderson um I have three questions um one uh for the was it called Kinder kicks I'm wondering has the registration opened for that and if so what are our numbers look like for that right now we have um let's see we have up to 12 kids I think Melissa's here I don't do you know that current enrollment Melissa I think we
098have approximately 140 kids or so registered and it has been open for a couple of months um and so it starts on June it's June 24th through the 28th and so can you still take kids or I think we closed registration is that correct okay yeah for sure experience so hopefully next year we could expand it since we had such an interest in it that that's a great program I love it um and then for the seal when we talked about um the Seal of biliteracy and some of the others in particular what would you say or do you know happen to know because I don't remember past numbers but it seems really high with the 142 like what is the growth or the percentage increase can you I I don't have that but I'll
099be able to okay find I just that was just my own and then my last thing I know we're talk about reflecting but I'm leaving in two minutes so I'm going to ask this question really fast um the leader and me programs um are we looking at expanding those across other sites I know that I've had Parents you know say things like oh we don't have that at our school or you know some of the other ones I know that we do have different programs in different school is there plans to expand the programs to other school not even just leader and me but um gateways is no excuses no excuses University and some of the other ones so um it's a good segue for later when we T talk about um proposed board initiatives
100um for next year but expanding extracurricular and specific um program offerings at our elementary schools is a area of focus that we would like to um work towards next year so potentially with leader and me yes I know that's an expensive program if I remember correctly correct or it's least has some expenses shaking his head not really so I guess we can put it at every school yeah to get it started is pretty costly okay is that what is you got to sustain it but the initial year first year second year and you know our parents have been so great because they've supported a lot of that but I think when we visited schools you guys have gotten to see these little leaders take off and I would have loved to my kids in that
101so these are good questions yeah I know and just being able to expand all of our great programs to all of our schools hopefully with the Collaborative Learning or collaborativeness is that a word I don't know okay collaboration that's what I'm looking for thank you collaboration then we can um do that at more schools Jeff and I were just talking about this this morning so perfect I I am looking at you but I should be looking that way president Anderson are you ready to go to Anchor to um I just have I'm sorry answer I just have one more thing to add um in Anchor one um the concentration on social emotional learning um and I mean I I see it more and more that it's being embedded in a lot of the curriculum um
102and I want to just emphasize that um that we are it says provide resources that we are providing resources um to parents if students need that um social emotional assistance um but that we're not treating every student that they as um as a whole um and providing social emotional support to every student who doesn't you know those students that might need not need it um and as as we've discussed uh there's been changes within um you know counselors and the type of support that they can provide um so I want to make sure that um we're kind of staying within uh within our role as as a district to provide academics and not mental health um because our goal is academics and that's why you know kids come here so this emphasis um heavy emphasis
103on social emotional learning um is is a concern for me and for many parents that I talk to um and I I have heard concerns even with leader in me because Leader in Me is very social emotional based um and so that's just something to keep in mind going forward that's all so I I appreciate your comments and I think that later on you know Miss Miller and Mr Walker May elaborate but sometimes just reading a story to kids about persistence or whatever is beneficial so I think it can take many forms you know and we aren't blanketing everybody needs mental health support that's not that's not the approach so I appreciate your comments and it is pretty Broad and Global but we want to support our kids the whole kid too you know so
104I think it can look differently and I don't know if shaa or James want to comment on that but I think that it's important that we understand that not every component of social emotional learning has to do with mental health and there are a lot of things that we do in our schools to prepare kids to be active leaders in our community that does focus on the social and emotional aspect speech and debate would be a prime example teaching those kids how to speak publicly um and participate in those activities so while I understand the concern is that mental health component I think there's a lot of things that we do in our schools that grow students social and emotionally that aren't TI directly to that concern yeah and and I I fully support having
105those um you know speech and debate and those types of educational things um but it's where we get into the the mental health aspect that I'm concerned about and you know we keep hearing this whole whole child and and unfortunately that is something that is coming down from the CDC the whole school whole child and that we feel like we have to cover all basis there's some things that are just not our responsibility um and a lot of that falls on the parent um and and we shouldn't feel like we have to cover this whole child approach um when our main purpose is academics and we need to make sure that we don't cross that line um and and that's the only reason why I bring it up um but I do fully support all
106these other aspects that are educational um and doesn't necessarily step on parents toes when it comes to um the mental health aspect thank you president Anderson uh and Vice President Van Hook one thing I would like to uh point out and keep in mind too and I think it's part of the reason why the CDC also expresses that and it's something that you see more and more come up up um is cuz what we've learned is if a student is disregulated you you can't learn um and so focusing in on academics that's part of the reason why social emotional tends to be a larger part of it today is because what we have have have seen is when we start to include some of these practices and teach kids some of these practices on how
107to express themselves or do some of these things with respect to academics their academic performance increases as well so they are kind of one and the same so I I I think your concerns are in fact being met by that by focusing on academics because we can see how these programs help students perform better academically because when their needs are met they can perform basically and we we can understand that that's part of the reason why you see it more and more um is just because in conjunction it overall helps uh all students academic performance I think you're and you're correct on on how they learn based on um everything you said but I just also want to make sure that when we're helping students out that we're making parents aware of these of these
108processes and help them because man could I have used that help U too late now both kids are gone out of school but it would have been so nice to have uh the assistance to understand um uh I don't know if Mr Griggs was a principal but have a child literally physically carried out of a classroom from shutting down during a state test and just okay well what do I do you know how can I help you so it just be I don't know if it merges the two points that are trying to be made but that is definitely one piece you ready for highly effective Personnel [Laughter] now so we need our uh I people to help us out there it is thank you good morning president Anderson members of the board um it
109is still more oh barely morning here we go so I get the privilege of talking about highly effective Personnel uh that is uh indicator number anchor number two and I'm going to go ahead and move forward there we go okay so again Mrs Richards alluded to our vision mission and values and anchor to does align with that and it is highly effective personnel with the um the goal of being recruiting retaining um growing people here giving them the POS best possible compensation providing good benefits this year that I'm really proud of and I give um credit to my team Isabelle and Nicole's not here right now but I give credit to them and the leadership team in HR and others who have helped with these goals this year let's go to that one there we
110go so the first um one that task that we took on this year and I asked them to look at ways um my first week of work here at Higley was spent doing the one-time job fair for two hours um December of 20 or not December it was February of 2023 and um it it was a one night 2hour event and people came and it was wonderful but it didn't really provide the opportunity that um individuals needed to know about our job fair so I'm sure you drove by this year the district and saw the big sign and saw the date on it and that's one of the things that we looked at how could it be different how could it be better what could we do so the first thing the team did is
111they went to another school district actually talked to a couple school districts about how they do job fairs and when they do them and got information and so they brought all that information back and decided to create a new job fair model and we have multiple sessions this year and we're very successful of even giving someone what we called and we robbed it from someone else but it's called a golden ticket and that individual basically is giving is hired on the spot we could not do this without the help of all the administrators that came during those job uh fairs uh that the interviews that they did during that time and not just administrators but everyone um special ed Community Ed was involved we had someone from transportation we had every area covered so that
112if someone showed up whether they were going to be a c certified or a classified employee and when they were looking for employment we had someone available to interview them on the spot some folks were given um what was called a second interview ticket and they were invited out to the campus or the um School site to meet with others because the principal may have been here but other people involved in the hiring process were not here so they wanted to bring them on site and meet with them then so this has been um a great benefit to uh our hiring process it has streamlined the process somewhat um we believe we hired probably over 30 individuals by doing the job fairs and also um just open it up really to people one lady even
113said I was just driving by and she said I'm looking for a job as a perah and boy do we need Paras right so it was just uh really enhanced the process streamlined the process and became more effective um we're reviewing what we did this year we had they created a a QR code where people could scan in their information so we GA gathered data that way we had the help of the marketing department putting it out on all of our various accounts that the job fairs were coming up and then they're doing the same thing as we have new positions available so that's one of the things we've done this year um to really re re attract and ret folks here at Higley okay please move it won't move can you advance it for
114me please thank you so one of the other things and this is with Isabelle's help and and and that's Valerie in the picture um we they have been conducting these new orientations with employees since February of 2023 when I came on board they had created a program to meet with people to get them the training they needed to get them the benefit information to be able to do their um Vector training as a new employee and they've hire they've actually met with over 250 new employees since then and and gone through the process of explaining the wonderful benefits that we have here how to utilize those benefits welcome them to Higley and um have them do their Vector training at the same time anything I've missed is about we do also offer um one of
115our tax sheltered annuity advisers to come out during benefits orientation to talk about our tsas and how they can add put additional dollars into tax shelter annuity so that's something new that we brought in as well and uh employees have appreciated that information so not only can they contribute into Arizona State Retirement but other annuities thank you I'm sorry I couldn't hear you additional dollars into what annuities retirement savings yeah thank you not just the Arizona State Retirement System but they can put some additional dollars into and that's sometimes our employees don't know that they can do that in addition to asrs so it is is very helpful for them for future planning and we also do uh give them an opportunity to enroll into Arizona State Retirement and create an account at that time
116CU very often nine out of 10 times employees don't do that and those heaven forbid something happened to them and those dollars are just sitting there not associated with the beneficiary okay so let's see if we got oh we've got action now okay so some other things and under 2.2 action items that have taken place this year um we have done additional training with uh supervisors for the interrater reliability training with Danielson and we talked a little earlier about Danielson and that has become very successful um and implemented the systems especially as uh Dr Lindsay had mentioned domain one and four where we're domain is four is for professional development we've also had some customer service training that was new this year for our classified front office staff uh in the the next when we
117talk about next year we'll talk more about that as well because we plan on offering some additional training for our classified employees as well uh let's see okay this is the biggie this is one of our big moves this year uh when I got here I reviewed the classified evaluation form um very Antiquated very much a piece of paper still and I knew that the system that we had called front line where Danielson is um in also could possibly house a classified evaluation form so the team went to work and we now house our classified evaluation form within and within that um that platform and I'm very happy with the way it's worked out again my team is very much into research they went to some neighboring districts looked at what they had how they
118were doing it and then we evaluated the document and um put together a new document one for a 90-day evaluation one for a self evaluation and one for an annual evaluation and we piloted that program whoever wanted to do it and Mr Moore's group was part of that pilot myself I used it with my direct reports uh we had others in facilities Mrs Richard used it um it was very helpful and so we will roll that out July 1 uh along with training and development on how to utilize that tool there are manuals for supervisors that has already been created um there is training and development for supervisors on how to use the tool and it really is beneficial you can assign the self- evaluation to the employee and they can do that throughout the
119year like if they feel they've accomplished something from a goal from last year they can enter it into the system save it and then go out and a month later they can come back they can put whatever they've accomplished that month and then they can save the document and you can you can keep adding to it throughout the year before it's finalized in um May which is really nice and that's not just for the employee that's for the supervisor as well so okay I think you're up next maybe and I'm sorry real quick sure or maybe I should say it um so internet's down so sorry I don't I didn't want you to think we were like ignoring what you were trying to say we're trying to figure out how to get it to work
120works on my phone but not on our comp yeah it let us know board docs is down any any other updates in relation to that okay thank you Isabelle's up next thank you so 2.2 is financial health and wellness events that we have periodically throughout this year uh we roll after we come back from a fall break we like to roll out our Wellness Wednesdays and wellness week uh we have a great time putting that together we uh provide self-care tips with maybe some recipes different activities for car traveling for the holidays yoga tips uh we do include information about our employee network our EAP our Ted do we did have the first time ever Social Security someone from the Social Security office come out and actually speak about that so that was very very
121informative uh we plan on bringing them out a couple more times within the next school year so that people that are getting to retire they understand what those benefits are Medicare we did have a Medicare representative come out as well uh very helpful we even had one that spoke Spanish so we were able to go to our grounds and maintenance department and discuss that those opportunities with them Transportation was another area we made sure that we went to go do a site visit as well uh um so we do our biometric screening in October that includes a flu shot clinic where we go around all the schools and employees are able to get flu shots pneumonias booster shots whatever they might need we had over 10 vendors this year and about $800 worth of giveaways
122we usually get about 80 to 100 people come to the biometric event but it is helpful and they do receive a gift card so it's another incentive for them to come and we do like mentioned earlier we have our vendors come out during benefits orientation to meet with our employees to discuss discuss uh annuity options any questions president Anderson um tell me how to pronounce your last name I'm sorry MD magdato um Miss MCD um I personally have a huge concern with the fact that we're providing Health Care within our schools um that is not our place um we have so many facilities within close distance to our district where people can go and get their shots um and the fact that we're having vaccines given in our schools um I think it's crazy that
123um we're having you know medical facilities with the nurse schools and that's definitely not our place also um is this just for teachers or is this just for employees just for employees this is only for employees now why why do we have to bring that here I mean it's just a service that we provide sometimes it's convenience um for the employees it's like having mom or pops the van F come and do that kind of screening where I may not have the time but I can schedule it um right after I'm done working during my prep time um I can schedule it it's a more con it's a convenience for our employees it's just like T do Ted do is a convenience for the employees so they don't have to go anywhere they can just
124phone in a nurse or a doctor is going to get online with them and they're going to talk their situ ation through US providing Biometrics helps us save money because sometimes it catches things that people might not know that they're even at risk for so we're just giving we're providing preventative information for our employees we're providing a service that helps us save money when it comes to insurance cost um where we might not have a big claim because maybe a case of diabetes was caught early and then turn into something much bigger where someone you know could get the treatment they needed sooner so this is just for employees this is not for students the students are not affected by this um nor is the teaching time or they're not allowed to leave the classroom
125to do this there it's just a service we provide that during a prep a prep time or a planning time before school after school I would like to also say that one year we did not provide this uh just due to planning purposes and we did get a lot of emails requesting that we bring it back I just I think it's out of it's out of our scope and we shouldn't be providing medicine on our campuses but um that's all I just I just had a quick question I'm sorry um for the teachers that have um that have F six fifth preps am I saying I'm still saying that right how like I had that and I could never make it to like the bud drives or anything do you guys try to I know
126you're working around their schedules and how long they can stay but is there a way to meet the needs of those teachers that can't make it yeah so we are looking at probably doing it more of a later evening but we're also coordinating with the company that works 8 to 5 so we also considered maybe doing a Saturday event as well last summer we did have a summer blood drive we did um it was in the month I think it was a June it was a June blood drive and it was something they really needed and we could assist with uh question and if it's too much it's obviously may not be worth it my question is I'm curious if we could do like a survey to figure out so like I having an autoimmune
127disorder I every year relied on this because as a teacher getting a sub especially getting a sub just to go get a shot not worth it um and so it was something I utilized all the time but as my needs changed I started needing like a pneumonia vaccine I need to get all these other things I didn't used to so I'm really happy to see that we start doing that as well so it's kind of like a One-Stop shop for me so I don't have to make these appointments because again it's really really difficult um one of the issues I have like as a parent with my kids for example is my primary care doesn't get the flu vaccine and until later than like CVS or something does I'm curious if we can send out
128a survey to like staff potentially of like maybe is the reason you didn't use this because you had already gotten one and then kind of see if that plays an impact if it's not really that beneficial in the grand scheme of things I'm just curious from from that perspective because I mean I've worked even in insurance we did the same thing we had you know flu shots and things that they would do and they kind of often gave out those surveys with it to maintain what the value of using that program and so I'm just curious yeah we did do a survey a few years a couple years back at like I would can if I can remember correctly and we did get some feedback but it would not hurt to absolutely do it again
129yeah to be clear I think it's a a wonderful thing it was always very beneficial because as you know Miss Anderson pointed out and you guys expressed as well it is very difficult for teachers to take time off or find the value in that and one thing that we are learning is our teach especially given the increased level of stress ad teachers are experiencing we be real unhealthy so um getting these types of things and kind of making it harder for us to make excuses is is definitely beneficial yeah we are looking to bring the mom the mom bus twice this year one more question I'm so sorry I apologize is it possible for or do you share the company's um information that those that show up for the clinics or the um drives with
130our College and Career staff at the high schools because outside of teaching there's High needs of hiring for medical staff and other careers and I I didn't know if that's something you could share like hey invite these people they're familiar with us they're doing drives with our staff it'd be good to see them again whenever the high schools have their College and Career days to have them there to show their needs for being for staff as well absolutely we can reach out to them that's a good point okay thank you I just have a quick question as well um and maybe we're going to go into this are we doing some things different to try and increase these numbers I mean I think I think it's a good thing and and I understand um it's
131a good benefit in in a service um but given the number of employees we have these are really low numbers and at some point you have to determine is it is it worth it the the amount that we're doing and and using um I hear Miss Van Hook saying there is a lot of other options that have after hours that have Saturdays and Sundays that people can go to uh you know different things like that um and I just want to make sure we're getting the best option for if we're if we're getting use out of it so I don't know if that's something we're going to go into because it seems like we keep talking about stuff and we're getting to that um but I mean I think it is a good service and
132I I I do hear you know what you're saying on availability um is this a cost to the district is it that people are that they come and kind of donate it um I know there's different companies because there it's not being utilized given the number of employees we have in my opinion what we have here that I wouldn't do it um given our our outcome now we're just starting and ramping up and that's something here we're going to talk about and especially if there's a cost to the district you know things like that that that something we would have to look at because there's not a lot of participation given the number we have you made some great points we do have about I believe 933 employees that are benefits uh receive benefits so
133that doesn't mean that our entire population is going to be attending these events looking at different initiatives to bring people or incentives to bring people to these events maybe doing a Saturday we haven't done that I think is a good opportunity we might get some more um employees coming in that day I'd like to say too that this is one day it's a 8 to five we can only fit so many people into one day um to come and do the Biometrics it's not quick it takes probably 15 minutes well is the flu shots and all of that part of the Biometrics it people can come just for those and then they can come for the Biometrics as well so the the district wide clinics you have listed here for the vaccines and the biometric
134screening all of that all this is was just one day so the flu shot clinics were at multiple sites and were uh two to three hours and then we held another uh districtwide flu shot clinic for anybody that was not able to attend those to come here and that was from I believe 11 to 5 so I'm trying to make sure that we capture our all of our population right we want to do it not so early in the morning so Transportation can come grounds and maintenance but then be able to extend it um we typically do it on a half day so teachers can come and what is the cost to the district Biometrics the Biometrics there's no cost what about the clinics there's no cost so no cost cost for flu shots or
135because they're using our insurance that's the or so okay so there submitting it through Insurance add-on service to our what insurance car provid no that's and it is only available for benefits eligible or employees who hold our insurance we can't service employees who have who are off the district so that's approximately 20% of our enrolled people within our insurance utilize this one- day program so just okay it's a financial benefit to the to the people providing through Insurance not through through us but I um so you mentioned having having them come out on a Saturday if teachers are going to go out of their way to come to the district on a Saturday why wouldn't they take that time to go to their own provider or to a local facility that does provide it versus
136coming to the school um also do they just do flu shots or do they also do the nasal mist do you know no nasal mist it's just the injection okay um what about any other live virus vaccines like the MMR or anything like that no okay because that would concern me with teachers getting live virus vaccines and then going back to a classroom correct which is one of the reasons why we made sure to do it on a half day just for that reason um and I believe what was your other question uh about coming in on a Saturday oh yes so that one day event we do have all of our vendors come so dental vision medical and it allows our employees an opportunity to come meet and ask specific questions to our carriers
137which it makes it very helpful for them they appreciate it and then the raffle giveaways help and then these um the health fairs um is that the same as when they like fill like the cafeteria and then the kids walk through and no this is just for this is employees only here at the district okay so that there's another event in this room it's here in the boardroom I believe we did take pictures this year so I will see if I could get those over to you so you have an idea what that looks like thank you so um one thing that as a special in the special education department we look at is while we definitely want our special education staff to be part of the bigger professional learning community on their campuses we
138also recognize the unique needs of special education sta people that work with special education students the staff um in the the unique challenges that our students bring and so as a department every year we really look at where we've been where we're going and where we need to grow and things that we need to do better um and I have to give a lot of credit to my department Kristen Nash Greg Keith Stefan re Emily Harrison and Rachel go um they have done a phenomenal job last year in developing professional development that met the needs of not just special education staff but general education staff that also work with our special education students and here you can really see some of the things that we have put together um a couple highlights we we recognize
139that our new teachers to special ed were really struggling because while they were getting the mentorship that was associated with being new to Higley the new to special ed was really difficult and so we put together the monthly new teacher trainings and the feedback that we received from that was phenomenal uh the support and ability to talk to someone and have their questions answered um really helped with um making their years a little bit more tolerable and enjoyable during that first year um some other things that we've done that we really are um proud of is the quarterly classified par professional training this is an area that we've really been lacking in the special education department it's hard there are a lot of them they teach at a lot of or support at a lot
140of different levels and so finding the opportunity and the scheduling to get them all together and get some common PD has been a challenge and my instructional coaches have done a phenomenal job of doing that so we've been able to provide those consistently and they've been very well attended they've been mandatory they're not something that they can schedule something instead of and very very beneficial um moving forward our plan is to continue this as you see at the bottom we're in the process of developing a catalog of professional development opportunities that will not just span like I said special education staff but will'll be opportunities for staff meetings on the campuses it'll be trainings that we can provideed administrator meetings and all of that stuff just to um kind of Link everybody together we're trying
141to get away from this student is your kid and this student is my kid and really changing that philosophy to the these students are our kids and how do we support all of them in all of the settings so David would you like to talk about this please because this is yours absolutely I think when we start talking and recognizing people uh it's great to have an opportunity where we can recognize um individuals within our own group and so we started for years ago the Higglytown Heroes process and we've continued to grow this we're quarterly we have a theme we have individuals who nominate each other and um then we go through and recognize every person that gets nominated and we provide them with a certificate a separate recognition uh normally a Dutch Bros gift
142card because that's my favorite coffee place and um just a nice celebration I think what's really nice about this is we expand it out uh not just a lot of times we do it within our gam our general administrators and and we recognize them upfront and we read what people say about them and so when somebody else take goes out of their way to to nominate you and recognize you it's a nice it's a good it's a good feeling and it's nice to be able to recognize our peers we also do it where we have campuses recognize teachers they don't even know what going on till we show up and we have this recognition and we go into our classroom so it's been a very positive thing uh and especially from a culture perspective where
143we can recognize the good works and the support that everybody else does with us thank you okay longevity so this is new this year and thanks to Tyler Moore and his great work with his team and my team as well um we started the longevity Awards this year and if you haven't seen them they're pretty awesome and they're in the um superintendence office as you walk in the longevity awards that were presented um staff this year are new addition these plaques and pins are small tokens of appreciation to those who have achieved Milestones of 5 10 15 and 20 years uh with Haley unified as of June 2023 and we will be celebrating again at the rally in July this is the initial year of implementation of this new tradition and so all those who
144achieved one of the Milestone years will receive the most recent plaque and they did and I was able to go out to a couple of the different sites and really enjoyed um the look on people's faces was just they felt honored they felt appreciated so going forward we will have a longevity Awards presentation as I said at the welcome back rally for those who hit a m Stone this past year of 510 15 20 or even 25 as of June 2024 um please note that this is different than what the longevity pay we've revised that and the stien is given to the employee within a few weeks as of July 1 will be given to the employee within I believe two to four weeks the following paycheck uh so that is something new that folks
145had to wait six months seven months before they got their stien uh so that is something new and we're excited about change making that change for payroll as well uh let's see I think we have another picture in there one second oh come on can we go to the next slide please thank you I know it's not so another area that we wanted to to focus on in our department was really recognizing the employees that work with our special needs students um and that included our gened staff we didn't want to just focus on the our special education teachers and Par professionals and related service but we felt it was important to also recognize our gened teachers that play a huge part in the lives of our special education students so one thing that we
146did is have done is through nominations we recognize staff that have been nominated by their colleagues and so these are just two examples um one is a fourth grade teacher at chapparel that works with our special ed students jened teacher that was nominated on his campus and then the other one is Lisa Bowman she is our one of our speech and language therapists over at our preschool that was also nominated so these are just two examples of a way that we're trying to also recognize the individuals that work with our students thank you shaa down there we go so this is just a wrap up of the information about how we used the chyros um last year's survey opening discussions with chyros our broker and you were all presented um information about uh insurance for
147this coming year fiscal year 2425 uh the Live Well reward solution program is another one that we didn't talk about but we just launched that in January of 2024 where if you complete certain things within the live well you can earn up to a $100 gift card um to your choice of uh vendors so so that was something else that we hadn't talked about already and then just the um the employees and the clinics that we've had in the biometric so it's just basically oh and Isabelle did the 56 day walk yes how did that work out it was our employees truly enjoyed the walking incentive that we had for that we offered it was very competitive everybody wanted to try to beat one another and I believe if I'm not mist Stak in williamsfield
148high school is was the top team okay and that concludes my report of 24 23 24 thank you um I just going back I just want to um first I want to thank Miss Van Hook for um asking to clarify about the um medical um workshops or or um treatments between staff and students and Miss ree thank you for pointing out the numbers cuz it get it's good to see and then then you realize oh that it looks slow but also thank you for clarifying it was one event is it possible to get um more numbers and a status of attendance to these workshops and Clinics just so we can keep an eye on it and make sure that it is something or what we can do to we can absolutely work on getting you
149some more statistics in the next status report yes thank you and then you probably already thought of this and I apologize if you said it can we get a video of or invite the longevity and sped Spotlight um individuals to board meetings or at board meetings I know it's a lot to ask show up you know at evenings but even if it's just a video so because you'd have to subscribe to if it's online you'd have to be on that Instagram or Facebook to see it otherwise we can put it out at the meetings I don't know if that's possible is the rally recorded no okay so we can do something we'll figure something out to make sure that they're spotlighted um probably in the August meeting uh from the rally all the individuals even
150if it's just a PowerPoint and years of service okay because this year we had a lot of pictures but we would go to a site and 30 people would get something so there were a lot and it was a really good new tradition are you ready for the next round or there additional thoughts okay next anchor three communication and community relations do you have for my slides I think it's definitively the afternoon now so good afternoon uh president Anderson and governing board members um I'm trying to test this to make sure it works um as you may know I started in late November uh as the Director of public information and marketing for the district so uh these strategic initiatives were um a determined last school year and so I kind of uh hid the
151ground running as soon as I began to work to push these initiatives forward there we go I'm aiming behind me and so today we're going to talk about those initiatives and goals the progress and the highlights that we've made and then the pro um later the proposed governing board initiatives and goals so I apologize for this being the Jessica show I know other people had uh Tagg team their presentations um but we're focusing on strategic anchor three and that's communication and community relations and what I see my department doing is really supporting and amplifying all of the Great work um that you've already seen and that you will continue to see here today so um today we're specifically focusing under those anchors uh on 3.1 to develop and refine processes to ensure effective communication and
1523.2 which is to execute a district marketing plan so under 3.1 the first action item was to revamp all school's marketing enrollment videos to ensure they're engaging informative and Visually appealing and one of the keys to communication is to remember that people connect with people uh so taking that approach we put out content featuring each School through the lens of their principle this is someone on campus that you know everyone should know everyone does know and and they make themselves visible to the parents and families of our community not only does this establish credibility and build trust but it gives users a glimpse of campus life and the priorities of each school so far we've created and released 13 principal spotlights and they've been wildly received with more than 20,000 Collective views across all of
153our social media and YouTube platforms I'm not going to test the internet with the example we'll just move on oh it will work there you go with no sound all right in addition to those spotlights uh that again can be seen across our social media platforms on our website under the headlines which is where we put all of our current news and on each principal's page for their school marketing and public information also publishes weekly content to promote all schools and programs some of the most successful content has featured our DLI programs school garden projects stem projects superintendent visits to the campus Personnel highlights and higgle helps service projects we have more than 13 ,000 followers so far across our social media platforms and that audience gets wider when you factor in media coverage this
154past school year there were 75 articles and TV spots featuring Higley that were positive uh in addition to that content we're also building a library of footage and photos and that includes aerial footage of all of our schools and this is a Content Library that we're going to continue um building upon in the next school year so action item number two for 3.1 was to create promotional materials for each school that effectively communicate the value of each school highlight key areas and generate interest and while these actions are still underway one of my first objectives as I started my role here in Higley was to meet with each site admin team and on board and discuss their content needs as well as gather information about each school what makes them unique what are their best
155selling points so with this information we assembled in our department what we call cheat sheets for each school and we're still working with each site on content like the draft shown here on this slide for hickley high school these um types of content and materials will be available to anyone taking a tour and for wider distribution this work will also continue into next school year in addition to the site specific programs and content development we did a marketing push for our kindergarten programs uh we ran geot targeted digital ads eblasts to All Families within our boundaries including those who don't currently attend Higley schools distributed Flyers to all daycare and preschool facilities in and around our boundaries this was done twice once in August and then December right ahead of that um Kindergarten Roundup event
156and uh the kind Kindergarten Roundup campaign as you can see here some of the stats yielded more than 1500 link clinks on the social media ads to our website 432 clicks on those eblasts that drove to our landing page as well um and in total we had about 1300 new user visits to the kindergarten landing page in addition to the targeted campaign we rolled out an ongoing General enrollment campaign to promote our schools so this includes digital ads geot targeted social media ads magazine print postcard mailers and even a billboard that you may have seen on williamsfield and hickley as of the spring these ads that started around that December time frame and this slide I'm sorry is not updated um we have about 1,300 clicks on those social media ads and I think it
157was a similar number for our visits to our enrollment pages and I had um updated that slide previously but I didn't think those changes took but as of the spring those were the numbers and those are still ongoing so you can see those dig Al um we have display ads running on websites those are the ads that follow you around the internet we have social ads and we have those print ads running in magazines and print Publications this school year we also expanded our social media presence husd sped program is on Instagram and um my department was very excited to um learn that next store accepted our application for an agency account this is a relatively new feature that allows school districts to communicate with constituents on next door and what's exciting about this platform
158is that it gives us access to 21,000 verified households when we post on next door we know those are users who see our content and they live in the district it's a great way to keep a pulse on the community our next action item was to relaunch an annual District magazine and you'll see kind of a sneak preview here in this slide we launched a monthly District e newsletter this eblast goes out to all of our families and has nearly 16,000 average monthly views with over 300 average monthly clicks to learn more about our district on our website so every you time a user reads that body of an email and they're interested in a story or a video or a piece of content um or an announcement like an upcoming job fair they click
159through to the landing page of our website and learn more we are also in the process of creating a subscription option for users who aren't enrolled in our District so that through our website anyone can receive updates on the district news and events the next action item was to align our branding efforts districtwide to create a consistent and recognizable brand identity this is perhaps my favorite and the most impactful goal we accomplished this school year very proud of my team especially our graphic designer McKenna micley who worked really hard updating our brand and style guide for the district um we launched this in the spring and trained administrators and staff on the usage of the brand toolkit on our website it's available in the staff page of our website um these efforts will be ongoing
160next school year as well we're proud of the resources we were able to provide in such a short amount of time and are excited to continue this work and with that I will take any questions uh president Anderson um miss bati a question for you actually have two the what kind of post do we put on the next door so we customize our posts for platform because I have a background in digital audience strategy so I always ask audience first a lot of the posts we put there um pertain to the entire Community we also put job postings on there because we want to cast a wide net um and anything really District Level news so those School shoutouts and things those are more for our followers but on next door we put um you
161know announcements for upcoming districtwide events uh we put our teacher um of the Year Awards on there because it's a really good broad shout out to a lot of our um amazing staff members and kind of an overview of the teachers who work for us so anything that we really think um the entire Community could benefit from sure sweet thank you um my second question and I think you may have kind of explained this and I just again I can't visualize so it's harder you talked about for the kindergarten round up how you you know did one in August I think you said and then December um my assumption is that we would do stuff like that to like for preschool or those types of things do we do anything let's say like around June
162I feel like a lot of times families purposefully wait to shop around or they know that they're moving come summer like they try to coordinate some of those things businesses I think kind of do that as well for families and that could be when a lot of new people come in yes that's a that's great feedback um we do have another we call it a last minute push for those families who may live out of state uh who I know don't have our modified year round schedule so we do know that's a big moving time for families um and and we do have a a push especially for the kindergarten and lower elementary enrollment happening president Anderson one request um Miss Batista that um I received was to post our board meetings on social media
163um we I think a lot of the community members don't know when our board meetings are so it would be good maybe a couple days prior to um a board meeting to be able to say board meeting coming up on this day um at this time and here's the address um I think that's a great way to get the community more engaged with our board meetings yeah thank you thank you thank you president Anderson are you ready for finance and operations okay so first uh strategic aner number four for finance and operations uh today we'll be talking about um specifically indicator 4.3 um 4.3 is indicator that aligns with uh school safety uh make sure schools are well maintained and have the appropriate resources to ensure Student Success so one of the things we're proud
164of is that we just finished our our phase one of a phased approach to uh surveillance camera in our schools so we recently updated all nine elementaries with um brand new verco cameras um that what that did is one had put us with some state-of-the-art technology on our campuses and Consolidated our systems into one universal uh camera system across our elementary schools um we also brought in representative from verata to train our administrators on appropriate use of surveillance cameras and in the whole process was a collaborative effort between maintenance uh student services finance and and it and I want to give uh credit for maintenance and it who have who have really worked together to help support I've said from the beginning in in my position that everything is school safety but I I can't
165do it all by myself and it's very important to have have the collaboration uh with interde departmental work and so there was a lot of discussions we meet bi-weekly um to strategize and plan and optimize and use the best uh use of our resources to um help make our campuses safer another roll out we did this year uh was our visitor management system so that was a long time coming um we uh brought our visitor management system up to date um prior to this year it was just sign in logs that was was not an efficient uh an effective way to maintain uh access to our campuses and so this year from July 1st till May 30th ran this report last week that we've had uh 29,100 uh visitors uh come to our campuses that's
166been logged and screened uh to make sure our campuses are aware of who's on campus and it's screening to make sure that the visitors on our campus are here appropriately um and it helps to keep our campuses safer by screening for registered sex offenders as well so we also rolled out this is a big year for safety initiative rollouts we we implemented the standard response protocol across all of our sites and all of our departments um we involved everybody in this process not just the schools and teachers but also our our departments we have quarterly meetings now at the district office with all of our staff um it maintenance and we continue to pursue uh this the universal application of the standard response protocol and we've enhanced our organizational chart for Emergency Management uh and
167response protocols we've also refreshed our two-way radio um infrastructure that was outdated we were able to outfit almost 500 two-way radios across our district District along with new equipment um and a new standardization of the use uh as well as a couple emergency channels and then as kids club has over 500 kids participating right now in summer camps um they're equipped with their own uh frequency and be able to use uh the radios through not only the summer camps but also kids club on our nine elementaries and two preschools I got in addition uh 4.3 defines you know uh not only uring schools are safe and secure but also wellmaintained and have their appropriate resources for Student Success so one of our main internal um systems um Facilities Management um uh software it's we the
168acronym is fmx we utilize that software to assign preventative maintenance as well as work orders and so this is year this current year is year two of that um and you can see we've um drastically leveraged that system to not only log the preventative maintenance application that's being completed but also um uh share out um the ability for site admin teachers even custodians to insert work orders to ensure if there's an outlet out or if there is a light that's broken right um we want to be aware of that and the more we can leverage um a staff from all levels to report that the faster it gets to maintenances hands and the faster we can address that and so um that's you know reflected in that number going from fiscal year 23 of just
169over a thousand you know preventive maintenance work orders in in um to FBI 24 we over 3,000 and so um that doesn't necessarily mean we have well it does mean we have a large larger greater need of Maintenance needs but it it just also making us more aware of those needs so we can address them in a a timely matter and then uh finally one of the initiatives working with Mr Moore is that we conduct uh frequent and regular safety meetings um we bring together it we bring together maintenance and grounds we we bring together rentals Finance um student services and we meet bi-weekly to talk about overarching needs um again safety can can take on many ways shapes and forms and so a lot of it requires work and a lot of work requires
170money so to be able to strategize and create short long and Midterm goals of where we're at and our needs um we've brought in uh through the help of the Gilbert Police Department threat assessment liaison who has walked all of our campuses including the Queen Creek campuses on to be able to provide us feedback and recommendations uh so we can plan ahead for again in a longterm um short medium longterm goals for how to M maintain and and secure our campuses I guess we just we don't get to ask questions there's no slide for that so just move on no questions all right thank you are we ready to move on to the 6.2 the proposal and discussion of the 2024 2025 governing board initiatives president Anderson members of the board the slides in this
171presentation are snapshots of the action steps so you got should have a document in front of you like this that will outline action steps and more detailed information we decided to take the indicators for example under anchor one and put them all together at the top because sometimes will take an action and it will address multiple indicators so you you'll notice there's action steps some flushed out detail and there's not a timeline yet because we want to get your approval on these action steps we can add that and then we'll add progress so it's a little different format but we thought it was beneficial so in relation to strategic anchor number one you'll see two action steps there um and it's like we've said all morning or all afternoon or whatever it is we work
172on things and we don't leave them we continually go back review revisit revise that includes the development of these instructional maps for specials electives and core content areas we also had discussion about the the necessity and the importance of plc's and having expectations in a framework this would include multi-tiered systems of support to support our students and meet their needs um we've talked about Danielson and how important that is as well as the use of data and research based practices and we we talked about collaboration quite a bit action step four would be to continue to provide resources in in relation to social emotional growth which is part of our strategic plan and this is in relation to positive student behavior and outcomes and the number five is we briefly talked about that as well
173to continue to enhance feeder program offerings with unique academic and extracurricular programs so board member Schultz brought this up about oh can we look at doing some more specialized programs at schools so you'll be happy to know in cabinet we've been talking about some different things a little bit out of the box um and we want to continue to do that because sometimes specialized offerings bring bring students which is we want them right but we need to be creative and thoughtful and bring you guys some different ideas as we work through it so before I keep blasting through this I think it might be beneficial to pause on um anchor one and I wrote down some things already from you guys but I had written down some of the discussion about in include language about
174students evidence of learning I think that's what I heard I believe um we also talked about parents and making sure they're part of what we do in terms of our strategic plan and teaching and learning we already talked about PLC um expectations so I'm going to open it up for you guys to provide input on these or or I can do like Mr Walker and say there are no questions well you just left that slide out so it was strategic right you think it's good sorry well I just think it was beneficial to as we discuss stuff that was coming up to include it so all right if you guys are good we'll go to Anchor to proposed action steps you are you are talking I'm talking okay so as you can see establish a
175a climate and culture that sustains excellence and retains high quality employees no I'm not no no okay sh you're you're my clicker thank you so to recruit higher Ain the best employees for our district go ahead and move forward I love that picture that's part of our um job fair love that picture so here are some of the things that we're going to continue enhance improve and Implement for this year um the job fairs of course will look at the surveys that we received and um take a look at what we can do differently or better continue to do on the spot hiring for sure that was uh definitely a plus uh advertise more aggressively looking for other areas to advertise in using our social media using um Jessica and her team's resources and then
176um the benefits package of course and then the well planned onboarding program that we we have already but to enhance that in any way that we can other things that we'd like to do is enhance our professional development we want to provide this year some supervisor training continue with the customer service training um the online performance evaluations will be for all employees starting July 1 and that would be with the Implement implementation of the new classified evaluation program so we'll have training and development like I said for all of our supervisors since the pilot was so successful uh the use of compensation data uh higgle unified HR team put together data and shared it with another school district in the area that is doing a compensation study with a third party will be recipients of
177that information and be able to use that as we work through next year and see where we are with uh based on where we rank basically within the compensation within the East Valley it's mostly East Valley School Districts it's also um some towns and cities and then also Maricopa community colleges were supposed to participate as well so there's some town city education postsecondary we've got a little bit of everybody participating in this comp study because we shared our data we get we get it for free they had to pay for it not us so um then provide comprehensive benefits as we're always looking for ways to better serve our employees with benefits as you know when we talked about the new um position that will come through chyos is the nurse Navigator we actually have
178an interview next week with a possible um candidate for that position that will not only be able to assist people with their medical benefits in a way of their specific um illnesses but also with Wellness as well so we can expand our wellness program throughout the district and that's what we have that's that's pretty much where we're at at this point and we will add things as we see a need because when you do a survey you always know that things come back that maybe you never thought about and we would add those to um and present those if needed thank you questions cousin Anderson um just a couple things that I didn't mention earlier you had mentioned on the spot hiring um how does that work with background checks it it doesn't mean that
179there they're given an basically an offer letter um but everything is always contingent on a fingerprint card and a background check they are not officially offered a position with salary and all of that until we have that information but we can always resend an offer if something were to come back on the background check or with the fingerprint card okay perfect it just lets them know that we're ready to hire them and let's get that process started we do have laptop set up so people can go in and fill out the whole application um they can do everything right at the job fair okay and then um I had mentioned sometime last year that I wanted to um see like a demo of the Danielson and everything else came up and it just never happened
180um so I would love to be able to set up some time to just be able to look at what that looks like and then also um to to look at some of our professional development that's online um just to see what it looks like um for our teachers and staff so uh Vice President Van Hook are you asking for that to be a board presentation personally just curious yeah I mean if every anybody else wants it um I think it might be a good work study session you know so that be great okay perfect okay thank you you thank you I do have one thing to add to that I'm sorry no go ahead uh in regards to the comprehensive benefits uh we initiated an East Valley benefits meeting quarterly with all the East
181Valley School Districts so we meet regularly to discuss best practices comp benefits who's doing what and we do get good feedback from that and we are competitive with our neighbors president Anderson um I know shaa we're not talking about calendar but um we talk about supporting and increasing ongoing professional development um one I'd kind of like to know what that means and two when we've heard from people that they're not getting professional development um the high schools are having their teachers are having difficult times with that late start they're not getting um what they feel the time for professional velopment they they don't have enough time especially those that teach Zero Hour they've got their Zero Hour kids then they've got that time and then they go into the the late start um I'm concerned
182that we're not kind of acting on that I guess if you will um this is a a time and ability for us to be able to do that and that's kind of also why I've always been proud of Higley because we're smaller even though we're a large District that we can make changes quicker um and and have them be impactful so um I'm concerned of not meeting the professional development um needs of our of our middle and high school teachers so um I would like to see that addressed here that they're not getting that that time um and this is what we have this time set aside for and the ability so uh I do have concerns on on not meeting that so board member Reese you do get to have a little preview about
183the calendar discussion from Miss Miller here yes so on the 26th I believe the June 26th meeting you are going to get a pretty detailed presentation on on what that committee looked like the things we discussed the decisions were made the rationale behind the decisions um the pros and cons of the decisions you know and really kind of look at that um but I will tell you that during those calendar committee meetings one of the main topics was professional development I mean it was hashed out it was argued about it was discussed um and the biggest concern was the high school um we worked very closely with Brian to look at the high school required instructional minutes and that's kind of where we we get our hands tied a little bit and I'll share more
184with that with you guys on the 26th but then working also closely with Miss Davis on what we can do to ensure that our high school campuses are getting the professional development that they need deserve and are are wanting um and I think we have a really good plan uh I do want to point out the calendar committee is creating calendars from a year out from now which does tie our hands just a little bit but there is something that we're going to discuss on the 26th that is something we may be able to do a little bit more quickly if it something we want to move forward with okay I just I know we're not when the Strategic plan was created professional development was a big piece of that um and when we when
185we're seeing that we're not meeting that need or that intention of when this was created what we're trying to do I just want to see that we are taking action and so I guess yes the carts a little bit before the horse I guess right here but as long as as long as that's being addressed I I want to make sure that that's being addressed for this year that we're not waiting and I get it we have calendars and we commit to things um but if we see a need we need to make a change and so if it's being addressed in here then that's then I'm okay I'm going to go real quick board m Barce think it might be beneficial for Mary Davis to share the professional development plans for next year too
186that she's been working on will you be ready to share that by the 26th yeah sorry um I do have a draft of it currently and I'm working to build it out a little bit further so yes by the 26th I can have more board member re um we also are enhancing for the classified employee although shaa is doing a great job with our Paras we have other employees that need some professional development so we're working to do that as well that's what that means for US president Anderson um and not to belabor the point something else that I'm at least interested in hearing what we have and providing and I also say this understanding that given the nature and size of our district a lot of our teach teachers are overextended um and that
187can make what I'm about to ask difficult and so I guess I'm curious what plan we have or what we're talking about to tackle mentorship um as Mr Moore pointed out earlier we have younger staff than we have had previously um and something that I think is going to be really really important as we progress forward is that mentorship um having gone through it here you know almost 15 years ago I'm hoping things have changed um also having gone through it at a different state level and kind of getting to see the difference of what a larger staff capacity could provide for mentorship I think that's something that's pretty lacking for us again just given the nature and structure of how it is for teachers I also recognize and understand there's cost with that because
188being a mentor you get a stipended and where that comes from I just I think it's a a valuable key component and I guess I'm not really clear what it is we still do with respect to mentorship um yes great question so we do offer um for teachers who are new to the profession um we do have a mentor mentorship program for them where we do trainings with the mentors and the mentees so that they are coming in for both um trainings on that route um we are going to um revamp a little bit with that program so that we're meeting with them like the first week of school so we're not waiting until August August or September to bring them in um there were some scheduling conflict last year beginning of this year year
189with it but we're going to bring them in sooner so we can get that rolling a lot quicker um and we are asking our mentors to be able to meet with our the mentees um believe it's two times per quarter if not more and they're logging that and tracking it um and like I said they're coming in for trainings as well with our district coaches yeah one additional thing we're going to do is we have some new individuals and new roles principles this executive director and being very thoughtful and intentional how we Mentor people in new roles and administration teaching Etc so something if if maybe we can meet just so I can kind of get some more detail on how some of those things are I just feel like when I went through education
190my master's program the statistics were the likelihood of you know all of us staying in teaching Beyond three years is really low and this is 15 years ago uh we are losing teachers quite quickly and considering veteran teachers are are are drowning uh I think it's it's kind of a a ridiculous feet as a new person like I could not imagine what that would feel like um and so maybe trying to figure out other ways in which we can do some you know support Beyond just how to teach and how to manage the onslaught of what education looks like today for people because you know we would like to retain you um another thing I forgot to mention as part of the new to the profession the district coaches are supporting those new teachers as
191well so they're going out on a consistent basis observing the classroom providing feedback and even helping with planning as needed um so it's not just on the mentor that's at the site the district coaches are supporting as well but I would love to have that conversation with all the mention of training and keeping um staff and valuing our staff part of that goes and as it's mentioned to the training and through the mentorship um is there has there ever been talk or do you think there will ever and it's not just the Educators it's the other the whole picture has there ever been talk of having a training and implementation specialist position to manage Tyler shaking you said no but I'm saying yes um I did bring to the cabinet this year a recommendation to
192hire a training and development individual that would report an HR for generalized training um unfortunately the dollars weren't there this year but I will ask again believe me it sounds like it would be something to definitely try to budget for or think harder because um it's you can say that you're mentoring and training all you want you can put out material all day long and it doesn't actually do anything in fact it just overwhelms more than it helps so it' be nice to have um something more sophisticated as we grow and focus on these and our strategic plan so I'll just put that out there um and can we get any data on um par retention um in in relation to the hourly rate increases how how those have gone hand inand or has it
193actually made any um significant difference in our in our status or something okay okay sure thank you and Miss Anderson just to that increase takes effect July one too so some of that data may be being collected as we enter the new year so it it may take us yeah like Tyler said a full year to have that kind of information to see if we retain president Anderson if I can add um well yes absolutely the pay was very welcomed and they were very grateful for that I do want to point out that the longevity awards that we implemented this year included the pair of professionals and we have several pair of professionals that have been here for 10 15 20 years and to include them in that celebration the feedback that we received from
194our classified staff my classified staff particularly was amazing I mean it involved teers and just super grateful that they were able to be recognized amongst their peers so it was neat to see thank you president Anderson Miss Davis do we have student teachers we do um we have I believe ASU calls them student interns um but yes we do get them from the various universities around Arizona um and even students coming back home because they want to um do their student teaching in the Phoenix area and did they have an opportunity to Shadow current teachers or did they just um how how do how does the process work I guess I should ask I'm going to turn that over to Miss Johnson as that's not quite my wheelhouse but I would love to learn thank
195you so that U miss the other Miss Johnson um handled currently and she works with each University that's interested we've brought a few uh memo of understanding to the board so that we could take on one or two or three individuals probably ASU is our biggest contributor to student teachers and yes they're in the classroom with the teacher learning watching doing board member Van Hook something else too just uh because I did it recently before you can do the student teaching you have to do a certain number of observation hours first as well for programs so a lot of times they have a whole bunch of observation hours prior to even student teaching um and depending on the program determines the number of hours I can speak to gcu's master program I had to do
196like 65 hours of observation before I started my student teaching president Anderson members of the board um another component for training from HR perspective is during benefits orientation we do go over some of our board policies related to benefits uh General leave vacation jury duty leave of absence things of those Natures too so we are making sure that we're communicating that kind of important information to them as well this one's me all right we're moving back on to Anchor 3 um marketing public information we'll continue again um as I mentioned earlier to build upon the work that we started in school year 2324 enhancing that enrollment marketing campaign um building trust in the community and establishing our district as the premier destination for education and so looking at that um initiative 3.2 again execute a
197district marketing plan we have one really big project going on right now and actually content migration started today what that means is we are transitioning our website um and subsequently all of the school websites over from a system called Blackboard to final site that company final site bought Blackboard about a year ago so they are in the process of changing all of the websites that they purchased and a lot of um school districts were using Blackboard so we're kind of all on the same boat transitioning over to final site um but fortunately it brings a lot of new opportunities for us in terms of optimizing our website and streamlining workflows for um our staff who populate the content there um so one of our big initiatives into 2425 is going to be to um continue
198to provide the structure and the process processes for our staff to be able to continuously update our website and make sure that they are kind of the Hub that we want them to be for information for our district and our schools so these action steps align with that um we plan to host website trainings to empower staff to utilize all the tools um and website updates again to include instructional offerings at each uh of our schools and then in addition we want to focus on enhancing marketing campaign PS to increase Elementary enrollment and position each neighborhood school as the location for education in their community and then um Karen Johnson had mentioned it before uh marketing and public information work closely with HR when it comes to recruitment so we will continue to work closely
199with that department when it comes to marketing for those open positions especially the hard to fill sped peras and um bus driver positions making sure that we get those job openings um as far as and as wide as as we can to cast a wide net for those applicants and then on um action of the Strategic anchor 3.3 establish relationships in our community to enhance student learning opportunities next year we plan to focus on this a uh quite a bit um and it it's something that I'm really excited about so one of the things that we have planned is to uh revamp a little bit our business and Community partner breakfast events so uh many of you attended this event in the in the spring um and then there was also when it was held
200in the fall at the beginning of the year so we're going to work on aligning this event and bringing in our community service Liaisons at each site that do the higgle helps initiative um as well as bringing in our PTO leaders um so that it's more of a community partner event we also like to align it with a goal or a service project dedicated to each site so really strengthening those relationships and and reworking those events to have more networking involved and and a shared goal for everyone in addition we um have a goal of continuing to curate and maintain the contact list and um president Anderson I love what you said earlier about you know uh bringing the the healthc care service providers uh into the our contacts when we reach out to businesses
201um in terms of partnering with our CTE programs partnering with um different schools and programs this is you know what I would like to build upon as well and in addition making sure that we have good contact information for all of our neighborhoods our HOA leaders um and things like that so that we curate and maintain these contacts so that when we have these community and business partner events or we have teacher of the year and and other areas where we're asking for for sponsorships and Partnerships that we have you know solid networks to reach out to every time and then again that subscription option for the e- newsletter uh I'd like to build upon the messaging that we're sending out to our own Community I feel like we do a really good job of
202communicating with our current families and those who are enrolled and I want to really expand um upon those out of you know those people who are within our district boundaries that don't necessarily either go to our schools or they don't have school aged children it's still you know educational facilities are the pillar of the community and I think the information and the events and the um highlights that we have going on pertain to everyone in the community so just making sure that there are opportunities to share that that's it any questions president Anderson um I just one thing that I think we need to look at um and you were saying that they were migrating our our website um we still need to look at teacher pages we still need to look at site Pages
203we have information on there that is so old that has not been updated um and that's a reflection of us and [Music] so at the beginning of the school year parents go on to teacher pages and there's stuff on there from four years ago it it's frustrating because then it's parents think that it's not current and obviously it's not um and so those are are areas we need to continue to look at and update and improve um because that's where our our community goes to um and then this is kind of we were from a community standpoint and um some things have come up and brought to our attention in different Fashions but um potentially some podcasts that we might need to do um I know at one point we had heard of somebody doing
204a finance podcast on Basic Finance um for school districts and I those are other areas we need to look at for our community relations and communicating to our our families um especially with an upcoming election I know Tyler can't wait to do so stuff like that but um but just and again it's our our community relations and um on how we communicate with with our not just our regular community that are are attending schools but anybody I agree thank you president Anderson Miss Batista um I hope that this new website has a search option cuz I've been asking for that for over a year we we understand and we are happy to say that it will and it will be specific to the website the reason that search option wasn't available this year was because
205um it was bringing up results that weren't specific to our website it was more like a Google search result page which is not what we wanted it would confuse users even more and unfortunately um because of the purchase of Blackboard we weren't necessarily getting the support that we needed behind the scenes so we're working with final site right now we're migrating our content and we're excited about some of those features that we missed coming back and about revamping and streamlining some of those other features that we know were pain points for users perfect thank you um one more um update I I personally would like to see is um especially for board members is our email addresses actually listed versus a button that they click on and then it takes them to like an Outlook
206um and I know it used to be that way where you can actually see what the email addresses are um because it literally opens you know five individual emails instead of being able to email all board members at once that's a complaint from the community so um I'm nodding to Brian because he may be able to elaborate on that okay yeah so uh with the new website all of our previous formats for contact listing doesn't migrate the same way so it's going to be built a little differently so emails will show in a way that our our community can see the actual email perfect perfect and then um another thing is phone numbers for specific individuals with whether it's within admen or a way that parents can reach teachers um and I don't remember who
207it was that I looked up but there wasn't even an email option listed I want to say it was Mr ble but I don't remember um but yeah like I I there was no email so email phone number for being able to reach those um types of individuals at each school thank you if I if I could just ask CU krina brought up a good point about teacher pages can we get any metrics on teacher pages how often they're actually used because uh being a teacher I never um utilized set up a teacher page as a go-to point for anything and I don't know if that's something that's being pushed I'm just curious how many people are trying to access those pages it's slow we've looked um and I will say one of the big
208changes for the new websites um is that we're doing away with those teacher specific Pages um that includes uh and we were recommended this by final site because the best practice is not to include um hundreds of backend users into your content management system which is what the teacher pages would entail so moving forward we'll move toward more of a directory style where you will and the directory allows us to opt into features such as email address phone number um name photo things like that so we'll be seeing directory pages instead of teacher specific pages and encouraging teachers to use their canvas um which is you know the tool that they have to communicate with their families and students at home and um they could you know include that content on those canvas Pages um
209so the new website will it list like let's say if you click on like fourth grade it will list all the fourth grade teachers and then their name and phone you know contact information and photo it will have a staff directory yeah that will include all the teachers okay um I personally use parent view um to be able to reach like see teacher information um and I know it's specific to my my kids um but it would be nice let's say if somebody wants to you know search a specific teacher's name to be able to see what they look like and you know what grade they're in yeah just general information so it would be nice compared to before it was they were listing sometimes assignments and and all this other stuff but and I
210will have a bio on it like she's stating like I I like kaying in the summer and so I mean one thing that will go away is having a bio um that's just it's just another thing to maintain that a teacher really let's let's not lie I mean we've mentioned they're not the best at maintaining their web page cuz that's not their focus um and canvas realistically is going to be easier for them to use for a bio for for students that are in their class I mean at a certain point too it's a little bit you know when we put out a person's information to the whole world uh we can't take it back um when when it's in canvas we control the access at all times so thank you I believe we're ready
211for anchor four so our proposed steps for uh anchor four for for this upcoming year uh still line student student safety is always number one priority so we always focus on um regardless of where that falls in the the Strategic plan that that always Rises to the top no matter what so the first two uh anchor points are um again 4.1 ensuring District policies and procedures are accessible implemented consistently reviewed we're continuing to maintain board dos and then you you know as we've been practicing uh bringing forth policies um as they are outdated and uh we get updates from statut from statute and any legislation that is implemented through the legislative cycle so that is going to continue to um be at top of our priority and um something that you'll see on most board
212agendas throughout the year 4.2 identify to seek additional Revenue sources um some of the examples um I've already started implementing ahead of the 25 year were a Commerce Bank um again paying vendors electronically um to uh for their you know vendors who opt into that right um and then we get a share of Revenue portion share for them um being eager to get their money again that's an option for for vendors but a lot of vendors choose that because they don't want the papercheck or the um process of going through that so I'm trying to look at different Avenues in which we can um bring in additional Revenue sources outside of the enrollment formula the state formula um in addition to continue to work with the print shop that uh Revenue sources has grown exponentially
213um with u customers that we've been um servicing outside of our district not only continue to provide an uh a resource for our IND District teachers staff departments but also um external vendors um and then that's additional revenue for the district um and several more as we look throughout the year so and I 4.3 is James yeah and like I stated before for this past year um phase one of the camera installation focused on Elementary and and now we're moving right into phase two which is underway as we speak um to supplement our middle schools and high schools with updated cameras as well uh with the goal of phasing out old Antiquated um out ofd systems and so we're working through a phase two throughout this year um again I want to give kudos to
214maintenance and it because they've taken on uh the role of not only uh collaboration but also installation um a lot of times we would uh people would seek out third parties to run cable and conduit and things of that nature and in this case they're they're tag teaming together to do it in house and that's a cost-saving measure to be able to provide um more cameras because we're saving on the cost of installation and then the second big Focus for physical security for this year coming up is an enhancement of physical barriers uh around uh School sites and so that came about from our threat uh liability assessments through the the town of Gilbert um one of the things that was brought to our attention is that um there there's a need for what's called
215a Ballard it's a traffic restricting um you'll see those frequently once that was made aware then I see them everywhere but a gas station's a common example there'll be a cement post that's next to the gas um pumping machine um in your home if you have a hot water heater in your garage you'll have a Ballard in front of it so the car can't hit it um so they'll work on a a solution that's not just um concrete barriers around our schools but visibly uh aesthetic barriers that also are protective measures to uh protect vehicles from you know creening into uh families or students waiting to get picked up from school things like that so that's going to help to enhance that and same thing for our our maintenance department we're working with an architect
216and and Engineers to be able to give us ideas but then we're taking the IDE that's provided and and looking to go in-house and install those around our school district there is a question slide uh oh I suppose it could apply here um so for like increased Revenue um alternative sources I had asked previously and an um if we have as like a revenue source of investment um you had mentioned that our money sits with the secret with this um state treasur but the money that sits in our bank um is there any um interest that we're earning on any of the funds that we have on hand um that could be you know Revenue to the district um with that interest earned president Anderson member Vice President Van Hook um we are statutorily obligated
217to maintain our funds at the County treasures office um the county treasur does appropriate um interest rates but it's a a minus School amount um and unfortunately we're at the mercy um at the county treasure and how they're statutorily obligated to invest um such funds um so it's not really an option that we have legally to take our money from the county treasure and invest it separately um that interest earnings is is a a very small portion of our total budget um I've highlighted that on a couple times but um I can certainly provide a report um via status of their interest earnings across all our funds um uh for this for this fiscal year but you'll find uh it may not amount up to a large sum of money where we can repurpose it
218back to maybe supplementing um programs that we expending from M or something like that so statutorily we're kind of restricted um and we do have an attorney here who can uh who is familiar with that but yeah that that is my interpretation on how um we are obligated to invest our funds so the so the money that so we have we have a bank account right for the district um so the money that's sitting in that bank account it's not it's not a type of account that could earn any type of Interest or that bank account is at the County treasures office we have a clearing account with Chase Bank okay that is swep that is swept monthly so it doesn't it doesn't accumulate any interest um and it's swept to the county treasure the
219county treasure then sits on our cash right as as property taxes are accumulated or um you know tax credit or auxiliary fees are collected that's the county treasure sits on that cash and then appropriates interest based on that cash balance um so in a sense that's our bank account um and again I can share that report but it's minuscule in the grand scheme of things um just because of the how statutes written and how they can statutorily invest those funds right no I I'd love to be able to see it um just to kind of get an idea of what it is that we're earning earning um based on the money that's allotted to the district um but thank you for explaining I do want to point out too like M any interest earned on
220on a budgetary fund with the exception of capital like M we can't capture that's just what you call dead cash so to speak um because ml is is a budgetary fund formula based by the state so whatever cash we accumulate in in the maintenance and operations um fund um we can really only use to um leveraging the property tax when we're when we're setting our tax rate we can use it to um lower our tax rate because we already have cash recruit or interest earnings um to offset any Levy that we need to for the next fiscal year so there there's a lot of restrictions in every single fund um but I'll do my best to highlight that in a kind of Interest report so I appreciate it thank you okay any other questions or
221comments before we move on thank you everyone for your presentations and your um pleora of information president Anderson I'd like for us to take some of this feedback and add it to our proposed document here and then we can share it with you at the next board meeting just before it's finalized because it's still in draft form and there's not tons of changes but I'd like that opportunity excellent idea thank you okay let's move on to our action items 7.1 I uh the approval of the superintendent contract and authorization of governing board to execute the superintendent contract is approved by the governing board are there any questions or comments before we move all right I motion that the governing board approve the superintendent contract and authorize the governing board to execute the superintendent contract as
222approved by the governing board second that's Amanda all those in favor I I motion carries three to [Applause] zero it's officially official it's officially official official thank you I appreciate it thank you okay 7.2 discussion and selection of board dates for the 2024 2025 school year there any comments or uh president Anderson I I personally obviously will make whatever work that we have to make work from my understanding for district cabinet members and overall to make these things a little bit easier Tuesday is the preferred because of other obligations that cabinet members have um I I again I personally these are so far in advance that I will obviously be able to make things work months out I just if the whole point is to make things a little bit easier in terms of functioning
223having cabinet members here is a priority um for some of these meetings and all that jazz uh so from my understanding that's why Tuesday was presented board member Wade that's correct um there were several times where there were conflicts with conferences or legislative discussions and members of cabinet would leave board meetings at night and drive four or five hours I don't want to point at Mr Moore but he's one of them so this happened to Miss Johnson too and it doesn't you know have to it doesn't have to change but we thought we would bring It Forward for your consideration um president Anderson um I I personally am concerned about having a meeting on Tuesday um part of the reason is just you know catching up from the weekends less time to prepare um you
224know and as far as even staff uh you know responsibilities and having materials rushed for um on Monday in order to get that posted and and for us to be ready um those of us who travel um if I'm typically especially if Monday is a holiday I'm not coming back till Tuesday um because I refuse to travel on a holiday um and so that would make it difficult for me um and I understand that um you know Tuesdays might be more convenient for cabinet um but you know for board meetings ultimately if board members are are there business can happen um and you know we can have board meetings have votes and and things could move on um so aside from dates are we also discussing times um because Vice President Van hook and president
225Anderson that's for you guys to discuss we didn't we didn't put that on there I believe we had put in a status report the feedback we had received that was usually the celebrations are between 5 and 6 and then families can leave and go to events or go to dinner that was the feedback we received and shared with you but we didn't put time changes on these proposals but that's up to you guys um my recommendation um also would be to to move the meetings to 6: p.m. um and the reason for that is um it allows us the ability to have dinner um you know I I typically end work about 4 you know anywhere between 4 and 4:30 um and literally I'm rushing to get here um and I'm lucky if I can
226you know stop and grab something from Starbucks or or you know whatever's convenient on the way here um and I I personally would prefer to be able to have dinner with my family um before uh attending a 5:00 meeting um so I don't know if I'd H I have to make a motion to uh add a time to the schedule because it wasn't added um ination has deter start time for meeting okay so it's on there okay um so so that would be my recommendation is I mean we're already here um you know meetings typically with after celebrations we typically start at 6 um so that would that would be my preference um what do you think um day of week at this point in my life um doesn't matter all um whatever the board
227votes um at this point I'm currently in a weird chapter of my life but um the time thing um listening to the public you know both sides I guess a couple people that spoke you know they they have personal reasons and I understand that we have public meetings publicly for the public to attend um so I want to make sure that that we have I do want to take into account cabinet as well because those are very very long days um for all all of you that attend um so I went I just did a little bit of research I looked at 11 school districts from Paradise Valley Fountain Hills Phoenix High School Scottdale tempy High School AJ tempy L Queen Creek Mesa Gilbert and Chandler and that's 11 school districts um so all but
228one school district um started at 6: p.m. or later um just just putting data out there um and then all of all of them seven out of the 11 had a work study so we're taking to account having dinner with family allowing um families to to have dinner with their families or take care of things and be able to come in um and then another concern brought up is the length of our board meetings um some people said two to three hours is long I I think two to three hours is sufficient for the fact that we only get to meet once or twice a month um I think it's absolutely necessary and and it's going to go long when we have a 45 minute celebration for our staff and students we absolutely want to
229take take the time um to fill it so two to three hours I think we we just we come to expect it yes in the past we've had some meetings go I think we had one what in five 10 minutes um but we're having more thorough discussions than I think it's absolutely necessary um I would I would like to see The Works a work study or study session be implemented and but I like the idea of the work study being one day and a board meeting being another day um which five of the 11 districts that I researched they actually do that so they they focus on and that's assuming that that's five of the 11 I'm sorry five of the seven have um work studies are able to get all their District business done
230in one day a month and then you know have the study session on the other day which I think would cut back on overall time spent in board meetings so that would be a recommendation that I would be open to it's not just having them on like start an hour and then have a meeting and have an hour study session have a meeting like break get up this days strictly for information and and just a shorter true Focus one to two-hour meeting if necessary and then we have a district business meeting another day so I I don't know if I gave any input I tried to provide data um but this is a tough decision to try to impact everybody that's involved in our board meetings uh president Anderson I think uh the work study
231is beneficial um ultimately the way I view the World As Time cost ratio so I look at the work study is still time and commitment here and we're still doing the same things if um I think there is a potential concern I recognize and see the benefit of multiple days um but the same issue that we already having with respect to getting everybody scheduled as far as the five individual board members not to mention the varying cabinet staff adding another day I think makes that very very difficult um in that like I have to get child care and those types of things potentially go ahead correct I'm sorry I just clarify it's not adding a dat we we currently have two days a month what we're doing but changing it to instead just two board
232meetings one of the days is work study or study session the other day is just a regular board meeting we currently go basically two times a month it's just one is work study the other is board me so to clarify on those workday then they wouldn't be action items if necessary but the whole sole purpose of it would be to do information items have all that discussed beforehand we take it to the board meeting after the fact I'm I'm potentially open to that and I I guess where I'm at is I struggle to see how that's really going to change a whole bunch of time from what we're currently doing um obviously I am more than willing to figure out how to make things a little bit more efficient for us um with respect to
233some of those times I think it is important um to keep in mind a potential time change um in that we have already talked about if we're having an unwillingness to Move It from Wednesday to Tuesday we are then asking some of our cabinet members to after a day of work that they are contractually obligated to be here an extended meeting that they're contractually obligated to be here and then potential travel after that to other things that they are contractually obligated to do that is a lot of of requirement for an hour of time and I get that for us we look at it as an hour of time is not that big of a deal but if it's putting them driving at 1:00 a. 2 am kind of deal this then becomes potentially problematic
234because as it stands now we usually leave about 8:30 when we start because I think it's important to do the you know hickley adventures and all those recognitions that is putting it again even later and potential risks and I don't mean this in a um callous fashion but liabilities to uh you know accidents and vehicular uh incidents because we have strained staff members um and I just would like to keep those things in mind as we you know finagle I recognize that there are some community members who like the six o' because of work and all of those things and I do think that matters these are also years out right so you know what the dates are ahead of time and some of those kinds of changes and so I think think pushing it
235back to six while also keeping the you know higgle Adventures type of deal I think could be potentially asking for a a greater difficulty on staff because cabinet I I do think obviously we can't have a board meeting if not all board members are here but we also can't have a board meeting if we're not being presented the information that we supposed to be presented and I think that matters because if a Cabinet member cannot be here for something um um I mean that that impacts us so as far as if we're looking at changing the time to six then I would respectfully request that we at least then look at cabinet suggestion of moving it to Tuesday because it seems as if the Wednesday time frame is the biggest strain and we're already then
236putting that that strain a little bit more to Cabinet specific by another hour if we're not changing the day sure and I would love to also excuse I think we already don't require Administration to be at board meting meetings correct which is thank you for those attending today but I want to make sure that um if they don't need to be here they don't need to be here and I understand that sometimes questions arise and it's okay to say we will address that at a later date help me to understand your mind though whenever you said driving at one or two in the when would they be driving at 1 or two in the morning well so one of the things that it was requested or put forward to us on Tuesday is because we
237have some things that uh cabinet members have to attend so for example I'm going to call out Tyler we had a board meeting I don't remember what month I'm sure you do uh in which we didn't end till about like 8:45 and he had to drive four hours because he was speaking at a conference the very next day um and he had to present the budget to us so he literally left this meeting to get in his car to drive uh and from my understanding this is something that happens not necessarily for Tyler frequently but for cabinet members because of the Wednesday and when other types of obligations are and that's why when we were given the dates Tuesday was uh a request from the cabinet essentially because of these other obligations that we like
238for PD or other things that they have to do and the timelines of when those are and so there have been a number of instances in which after our board meetings certain cabinet members had to go fulfill other obligations you called into one Mr Mo was that not ideal I was okay I'll answer that's not ideal but um um how often have you had to to do that um where you had to be here to give a budget presentation but then leave and have a significant drive back I don't want to make this all about me because that is not the intention of this I know um I mean that was one instance there's been several conferences where I haven't been able to attend or I've had to defer and come at a later date
239and so I've missed you know professional develop we've talked about professional development a cabinets involved in a number of different associations I sit on an executive board for the Arizona School business officials I'm involved in legislation talks and also being on the executive board I have obligations to keep that Association um running right I mean and you all know you sit on a board too so I think a lot of cabinet members also are involved in different associations whether it be the IDE SP you know Jessica's and you know public information Association so um not only do we want a prioritize PD for all staff right I think we were just trying to create some opportunity for us to attend um some of these PD sessions as well ultimately we're going to go with the
240board's decision but and and I can call in right that is an option um but you know some of those conversations are better held in person and um I hate to say this but like sometimes our technology isn't always working appropriately and you know our some of my deadlines are statutorily and so um even I know the deadline sometimes the forms are not out from the auditor general and and those you know stack up to maybe everything on one date and which I can't change so um it's just my two sents but I know Sher and maybe other cabinet members have can speak to their obligations to or associations that they're involved in but and we can hopefully a there's a lot of things that are we are held to time frames where we have
241to have them on board meetings and there's other things that if need to be we could push them um out like when we ask for things it doesn't have to be the next board meeting of course but it's going back to miss van Hook's concern about Tuesdays and being able to review the agenda thoroughly um we would be able to adjust our process um we'd have to push it back and I you know Chris Miss Zimmerman would have to speak on this um is that even an option because that was a tough topic before of trying to push it the other direction to to meet the time frame for review um so I don't know just being able to get the agenda um a week prior or now we're getting it on Thursday then it
242would have to move to Wednesday um and yeah so a lot of dates are going to have to play if we're moving that those dates but also when there are holiday weekends um you know even like going out of town for instance if we're getting you know an agenda or whatever and on Thursday and then we're going out of town and coming back on a Tuesday like there's just a lot in play for um for and I can only speak for myself for me as a board member um the middle of the week works best cuz then it doesn't interact with you know being at of town whether you leave out of town on Thursdays come back on a Monday or Tuesday those other days kind of play into um travel if if people are
243traveling um I mean we've seen it with our you know during the superintendent interview process like people were traveling and just um you know different days weren't working working um and then also um making sure that we never have a 10: a.m. meeting um again because those like me uh I work and I took the day off today without pay um to be here so um we need to ensure that our our meetings are held on a day that you know falls on a day and a time where most board members can attend and business can um Can Happen um and I I understand that there are obligations um you know for others you guys serve on boards you have other other meetings um but the primary the primary role um is your employment here
244as you know for since all you know Tyler you your employment is here and you being on a board is is something that you decided to take on um so that's a decision that you can either call in if you're not able to be here um or you know determine what whatever the priority is but us board members are the ones that have to be here um in order for for board meeting to occur um so [Music] um president Anderson I uh I think we're losing sight of what the intent of board meetings are in general um and that intent is to best serve the district as a whole um and so I think it is important to keep in mind what our focus is and and yes while we are important as board members
245to facilitate that specific thing our job and responsibility here is to do what is best for the district overall um and it is definitely beneficial for us as a district to have staff members continue to improve themselves and be the best possible staff uh that they can be just as much as uh you know we have staff members who have either volunteered to be a part of things some of these are contractual obligations you have to be a part of certain uh PDS or certain aspects in order to uh fulfill some of your your requirements as a staff member here we also volunteered for this position uh when we chose to run for a board and so again I think that is important to keep in mind the overarching for all of us involved is
246what's best for district yes to both of you we need to we definitely need to find the medium between um community and and um staff and board um again I I I don't care what day it's on right now it it doesn't it doesn't affect me um Miss W Mrs Wy said doesn't affect you either if if we are able to move it to Tuesday and we can get confirmation that I it is possible to shift how we receive information and when we receive information so that when we come to the meeting we are better you know prepared then um I don't see a problem with it but I I don't want to I don't want to speak for other people it's it's unfortunate there's three of us because I would really love to have
247other two input other the other two individuals input um attendance is huge um and like I said when we choose to be on the board um we need to also keep in mind the attendance of our board members so that we can have a a full house um to have a discussion with on our limited time together um are there any motions anybody wants to put I I don't something else I was going to say is at the benefit is we get to decide whether we do Tuesday or Wednesday these are out for the year whereas there are other things or other obligations of you know cabinet members I.E the the superintendent search those types of things that are not anticipated or not known ahead of time so I I think it is important for
248accountability of all of us here as board members in that we are vitally important in order to engage in this process and I'm not negating that we chose to do this specific role understanding what obligations were and the benefit is us getting this out ahead of time so for example and you've been on the board for longer than I have but over the course of the last year when my husband and I talked about vacation we looked at what board meetings were to ensure where we at the reason I missed one last year is because I had scheduled that vacation with the intent of not being on the board um so I I think there are some things to keep in mind in that our position is a little bit more flexible in that we
249know these things this won't again there are unforeseen circumstances like the superintendent but like there should be accountability to us and that we chose what this position was we chose to volunteer knowing what this is and we are given that ahead of time whether that's Tuesday or Wednesday is irrelevant my point is we know what those dates are and so it is up to us and we agreed to making that work um president Anderson um I move to um approve um the calendar for uh board meetings on Wednesdays at 6 PM I do want to note there's one board meeting that's on Tuesday the 15th that's bolded uh that's because we have a statutory obligation on the 15th to approve the annual financial report and the way our fall break lands we it you can't
250be can't be done prior to that um for for which date October 15th um so can we have a meeting on the 9th that's fall break oh it is fall break sorry the two yeah um so with the exception so I can um so with the exception of October 15th so I move to approve um the calendar for Wednesdays at 6: pm. with the exception of October 15th being on Tuesday at 6: p.m. trying to write down do we have a second okay um I'm I'm not going to Second this one because um I I do want to try to maintain or or do the Tuesday to honor if that helps to have more of an aligned um schedule for our staff to attend but I do I would like to um entertain the idea
251of moving it to 6: pm and do a Tuesday with at 6 with the work study one day and the um board meeting the other day um so with that motion I guess it's a failed motion um then I'll bring up my motion my motion that we we have our board meetings move our board meetings to Tuesdays beginning at 6 pm. designating on the two days a month that we have board meetings one be a study session and one being a regular meeting so it's better to have admin here versus board members being able to attend meetings that makes a lot of sense oh well I apologize then I misunderstood that you you would not be able to make to Tuesdays I thought you it's very difficult for me to make Tuesdays versus Wednesdays is
252what I'm saying so gotcha I'm I'm sorry I misunderstood that it was the timing of the agenda not the um attendance I apologize for that I missed I for clarification I was under the impression that Tuesdays were not desirable because it gave you less time to look at the agenda not a a ability to be present I happen to travel often and so for me Tuesdays are difficult for me to be here um so if it's more important to to not have board members here sure we can move it to Tuesdays um but that is a problem because of the fact that I travel often and I typically will go either you know Tuesday is when I come back um most of my travel is typically Tuesday um and I you know work remotely so
253sometimes I'll if I'm traveling I'll work remote and I'll wait till I'm done with work before I travel so that I don't have to take time off in order to travel um but I president Anderson and Vice President Van Hook while I respect that you travel we also have two other board me board members who also had to leave today for travel I think it is important to understand that there are more involved than just the three individuals here um when it comes to having needs beyond the board um there are also two board members that aren't here whose terms are ending so Technic Ally them having to vote on something for future board meetings that they might not be a part of is a concern for me as well so um I don't know
254okay with my motion not being seconded I assume then I will second the Tuesdays at 6 in terms of accommodating one or the other kind of deal so the this 6 PM being a change and the Tuesday being a change I'll second that and we can vote and then move on from either doing a new motion or something else uh I don't know what to do at this point because I've motioned and it's been second in but is it too late to say can we table it until we have five board members or do we need to get this done today I don't know we have three board members here to make a vote and to have to table it for we have a quorum we should be able to vote and it's frustrating for
255me when we have these meetings and we want to table it because there's board members missing um we have a quorum we should be able to make a vote so if you made a motion it was seconded let's vote okay president Anderson can I clarify something with um Miss Zimmer did you avoid on the Tuesday proposed meeting scheduled did you avoid Monday holidays there are no board meetings following following a Monday holiday on the Tuesday schedule so that might be helpful information maybe not but it was hard to necessarily see it all on you know this calendar so president Anderson cabinet will respect whatever decision you guys make the only concern is there's one more meeting before July so you know and we're sorry this is so late it's just been a very interesting year
256right so we support whatever you guys decide thankful thank you for being thoughtful around the holidays and and clarifying that um with a mo motioned and seconded all those in favor I I all those against motion carries nope yes majority two to one just a second to record this okay moving on to 7.3 discussion in possible action to submit policy priorities for inclusion in the Arizona Schoolboard Association uh 2025 political agenda um thank you for Miss Zimmerman and Miss Richards for making sure that this got out way in advance um this is um a lot and I I I sweat and I sweated going through it how we would possibly get this down to five bullets um I I did end up calling um the rep I forget his last name the representative from asba
257Chris I don't remember cman is it cman okay God bless you and and I because I asked him I said you know we've done this for years but I've never been certain so I just want to make sure I'm going say that what's expected is it's not necessarily the headings that we're focusing on although we can but it's all the bullets and trying to get it down to five we can't have more than five they just said five was ideal um so I will open it up to anybody that and I'm going to do my best to take notes on which items actually I have a second printed version um of what you would like to bring forward does anybody want to go first clarification um I thought we were doing the overarching categories that
258was the that was the email that was sent out was the overarching categories with potential top choices in that or did I misunderstand board member Wade sorry if that was confusing I called Julie bacon with asba and said can you help us navigate this she said some districts pick five out of the seven colored categories and submit that um is it cman I've lost my mind yes he got on the phone and he said that's acceptable but it's helpful if you pick bullets because they're more specific so and then I think we put pick five categories and one bullet I we we support whatever you guys decide so either way and and with the um you we can actually uh submit other things that we think we would like for them to focus on as
259well or change wording of or delete or ask to delete I I would if it I don't know if it pleases the board I think that we should look at identifying those overarching categories and then maybe to plus or minus uh you know of like the best bullet points for our our district specific in terms of you know time and the like considering it is 215 it's interesting because you say that in my circled bullet points although I didn't get to five fall under just five of the the tabs yes I mean so if we want to miss V hook do you do you want to follow kind of that lead or would you like to address specific or will will we will address specific bullets but um uh president Anderson what were your five
260categories oh my five oh thank you my five categories were improve outcomes for all students which is the green one the next one um would be the orange School Safety and Security the next one is the other orange adequately and equitably fund district schools and then and then the last is blue preserve and strengthen local control one two three four that's four that's four oops one two oh you're right oh I because I had one to add under red require public accountability for taxpayer dollars uh given our district I I had the same five in that I mean Rural and remote schools aren't necessarily our biggest Focus um if board member Van Hook those five overarching categories is that is that including things that you already were leaning towards or is that not including the
261categories you were after um I wrote down things that um about each section um that I would like to take the opportunity to um to read um I didn't necessarily highlight specific items um under each category um I mean there's obviously student safety is a top priority for me um [Applause] but I wouldn't select any of the bullet points that they have under here um other than that um obviously improving um outcomes for students um but again I think their bullet points are garbage [Music] um were there any that you wanted to add for for the tabs that we can um change I mean for school safety uh I mean it's it's an item that is um on our um that's supposed that's going to be on our you know Bond and override election um
262but we're only allocating $2 million to um to safety I would I would like to be able to see more money go to that um yes but I I don't necessarily um I I didn't select any of their bullets so I don't know how I would uh reward it but you know change I don't know I don't know how I'd reward it I didn't I didn't follow the the instructions that we got later uh president Anderson I I would like to suggest that maybe that we just do those five tabs the one thing I would like to say for a a potential bullet point that I think avoids uh what I hope would be potential issues that any board member might have because I think this would be beneficial to us specifically um is actually
263two bullet points I think they happen to be in impr wait no I lied uh they happen to be in adequately inade equably fund district schools the first point um but there things specific to us the first is provide full-time K through 12 funding or uh kindergarten funding so if you look on the left hand column the uh second Bullet From The Bottom says fully fund full day kindergarten including kindergarten students in override calculations we've talked about in in budgeting how that's not included and we provide it's full day Kinder I don't do we have half day Kinder yeah it's I thought okay um it's full day so we actually we are paying for something that we're not getting money for and I think most places overall have kind of progressed towards full day kindergarten
264but as we all know Arizona's laws for Education are are I won't say ancient because they're the decade of my birth but um they're old and outdated um and so I I think that is a real beneficial hope for our district if we could get the funding also including those students in the override calculations when we talk about that because it's money that we're spending that we're not really getting getting in for you know um and then the second one because mostly that way Tyler can stop having to talk about it the repeal the Constitutional a considering the fact that every year we're beholden to the state legislature on whether or not they will or will not do the override I think I think those avoid anything other than those are just straight benefits to
265how we can function in terms of financing our our district here okay um I think it'd be good to stick to the tabs um the five tabs unless you don't agree with and you want to make any recommendations I don't I I mean there's a lot of things that I don't agree with what they're doing and um I mean this whole this whole document shows the true nonpartisanship of Asa and I you know in one point they push for local control and then in another point e e thank you sorry I totally forgot um so yes I don't I don't like the fact that um this entire political agenda is very one-sided um that completely shows their um the fact that they're not very nonpartisan so I can suggest things but I don't know if
266you know I guess I could suggest it and see if you guys agree um but I wasn't prepared I did I didn't follow the instructions that we got later I thought we were going to discuss each category and I was going to explain what my concerns were and and go from there so um as far as adding items is it possible to to put on there like we would like for them to advocate for or find a way for there to be interest bearing investments in I think that is one of the ones or something similar That's The Preserve and strengthen local control I think it was in there the third bullet point says allow school districts full flexibility in the divesture or use of taxpayer wait nope I lied not that one um but
267specific to that you know you know what I mean like I don't know if if that's is that too big of something is that even something to attack I know that's a huge breakup of the system of how it is and then if that if we want to add some language to support that something they can work on and or or also um it would be nice if public a public service like this where we're volunteering time so many hours and having to misw workk if um like jobs this is big and I just call me silly I don't care um treat it kind of not like jury duty but where jobs canot can exempt the absences for the time that they spend at board meetings something to that effect um you take into account
268that this is four years and just even the minimal time that we have on our calendar is is and that was not even close and we may have doubled it this year um and so it would I think that'd be something to step outside the box and look into to support these people and might even get more people to run so we're just not stuck with a smaller ticket and and other people have that opportunity obviously president Anderson I uh you know agree with you um in those types of things I think there were some things to at least hopefully encourage more people to do I.E you're trying to get signatures one of the options is like an electronic thing uh I say this with love as a longtime government teacher these are these are
269lofty goals um most of these things aren't going to come to fruition I think what ends up happening is you collaborate and you collect what do you think are our biggest bang for our buck kind of deal based off needs um it's also difficult given that you know you have your rule versus urban districts and the needs of them and how they vary uh I think I think those things matter I I think um two of those things the the stuff that's specific to board members um while I obviously personally would agree with that that is going to be very low in terms of this is benefiting students or schools overall whereas that just benefits us don't volunteer will be the answer that we get from that as far as the divesture with respect to
270the uh treasury obviously I'm not involved in finance and I definitely know absolutely nothing about Financial law and all of those things uh what I do understand sometimes with government funds is I may pay person a with person B's money knowing that money will come in and I can just transfer around and so I think that's part of the reason why the state keeps it and they don't give us that option because then they can move it where it needs as they need it because it's kind of a rolling thing with respect to property tax and the like yeah so I I think I think those things are are fine and I don't necessarily feel like we have to do specific points if we don't um I I understand and respect Miss man Hook's you
271know resistance to a large portion of this considering where she feels uh on a lot of these things I don't know how much time you want to give to trying to create verbage around something that a we're not necessarily that knowledgeable in or be is is very very far in the future kind of in terms of goals for that you know what I mean like I don't think the state treasurer is going to be something that's going to be anytime soon kind of deal um so I just don't know how much time you want to give to that sure Fair points um I just want to get the ball rolling if you never put it out there then there's absolutely going to be no opportunity for change um and I I see your point regarding
272like this is more supposed to be more for the students and the districts um but they do are have like you stated that one bullet for the signatures so yeah it's it's it's personal to board members at that point in time and and I don't think there needs to be any um time spent on the language I think I think we just put it out there these are just topics you guys we're paying you we're supporting you they may be like you know and just toss it but if not they're like hey we never thought about that let's let's see if we can organize some some language or or even even effort around it that's all that's so do you want to do you just want to additions nothing Chang from what we have what
273I'm saying is do you maybe want to make a motion to do those Five Points because at least two of us agree in order for for quorum to to move on from that because I don't we're not they're going to do this regardless because this is the purpose of the asba in terms of like their overall goals and all of that um I still would like to include in that motion those two points specific the the funding of of kindergarten because we lose funds in that context and I'm sick of talking about the a with respect to the state that thing needs to change um and then including the two that you talked about in terms of I don't know how to word that but you know that that can be your job as the
274president when you send that off to miss Zimmerman challenge accepted um I I know how I would word that CU I know how it is to um not be owed to to take today as a civic duty day um so I I would like to include um to allow uh Schoolboard members [Music] um to uh be able to have a civic duty day and have that count as a whether it's you know same day as voting or whatever and um so yeah thank you thank you for that you want make that uh what was the other one um the addition one something to the effect of um your concern about interest bearing Investments that there's a way that we can make that happen through the banking or or that may just be too big of
275a a thing to to attack I didn't know I I don't think that's going to with the way the state has to function just because of the way they're going to get it I don't I don't Envision that ever being on T Tyler's like please don't throw it out there for All We Care okay if if we're not ready to word that if that makes no sense then let's not do it I was just trying to find a way to to advocate for another way to bring in money through your I don't know I I my understanding is there's other school board school districts that do invest their money so I don't I don't know how some schools some districts can do it and some public school districts cannot legally Charters I think might have
276different opportunities because again most of these laws were written pre the existence of them but Public Schools that's the state law what law is that I would ask St I don't have the RS number but I was just talking to our attorney like we are not aware of school districts Public School District Charters are I don't think have the same statutory um obligation as public school districts um so they may have the authority to invest their funds um but we do not so the only other thing Vice President Van Hook is at Scotts unified when I worked there we had a self-insurance trust board where we invested um uh self-insurance trust funds um in a in a investment pool but that was was um a separate trust board that was created from um the Higley
277it would be like the higgle board creating authorizing a self-insurance trust board um it gets into a we're not there yet I wouldn't recommend going that route yet um but that's the only fund that would be eligible okay so just leave it off for now since we're that that recommendation for them to prioritize yeah I wouldn't president Anderson one thing I will say is on the the red section that require public accountability the first tab talks about establish financial and academic transparency for all institutions and individuals that accept public funds which includes Charter Schools the idea if we actually let's pretend that that world exists in which charter schools now are beholden to the same things that public schools have been beholden to for a while because they get public funds that could then potentially
278start to change some of that because they already are engaging some of those things so it would create a necessity to have to answer that question of either yes there is hope because they're doing it and they're going to continue to allow them then we also can piggy back off of that or they're going to have to end that because they don't allow us to if we require charter schools to be beholden to the same Finance laws that we are because right now they aren't which the other for the which ones are we wanting to put forward just the tabs is that what you're asking so we're just doing tabs we're just going to do tabs and and then reinforce um the bull bullets underneath the five tabs so the five tabs were was the
279green one improve outcomes for all students the red one next to it require public accountability the orange one below that School Safety and Security on the back page the last two the orange and the blue what is it uh just those last two both of them yeah that would make five and then um enforce specific bullets am I saying this as correctly missu is that what you're wanting to say underneath these so um if we're going to do bullets I for the green one improve outcomes for all students I like to fully restore the 9th and 13th grade CTE T equitability and funding and you had that's the the AO and the full day Kinder it's on the other side thank you I know but you can keep that so then you can well if
280to um what is the word I'm looking for I use the word enforce um showas that one those are the ones we're emphasizing I guess underneath those tabs so underneath did we have one underneath the green one oh yeah fully restore I mean fully restore the nth and 13th grade ctec T equitability and funding to increase access to workbase learning and expand wind of opportunity first and third for you no I just read the third bullet attendance age you want that one she was just saying the n the CTE want I I didn't read that one that one wasn't oh okay um can you explain bullet one to me so what what are they trying to do here no the attendance age increase the compulsory attendance attendance age from 16 to 18 years is that
281what they yeah Miss Richards does that can you explain to us exactly what that what they're asking for I can I can address that one if you'd like oh um currently there's State Statute that requires compulsory attendance in Arizona from age 6 to 16 and what they're asking for is to make it mandatory for students to go to school until 18 so treny laws for example often times as a high school teacher uh senior students are like I'm done with this because I know my life and there is no truancy laws to hold them here um because it caps at 16 so if they're over the age of 16 and they decide to drop out there's not a whole lot legally that keeps them there this would change that until the age of 18 um
282while miss van Hook's reading through were there any other bulleted points that you wanted to stress uh this is this is uh look if we're going to talk about it require public accountability for taxpayer dollars spent on education bullet too repeal any programs that give public funds for private school vouchers uh that hurts our attendance a lot more than competing with Charter Schools does um so yes I personally wouldn't support that um because I've I've seen so many of students leave um public schools and go to a charter or private school and and be so successful it worked for them um I mean it's not a bullet point that I would want to bring forward and stress that is totally fine to be clear the only bullet bullet points I really think and suggested for
283today we can include the CTE one uh were the two that were financially beneficial to our district and in my opinion I don't really see anybody being opposed to those given how it is just a direct Financial benefit uh I it would be my recommendation that we do the five overarching categories the few bullet points that we have just suggested the the creation of the other one that was mentioned and then you know move on the last bullet there support policy that encour encourages eligible voters to exercise their right to participate in elections what is that what in the world does that mean I believe that's what we would call berries and rainbows and the idea of yes you would like 100% voter participation like I don't I find that to be a a I
284don't know what that would mean or what that would look like in practice I agree with you and I don't I don't understand the whole um thing with the the esa like um I I don't understand the why people feel so threatened if we have if we have competition it forces us to do better just like any other business so um president Anderson and and Vice President Van Hook if it is uh agreeable I I would like to make the motion so we can do what we've discussed so far I I don't think with amongst the three of us especially trying to deal with some of these other bullet points we're going to make a lot of uh gains um just because we are there are only three of us and the the wide scope
285of our our beliefs and understandings as well as some of the bullet points are vague in nature and make it uh difficult now how mandatory is it that we even select these can we just say we don't we don't want to participate vice president Ben it's totally your choice and yeah we're just seeking they're just seeking input as they go from all districts it's absolutely not required that we submit but if we would if we're showing that we support you know whenever at the delegate assembly that they would bring that forward I believe the last one I went to um of the votes like like what the school districts across the state were supporting what they were trying to emphasize is important and then they use that further uh and I very much president Anderson
286uh would like to uh because I do think some of the things that least that are there deserve our input and again also stand to directly benefit our district a lot if some of these things could be uh even close to accomplish or at least continue to get there and and I think that's why we were Our intention was to get it down to bullet points and not just labels because there bullet points I support and there's bullet points I don't support and then when we just pick a label it it makes it seem like we support every single thing down the row um but and I absolutely do not there's a lot that I don't support under each category um so um yeah I don't know yeah put motion on the table right uh
287you're going to have to help me with the language because I've not done one of these usually let others uh I motion that we uh where is this one thank you I motion uh that the governing board approve these priorities submit uh to asba by June 10th and that the governing oh we haven't done that one um the submission of the priorities are the five points that we highlighted um do I need to read those out or can I just say the Five Points that we discussed um including the the two bullet points under adequately and adequately uh equitably fund that would be the repeal the A and the funding full day Kinder including the bullet point under improve outcomes for all students the uh fully restored 9th and 13th CTE CU I think that's
288great um and then including the the civic duty one thank you I completely was spacing out on what that is um so I don't know what category that civic duty one would be in however we would submit that but that is uh what I motion yeah all right second all those in favor I I all those against nay motion carries 2 to one um I didn't Mr I didn't say that over the mic did you get it when I motioned and I seconded and said that okay oh do you want me to submit it or do you want you want to volunteer to do for theate this is not for the delegate that's submitting this I'm if you're cool with it you I'll absolutely do it so with Michelle Anderson filing the submission online to
289add to the okay I motion that uh board president Michelle Anderson be the one to submit you want her to do you want her to re restate the whole motion okay okay just making sure second all those in favor I oh I three for you to submit I but not the original motion gotcha you almost got me on that one all right that Amendment to the motion carries three to 3 to zero holy moly all right moving on to 7.4 consideration a possible action to appoint a delegate to serve at the Arizona School boards Association delegate assembly um I motion to appoint um Anna Van Hook to represent Higley Unified School District as a delegate to the Arizona school boards Association delegate assembly to be held on September 7th 2024 and for Amanda to serve
290Mrs wayy to serve as the delegate I'm sorry the alternate delegate second any questions or comments throw you there in there I the only thing I would ask is board member or Vice President Van Hook if you don't agree with any of the things that the asba is trying for I I don't really understand your desire to go and participate if um because the desire is to disrupt what ultimately individuals are trying to do to better education um so I I I I'm not supportive of that in that I would rather go myself um but you know um I think that it's good for them to have a different Viewpoint um so um um that's why I would like to attend um because I think if if this is truly about um our schools and
291nonpartisanship I think the different viewpoints are important uh board member Van Hook I agree with you that different uh opinions are important and that's part of the lobbying process the whole point of this though is to have people who are there representing that specific issue so your desires your beliefs and those types of things are absolutely represented in terms of how the lobbying process works when it comes to legislation these are individuals who are working forth and what is best planned to lobby for that so I I I don't necessarily agree that the way you're viewing this is what is in the best interest of what the asb's ultimate goal is also uh president Anderson from my understanding we nominate one and the other is an alternate you still attend okay then sure yeah gladly
292president Anderson I move the question I'm sorry what just you made a motion you made the motion it was seconded I moved the question to vote okay all those in favor I I motion carries three to one or three to zero thank you m 7.5 approv approv of the Higley governing board override argument um did do you all have that in front of you so after comparing this to the previous ones um I felt like it it was similar enough and to the times and the moment that we are in the only thing is um under the second paragraph it says first sentence this proposal is not a tax I'm sorry second sentence is not a tax increase it is an extension of the voter approved 2019 maintenance and operations funding for special education teacher
293compensation and essential essential what nice and is that there's a word missing I would assume um and if we're hitting a 200w limit second paragraph second sentence can we mention in there that it is a tax extension it it is an extension yes it does yes are there any other comments or or any feedback anyone would like to give regarding this statement president Anders I'mma defer to miss Batista she has an Alterna of word to plug in there as you as I've stated I think in the board agenda this has to be limited to 200 words and this is exactly 200 words so um obviously I was really focused on getting that word no um I do need to look in my documents real quick so I just need a minute was there any input
294by the from the board in the meantime Sor try to put and Mr Batista I apologize for not catching this sooner I literally caught it today even though I've had it in my hand um so I apologize for putting you on the spot can I make a recommendation on that last paragraph um where it says husd is nationally recognized for our fiscal resp we could just strike R love it and and then on the back end of a central and then a Central Services programs programs what it was um it aligns with the priorities done in the survey maintain our word count I motion to consider discuss amend if desired and if deemed advisable to adopt a res am on the right one yeah adopt a resolution approving the governing board's argument in support of
295the special maintenance and operation budget override election second all those in favor I I all those opposed um since I've voted no on everything else related to the bond I'm just going to go with that you oppose or Bond override so an oppos no no let's make sure okay motion carries two to one moving on to 7.6 approval of fiscal year 2025 proposed budget are there any questions comments discussion on the table I motion that the governing board approve the proposed expenditure budget for fiscal year 2024 2025 as presented second all those in favor I I I motion carries three to zero 7.7 approval of participation in simulated instruction in mathematics with advancing evidence improving lives Mo it's open for discussion questions comments um yes I do 7.7 um I'm just going to read my
296statement um regarding this simulated instruction I'm worried about the reasons um for data for collecting data in an educational setting the approval letter from the review board for the simulation study says that both teachers and students student data will be collected even though a letter the letter says the risks are minimal and privacy measures are in place the opt out consent process for parents is a cause of cause for concern this means student data um could be collected without parents parents explicit permission which raises serious privacy concerns although the program is supposed to be for teachers and use assimilated computer students the IRB letter is unclear about whether actual student data might be collected even the slightest possibility of student data being collected highlights the need for strict boundaries and transparency parents should shouldn't have
297to opt out to protect their child's um data privacy collecting extensive data from teachers um from teachers is also alarming while the goal goal is to improve professional development this could lead to invasive monitoring and data mining of Educators as well the de focus of air combined with extensive data collection might result in personal and professional data being used in ways that could negatively impact teachers careers and privacy the irb's approval for waving or altering consent for student data collection is also concerning the idea aidea that the research can't proceed without these waivers suggest a lack of full transparency and informed consent this undermines the rights of students and parents who should have a final say in whether their data is collected and how it um it is used the risk um of misuse or
298unintended consequences of this data collection is High um especially given the sensitivity of student and teacher data um so uh with that um I I don't support anything um that collects data on our students and staff and how it's used and how the data sold um is um definitely a concern for me um Miss Richard as I when I read through the um the attachment I believe it's the overview possible the third attachment at the bottom it on the very last page it has the appendix a information requested from District Administrative records um is that the information that they'll be is that the student data list right there so I'm gonna have Dr Lindsay address that because she's been working with Mary Davis on this I will state that our coach tried to ask a
299which districts had participated and they said they weren't allowed to even share that so there are big Broad safeguards in place plus exclusive parent notification permission or opt out but thank you Mrs Richards I'm not sure if this answers the specific question but I want to point out um our governing board policy LC is relations with education research agencies which provides authorizations for the district to cooperate with college universities and other recognized research agencies and promoting um potentially useful research and when air approached um our district about this opportunity um the team spent multiple meetings with air talking about the benefits for Teacher professional development and we reviewed all of the systems that they have in place um to um protect our students and our staff and we compared that with um all the expectations
300guidelines that are outlined in our governing board policy and reviewed the documentation and also have um created our own um information to send home with our families so they know what the um involvement of this study would look like in terms of the students um and the benefits that it has potentially has for our teachers in their professional learning so with all of that um those conversations and those meetings in comparison with our current policy um I feel like this is a really great opportunity for the district and for our our teachers and so that's why we're bringing it forth and um with the policy we feel um what we're asking for the board to approve today is for compensation for our teachers and our coaches that are voluntarily participating in this study because air
301um has compensation available to participants um and it's been a my understanding it's been a best practice within our district to get board approval that they are able to be compensated by this research firm on page six it says the study team will protect the identity of individuals from whom we collect data for the study and will use them for research purposes only school teacher and student names will not be linked to the data collected and the data will be kept confidential administrative records survey data interview data and coding from video observations will be stripped of any names or District IDs um is that is that helpful anyway or um but but they are also third party company who is getting that data um so they get the names but then they strip it so
302how is that [Music] not how is that not a privacy violation when they as a third party company are receiving um student names um Vice President Van Hook we are stripping that information prior to giving it to them and I'm going to turn it over to Mr birkshire to provide more information so I had an opportunity when we were beginning to explore this to look at uh not only the information in terms of data sharing that they provided but also look at the actual grant that this is a US Department of Education grant that they are that they are working with um so there are some certain requirements related to how they're using this information uh one of those is that they can't monetize it um their their their research will be presented an aggregate
303for districts and schools to use um based on what they find out and terms of the district information that's being shared uh that from my understanding we will submit a data file but it will instead of presenting student names it would be non-identifiable numbers basically so a a student would be assigned a random number and the personal identifiable information that's included is all demographic information that is already currently available um based on on our our student handbook and and policies so instead of getting a student name they get a student they get a number they get a number a random number and that number can't be tracked back to the student correct okay Vice President Van Hook I don't know if you guys got a copy of the um document here but it goes into
304data breach response plan you have that right so I think it's it's helpful how they're because they are a federal contractor they're reviewed and they have to take all steps to avoid a data breach so and they're they're a company that we've worked with in the past and they're very highly respected and regarded they're not fly by not you know I mean my fear is we have I've seen data breaches um of you know State agencies um yeah and so uh it still concerns me um just anytime where there's um any type of data mining um and data sharing um it's it's definitely a concern for me but I appreciate the explanation thank you any other discussion okay I motion that the governing board approve fourth and fifth grade math teachers and coaches to receive
305compensation from Air for their work and the Sim with the S PD second all those in favor I I all those oppos sorry I just oop sorry I just have one question so this isn't to so you guys are already using this no no we had we've had informational meetings about it and we've provided teachers an opportunity to um indicate if they're interested in participating so the next step is um to set up the PD for next year and um as outlined in what we put in status just the timeline it's a two-year program so some teachers would be chosen to participate in a year one others may be participate May chosen to be participated in a year or two okay so we're not voting on on the actual use of it we're voting if
306teachers should be paid to use it if they can be compensated by the research firm for their participation got it teachers and coaches okay um I'm so torn obvious I want them to be paid for their time but I don't like the idea of even using them um so and the board doesn't get to vote whether we use them or not I would just refer back to the policy I'll see and because that's what we utilized anytime that we're approached with potential research or request for research which we do from time to time for um doctoral dissertations and you know other projects um districts have the policy LC in place so we can vet those projects and and make sure everyone is protected and IRB is um a pretty rigorous process um to ensure that
307all of those measures have been taken and as I shared with our review of uh the documentation that AI are presented to us we feel comfortable and I feel like this is a great opportunity for our students and of course parents have the opportunity to opt out and we'll clearly um and we have draft communication that we would share at the beginning of the school year with um those particular teachers um classes that have been selected to participate so they have the opportunity to learn about what's taking place and then opt out if they don't want their child to be recorded or any of their information um to be utilized sure okay so with that I'll vote yes thank you motion carries three to zero thank you for for the questions and the explanations um
308moving on to 7.8 ratify payroll and expense voucher 1111101 discussion questions or comments um I had asked um for this to be pulled because I wasn't sure who was purchasing seeing these books again and I noticed that three of the books were the um the ones that um the grandfather at the last board meeting spoke about um and it was um it was explained that uh they were purchased um for the committee to review um so now that I know why it was purchased um I'll um M to vote on it thank you for explaining that I motion that the governing or was there any questions okay I motion that the governing board ratifies the payroll and expense voucher 1101 second all those in favor I I I motion carries three to zero for uh
309future agenda items um we've we talked about having a status or an information item regarding the Mastery versus projected based learning um what that would look like I believe um and then there was talk about the Danielson demo um in the mentorship program I would love to oh okay I was GNA say to be clear I'm totally fine with just having I'm just interested in what we do I think it'd be great to share with the whole board whether it be um in a information item or status or I think information item just to show us the full picture and what it looks like but a mentor yes sure um is it there's a lot of mention of um the legislative decisions and meetings and things coming to fruition is it possible for um and
310this is not necessarily G item but affects gen items to in status or even an email send us links to um that when that happens or what you're reading where it's coming from or the videos um I don't even it's you don't know what you don't know so I don't even know when to look or even then digging through all the websites I'm looking at you Tyler because you're you're in it a lot but is it possible to keep us be make us be proactive by providing those links that you're using to see what's happening in the day-to-day I miss Van Hook probably she's like no thank you already know all this but for for legislation yeah for myself I I I'm a science person I don't I don't know where to begin I mean
311certainly we're part of like several again um policy Advocate groups so they share updates I think we can maybe try to formalize a process to to get those that information to the board as well as in a whole um maybe's a lot yeah sorry excuse me there's a lot and they're repetitive sometimes so we would need to be thoughtful not to Avalanche you but give you you know what you need to know okay uh we get updates from Arizona School Board administr ASA not at Arizona School administrators we also get it from guppy Mac where um they break things down for different groups superintendence curriculum and instruction they're really those are the the a separate email for just legislative updates or is it comb we get something from Alexis that is more along the lines
312of from EFG education Finance Reform Group so there's a number of different acronyms and in advis groups that were members of well and and it could just be another little addition to our status just another section and it it it can just be hey you know this this was important to this week or whatever if it doesn't take up too much time and I know I said it was about me and me wanting to learn but really but really I'm focusing on leaving Legacy for the new board that will be stepping into the seats if it's a practice already in place and it helps them to be more educated and feel more confident in this position so be it I think it's just a great practice to have um to educate people is there anybody
313else any future agenda items okay um 10.1 motion to adjourn this meeting second you all those in favor I I motion carries three to zero [Applause] I