HUSD Governing Board Meeting June 28, 2023 Live Stream

001video games or some other couch oriented good evening I'll call this meeting to order and I move that we move into executive session oh I'm sorry executive session for legal advice regarding interim superintendent and related issues pursuant to ARS 38-431-3 seconded all those in paper hi motion carries five to zero we will be back good evening we will now resume our open meeting foreign call president Schultz let the record show that all board members are present this evening thank you please join us now in a moment of silence in the Pledge of Allegiance allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice problem s oh Michelle we're going to get right back up again I'd like to I make

002a motion to approve the agenda all those in favor motion carries five to zero Mrs Richards the superintendent's report so we're excited this evening president Schultz to recognize four of our district office employees that make a huge difference every single day so we're going to call them up one at a time thank you Mr Moore is going to recognize Heather Brush this evening that wasn't the order I had it in though foreign to recognize uh Miss Heather Brush today um I just want to read a couple of the the comments that were submitted on behalf of uh the district office employees um recognizing Heather Bush so first Heather Brush is often observed going above and beyond to ensure 100 customer service Heather bush has also taken on additional job duties including print shop operations Heather

003Brush continues to strive for the best results for the entire district and we are proud to have her as part of our team got one more here Heather is one of the hardest working people at the district her job has like 500 subcategories and she does them all she gets thrown new responsibilities and does them with a smile she's always helpful and on top of everything she deserves to be recognized for it and I'll just add Heather Brush she works in the warehouse but many of her know as as Mama Heather she takes care of all those employees she is the most dedicated uh person that I know um constantly ensuring a curriculum is delivered on time where her s orders are are packaged and gotten shipped to sites before school starts and so we

004appreciate you Heather I know we have a big team here just helped celebrate you so congrats thank you Heather who did you bring here today to help celebrate well thank you so much oh I I brought my family with me Jason and Savannah and John and Tyler and Alexander [Applause] yeah don't run away all right next I have the pleasure of recognizing uh Miss Samantha corbel if you want to come up [Applause] Miss Samantha corbel is the maintenance and construction admin assistant and uh I have a few recognitions that I would like to read so first we are excited to be recognizing Samantha corbel for the points of Pride here at district office Sam is a very important part of the main construction Department she's amazing at her job in Keys our department running smoothly

005and efficiently she's huge asset to her team and we would be a loss without her she is an inspiration to all of us and a lot of fun to work with we greatly appreciate all her hard work and dedication to our department and to the district one more Sam she is always on the ball with assisting the Departments as a as the administrative assistant her work with everything with fmx has been helped very helpful not only to me on the rental side but for the rest of the department regarding fmx she's very well deserving of the award and so I would just like to add Sam does Keep It Fun she's got a full Department of men that she has to to Wrangle and keep on top of and so we appreciate you Sam and

006so congratulations yes who do you have here Sam my boyfriend and stepson Tim and Mason [Applause] hi good evening and I'd like Vanessa Weaver to please come up here [Applause] beautiful Vanessa come on up alrighty so I just want you to know this a wonderful employee of ours in the HR team onboarded me a few months ago but I can see why her colleagues really love her and care about her and have some wonderful things to say about her Vanessa has been a joy with since she's joined our department she is the definition of resourceful and motivated to make me a better employee this is from Erica her energy is always positive and she is always consistent with her attitude not only is Vanessa a model employee she is also a dedicated military spouse and

007we thank you for that being a military spouse myself I know that there are numerous hurdles when it comes to having a successful career her husband has been active duty for almost 20 years and am astounded to see how far she has come in her career Vanessa sets a new standard when it comes to networking professionalism and most importantly creating an inclusive work environment that puts a smile on people's face I take pride in being able to nominate Vanessa for this award and hope for her to be recognized to show our Department's immense of appreciation and from your other colleague your colleagues really love you Diana and Diana wanted to say Vanessa has been such an amazing addition to the HR team I genuinely believe that she continues to prove her work ethic and skill

008set on a daily basis Vanessa has demonstrated that she is very the very definition of a team player by repeatedly volunteering to help the entire team whether it's our admin assistant or our executive director moreover hang on one second let me get to the next one although she has a considerable workload to manage she is always happy to extend any help no matter the scope of the assignment although Vanessa has several audible qualities to speak of her positive attitude Faithfully brings joy to our department throughout the work week she always sees the good in every situation and is key in keeping the spirits of our department up even during High stressful moments there's no stress in HR in addition she is eager to grow and never finds a task too daunting Vanessa frequently seeks opportunities

009to develop further in her career field of human resources and her passion for her trade is well as husd as a whole is unmistakable Vanessa Weaver is one of the brightest and personable members of the Higley family and to receive the points of Pride this year she deserves I have my little girl Madison with me tonight [Applause] [Music] all right Miss Sanchez [Applause] I've had the privilege of working with Virginia for the past six years closely even though I knew her before um this girl is the most professional person I have ever worked with positive in spite of everything that can go on she's always the positive Shining Force in the room she's never said she's too stressed or too busy to help someone she goes out of her way to ensure all communication and

010tasks are completed with excellence even if I call her and say uh oh something didn't get done she runs back to the office and make sure it's done and I'm embarrassed to say it's happened on a Friday night before so how many people are that dedicated I don't know what h2sd would be without Virginia and we are so very thankful for you because you serve this whole District who do you have here My Daughter Alexis thank you that your District's points of pride okay president Schultz members of the board tonight we want to describe some of Higley Adventures that are going on in the summer because just because it's summer the fun does not stop I don't have a clicker so we wanted you to see what our Pre-K students are getting to experience this

011year in kids club Sossaman ecdc has a beach theme this year they're hosting 30 to 40 kids every day it's full of life excitement and when you need a boost or you need to smile that's where you need to go next slide kids clubs also at Chaparral this summer they have summer at the movies and we wanted you to see some of the pictures um of the rooms and the excitement that's going on there I got to go over there last week and the kids were so engaged and so excited they wanted to tell me everything they were doing from going to the pool going to see Spongebob Squarepants uh Beauty and the Beast a field trip to the Phoenix Mercury game and I said I didn't get invited did you guys get invited anyway

012uh they are having a blast and if you have a chance to drop by do it because they've done some amazing artwork there are aliens in the gym that I need to warn you about additional summer enrichment opportunities for our kids include band Mandarin uh thrive in math yoga and piano so that's pretty impressive Chaparral I forgot to mention is hosting 210 to 240 kids every day so we got good things going on and last but not least you've got a graduate of the class of 2036 on stage here and I I have to tell you whose kid that is Brian Campbell that's his kid and let me tell you he's almost ready for high school very articulate he was in our preschool program this is part of our PR teams marketing plan so we

013wanted to share that with you this evening Mr Moore yeah continuing the celebrations we have a beautiful new building there that the governing board authorized lost fall and it is taking shape one one caveat is that uh you know we did um have a construction delay we tried to avoid that but we are still planning on opening um just a month into the school year um and so we'll have more information on that as that progresses um but again a beautiful new building um being built on campus and it is going to look great I know there is some excitement around the teachers moving into that building and some jealousy for those who are not going into that building so I believe there's another slide um showing some of the additional work in there keep

014going and so yeah you can see it taking shape blue tapes on the wall as we're doing final walks but again we have a slight delay on one particular part and will not be able to open you know at this Heritage School but shortly after school starts we'll be occupying this building and providing instruction in there so I think that's it for my report upcoming events include new teacher orientation which we're hoping you guys will be able to attend we also have the board meeting the next one on July 19th the back to school rally there's two rallies because higley's so large now we can't fit in the hcpa which is awesome um once at 8 30 one's at 11 and then of course School resumes on July 24th and a lot of these teachers

015out here I ask them are you ready for that yet and not yet they need a little more time that concludes the superintendent's report thank you Mrs Richards I love the new format and showing the photos and and being able to highlight and see and and I'm sure anybody who's ever built anything understands construction delays and so we're hopeful that one part and then we'll be able to open soon thank you very much we will now move into a public hearing to discuss the adopted budget fiscal year 2024. customer president sorts members of the board tonight I'll be presenting the adopted budget this presentation is going to look very similar to the proposed budget presentation that I did on June 7th um but uh the as as stated in the statute we need to have

016two public hearings um one proposing the budget into adopting the budget um but as you'll see like as I go through this presentation we've had no changes from the proposed budget so again as we've practiced we have a bunch of acronym slides so anybody watching online or in the community who's not familiar with some of the acronyms used in school Finance can reference this slide um this slide should look awfully familiar we're at the start of the Year we're proposing and adopting a budget for fiscal year 24. this will take us all the way through June 30 of 2024 um as I've alluded to throughout all my budget presentations we estimate enrollment um based on historical data and different assumptions that we take into consideration and so as we go through the year we have

017several opportunities to revise our budget if enrollment drastically increases or decreases and those dates are typically in December and may may being a actual revision to the 100-day number to True up our numbers but December being a date in which we can revise up or down if we do see Jurassic swings in our estimated enrollment and then again we get to do it all over again uh in June 2024. so diving into the adopted budget highlights again thus nothing has changed here from the proposed so quickly running through these um the aggregate expansion limit that was Exempted in this legislative cycle that bill was scr 1041. again it was passed for a one-year exemption that will come back in 25. vehicle specific implications asrs I've alluded to this since March is increasing 0.212 percent we

018know this will affect both the employer and the employee we are transferring um a minority Capital dollars to continue to support our lease obligation as well as the capital projects that we discussed in the April meeting when we approved the tentative Capital plan um bullet point number three includes our um this budget includes our 24 approved compensation increases that were tentatively approved in March which included two percent increase to certified staff classified exempt admin and supplementals and then a dollar an hour increase to classified hourly the last slide back on the last box on the slide excuse me provides the legislative budget details again we estimated and it actually came to fruition the two percent increase to the base level support which equates to 1.7 million for Higley Unified the results-based funding shift to the

019base level support that was not assumed in our attentive plans but that increased so the base level support is 0.9 percent but that actually when doing the calculations is a decrease to the husc budget and we talked about husd being a high achieving District we received a lot of results-based funding because we had a lot of qualifying schools and so moving that funding to the base support level that's going to decrease our overall funding by 520 000 next year so again that will be a point of emphasis as we move throughout the year all those funds were paid out the practice was a supplemental back to the teachers and so that's going to be a direct hit um to our teachers compensation into next year so we'll have a plan for that um with meet

020and confer and I anticipate that being a conversation topic not a fun one unfortunately bullet point three the 20 million uh towards District additional assistance this is the state's initiative to push more Capital funding towards school districts that impact for husd is 550 000. and then what was not um estimated uh and some of our tentative approvals was the one-time state aid supplement of 300 million that equated to 3.49 million and we're proposing allocating that to capital for one-time needs within this budget as I mentioned in the proposed husd is proposing an adjacent ways Levy of 1.5 million that Levy will assess a primary property tax levy of 16 cents per 100 000 of assessed value again assessed valuation is you taxable uh residential value or commercial or agricultural um not your Zillow or your

021your what you can get on the market so you really have to look at your tax bill to understand the implication here um and just a little history hosd the last Levy was in 2016 for three million dollars our current balance uh as it's projected to end in fiscal 24. um is 1.1 million but again we've talked about several projects that we have slated for public right-of-ways in terms of traffic flow modifications at williamsfield Cooley saw some in and those projects will grossly exceed the the balance that we have available so we're leveling proposing a levy to be proactive and so we can continue when we go out and do our civil engineering in our site assessments that we can proceed with those projects and not come back to the board ask for a levy

022or wait a fiscal year or postpone some of these projects we can continue and proceed with them and make immediate impact for our taxpayers so again those funds can only be used for public right-of-ways sidewalks roadways bus lanes and bus sidewalk improvements I did add a slide here I pulled our our average assessed valuation for residential property in Higley unified that is 274 000. so if you take the proposed Levy per hundred thousand dollars of assessed valuation which is 16 cents for that average assessed that a residential property value that would equate to a 44 one time property tax increase for next year moving to our mno budget again in our estimated um proposed budget that we approved back in March um we estimated the budget to be just a little over 124 million again

023we projected no increase to ADM inflation we project at two percent which is actually what we realized we had an m o transfer to Capital 6.6 and an estimated budget balance carry forward from this current year fiscal 23 to next year of 26 million what we are proposing to adopt is just a little bit above that again the the main Ephesus is no ADM increase inflation is what is two percent what we realized what I did not take into consideration was the results be funding shift but again while that's increasing the mno budget it's actually overall decrease in our budget um and then the ml transfer to Capital um reduction of 5.6 if you recall in the revised budget in May the district transferred additional million dollars to cover capital projects this summer so we

024are making that move back to mno in this proposed budget so you take the difference between estimated and proposed and that's a net increase of six hundred and three thousand just point five percent of what we tended with the board tentatively approved back in March uh one point emphasis in the budget forms again is the average teacher's salary this is required to be reported by statute on our website as well as called out in the budget forms and like I stated in my June 7th presentation I thought this was the point of emphasis um when the calculation shows that there's zero percent increase in teacher pay um average teacher pay excuse me from the fo23 to fy24 and so um you'll see my comments there when digging into this information even though the board approved

025a two percent increase from the mno budget and then another two percent from the classroom cipherm plan a total four percent increase going into this fiscal year um we actually experienced a decrease of teacher experience of over a year and so again I mentioned um this is HRC is not immune to the the teacher um teachers leaving their profession and it's typically experienced teachers leaving the procession and so when you take experienced teachers that are at the higher end of the pay scale from an average pool of salaries that's going to keep it's going to reduce the average so that is what is is happening um and it's unfortunate but um that's the reality of where we are today so the calculation does not include supplemental pay because that can vary per teacher and what

026they want to tack on to their already their teacher obligations so and again this takes into consideration that increases the board approved so looking at the capital budget this is where you're going to see the biggest swing and majority of the Swing is the one-time state-aid supplement that we're proposing allocate to Capital so what the district estimated um for Capital was seven a little over 17 million a lot of the same assumptions from the m o budget um one point of emphasis is bullet point four uh we assumed that we would have more expenses this fiscal year than we actually incurred uh or that we're actually estimating incurring so we estimated that we carry over from this year 4 million into next fiscal year you'll see on the bottom of the proposed capital budget that

027we are actually going to probably carry over 7 million and the main reason is the projects are while they're taking place there are still Supply um chain issues and so um while they're they're started and things are making progress progress isn't happening as fast as we anticipated and so we only pay on what has been completed and so if projects haven't been completed we are not going to pay so a lot of these projects will roll into next fiscal year um and unfortunately we'll do the best we can to limit the impact on classroom instruction and so we may push some of these projects to fall break Etc where there where it's limited impact to classroom instruction the again the the main reason this budget is increasing is the one-time state-aid supplement that we're proposing

028allocating the capital this was not assumed um when we proposed a budget back um in April and so that uh allocation of 3.4 million we're proposing allocating to Capital and the next slide I'll I'll go into more detail on what that allocation is being recommended for so you'll see a drastic increase again mostly because the budget balance carry forward and the one-time stated capital so again I talked about the additional Capital dollars we want to emphasize Safety and Security um I know Mr Walker and our information technology department are working on um a board agenda item to bring to you guys in regards to Safety and Security which will um have I don't want to say July but it could be July or August it's in regards to the video camera replacement schedule we've been

029working closely with schools vendors Mr Walker's been working closely with the Gilbert PD and other stakeholders involved in that security Safety and Security conversation and so we're doing our best to bring a holistic approach to that proposal and that will have a presentation for the board to start allocating some of the funds to towards that priority in addition if we do have some remaining funds we'll move forward some major maintenance projects that are slated um to be done in Pre and substantial fiscal years so if the project such as flooring weatherization Etc are being slated on our Capital plan for fiscal 25. we would move those forward to next fiscal year and get those done a year earlier and that's really it for me again so I presented the proposed on June 7th we've advertised

030in the Arizona Republic we've posted on our website the budget forms to date I have had no uh emails phone calls regarding the budget um I we're presenting the adopted budget here today with no changes um and then again like I said we have the option when we get to December to revise this budget if needed so if there's any questions I'll be happy to answer any president Schultz Mr Moore have we had any further conversations with Queen Creek about their SRO I at this point we're still um waiting for a response from a letter that was sent to the town so we haven't had any forward progress with that but again we're ready willing and able to help fund an SRO for Queen Creek as soon as they amend their policy to be able

031to do so thank you Mrs Van Hook I also spoke with councilman Brown in Queen Creek and asked him and told him we were waiting and asked him to reach out as I saw him so I just want to let you know too a month ago so we're still waiting so I'll follow up with him again too I have a question presidentials um assuming the passing of everything this this evening um regarding the adjacent ways Levy will information or do you have a dedicated area on the website or anything to kind of update programs and projects and and money spent money used from this yeah president Schultz member Anderson um so there is some additional work that needs to be done in terms of notifying um residents um after if the board chooses to adopt

032this budget tonight we would then send a letter to all residents that notifying them of the tax levy for next year in addition um there's no additional reporting required on this particular fund but we do present um in October there's an annual requirement to present any override spending and now that at the time we do add in adjacent waste funding so in October if the district has any overhead which we do or have has used any bond proceeds which we have finished at Braun potions from the prior fiscal year we're obligated to report out how we expended those dollars and in that report we typically add in adjacent ways because it's tied more than often to these projects and so we do report out at that time even though that is not required by Statute

033so foreign er a question and I'm sorry if this was already answered and I'm just tired for things like the uh Williams Field expansion like if we approve this tonight when does that get started I guess I'm just thinking about it already is not the best road to drive on when it is time for school to start or end kind of deal and nobody likes Construction in that General time frame I just am curious when that would happen in the school year yeah so uh president Schultz member Wade um so we've already been uh in progress with some of these in terms of having a a civil engineer out to assess the property we've already had conversations with the town of Gilbert um with various grants Mr Crosby or Transportation director has had various conversations

034so conversations are already in place um next steps would be to to come up with a plan and so um there's a couple there's some conversations that need to be had to come up with a plan we would obviously I think want to involve the community at that time because we're going to be changing the flow of traffic that is always a contentious topic um and there's there's typically no right answer um and so much like we did with Higley High School we had several Community meetings where there was opportunity for involvement but we first need to finish our civil engineering and seeing what is actually feasible to the naked eye there may not look like there is a retention Basin there that we cannot cover or water line or electrical so having all the

035information known basically getting all those unknowns out of the way is something that's already been in progress Next Step again would be having those conversations to figure out okay how should this work what is the best solution for williamsfield high school and then uh yeah then looking at construction dates that have limited impact and we would probably be targeting next summer just to be honest so does anyone from the public have any comments at this time questions anyone else perfect thank you Mr Moore we will now reconvene in Open Session we value input from our constituents this time our agenda has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board those that wish to speak should have filled out speaker cards which are due prior to the start excuse me

036of our meeting members of the board may not discuss comment or take action on matters raised that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ARS 38-4 31.01 H action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date also we ask the audience members practice proper public meeting decorum refraining from either negative or positive responses including clapping or verbal outbursts to ensure fairness to All Points of View those that refuse to allow to follow these rules may be asked to leave speakers please limit your remarks to 30 min no I'm sorry to three minutes thank you for your cooperation thank you 120 minutes later Mrs buck push a

037button oh there it goes okay good evening governing board it's a pleasure to speak to you this evening about the hea mou and the general leave policy it is through our hea mou that we have established our meet and confer team it is made up of both District administration as well as hea members we come together and meet about once a month and chat about all the things that are going on that impact our teachers and staff and how we can better things for them I've been able to sit on me and confer for a couple of years now and I'm very proud of the teamwork that we do in those meetings it's very positive atmosphere and we really work hard to accomplish a lot every year that we meet this year we really focused

038on our general lead policy um for the May 10 I just learned about these questions that that you guys get to submit and then are answered before the meetings and so cool so I read them all today before the meeting and I came across this one from May 10th about the increase in ESI sub services and it asks for specific data regarding the number of teachers that are not returning and whether or not they used sub services and I thought that was just such a great question because it happens our current policy only pays out if you've been in our district for eight years or more and so we're teachers that have been here for six years and they've been dedicated and they worked hard and for whatever reason they can't come back to us

039they lose that time it's gone they didn't use it when when they were here and so they've lost it so we worked really hard uh together to find a way to prevent that from happening um this is a benefit to our employees because it rewards them for their dedicated attendance and not needing to use those General leave hours during their time in our employment um we want to value our staff and let them know that we recognize their time and we want to reward them for that the gccar now aligns better also with surrounding districts and so that might be a better motivation to work for hickley and I'm just really happy that I'm able to sit on this team of meet and confer and be a proud Higley education member and I appreciate your

040time today thank you thank you Mrs D Ambrosio hi everyone hello cabinet hello board thank you for allowing me to speak um I am the proud mom of two kind dedicated uh student athletes who are in high school or at Williams Field and this summer they participated in the Waits program with the soccer and football team practicing and it has been an amazing experience the dedication that the coaches and the staff put into my boys just really just brought so much to our family this summer in addition to that as well as being a mom I'm also a public school teacher for the last 19 years 16 of those years have been in Higley I love Higley I love our students I love our community our parents and I wanted to say thank you to

041the governing board members who voted to support the um the curriculum that we put forth as teachers I have the unique experience each year for past over a decade during the new teacher orientation process I get to train all the new teachers to our district and so that means that I get to meet each and every one of them know their name and know their subject matter and each year I look at them and I say oh my gosh Higley did such a good job look at what they found and so I know that the quality of teachers that we have um in Higley they're just amazing and they're knowledgeable in their experience and they know the best things for our students so that they can learn and I just wanted to say thank you

042to the board members who voted to support the the recommendation of these educators and then finally I just want to say thank you to Mrs Sherry Richards I think you are the brightest light in every room and in our district so I just wanted to say thank you thank you for your time very nice Mr John Mason I hope you all can hear me I was struggling to hear other people my my wife says that I don't hear good or maybe I don't listen well in any event um I recall hearing laughter from teachers and staff members while I spoke at the last board meeting I was not trying to be funny I certainly thought I was not being controversial it was very disconcerting to hear the laughter my mother remarried when I was 19

043years old we moved to a very conservative farming Community I was one of the few liberal Democrats in a very Republican area when I was 20 years old a school board member in that conservative Community invited me to join the textbook committee I was surprised I was 20 years old what do I know I thought that he was crazy to invite me to join the committee because I thought differently he said that they needed people like me on the committee precisely because I thought outside of the box that moment forever changed my perception of Republicans until that time I believe that they were narrow-minded selfish people at the last Higley board meeting a school board member was ridiculed for thinking outside of the box when talking about textbooks teachers and staff members laughed at heckled

044and Ricky and ridiculed the board member while she spoke at the last board meeting this type of behavior would most likely earn a student a suspension if he or she did that to a teacher the crooks of socially and emotional learning is the appreciation that honest people think differently about important issues and social emotional learning as I've learned when attending these board meetings is is a big important part of what Higley does social emotional learning cannot take place deductively by completing worksheets it is learned inductively through experience adults teach these skills through example teachers and staff members teach through example they just taught students that bullying is okay they taught students that it is okay to pick on someone because he or she is different staff members and teachers might think that these acts of

045bullying are insignificant they're not but the potential consequences to our democracy our grave right now I know for a fact that there are many community members in school districts across the valley that are afraid to run due to fears of harassment you know I recall a student who had the courage to stand up for an unpopular kid at Higley High School it took guts for that student to stand up to a bunch of bullies that humble student inspired me to take a stand today I expect to be an unpopular person when I walk out of the door of the boardroom but someone needs to take a stand against bullies I say that as a humble sinner myself thank you thank you Mrs Richards good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening um

046I want to start out by saying I came in with the intention to say what I'm about to say and it has nothing to do with what preceded me um I was similar to Mrs d'ambrosio coming to thank those board members who chose to support the curriculum as laid out by the team of experts here in Higley School District in terms of both physics which I will own that I know nothing about and even if I could have gotten all the way through that very large textbook I probably just would believe anything on those pages because I didn't have to take visits back in the day um I was struck by the fact and continued to be struck by the fact when I watch and or attend these meetings how quickly they have devolved in

047some capacity into politics and so I wanted to humbly ask all board members to remember that this is a completely non-partisan position it does not matter what your politics are or what brought you to the world of a school board um I hope that that driving force is what is best for every single student and not just our students but our families and our teachers and our administrators we are all a team I talk to my students when I was still in a classroom about the team aspect of Education I talked to my children at home about how we need to remember that we all play for the same team we are all here in this room team Higley and at the end of the day our only job is to make sure that we

048are putting out productive humans into this world who are able to think for themselves add and subtract when I give them change and I need them to make change for me to read well and to make decisions that are going to better impact our world as we move forward and I am scared sometimes as a parent by some of the lines of questioning and the buzzwords that get thrown around in this school room in this boardroom excuse me as I watch what happens nationally in school board rooms across the country I think we're better than a lot of what we could potentially see out there and I just wanted to again ask you all as you volunteer your time and there is a crazy amount of time that you all put in outside of these

049epically long meetings monthly and that is not to be underestimated the district is putting in a lot of time and effort into the questions that one of the other public speakers brought up the question and answers that come before the um the agendas are published to make sure that time is used as efficient as possible and then before my time runs out as a parent I just wanted I don't know if Dr Foley I know she is gone but I just wanted to thank her for her service while she was here and thank Mrs Richards for stepping up to the plate as you have thank you thank you president Schultz um I'd like to address what Miss Richards just said um based on my experience um this board prior was not used to asking a

050lot of questions um one of the reasons I decided to run for school board was because of the amount of politics that is in our district and is in our schools and the fact that I am exposing the all the curriculum and everything else that is political with the hopes that we remove politics out of our district doesn't mean I'm bringing my politics into it my purpose is to remove politics out of our district that includes funding curriculum that is political um and so for you to comment that so you can say that what's inaccurate but we can't continue to if you want to correct information that's what I'm saying like you can correct information but we don't want to start a battle at this time well I'm not starting a battle I I have

051a right to address her because she is referring to me it's not an agenda it's not an agenda item but after I'll just public comments are over I am able to address you can correct the information that you want to do but we we don't and that's what I'm doing I I'm not bringing politics into the district I am mainly pointing out that there are politics here that I would like removed that's all moving on to the consent agenda I'd like to make a motion that we approve consent agenda items 7.1 to 7.19 I'd like to make a motion to remove 7.18 off the consent agenda since it was added last minute and I wasn't able to do it ahead of time a second okay okay but yes that was oh I'm sorry thank you

052oh I don't have that either okay thank you okay so approved consent agenda let me can you pull that up because I can't pull it up on my okay thank you uh it's not pulling up on my and I I don't have it doesn't go on my scroll it only goes to 7.12 thank you and I can't see that far so can I removed that we approve consent agenda item 7.1 to 7.18 second all those in favor do you have a I had a question I'm so sorry um I'm a little slow so I thought I had sent my questions I just have a couple questions for clarity I just want to clarify that because it wasn't in the um the attached language so just a couple of items do you mind if I just

053they're really fast I don't want to take up anybody's time um it's just regarding the contracts for the custodial Landscaping um I assume they are or we are in taking on the costs for background checks and fingerprint cards is that correct that's being done I didn't see that in the language of the contracts that that is board policy that we require them they have background checks so um we require each vendor to background check their employees we do not incur that cost that is an expectation if they want to do business with high school unified okay and we verify that they actually are even though our policy it's our district I want to verify that that's getting done through these outside agencies if you if if you walk on the Higley head campus Chase on

054their vests they have their fingerprint Connections in their vests I didn't very cool thank you um and um four seven the Kairos one I just was there any were there any changes before we move on did anything change in any way because foreign no those are the final numbers for this year okay okay because I I went I went I didn't see the um the peop the zero dollar PPO um listed on the and of course you weren't prepared for this because I didn't send it but I didn't see the zero dollar PPO on the April slides and then it's on this one so I don't know where I missed that is only the grandfathered program that those folks that were in there you won't see that any longer okay you're welcome okay thank you

055guys for your time I apologize thank you Mrs Anderson all those in favor my motion passes five to zero moving on to information items 8.1 governing board initiatives for 2023 2024 school year president Schultz members of the board we have a short PowerPoint for you that we've recorded um however when it's over we have a whole team of people here if you have questions or you want to discuss anything you should also have a copy of these proposed initiatives or Focus areas for 23 24. we're here this evening to focus on the Strategic plan we have a continued Focus for improvement in the school district tonight we're going to talk about focused areas for the 23-24 school year these are going to be recommended board initiatives that we can discuss at the end of this

056presentation we are going to continue focusing on our portrait of a graduate this evening we look at strategic anchor number one which is teaching and learning and Student Success we've defined some specific potential action steps that will help us achieve the initiative of providing exceptional opportunities for personalized instruction including differentiation acceleration innovation in leadership opportunities last year our district coaches worked with our director of PD and teachers across the district to revitalize our instructional maps and the areas of ela math science and social studies these are being uploaded to our website for use this school year this year we're Shifting the focus to the completion of instructional Maps K-12 and the areas of Fine Arts PE and non-departmental elective courses once these are completed they'll also be added to the website Higley is excited this

057year to recognize and celebrate student leadership we have student leadership opportunities on every campus and we know social media is an important component to brag and highlight outstanding achievements and Leadership we're adding a component to our board meetings called Higley Adventures this will give us the opportunity to display pictures and also have leadership teams come to governing board meetings to highlight all the great things we have going on this will be in addition to our points of Pride along the same lines we know it's important to strategically and systematically communicate opportunities for our kids such as honors courses dual enrollment and advanced placement Pathways for kids in grade 7 through 12. we have plans for Middle and High School parent information meetings we'll work with PR to advertise these through the digital magazine and also

058husd website announcements and updates we want all students to have an opportunity to enroll in advance courses moving forward our next area of focus is on 1.3 providing guidance and support for College and Career readiness action steps that we look to take this year include increasing awareness of our feeder pattern programs within the District academic planning for post-secondary Pathways beginning in the sixth grade utilizing our Career and Technical education Pathways and involving our secondary counselors and career center Specialists to ensure optimization of dual enrollment and advanced placement opportunities for our students along with this we look to increase awareness and participation in academic seals we would like to increase the number of people represented at our financial aid information and assistance nights with parents and students and we will continue to increase our CTE students

059who are successfully earning industry credentials and completing programs of work within Focus 1.5 our strategic plan calls for supporting a collaborative culture and research-based practices in terms of action steps this year we will be working to ensure that plcs will utilize Benchmark and formative data to guide instruction in District PD our assessment and PD departments will create and present a series of joint professional development sessions for site leaders as to how to best support the use of data to inform instruction and guide the PLC process our school admin teams will participate in ongoing professional development in which strategies support and guidance will be provided to help them Foster an effective data culture within their respective school campuses next we would like to address strategic anchor 2 highly effective Personnel to do this we will focus

060on 2.2 a process of developing a more comprehensive professional growth plan for all employees action steps for this include providing targeted training and professional development development for administrators to ensure inter-raterree reliability with the Danielson evaluation instrument we are currently developing systems to increase the Effectiveness and efficiency of artifacts used for domains 1 and domains four of the Danielson evaluation instrument we are excited to begin the process of developing a professional development training plan for all of our classified employees we have obtained feedback from school administration previously on the Danielson implementation to support continuous Improvement and this year we will be adding teacher feedback finally we were going to reintroduce the Higley Leadership Academy to provide leadership opportunities for new and aspiring leaders this program has contributed to 18 current coordinators and above in Higley being

061previous members of the Higley Leadership Academy in addition to indicator 2.2 we will also be focusing on indicator 2.3 as a district we want to ensure that our employees feel value valued and supported through meaningful interactions and feedback husd plans to research and propose a staff survey instrument to measure climate and culture on our husd campuses to help us identify areas of strength as well as opportunities for growth in addition we will continue to implement the Danielson evaluation instrument with an emphasis on providing focused feedback to teachers and other certified staff our benefits department will also continue to investigate ways to pass on potential benefit savings to employees whenever possible while our human resource department continually reviews employee compensation to ensure we can attract and retain talented staff our next area of focus is under

062strategic anchor 3 communication and community relations we are focusing on indicator 3.2 enhancing marketing content for Higley unified to effectively promote the district and attract prospective students employees and business and Community Partners to achieve this we have identified several areas where we plan to make significant progress this year firstly we will be revamping all the school's marketing enrollment videos our aim is to create videos that are not only engaging but also informative in a visually appealing secondly we recognize the importance of effective communication to that end we will be creating promotional materials for each School these materials will effectively communicate the value and strengths of each campus focusing on areas that make them Stand Out by showcasing these aspects we hope to generate interest and enthusiasm among potential students parents and employees we are also

063excited to relaunch our annual District magazine this publication will be digital and sent to All Families within our district at the end of each school year through captivating articles and imagery the magazine will provide a glimpse into the extraordinary happenings within our schools it will celebrate a few of our accomplishments and share inspiring stories that exemplify the spirit of our vibrant educational Community furthermore we are committed to aligning our branding efforts district-wide to create a consistent and recognizable brand identity in addition to these areas of focus I would also like to note that our public relations team will continue to work on the initiatives set forth in the district's marketing plan which sets the foundation of all our marketing efforts moving forward including measuring our return on investment with current and future advertisements increasing our

064brand awareness and expanding our Partnerships within our community moving on to strategic anchor 4 finance and operations the focus on 4.3 is to ensure district schools are safe secure well maintained and have the appropriate resources to ensure Student Success by refining and updating building and grounds preventative maintenance schedules continually conducting regular safety inspections of buildings and grounds to identify and address potential hazards Implement visitor management system utilize the standard response protocol for Emergency Management including updates to security cameras and a refresh of our two-way radio communications president Schultz if there are any questions or discussion points we're here to do our best to answer presidential Mysteries I just want to kind of briefly touch on the Strategic anchor three I like what we're doing in there but I still feel that we're absent on reaching

065people who live in our district but don't have kids in our district that I mean it's great we're relaunching um the annual District magazine but that was said it was going to be electronic and go to all of our families it's not really the initiative is to attract prospective students employees in business and Community Partners for sending it to our families we already have those students so um I like what's here but I would like to see a little more focused how we're going to reach those in our district that live in our boundaries but aren't attending our schools absolutely we'll work on adding that um because it is very important we know there's a lot of competition around us and uh sometimes we just got to get the word out there faster thank you

066Mrs Reese um I know that I've been vocal about our marketing as well and asking lots of questions and I just think this is a huge focus and hopefully that we're moving from here to here and reaching people so that we are I know that enrollment is down across the state um and then we don't have the young kids but we have great programs and we have amazing teachers and highlighting those and showing those um to prospective students would be amazing president Schultz Mr Richards I was curious about the leadership assemblies like what those would look like sorry I can't hear you oh I'm so sorry the leadership assemblies what would those look like what would the leadership assemblies look like well they're currently there are a lot of leadership assemblies that go on across

067the district and it depends on the campus okay so you go to Chaparral you're going to see leader in me or the kids are being highlighted over and over um you go to Gateway you're going to see some leadership highlighted if you've gone to Williams Field pep rally my goodness I see leadership all over the place and those in terms of having kids come here we want to highlight things that the Greater Community may not be seen so I'm not sure I'm answering your question yeah I was just going off the bullet point increased site and District recognition such as leadership assemblies and student leadership team reports yes so I just I I was reading it as the leadership assemblies was stand separate from other assemblies like it was something unique well what we want

068to do is bring kids in here more often so they can give us snapshots of what's going on okay you know we'll have pictures but kids can communicate a lot in a very short amount of time and sometimes I miss out on things if I don't I don't get out there you know what I'm saying so I think maybe assemblies is the word that's confusing okay yeah okay thank you and are we going to invite um expand this to sports and even evit students and to show the leadership in those programs we've already got a couple of things for July 19th to highlight that involves Sports Athletics um leadership within working with Gilbert PD with ROTC so yeah it's it's broad scope yes president Schultz um I have said before that I absolutely want our

069district to be desired by everybody in the community and even people outside of our community um we have to be able to treat the district as a business right if we provide a product that people want that will make them bring their kids here which is why I I encourage us to ensure that our main focus is on academics um that's why parents bring their kids to school is so that they can learn academics so I and I know that our enrollments down k-6 we shut down a few classrooms um and also on our online k-6 has been shut down um and I mean that's that's not something that we could you know we could help it's it's just part of what's Happening like you said across the country um but again I I want

070to ensure that we were honest with the community we're providing something that the community wants um and I know it's been mentioned that um you know people don't like emails but I rather over communicate than under communicate and and make sure that families are getting information no matter what the communication is though that we're notifying them and ensuring that um people are seeing the message that we we have to um send out so um I also asked last time if we could possibly Market on PBS um and I don't know if you guys had looked into that um board member Van Hook Teresa Joseph's not here this evening the one that I need to follow up with on that and we can get that information to you for sure thank you presidentials Street sorry one

071more question um on the focus on 2.3 for the researching and proposal staff survey instrument to measure the culture and climate do we have a time frame that we're looking at we want to um I'm sorry board member Reese we wanted to use this school year to jump into that and do it correctly because there are a lot of instruments that are not research based or wouldn't meet our needs and I know Miss Johnson and her team along with Ed's services are very interested in this we used to use a survey I don't want to know maybe eight nine years ago and as a principal I found it very helpful in terms of what I could do to to help my school my community and specifically my kids so we've looked at a few things

072but we don't want to just flip around and throw something out there and go oh we should have looked a little longer so so I guess for my question as a board should we expect a an instrument that you guys have researched and found that you have the time to do the research find the instrument and have some feedback by the end of the school year or is it that we're taking the school year to kind of figure out an instrument should we expect that these surveys be completed by the end of the school year so we can have some feedback so we can start making adjustments so what I would love is to come back as a team and update you on where we are with this I believe if we could find something

073it would be possible to use it in the spring but I also think it's important for hea to be involved in this process too we've got to have voices involved in this I we were going to start with the staff survey and then potentially expand it out so but I promise we'll keep you updated thank you oops I just want to clarify one thing I said um across the state that enrollment was down not across the country I just met overall in Arizona so with with kids thank you for the question about that Miss Reese um if I could put in any input being a staff member that's taking some of the surveys in this District if you could stay away from the somewhat likely kind of likely maybe likely because we would use that

074we would we would slow down when we would look at the data as teachers to see how we performed or what we thought it's it's very subjective very if we could find a better system of what staff and other people okay but I also want to go back to my statement I left out a group um I would when you bring back your leadership I would love to we get a lot of band but let's band Sports I would love to see clubs in here yeah um because we're grabbing they're sold these small groups of students that just don't make it to other recognitions or really even get seen I had kids hiding in my room they were there before school they were there at lunch and they were there after school and I don't

075think they like they ran across their their classes and came back to my room it was a solid group and probably nobody knew they existed yeah but you know but they were great kids and they had leadership moments and if we could grab those as well not just the robotics not just the the common ones all right let's see these kids and let's let them know that they they have been seen as having these leaderships with my husband as we talk about work all the time he's constantly um upset with the fact that nobody wants to be a leader it seems like nobody wants to step up and I wonder just how many people have missed being told that they have those qualities what you did was a leadership quality what you did was above

076and beyond expectations I'd just love to see some a lot so the vice president Anderson I think he'll be pleased um at the rally we're going to show the portrait of The Graduate challenge or each of the schools put forth a representation of the portrait of The Graduate and they didn't just go grab student council kids or kids that are always up front which I think is very important because everybody everybody can be a leader they just not be the leader on the sports team or in the band room or whatever so I so respect that and our team does too thank you Mrs Anderson I agree with that presidential Hispanic for Focus 2.2 professional development I would like to meet with Mr Walker um just to be able to see what that professional development

077looks like but I'm curious to know if staff has the option to app opt out of anything that might go against their religious beliefs or whatever is that option available for staff so board member Van Hook I believe we honor that with students so we can honor that with staff I I'm I'm going to be honest with you I'm not aware of the situation like that and I'm not going to say it's never happened but um the purpose of staff development is to help people grow and learn and when you talk about academics a lot of our professional development is centered on our standards our instructional Maps our data continuous Improvement so to answer your questions yes if somebody has a huge I don't know uh I don't know what would I mean I've seen

078what's in other districts um and I you know I'm looking forward to being able to see what ours looks like but based on what I've seen in other districts um which is why I ask so um I believe we shared like professional development schedules with you I did and um I think that it's important to understand like we start out with our administrators and for example at admin retreat we're going to work on building a data culture sped expectations threat assessments PR marketing like we're talking about standard response protocol and I can go on that we need to start with our admin and then it goes out to our teachers that I think it's so important that we're in tune with our kids and our Educators and what do we need to do okay data

079will speak a lot whether it's state assessment data that more importantly common formative data so I a lot of these things get scheduled and we focus on areas like for Danielson we're going to work on inner rater reliability so if you and Christina and I go in a classroom we can observe and be consistent about what are we looking for what kind of feedback would we give and also get feedback from the teachers so we're learning and we're growing together but it does it starts with us and our admin team and then our amazing teachers so I I guess I wanted to frame that a little bit because sometimes you get in the middle of something and you go our need is this we thought it was this but it's over here now so it

080modifies and it adjusts however we do have goals and we do have a vision in terms of Engagement for example student engagement's always a huge thing what are the best instructional practices that we can share with each other to keep our kids engaged so and we would love to meet with you and anybody else thank you one more question Focus three two um not sorry not three two um two three employees feel valued and supported do we have a process to where staff can submit a survey or um something in a confidential way to where they can express something without the fear of retaliation so board member Van Hook when the District there's like a cop page and I believe it's still there where you can submit concerns but then also on campuses a lot

081of campuses have systems where feedback can be submitted in a confidential manner you know because sometimes I want my administrator to know something that I'm more comfortable doing it anonymously so and the great thing about our administrators is I believe they receive feedback and then work to improve or address it and and so there's a paper form and an electronic form um so the district thing is electronic and I would have to find out what each school does or what system they have one of the things that happens is we have ATA reps in each campus and they play a vital role sometimes in reaching out to administrators to say hey your teachers are really happy about this or your teachers are not happy about this I mean that was one of the beauties of

082being a principal is getting feedback right so thank you so much you're welcome Mrs Richard did we not have a phone number before I'm sorry wasn't there a phone number before or no where you can call and yes concerns yes Mr Walker's gonna answer that my remembering incorrectly I thought that there was a say oh it's the safe hotline that I'm safe hotline is okay you know I think this question uh is more geared toward Human Resources type of inquiries the safe hotline is really designated for in in its uh origination is for student reporting um with that being said anybody can utilize it and occasionally they do it's not really utilized as a whole as often as you would think but that does have the ability to submit anonymously a form as well as

083there's a number that you can call into and leave a voicemail it would disclose the phone number that you call from so it's not completely Anonymous and then you can also email to the safe hotline and again it would display the email address but the form you submit can be completely Anonymous and that there's no way to track that so that does exist but it's it's more Geared for for campus reporting for bullying or safety and issues like that but it is it's posted throughout the district even to transportation and and places where there's not students so it is it's welcome for all to be able to utilize that if need be perfect yeah that's what I was thinking of thank you and that's a number directly for Higley it is a Higley number correct

084internal okay thank you sure is this regarding or this related to policy jii um we have the student concerns complaints and Grievances and then it has policy stating about students may present a complaint and the guidelines are followed such that and there's language I mean would that fall under because it says that to be displayed in school buildings and in student handbooks so the grievance policy should because it covers right but we also have staff grievances also so g b k Dash r as well falls under that but either way we still have policy um that that should cover that and maybe we need to revisit our policy on on the processes that are in there because it is a very lengthy um policy for this but at least there's something in there maybe we

085should look at it and and maybe narrow it down to direct communication and and what's actually considered covered by this policy president Schultz I just want to clarify too with Mrs Van Hook's um information on or questions on professional development the nice part about some of the stuff that we do is that it our professional development is created by us so we don't use a certain company there may be a certain topic that we might do a little seminar through a company or something on but a lot of our professional development is done in-house like Miss Richard said I because we can we can move and and change and when when we thought it was over here all of a sudden we have this issue so that's the nice part with our professional development is

086that a lot of it's created in-house so any other questions perfect thank you very much moving on to 8.2 amendments to policy gcca professional support professional and support staff General Lee presidential board I have the pleasure of presenting this uh policy Amendment um if you uh look at this policy I'll back up a little bit so I I do sit on represent the district on behalf of the meeting confer team and so this policy has been a a type of conversation throughout the the school year and so um the changes that are recommended here are culmination of conversations that have taken place and meet and confer as well as conversations that you've heard throughout this fiscal year in terms of how can we encourage staff to um not user time how can we encourage staff

087to provide additional benefits in different ways where we can't do it monetarily and we feel like this recommended recommendations in terms of changes covers kind of both of those topics and only time will tell if the board chooses to adopt this policy and how this will play out but we would certainly monitor that um going forward into next year so talking through some of the red line changes if you can scroll down a little bit right here so um some of the things in here we cleaned up a little bit of the language that referenced the blackout calendar and that was provided to the board in the questions if you scroll down a little more clarifying some of the hours so there was inconsistency between classified and certified hours so 150 days is actually 1200

088hours and so we felt it was fair to provide the same amount of hours to both employee groups in terms of accumulated the the maximum accumulation of General leave so that's clarified there if we scroll down a little more the biggest changes are moving the current payout schedule to a regulation and if the person running the computer can please pull up the regulation um that is where the majority of the changes take place should be another attachment yeah so the regulation by moving this to regulation we feel um after a fiscal year we can have some concrete data in terms of how this is playing out and we can make changes um on the Fly um to either push this one way or the other and also um move the needle in terms of what

089other districts are doing but the biggest changes are moving this generally payout down from current policy states eight years down to five and increasing the percentages weighted heavier on the more leave you have accumulated again trying to emphasize to to staff that there is an incentive for you know using general leave on an as needed basis and if you do accumulate excess leave at the time in which you do uh resign or or transfer from the district there is an incentive to having that accumulated leave and so um you know Miss Johnson uh we talked about ESI numbers and how we've seen an increase in in basically teachers using leave um and granted there is that they do have that uh that right but we're hoping some of this um maybe incentivize teachers to think

090twice about using leave um but also again those teachers who do uh come to school every day in our present are rewarded with a higher incentivized to leave payout and so that is what is being recommended um I guess I'll be happy to answer any questions um whenever you you took out the substitute pay as being the amount that they pay for it and changed it to the paid at oh no never mind I'm looking at administration pay so that voids that question um my next one is what usually what percent of certified staff would you guess or do you think actually hit the 150 for the hours what percentage Yeah is it a high I mean could you say like it's a pretty significant amount or not very many that have accumulated the maximum

0911200 out um I'm being certified right now it's it's do you have an idea I do not have that information I need to provide that to you okay it is not the majority I didn't know and then the follow up with um and maybe something get back to us as well as what percentage of staff are approximately um actually been eligible for the past eight years when we had it set at eight years we're actually eligible for that payout was it I imagine it wasn't that many as well yeah okay I can look at that but I can tell you um the average um uh teacher I did a little bit of information on that um average teacher um longevity and like how long they stay within the district um was averaging about uh seven

092years out of substantially gone down over the course of the last couple years and so um again trying to provide an incentive for those new teachers um you know maybe they see five years is a little closer Target than eight um and trying to maintain uh it's a stable classroom by having a teacher come back and return so a lot of those were conversations and you can confer okay and since the blackout calendar is on here we were on the policy and we were given the blackout calendar um I'm assuming the the black boxes are the blackout days so we have whole months that is correct okay why those dates were negotiated with hea through meet and confer as either testing times or peak times where teachers are needed in the classroom so those are

093the dates that are blacked out no we've got November November part I mean we miss a week or two and then July but I noticed that the blackout days around the the breaks have been removed like you couldn't don't do three days two or three days before a break that used to be the common language those are blackout days you can't take those days off and have an extra break extra long break I'm just saying the black boxes aren't there so I assume there's no blackout days that is correct okay that was all I think thank you president Schultz Mr manhook can teachers use sick time for they only have to use sick time just for sick time or can they use sick time for anything else so General leave can be used for things

094that need to be taken care of during the business day that cannot be taken care of after it is for sick time and that's again we go back to prop 206 where everyone is allotted sick time per year those days can be used for personal reasons as well I I spoke to several teachers to get their opinion on blackout days and the consensus was that they don't like blackout days um I feel like if a teacher is abusing the time off that they should be handled on an individual basis um versus telling them that they can't I mean what if they're sick like you know what do they do at that at that point they have to be off we don't want teachers coming in sick if they don't feel good that is exactly blackout

095days are the suggested days that they not be away from the classroom obviously if somebody is ill they are allowed to use the general leave for sick time absolutely I just feel like if if they're given the time that they should be able to use it if they need to use it um and as far as responsibility for finding coverage is it up to the teacher to find coverage if they're out so the way that it works is that they put in the sub request through ESI and currently our fill rates are 90 plus percent so they will be granted a sub through that process obviously the sooner they know that they're going to be out the more likely that would be filled so you they're they are responsible for putting the request in yes

096okay thank you board member or sorry president Schultz um so Mr Moore and Miss Johnson I'm gonna do the best I can to remove the fact that I mean I know what it feels like to be a teacher um and in general taking days off is often more miserable than it's worth um because the amount of prep work that I have to do is gargantuan and then yes I have to make up for the fact that I wasn't here and what I wrote down so clearly was not um followed through with uh I guess what I'm struggling with and I'm trying to grasp it from an administrative perspective is a we're human I I struggle with the idea that you can't use the days when you need them if we're at over 90 fill rate

097what is the point of blocking out April or November or some of these other days sometimes I struggle with um because yeah I know April's a hard month I get it for teachers and everything else I recognize and understand the importance of doing that for State Testing right because you need a certified teacher in order to legally perform these tests those kinds of things that makes sense to me it does um but when we cap how many hours we're going to give you we make it just by nature of the job really hard to take time off in the first place and then we're telling you but you also can't decide like an adult when those things work best for your schedule I struggle with so what I'm asking is whatness like what necessity necessitates

098making entire months and I get that those are high volumes I get and respect and am happy that hea was part of this conversation I I do I just I'm trying to understand how we tell prospective teachers or teachers we hope to keep here how we value you and why you matter if a we're already losing some of those funds that we don't get to do which already makes what we promised you a little bit harder now we're trying to do the best we can for salary all these things benefits which is still hard because we have a smaller smaller group I'm just I'm trying to understand where is the benefit financially or what is the driving force behind entire months of time can I ask Miss Jim Blaine the president ha to maybe come

099up and speak on on behalf of the teachers I mean I got yeah and while she's doing that Mrs Wade so I've worked in several Industries and there's blackout dates surrounding that whether TV then it's a ratings period you can't take a whole month of November off you can't take the whole month there's a ton of blackout dates and in news um in a variety and in here it says sickness bereavement special circumstances prior approval is all fine it's just during the testing periods the end of the year and the school beginning of the school year which as a parent I would also want my kids teacher in school during that time so coming from a administrator or a business aspect and a parent then unless it's sickness or one of those special circumstances then

100I think we need to have blackouts so that we can ensure that kids are teachers are there for the end of school and beginning of school and important times testing presidentials governing board members um blackout calendar is not new it's been around for a long time if you go back and look historically it used to look a lot more restrictive a couple years ago we tried to be very open with it to not have a lot of blackout days what you see now is kind of the compromise between what it was five six years ago and what it was when it was just kind of open um we've talked about that responsibility being on the site to address those issues we've also been very clear in the message that we send to employees that if

101it's a blackout day and you're sick right if something's come up you need to have that time off it's the site decision and I think 99 of the time your site administrator is going to work with you and it doesn't become an issue so I don't know if that helps no I mean I appreciate it and board member or sorry presidentials I keep doing that sorry for demoting you um I I appreciate that I guess where I'm struggling is if we tell teachers who we hope to stay and we recognize that things change and stuff happens right and then we see an increased desire to take certain days off right by blacking out entire months sometimes we make then this problem happen in March where we saw how many coverages and those types of things

102that we had to do so I guess my question is just to to offset and I recognize illness and those types of things um I do and I think at the start of the year the start of the quarter end of quarter finals all of that I get it it makes sense to me I guess where I'm struggling is we tell you these are your hours you've earned them up to a certain point and then we won't pay you or we'll only pay you a percentage of that but then also you can't take certain days in general and I guess my question would be and it would be beneficial as we progress because I don't have a solution at the present moment and I recognize that compromise means both sides are unhappy which means we've

103at least landed where we should I just think it's beneficial as we move forward for this year than what happens come March when we have all these other days and all we're doing is just shifting this problem to something else potentially and I think it would be proactive of us to keep that in mind as we progress when we reevaluate what it is that we're doing to at least Express to our staff or prospective staff or staff we hope to retain that you matter you being a human person who is a functioning adult also gets to matter you know beyond the 150 hours that we'll give you at a percentage so thank you governing board member Wade that was part of the conversation that we had in meet and confer was how do we not

104have this shift to March um and so that was why we evaluated what the payout plan was and how we could improve it in hopes of March not becoming a problem but I understand your point on that it was discussed potentials Mysteries um and these are just questions so it's like no disrespect here I've just gotta ask so Mr Moore you were talking about um the purpose of Shifting the time from eight years to five years um I'm trying to process in my mind how that's encouraging people to stay past five years you already said our our length of tenure in our district is going down and if we're lowering that time frame how is that encouraging anyone to stay past five presidentialist member Reese I think it's a trade-off right you're if you get

105five years with limited absences yeah like well we'll take that one versus five years and they're never here you know I I think there's there's a lot that we talked about that went into this and like there was no perfect solution uh like like the stream Blaine mentioned but um that was one that we I think came to conversation was like okay if they're gonna be here five years we'll take five years and all five years in the classroom 100 intense you know that was some of the areas where we talked about being compromised I mean uh it's not perfect but and I hear what you're saying but then we're still paying them for those for that time when they leave after five years instead of having them for six or seven years I I'm

106just trying to understand and I get where you were talking about you know the compromise I'm just if we're and I'm not saying holding things hostage makes people stay longer that's not my purpose I I'm just saying if we're noticing that people are leaving year six and year seven and so they're not being paid out but they're taking their time yes we're paying for a sub but if we're paying them out their time that's still costing the district money too I mean either way and then to me this says hey you're good to leave after year five and so to me I just view changing the amount of time and again I I'm not saying holding it hostage is like hey you have to be here at least eight years um but I do know

107also that sometimes in within research that if you're somewhere at least eight years the likelihood of you leaving after that is less than five years you're you're more likely to go somewhere after if you've only been there five years then if you've made it eight you're probably gonna stay a little longer your your dedication your loyalty things like that you're you're there um and again I'm just asking these questions because I'm trying to process in My Mind by all we're doing is lowering our bar to five years and saying it's okay that you can go after five years and we'll pay you and I get that that's important um but either way whether they're here with no absences for the five years or they stay five years and then leave either way it's costing us

108the same amount of money and we have an issue with teachers and people leaving after five years versus six or seven um if that's what you've noticed the trend so I'd rather address why are people leaving than trying to reduce when they would get their payout I I think that to me that's more of an important topic of why are people leaving that we're seeing it leaving earlier um and so by reducing it to five is we're just saying that's okay so um and retention is important because I think I don't know how long ago when we when we implemented the retention stipends and bonuses because at one point in time we kind of considered ourselves like a training District we had fresh teachers coming out of college we would have them for three or

109four years they would get their time they would get their training you know and then they could Market themselves somewhere else because now they had years of experience and so we were noticing that three to five year time frame is where we were losing a lot of our teachers because then they could go market themselves as experience at that point so um I I hear what you're saying but in my mind that explanation is to me is just saying it's okay because we're noticing they're leaving at year six so now we want to pay them out and I'm again I'm not trying to say that's about I'm just saying we need to look at why they're leaving um and if that's the right thing to do my other question things that kind of have gone

110through my mind I have multiple thoughts on the blackout calendar I hear you Mrs Wade and I know it's frustrating um and thank you for compromising you guys said it was more open and and you guys even noticed like hey this isn't working out so well we need to kind of rein it in I also hear from teachers too they have relationships with their site admins most of the time if they have a request of time off and it's during a blackout time it is going to fall under that special circumstance essentially what I have heard from teachers is that almost no one gets denied even during a blackout time and so my question actually I think it was last year we had a huge issue at one of our schools that we had a

111lot of teachers out again kind of like what you guys noticed in March like we had one school who there was a lot of people out and lo and behold they were they were blackout days and come to find out administration had approved a lot of these days of special circumstances so my question a year ago to Dr Foley was well then what's the point of calling it a blackout day so I get when they're sick and things like that um so I kind of go back and forth on that blackout calendar if we're making all these exceptions then is there a purpose to it um I hope and meet and confer you guys continue to talk about that um and you're also assuming everyone thinks the way you do and going okay I'm an

112adult I know it's testing I know my job requires me to be there I'm going to be there unless I'm dying or someone else's not everybody also thinks that same way so sometimes we need to have that little visual of yeah it's important here in your classroom because it's testing and people are like oh I guess I need to be there um and a reminder of try and schedule our appointments at other times you know I get it it's hard the the one other thing I wanted to address and um for the for the support staff where we talk about changing it to the 1200 from 800 I'm not sure and maybe Miss Wayne you would remember I think it was just two years ago we reduced it it wasn't that long it was like

113two or three years we reduced it for the simple purpose of we were talking about trying to create and this is that limit I get it um that work-life balance like hoping that if you're not accruing any more hours you're take them you know so I remember having this conversation and I want to say it was two or three years ago that we did actually reduce them to try and create you know that work life balance like here please um take your time you have it take it um because I mean in all actuality for 1200 hours for a full-time staff member that's 30 weeks I can tell you nowhere in the corporate world well you get 30 weeks off or paid so um I mean that's 30 weeks of time the the teacher at

114150 days that's almost an entire school year um so I know for the hours we did for the support staff I know we like I don't remember um I know at one point we reduced them hoping that it would try and encourage people to take them and not carry them but I can't tell you when that was so um that's just my concern is that more people we all look to retirement we all look to that day that you know I'm not going to go to work anymore um and maybe for some that factors in but we want them to use their time and when they need it and when it like Miss Van Hook said we are still a business we do still have a product when it makes sense for for our sites

115too it needs to make sense but we need to encourage people to to take their time and that's why they get it so those are just the questions and thoughts in my mind presidential memories so these are some of the same conversations that we had all all year long regarding this um and these are constant topics that we we revisit we look at data um explained mentioned that we change blackout calendars we change um different metrics in this to try to address different Trends and it's a moving Target there is no perfect solution but I do want to make a comment though this was last adopted in 2017 uh this policy um so a little longer than two years but um I'm just uh and then to accumulate 1200 hours that would take 10 years

116of perfect attendance so um that that is not the norm that you would have somebody 10 years perfect attendance uh to accumulate the 1200 hours so it does take some time for somebody to accumulate that um like I said that is not the majority of our staff are hitting that limit um but what we wanted to do there um was was basically honor those staff that have been here uh 16 plus years who've had good attendance who have done work but at the same time yes encourage them to take their time use it um and there are very few staff that are at that Max well and that's my other thought too is I mean that from a policy it can be there but how much are we are we hitting it and and things

117like that because obviously there is a financial impact there too um and so answering Mrs Anderson's question that we have you know a small percentage of of people meeting that 150 days a small percentage of people meet that would meet the 800 that would go to the 1200 um I mean that's important to understand too president Schultz and board member recent also Mr Moore I guess where I'm at from a teacher perspective is um I don't believe anybody's leaving this District because of blackout days or because we aren't paying out past 150 hours what I'm saying is I think adopting policies creates some of those messages and ultimately by and large outside of people leaving the profession in general which clearly happens um a lot of Reason teachers leave before that time frame is because

118the subjects they want to teach so I get better and I want to teach AP and that's not offered here because the person who's there is there and they're going to write it out until that time and I want to go someplace where I enjoy my day better or I want to teach something different because I want to get a challenge or those types of things and so I guess where I'm at is I agree with with all of the statements that are made in that what we have to address is why people are leaving the profession in general but more importantly why are they choosing to leave Higley and at what time frame some of these reasons have absolutely nothing to do with with blackout days and everything else I guess my perspective of

119it is what message are we sending because when people decide to leave I guarantee you it's because I couldn't it has nothing to do with you didn't give me that day in April right like it is because I wanted to teach other things or you told me I was teaching a grade I said I didn't want to do anymore those types of things and the ultimate answer that happens so often to teachers is if you don't do it nobody will the kids were suffer so essentially we keep teachers beholden to some of these things out of emotional guilt that somehow the world will end if we choose not to do it and we can only rock that life so long before they leave and they'll leave to someplace else because you can hopefully start it

120over on a new track and I think maybe where we had some of those teacher surveys and those types of things can be where we really address because ultimately the blackout days the 150 hours which is a gargantuan amount of time isn't what's really important in in the grand scheme of things so I mean I appreciate it thank you any other question comments I just want to say that all right I wanted to add about the blackout dates and if we if it is there then there should be parameters otherwise if if we see the Giant sub leave in May then what is what is the point of it and so I'll look for that next year um again to make sure that you know if like you said 99 then then the policy is

121useless Mrs Anderson I see a bonus oh I'm sorry did I misreustated our average years did you say six or six just thrown out there um so in previous so up until the last couple years um it was averaging around seven and a half eight seven and a half yeah um more recently it's it it's dropping depending on how many years you pulled back like um it just depends on yeah the numbers you pull and how far back you pull but more recently it's been dropping in terms of teachers at or even employees in general that have stayed within the district for a certain number of years that is reducing so so when you say seven and a half eight years that's like a current or you said you pulled like years of data that's

122a historical trend for the last decade so yeah yeah I imagine there's a lot of different things that happened in the last decade so okay I see one thing we didn't touch on or maybe we did because I was looking up something else but um it also helps to decrease of teachers let's say our number was four years like that's our average say we hit four or five years um and it was set at eight what we're dealing with are the and I've mentioned this before the teachers burning their hours and this is where it hits a lot of already peaked to their level of exhaustion and things where they're taking on coming out of classes or taking on um the uncovered things so I see that as something that should help if we lower

123the years I'm not saying it will resolve and it may not do anything but I thought that would be a benefit to decreasing the years um what does it take to Proctor State tests what what requirements does an individual have to have to Proctor a test we need these teachers but if we were to train substitutes or have that built into their program then it wouldn't be so stressful so we we have um Mr Berkshire in here vice president Anderson so it's a perfect question for him depends on the level of the test at the high school level Act is very particular about who can Proctor those tests and and but in general they have to be an employee of the district which means if we're Contracting with the ESI they aren't considered to be

124an employee of the district which means we couldn't use a sub to Proctor any of our state assessments um we do use Paris um principles work very closely with their staff to develop their schedules around testing now that testing is computer-based they do have a little bit more flexibility in that schedule as we learned this past spring but [Music] when teachers are not there it does create conflict in terms of their schedule and when kids are supposed to be testing this past year we had Ade come out to monitor our testing and if our schedules didn't match what they were expecting to see then they didn't get to see what they wanted to see and they weren't happy with us when that happened okay so the ACT requires staff and then the other testing AP

125of course you'd want your teacher there for your AP tests and other and then we have our state like our azsi AZ this and that those don't have to be state or uh District employees do they all State Testing has to be an employee of the district um apact s-a-t they have different rules because they aren't State administered they are administered by the the companies um related to act specifically if I can remember um for example we can't have a an athletic coach a proctoring an ACT test because Act is also related to NCAA eligibility so they're they're more restrictive at the high school level than they are at the third through eighth grade level but the the rule of thumb is they have to be an employee of the district just putting it out

126there um so November what are all the tests in November that we're giving that's blocking out the whole month vice president Anderson I'm sorry I don't know if it's where I'm sitting but I can't hear you what tests are we giving in November where the whole month is blocked out that's not related to testing per se um can you speak to why November was blacked out with I think that's that's James you know or June [Music] adults governing board members multitasking parent um it was based off the the number of absences um it was just kind of an outrageous number when we broke it down by month doubt stood out almost double to come to some of those other months and so that was the focus on that one yeah so they hold on to

127the time and then take it more towards the end of the year which is I mean pretty common with most jobs right yeah any other questions comments concerns thank you Mr Moore moving on to action items 9.1 I move that the governing board approved the agreement discussed during executive session questions comments concerns all those in favor aye aye at this time with that vote we the governing board has appointed Mrs Sherry Richards as the interim superintendent we appreciate her very much her commitment to the students and the district and our teachers and stepping forward at this time we are confident in you and that you will be um we appreciate appreciate you during this transition also with that the governing board will be seeking an outside agency to conduct a comprehensive search for our superintendent

128over the next year thank you very much Mrs Richards thank you and congratulations moving on to 9.2 I move that we approve the adoption of the fiscal year 2023-2024 proposed expenditure budget I questions comments concerns let's see so we have a carryover of 23 million in mno and 7 million in capital for next year and based on the last meeting with the amount of carryover that we have I believe that the tax levy wasn't necessary yes I know that per statute we can do that but that doesn't mean we should tax the community without their approval that's all those in favor I all those opposed nay motion passes four to one 9.2 I approve the governor sorry I have motion that we approve the governing board initiatives for 2023 2024 school year seconded questions comments

129concerns president Schultz this is Van Hook Mr um who am I speaking to on this board initiatives do I are you addressing 9-3 that's Richard um so um sorry I just got to read this real quick so with the with the vote to approve the initiative that's just that's just approving the initiatives and not necessarily um professional development or or the tool that this is just the steps that we are going going to do to meet the goals correct so that's correct we were asking consideration on these specific Focus areas we've listed in addition we've listed action steps that we believe will address this appropriately I do believe like I do believe we need to add something to 3.2 about further Community marketing beyond our own students like we discussed I believe too that we're

130happy to review what we have for PD with anyone um it's not to answer your question it's not that we're providing you a list of PD opportunities to approve we're telling you where we believe we need to put our energy but it goes beyond that you know I mean I think our um coaches our district coaches have worked hard a bunch of the teachers that have been here this evening provide professional development for each other as well so I'm not sure if I'm answering your question that we're seeking approval for these focused areas for board initiatives and yes we we lack for you guys to approve these action steps with the understanding we may need to add things adjust things but we want to come back and report all along the way during the our

131information I think we asked a ton of good questions and gave good feedback and so hopefully that they can come back and give us updates and weekends and I I give perhaps many little updates on these action steps and indicators without it being oh we did all of this because we're not going to do it all at once we're going to be doing it all year long more of a progress report yes thank you for that yeah I think it's I think it's good to not have something set in stone and be able to change it and as we do things if it's not working to be able to tweak it as we go thank you we agree well and just clarification the board initiatives are it's kind of like the lead for the district

132so everyone knows and and that's why it's important we get on this tonight because I mean school starts next month and so between like Miss Richard said it goes they start with Administration so it goes all the way down the sites and um and so it's important that everyone knows what what the focus is for the this year and and everyone's part in it and just clarification that typically we don't approve PD so we're this is just saying that that's a tool that they're going to use to meet this initiative so okay I believe all those in favor are approves of being a all those in favor approving the governing board initiatives for 2023-2024 school year aye motion says five to zero 9.4 approval of RFP 23-606 28 apparel Screen Printing and embroidery I make

133emotional right okay my motion that we approve RFP 23-0628 apparel Screen Printing and embroidery second all those in favor aye I'm sorry I did for okay does anyone have I did I'm sorry Mrs Reese I know I was just going to ask what this RFP um because there's several vendors does each of our locations do they have to go through these vendors so any of our clubs any anyone who's getting District money are schools now are they required because we haven't done like a screen printing one before so are they going to be required to go through only these vendors for the schools if they're getting their t-shirts or whatever yeah president Schultz member Reese this RFP actually replaces the previous RFP the district that just expired we had a five year we did um

134we did I can prevent that to you if you are you gonna say that was 2017 as well because now I'm gonna 2019 but okay this is going to be like where was I um the reason we do this just a little context is because um there's several purchasing requirements that government agencies have um and specifically in terms of conflict of interest and so um everybody knows a mom-and-pop shop that does Screen Printing and so um to avoid conflict of interest and in having a designated list of vendors because we don't want employees going to their mom and pop shop we also don't want 50 t-shirt vendors in the district that we have to manage if an employee were to go to their friend and purchase that from them and they didn't disclose it on

135their conflict of interest form that we require we are in violation of procurement laws and so we do this formal bid for that purpose and so we solicit um our event you know t-shirt vendors through a formal preparing for procurement process in the event that somebody does know one of these t-shirt vendors if they go through this process they have now basically eliminated that issue of conflict of interest because they've gone through a formal bidding process so these 16 vendors were awarded based off the evaluation teams criteria each one was scored and then so yes all district funds including Club tax credit student club which are 90 of the expenditures for t-shirts must use these 16 vendors can we make sure that gets out there because I can just tell you I know clubs that

136know people who do their own thing and you know and who knows maybe schools do as well and so if we can make sure that information gets out there and as to why we need to use these vendors absolutely yep thank you president president Schultz Mr Moore working in procurement we always had a preferred vendor list but it comes with like a discount does that same apply here um with these companies um was there any type of agreement that if we made them part of our preferred vendor list that they would provide any type of discount to us we ask that they provide a standard pricing list obviously vendors um when going through a formal programming process they have to present their act the the price list that they would honor for the the the

137length of the the procurement bid so um in that sense um there is no discount but we do know pricing for the the length of the bid so Mrs Reese thank you for that question I didn't realize this was replacing an RFP either I thought it was to to standardize across the board to like you said everyone knows a mom-and-pop shot so thank you uh uh we all approved that so we're moving on to 9.5 I move that we approve policy gcca professional support staff General leave questions comments concerns all those in favor aye all those opposed I didn't say I but I meant I oh okay motion passes five to zero 9.6 ratified my move that we ratify payroll and expense vouchers as presented questions comments concerns Mrs Van Hook there's an expense there

138for my daughter um you'd like to recuse yourself from this vote for not from the entire vote just from that one expense that's why I asked how how we would do that you can't pull you just have to abstain from the okay I'm sorry it's okay um it's a yeah several vouchers so that one specific voucher should have been pulled out instead of the entire thing but well no better for next time it's fine okay all those in favor aye and then four with one I'm stating okay 9.7 I move that we approved the meal price increase for fiscal year 2024. that was you Mysteries right questions comments concerns all right president Schultz if there's a surplus paid back to SFA from um I think that all the numbers are wrong but why is there

139an increase of the 10 cents and 70 cents um when we have a surplus can you explain that please president Schultz member Van Hook this is not on this agenda item this am I mixing up my numbers is asking for Higley Unified School District's meal price has to increase the price required by Ade we have to evaluate our mere parses that we charge to our students and this is a recommendation to increase our breakfast based on the calculation from Ade in our launch in those meal prices that that is what this is I think I'm mixing it up with 9.8 sorry hard to track when all the numbers change once we move stuff off the consent agenda never mind thank you this is the 10 increase to mule prices for the for the district I'm

140sorry did I say ten dollars oh 10 cents excuse me 10 cent increase to meal prices all those in paper aye motion carries motion passes five to zero now I got lost to where I was nine nine point eight I move that we authorized the expenditure of the Food Service management company fsmc Compass Group questions comments concerned this is Ben hook was this the one you a question about um so does my question apply to this one as far as the Surplus yeah presidentials remember how good it does so I'll be happy to answer that um so the prices you see on this um agreement with the food service management company uh Chartwells these are meal equivalent prices in which Chartwells as you know we are contracted uh we contract our Labor uh to two

141Chartwells or Compass Group per the RFP agreement um they are they charge us a meal equivalent price that's how they get paid and that's why those prices differ from what we charge our students that these prices are not charged to our students these this is the fees that Chartwells charges the district uh for using their services to provide contracted labor services for Hickory Unified School District so and then to touch on the Surplus that Surplus is a guarantee that they are estimating uh in this in this basically they're estimating for meal counts and so they are obligated to meet that guarantee um and then I think you had a question that was answered in the board comments um that if they don't meet that guarantee what what are the repercussions they do have language in

142here that in the event that they don't raise enough money they will um they shall still reimburse the district up to fifty thousand dollars so they will take a loss for basically not estimating appropriately um we do have that in there but um as you'll see there's another board engineer item which I can talk to you later which this is typically a conservative estimate and when we often come back to the board uh with actual numbers um typically increasing this which also increases our guarantee so I hope that yes thank you and there's no negotiating power over these prices they're just set that's what they tell us and that's what we have to use so we'd go through a process much like the T-shirt uh we get through a bidding process uh Chartwells was awarded

143a bit this is year five of five um and we do go through a process of meeting they are here on site um Mr Corey Hansen the the manager for um Compass Group um in our in our Higley District uh we we have conversations in what um where are reimbursement rates with Federal reimbursement rates whereas inflation how is food costs involved in this and so that is a conversation we have annually um and in terms of working through this agreement the only obligation the district has is to we have the obligation to say yes we want to renew another year with Chartwells up to five years or no we want to go back out to Bid And so we're recommending that we renew with Chartwells for the fifth year the district will have no choice

144but to bid next year because there is the statute of limitations on uh procurement we have a five-year limit so um that is why we're bringing this recommendation we've gone through that process we feel Chartwells will provide the best service in the district and we want to exercise that right to extend the fifth year option and the part where it talks about non-profit um she came back and told me what the meaning of non-profit was but I I meant more um how does it apply here does does the vendor Chartwells have to be a non-profit or can you tell me when I when we get there yes I'll be happy to nine okay thank you all those in favor aye motion carries five to zero 9.9 even I forgot approve I move that we approve

145food programs permanent service agreement renewal with the Arizona Department of Education fiscal year 2024. questions Mr Moore your question applies to this uh agenda item in which um we're required by Ade to annually uh basically recertify the district um so in that conversation the nonprofit is the district uh we we are considered a non-profit um in the sense that we do not we're not making money off of selling meals to students um because we're simply just trying to break even um and provide students meals based on USDA standards um and then upkeep our cafeteria equipment to meet health code standards and so we we're in the sense we are the non-profit Higley unified is non-profit in that agreement so perfect thank you um I do have uh more to say about this so um when

146reading the agreement it mentioned in there the public law 111-296 the healthy hungry free kids act um Federal legislation reauthorizes the nutrition act now called the healthy hungry kids act um so in there it says meat nutrition standards for national school lunch and breakfast programs Implement nutrition standards for all snacks snack foods beverages sold to children at schools um so during a um I don't even know why I was at the school um but I saw a sign posted on the wall that um it says meal examples a fruit plus a hamburger whole grain and lean protein and then fruit and orange plus a piece of pizza and it says whole grain and lean protein um my concern is that um we're using I mean are we are we using this poster to to tell

147kids that a pizza and a burger is a good source of protein versus teaching them to be able to like have healthy options to eat and because of the nutrition standards that are listed like is this part of that nutrition standard it's a decision it is it is part of the nutrition standards and unfortunately it's not our just it's not our decision though it's so I mean we as a district don't have um don't have any control over the food that's served I'm going to invite uh Mr Hansen from uh Chartwells who thank you so we do have control over it but those are standards that set by um uh yeah that sign that you're referring to is required by the program that has to be displayed and what it is uh giving examples of

148what's considered a reimbursable meal by the state so it's a required sign that we have to post anywhere where meal service is uh the goal isn't to necessarily show that that is an example of a quote-unquote uh good source of whatever it is really just hey these are options for reimbursable meals and then we have uh educational things that can happen outside of the program whether it's different options having education in the classroom that type of thing or a wellness policy for the district but the sign that you're referring to is required to be posted from Ade got it um I just right yes um thank you for that um I just I mean I I guess this is off I mean it applies to the law so I just my concern is um even

149with with my daughter buying lunch like she would you know buy lunch and then throw it away because she she doesn't like what you know what the food was so um and I I had that conversation with Dr Foley um as far as being able to figure out better options for um that we're serving our kids versus hamburgers and pizza but that's a topic for another day I suppose it's a it's a bigger issue which I think also with our our meal price increase you know we could do different things but the cost of food and being able to provide an affordable lunch to to kids and keep that cost down is also an issue too the cheaper products the worse yep items and so it's finding that balance and it's also finding things that

150kids will eat kids eat pizza and burgers and like if you give my you know kid something else they're not going to eat that as well yeah I pick them a salad they're not going to to go for it um Anderson would like that but that was our conversation I I had with Dr Foley is if we could potentially survey kids and see what they feel about the foods that I think they do don't you uh yes that's one of the things yeah so they do survey kids and of course kids I mean my my daughter only eats there on Pizza day so um uh or or even do you guys survey parents at all yes yes I think the survey goes out but I mean ultimately like you said your daughter throws away so

151if you're serving the parents on what to eat the kids could still throw it away right you know what I mean like the kid would still throw because they're the ones eating it so they're probably the most important audience to make sure I mean because I want my kid to eat salads and Jicama and you know right veggies but she wants ice cream and pizza right I mean that's that's kind of the problem with just surveying kids because that's what they would want no yes thank you it's also worth noting um because they've done samples for us too and actually I think the pizza is pretty good yes but no offense it's it's not Pizza Hut pizza there because there are specific requirements so it's a it's a wheat crust it's not a white crust

152it's you know the the burgers there are certain requirements and I remember the conversation of the amount of salt that can be in each in these items so there are nutrition standards while we look at it and go oh well that's a burger well it's not a McDonald's burger there there's other things and so and not that McDonald's burgers are good but it tastes different how about that it tastes different than maybe what they're used to from a fast food standpoint so um but they've done a lot of different tastes for us and I think they're good but it it's different for kids it's not going to be the same so but there are nutrition standards that they have to follow right thank you all in favor of approving the payment procedures rather wait no

153where the farm at yes thank you I'm sorry my numbers are wrong on my paper I got any approved food program permanent service agreement renewal with the Arizona Department of Education fiscal year 2024. hi motion carries five to zero approval of payment procedure 9.110 approval of payment procedures ratify vouchers and salaries for fiscal year 2024. comment questions comments concerns presidentials okay so imagine if um if we're being asked to vote on something at the last minute and even though it is the first time we're seeing this item that's what this policy does we are told it has to be voted on and this up this meeting because of some deadline this resolution actually takes that further and spends the money that the board must legally approve before we've approved it I'm sorry must legally um

154spends the money that the board must legally approve before we've approved it and then asks for approval after the fact this resolution lends itself to a rubber stamp board since it approves expenditures after the fact why can't we get ahead of it and know what expenses we have coming up so that we can approve it before it happens if this is to pay liabilities such as salaries what was done prior to this policy and why is it necessary now if it's because of Summer breaks can we put a time limit on the policy one of the main duties as a board is to approve expenditures this policy removes that Authority from the board I would like to add if we do decide to go forward with this policy I would like to add a clause

155in this policy that states that the superintendent recognizes that this resolution acknowledges that the board may choose to vote against items as abort at the board meeting and it's incumbent on the superintendent to ensure all contracts contain that clause that's all is it possible for us to um pull up some of the payment procedure like aspects because from my understanding isn't some of this like sub coverage and things like that which we can't know in advance and if we don't have a meeting and somebody needs to cover and they did those things like there's no way for us to be able to prove that yes ahead of time you know what I mean like I recognize and hear what you're saying as far as our job is to do things with forethought but the nature

156of some of these things that's not possible until after the fact so like do you tell the person we're not going to pay you for the work that you did last month like I I just I guess I'm not really understanding what the concern Mr Mark can you clarify please president Schultz members of the board so this is not a new policy this has been in place I don't have the actual date I wish I did but um maybe Christine can help me in the meantime but um we have I mean obviously we have to but like this is a common practice because board meetings are often few and far between and um we've been practicing that you guys have been ratifying vouchers this whole year um that so any higher the district has in

157between board I mean we would if we did not have this policy in place we would be at a standstill um there can be terminations amid you that this not only includes with every single invoice process we would not have any vendors want to do business with us if we could not pay them in a timely manner and so um by having this policy in place it allows us to proceed with normal business as usual with the board ratifying the vouchers but that also gives the board um you've pulled items from the ratified vouchers we can still have discussion on that and whether um you know there needs to be further investigation and why that expenditure took place we're happy to have those conversations but this would greatly hinder the district's relationship with vendors the

158district's ability to do business the district's ability to operate from a human resource perspective so this is not new and I don't know 2001 that this was in place yeah presidentials and members of the board I'd also like to add that if we don't pay people in a timely manner we could be held liable for that and we cannot delay if someone has worked for us we must pay timely and accurately it would cost us more in in lawsuits and right and and I'm not obviously like the salary part which is why I mentioned that like is it because due to salaries and so obviously that is an issue um but I I want to ensure that um you know if we can add that clause in there that would allow us the ability to

159I mean yes we can do it now but to be able to add it to the policy to allow us the ability to um to not to choose not to vote on on an item until we we have the time to be able to research it um and I mean it's it's really not fair even to us to be able to see something for the first time and not have enough information on it um so just to be able to have the ability to say can we move the you know move this um to to have a further discussion so yes we can do that but to be able to add that to policy because I don't want I don't want the policy to because I mean that's what the policy is doing it's it's

160removing our ability to be able to vote on expenditures before it's happening so we're always I mean okay you pay somebody a vendor for service that they provide um and what if we choose not to pay that vendor but ahead of time we would have the ability to go no let's not spend this right now let's wait another month before we spend it we don't have that ability with what in in the current state you guys spend the money and then we have no choice but to approve it board member Van Hook if I could at least try to clarify something I guess is I guess it comes down to a couple of things thing one whether or not you have respect for the people in the positions that they're in I understand that the

161nature of our job is to ensure that there is oversight and that is what we are doing I also hear what you're saying the idea that it makes you feel uncomfortable in that you have a potential of approving something that you might not personally approve of a you always have the option to to say nay you also have the option when it comes to comments or concerns to express I'm saying they because of this one thing so you can get the clarification should that matter to you but when you look at what happens or how a a school functions a lot of times we have a need and we'll Express what that need is and the time it takes to approve with the process that we have to get in place in order to approve

162it we're already waiting so for example staff bathroom had my key broke off in the staff bathroom miserable miserable because a I still had to go to the restroom and now I have two minutes left of time before I get back to my class that bathroom was out for over a month I know but my point is the process of the vouchers and those types of things so by the time it comes to us I get that your frustration is that it's after the fact and when we look through them if we have things that are routinely excessive or what you feel is excessive we have the opportunity to question it but the idea that you're saying you want to make sure that you can approve it before it happens is really not honoring or

163respecting the idea that we have a sea of professionals who are literally following processes and policies that we have in place so either we put these policies in place and we say okay go live with them and do them and when we see that those things arise then we can respond to it but to put a policy out and say I'm going to assume that you're not following it because I don't want to believe that you are makes it impossible for us to continue to progress when so many of these things have to go through we have literal vouchers for who you can buy a t-shirt from we have regulations for these types of things we have staff that needs to get filled in this position we cannot do anything other than say these are

164professionals we respect their ability their knowledge their understanding of our policies and the positions in place and we are honoring the fact that they are doing that if we feel that they aren't then that is the nature of our position but the vouchers that come to us you still can question you still can say I don't want to do this so the idea of adding that to a policy that is already effective I struggle with it feels restrictive it feels as if we are telling the people in this District I don't trust you and I struggle with saying two individuals who are working hard who answer every possible question that we have and telling them that it's not enough I I struggle there has to be a limit to what we are expecting regular people

165to do and function within their job especially if we wish to retain them like at the end of the day um I I think you're completely misunderstanding me I'm not saying at any point that I don't trust the staff what I'm saying is our job as a board is to approve expenses and if there is let's say a large expense and we as a board decide let's hold off another month before we proceed with this expense or this project that's going to cost the district 2 million dollars you can't it's not on there you can't have that on there it's a limit for these right so 100 000 this is to function as for business as usual so to function with being able to pay people back for Subs things like that but big expenditures

166still have to come to us but what's the limit to where they can approve expenditures a hundred thousand we currently have another board policy that requires anything over a hundred thousand any single expenditure over a hundred thousand we bring back to the board and I think you know we've we've done that through several of these the Higgly High project for example like all of these large expenditures are brought to the board um prior to being expensed so we do ask for board authorization prior to those expenditures being moved forward with and so at that point um that gives you the board the authority to to deny or approve that request but what this does is it allows us to the pencil from the warehouse that the teacher needs tomorrow allows us to move forward those

167daily items that so up to a hundred thousand dollars spending so you can have five different expenses at a hundred thousand dollars each on on the voucher and we don't get the ability to be able to say yay or nay it's just it's spent and we approve after the fact so it's any single expenditure over 100 or a cumulative total over a hundred thousand so tonight on the agenda you approved a list of of vendors where we asked for authorization to spend up to a certain limit because these are vendors that we use annually we vetted those numbers vary on that list on some uh exceed a couple hundred thousand uh for example Office Depot we start that's the one of our main vendors for our warehouse stock or waxy that's our main vendor for

168toilet paper and so you approved tonight on the consent agenda authorization to expend up to 500 000 our purchasing department monitors that at any point in which we exceed that by a hundred thousand we bring that back to the governing board and ask for additional authorization so we have those controls already in place and you've approved some of those throughout this year for those expenditures that one meet the single purchase a single purchase over a hundred thousand or a cumulative purchase over a hundred thousand per vendor so is is that the verbiage is not that's not those numbers are not in the policy those are in a separate policy there's a purchasing policy I do not know it off the top of my head but I could provide that to you um okay so as

169long as we have a policy that states that limit um which obviously the superintendent is allowed to approve up to that point um okay yeah there's there's that other policy so I know it's hard because there's policies and then policy on top of policy policy here and when you're they're not combined to be able to see the and they're all separate and I mean I know I when I look at the vouchers and even if it's 50 or 100 if something seems weird to me like the vendor name I'm going trying to figure out like what no this is strange I'll ask you know um and I I look at it the same way is if we notice that there's Trends or issues then we have to have that conversation with our superintendent um to

170address it as a Personnel item that either they're not informed or they're making bad decisions and they need a little coaching or guidance or maybe they're time with us may need to end I mean if we feel that there's there's things that's not being purchased properly we always have that um but yeah this lets our pay our SRP Bill everything you know all of our regular stuff and and you're aware I mean we terminate somebody you have 72 hours to provide them a paycheck you know it could be two weeks that could happen on a Thursday and it may be two weeks or three before we have a board meeting again they have to have the ability to do that so but yes there's safeguards in place that have been reviewed have been talked about

171to try and put safeguards in place um and consistently reviewed so and can we at least have this policy have a link to the other policy where it shows the limits just to be able to have that connection um yeah yeah I just you know I know that there's there's a limit but I want to ensure that we as a board um you know we're held responsible for approving expenses and like I said it has nothing to do with the fact that I don't trust staff for for doing their job um but due to the history of the district um it's it's been an issue and so um that's where my concern comes in all those in favor of proving payment procedures ratify vouchers and salaries for fiscal year 2024. hi motion carries five to

172zero nine point one one one approval of Transportation price increase to non-husd transportation all those any questions comments concerns all those in favor yeah wait wait sorry president Schultz um Mr Moore are you speaking on this can you explain how this service Works um do we do we offer pricing is it somebody giving us the service or is that or is that the service that we're providing somebody else so this is a service that we provide either other school districts Charters um or uh any anybody who needs um who's I guess asking for transportation services so I want to emphasize though we do not just accept any routes that are being requested we first make sure that our husd routes our students are are one driven to school on time and then picked up on

173time but as you know uh drivers during the middle of the day there's excess time which drivers often are looking for extra hours there's also extracurricular events in which other school districts they have driver shortages and we may have drivers willing to work and or bus is willing to uh you know occupy you know provide the trip for them so this is outside uh individuals or school districts or companies reaching out to Higley to um request transportation services and approximately how much of a revenue are we seeing from this service you know I don't I'll have to get back to you I don't want to say a number that I don't feel comfortable thank you yeah how are our numbers comparing to are we Within about the same amount or did you look or was

174that looked at it all yeah I think Mr Crosby indicated that we are at least at the minimum or below uh our our numbers are still very uh low um but we're at a point where where field prices labor prices are are exceeding we're almost we want to at a minimum break even if not have a little Revenue because this is a benefit to the district um and we can put that Revenue back into the transportation facility and or buses and save as operational dollars so our goal is to kind of stay above the the break-even point uh and provide that benefit back to the district by um providing these services so I am moving on to nine point Sorry 9.12 approval of mou between Higley unified and Higley Education Association second questions comments concerns

175president Schultz um I'm just curious why we need an mou um and what percentage of our teachers participate in hea um I hea obviously they support teachers and not necessarily students um they for me I I have a concern with this contract because hea is part of aea you know political Army aea and then an Nea which is the largest Union in the U.S during the process in in the last since um they definitely did not have the best interest of our students since they started walking out on them since 2018. we also saw what they did during covid pushed masking school closures um and so many experiences for students were ruined such as graduations prom and end-of-year celebrations and let's not forget academic loss um thank you if I believe if teachers want to

176be part of hea obviously they're welcome to do that on their on their own but I don't believe that the district needs to be signing an agreement with the Union Higley is also um paying a stipend to the hea president um and they've done this approximately 4 000 annually to for representation work I'd like to know what that means is that half day to Lobby half day to teach does the hea president teach part-time for the district we shouldn't be using tax dollars to fund the political activities of the Union um is this a gift of public funds because we have laws against that um and are we paying the AGA president for various committee representations why do we why why not pair the pay the parents or other teachers what about other committee members

177how is this not considered using taxpayer money to influence political ideas and agendas um so if I don't know if you can answer my question but I'd like to know if um and any of these and answers to any of my questions that I asked um are you able to answer president Schultz uh board member Van Hook I'd like to at least try to answer some of them and then other individuals can for uh different things I think there's a lot to unpack um with your statements uh a couple of things one if you don't have teacher support you don't have schools there is no way around it and I recognize that we do these surveys and these surveys have the best intent and that's real and that's valid that doesn't mean the information that

178you get is reflective of how people actually feel for example just today hea stood up and advocated for a policy that is not necessarily the best for all teachers right so having a go-between for individuals at each site to say these are things that are happening here and then Translating that information to us it is vital we are a right to work state there have also been Supreme Court cases in the last several years that have made it to where in non-right-to-work states which is relevant here you don't automatically get signed up you get a choice and by our district and our state our enrollment is low and part of that reason is because it's expensive and I'm already paying a lot of money to function as a teacher in the first place and so

179taking more of my paycheck to do something that I feel doesn't necessarily have a lot of weight is heart it is hard to be part of the hea it is valuable to make sure that we express to teachers you matter part of the reason that you call the hea the Nea and every other Education Association political is because they advocate for things that benefit them life is Politics the only time that we say something is quote unquote political is when it is against what we already feel that is an unfair statement to assess to individuals who are vying for their job these are individuals who say here's areas that we are struggling we have spent how much time on this board even today alone talking about the problem of teachers leaving not only leaving our

180district leaving the profession how do we understand why they are leaving how do we advocate for them if not for teachers I mean this with love and respect for all persons if you are not a teacher you have no idea what it is like none you assume so because often we remember what it was like when we had teachers and that ain't today we are asking of our teachers far more than we should and the idea that you would sit here and say an organization that is here to support them an organization who bends over backwards repeatedly for their students and to say because you are advocating for yourself that's harming others I struggle with I struggle with it because we talk about as somebody even expressed today in public comments actions matter for our

181students and so if I tell my students you as a human have value and me as a teacher I am advocating for my value that is part of that inaction that I am showing them right we have teachers who work so much and to express that a partnership with those teachers to ensure that we have a good relationship is political or at the very least politics you don't want to get behind I struggle with because our service to this community is our students and you do that with teachers everyone else is support everyone else is support without those teachers we have nothing so to sit here and say that their opinion is not valued and to say that they're advocating for that harmed students directly I think is disingenuous I think it I think it

182paints a picture or a narrative that I recognize is valuable when you want to keep people paid less when you want to keep people in a position that is harmful we are at a Tipping Point we are losing teachers we have increased salary we still lose teachers we are literally talking about this at almost every single board meeting so to say that we shouldn't be a part of the hea or keep that up where do you hope to keep teachers then how do you hope to show a vital part of Education that they matter you say I trust teachers and then you turn around and say something else that is the complete opposite so I'm struggling if you trust teachers trust that they are advocating for their students because they do it every day and

183when they tell you this is what's hard or this is what I need you go okay because you matter and what you do matters but to sit there and say you advocating for a better salary a better life for yourself is harmful I struggle with especially Higley we took those days off we didn't even harm I didn't even live in this state at the time we didn't harm our students we closed so it wouldn't be so I I struggle with you painting a picture that is not necessarily accurate and by extension actually harmful to students if you don't support what is the backbone of Education again I I feel like you continuously put words in my mouth um what I said was we don't need an agreement with the Union in order for our teachers

184to have that support from them they obviously pay the Union they participate in it and they can continue to do that but I don't believe that as a district we need to have a contract with them or even be paying stipends to the hea president it has been proven fact that since 2018 the unions have pushed for walkouts on our children and they have impacted our children's lives for the last what I can't do the math right now of you know four four years five years and well I can't count this year but it's been an issue and it has been a known issue not just here all across the U.S has been an issue which is why we've had so much uproar in board meetings because of what the unions push and they can

185continue to support teachers but when it impacts the students that's where I have a problem with and us as a board we are here to represent the community and these students and their parents that is the district's job to support the teachers and the staff as a board member we get voted in by the community to represent them and we can't forget that um how is it that an agreement with the hea is doing what you call proven time and again ways in which or at the very let me let me rephrase what do you think the hea does here in the district and at these meetings that they attend what is it that you think they do other than sit there and Hackle me as I talk um they come they obviously help negotiate

186salaries and and benefits for teachers I'm aware of what they do I'm not saying they can't continue to do that I'm just saying as a district I don't think that it's necessary to have a contract in place in order for them to be able to do that if we don't have agreement in place what gives the teachers the peace of mind that they will have somebody that will represent that the district will listen to them they're if there's not an agreement in place there's other districts that don't have an agreements of support and representation that we're going to listen to that we're going to meet and come to an agreement with as Mrs Wade said earlier about the blackout dates and the um that wasn't it for the it didn't all benefit the teacher but

187what would be the benefit to teachers to wanting to be a part of somewhere they didn't have any representation but if there was an agreement but we're not saying we're going to listen to everything you say and do and it's also very unfair to compare hea2 or to our Union to unions outside the state because we are a right to work state and we do have different um Union laws than we do than other states do they they ultimately do the same thing they they do there's a lot hea there's another in other states they have a lot more clout and a lot more power than they do here well obviously you know States like or Illinois for instance California yeah no I I get that but the purpose is my reasoning is I've seen

188the impact that they've made on students and it's like I I over the years like it's been awful what these kids have had to go through and teachers can continue to have their representation without an agreement but um I mean I I've I've said my piece this is how I feel listen to him I mean if you're talking about masks when we voted to go back to school the hea was against us going back to school and we voted as a board to go back right and that's my concern is they they voted to keep schools down they voted to continue masking um and I mean you're talking about a pandemic where people didn't know what was going on and so I don't think that's fair to compare the agency I'm talking about since 20

189everyday basis that they you know they walked out on children at the end of school year they did it in 2019 and 2020 they kept like it's it's been years and so do they have the best interest of our children that it's been years they it is they walked out in 2018. yes yes agree and then in 2019 which was the pandemic and with and followed into um so to be clear I do not believe that it is fair to put what is state law on the backs of teachers state law yes masks and mandating that was no law there was no law for Mass yes ma'am there was there was no law for math mandates are not laws ma'am an executive order has the same effect as law so at the end of the

190day yes I'm still talking for a second covet is over okay to be clear covet is over and at the end of the day for you to sit here and put things that yes I recognize your frustration and I'm not saying that they're invalid those years were literally miserable for so many for so many reasons but again you are putting weight to things that have absolutely nothing to do what what this agreement is what their power is because they made no statements about anything with respect to power that came down to our board and at the very least you exist here so should that situation rise again you would be in a position to be able to make those statements I understand that there is narratives that get placed when teachers make decisions or when

191any Union makes a decision to strike because there is cost and I understand that I recognize that what I think is valued here is that when it came to those strikes the level of preparation that got done the working with district and hea and teachers across to say how can we do this so it is the minimal disruption to our students is what matters you keep making statements that says this came at the cost of students and that is not accurate with respect to the process that the individuals went through in this moment you can choose not to agree with the hea that is fine from a position of a former teacher a board member who respects what it is that this position is I will say to you I value your union I value

192your feedback and I value your input for what is happening where are areas of need where are areas of concern it does not mean I have to agree with you and so to say that you're not here the hea when new teachers get here they provide information and help they help set up sometimes mentorships to say hey here's somebody else that does this those meetings that they go to are after school I know this because they inform you of them they're not doing student hours and if somebody is doing it it's on their prep because again we have a job you make it seem as if we aren't sitting here with the focus of classroom hours this stuff is done outside of that this stuff makes our job up here easier because we now have

193a policy in place that teachers support and teachers get behind because we can say the hea agrees when they have complaints it goes to the hea it gets filtered out that is literally part of this process nothing about our partnership is saying you agree or disagree with the statements that they make it is us saying teachers we value your input we value your ability to organize to ensure that you are comfortable in this environment because we wish you to stay whether this contract is signed or not that still happens and they support teachers because they get money from these teachers to be a part of their Union to have that support none of that would change so indeed it would if we didn't have those things in that organization it would you know why because

194then we don't have to meet with them we don't they provide a service that they're paid to do if we don't have an agreement with them then what's there to say we have to meet with them and what ensures the teacher is like I said and what why would they want to be a part of an organization why would they even want to be a part of a district that doesn't agree to meet with teachers and it doesn't agree to an agreement to meet with them I mean I I think we're also missing the point too it's it's a memo of understanding yes um and and yes it's it's an agreement on what is expected on both sides I mean it helps protect the district as well because it sends it's laid out there what

195these expectations are what they can expect from the district but also it talks about what the district can expect from them um as a board member who lived through red for Ed um you know and that that's on both sides because Community there are some who were upset we had an overwhelming majority who supported them but the the impact to our district was much less because of our relationship with the hea um and how closely they worked with Dr Thomason and Dr Thomason always knew what was going on they had an understanding they had an expectation so we could communicate to our parents in a timely manner and that wasn't happening in all districts I mean sometimes they were trying to figure out if they were going to have teachers like it's nine o'clock at

196night are we going to have teachers the next day uh our relationship with hea and and our district it was by four o'clock we knew what was happening so we could communicate with our parents and and that was the mutual respect a memo of understanding and to clarify it there there is no contract this is not a contract it it is it's an agreement on expectations it's saying we expect this of you and you should expect this of us I mean that's all it is um is it's a mutual respect professional agreement um on on what should happen there's no contract um and I think that seeing and there was once a time once upon a time hea in the district were like this there's no doubt about it there was no happy medium whatsoever

197and and I think through the District administration um through hea they were able to negotiate and come together and now we have a great partnership and the stipend is for district representation it's it's not for lobbying it's not for out doing political things it is um there's there will be a hea well June will be at both of the rally the welcome back rallies you know and it's it's taking those time that's additional time um there's plenty of times that the the hea president is is Serena other things and asked to join but that's not if there's other teachers doing this it's not the stipend it's when it's above and beyond their duties and it's representing the district so it's when she's asked to attend something like I said like the welcome back rally new

198teacher orientation um things like that that go well beyond what a classroom teacher would do so that's what the stipend is for is because we are asking for extra duties for them and there is much of a representation of the district as we are of them I mean so would we be asking someone who doesn't trust their District to come in and speak with new teachers because obviously we want the new teachers and I mean she'll tell you how it is she's not gonna lie or sugarcoat it but like hey you're in a good place you're you're in a good District this is what we do this is how we do it if you have concerns and they represent everybody and whether they're a member or not and there's been discussion on um classified and

199certified and the because they recognize we're a district we're not just teachers so um so the stipend that they get um and the reason I know is because earlier it was indicated that we're a historic Board of not asking questions which is not true they may not have been asked out here they may not have been published like we are now and that that's a that's a great idea but I can guarantee you especially as Scott sits out there in the audience and Jill is here um I can guarantee you this is this was never a board that didn't ask questions it was just done in a different format and they weren't published like I said that was a great idea something so simple why was it not thought of before I don't know it

200wasn't to hide anything but the reason I know this information is because these are questions I asked because I did have a concern same as you going sorry why are we paying an organization outside of the district why are we paying a stipend um and so then I got those answers and I I've got to learn what events are expected and things like that so um so we're not a historic Board of not asking questions because we do we and we always have it's just been done differently and we're improving and thank you for bringing that um so um it this is it's not a contract um like everyone says you can call a union not a union I when things come down to it if there was something Arizona doesn't recognize unions we are

201a right to work state um they're a professional organization that we are having a professional agreement in writing with on what the expectations are and they have been just as helpful to the district I think as we have as they have been to teachers because there have been times that we've had to go to the hea and deliver some not so good news and say hey this really sucks we've got to go we've got to do this we've got to go in this direction we have to do that and we rely on them help guide us help us because you know your your teacher community and we have to go deliver you know news on reductions or whatever it is and they help guide us so there there is a mutual benefit from this agreement

202and and that we have to recognize that um and then they help they help both sides so they've come and said teachers are asking for this and we're just like oh sorry that's not going to happen so everything they advocate for they don't get sometimes there's not even a compromise it just can't happen but it's done respectfully um and then it's later on how can we get there so um so it to clarify it is not a union there are professional organization that represents a group of teachers and other staff anyone who goes to them that has an issue and they've been able to help facilitate lots of things whether you supported red for Ed or not that was a state-wide thing I mean there yes our kids were out of school um and our

203state still needs to do some things to change but that started that moved the needle a little bit me personally would I'd like to see that we can have conversations and have agreements and and have our legislators Listen to Not Just teachers but look at our hospitals or nurses and I mean everywhere that government needs to change all the way around so unfortunately it's certain things that get their attention that actually makes a difference and I wish we wouldn't have to do those things but it started moving the needle um and like Mrs Schultz said you know yeah advocating for their representation of of people that they represent people didn't understand covid they were afraid they didn't want to come to school and as a district we that was one of those conversations we said

204look we're opening up we're going back to school this is what we're doing and so that was conversation that had to happen and hea helped the best they could support the district in that just to say okay our this is what our districts decided and we need to to be there so and then individual choices obviously at that point are made whether people came back or didn't come back but in all hea helped support the district in reopening even though that's not what they asked for and like I said and then people individuals make their own decisions so I just want to this is not a contract it's a memo of understanding it's a professional agreement on what can be expected on both sides and I think the organization is beneficial to the district um

205as well as as teachers and just so we're clear I mean they they can't call them a union in Arizona because of the right to work states so they call them an association so if you look up Association it will tell you it's a union um it's just playing word games um but I when when they attend events and we're paying them four thousand dollars a year to attend these events they're attending as a union member so paying statements stipends from taxpayer dollars to union members shouldn't be happening um they are they are paid by those who decide to be members of hea um and we shouldn't be paying them additional out of taxpayer dollars to come and do what they're supposed to do as a union rep we should not be paying them out

206of taxpayer dollars so if that's part of this agreement um you know obviously that's an issue um they whether you're a member or not they continue to support Any teacher and so again my belief is that this agreement isn't necessary because they get paid to support teachers to be able to advocate for them not the students but the teachers and when it impacts when their actions impact students I have a problem with that if we don't have students in our schools we have nobody there's nobody to teach so again we have to ensure that our children that come to this District are priority and that their needs are being met and when we have the Union advocating not for the students it's a problem which is why I have these concerns thank you and I

207don't think that the stipend is part of this agreement I didn't see it in there it wasn't all those in favor aye oh there's a post nay motion carries four to one moving on to a future board agenda items okay all set or an initiatives okay I move that we adjourn the meeting all those in favor aye aye thank you good night and congratulations to Mrs Richards again thank you [Music]