001okay [Music] good evening I'd like to call this meeting to order Dr Foley roll call presidentials members of the board please let the record show that all members are present please join me in a moment of silence tonight we have a special guest special guest excuse me the Higley Junior Air Force Junior ROTC is here to present the flex [Music] oh great oh I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all or oh right [Music] lower heart oh God oh water pull out thank you very much that I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda second Anna yes all those in favor aye Merchant carries five to one Dr Foley superintendent's
002report I mean five to zero excuse me superintendent's report president Schultz members of the board we start this evening with celebrations and we have lots to celebrate tonight and some wonderful students in the audience I'm going to start this evening with our first points of Pride we're going to start with Higley High School and I would love to invite Mr Alan fields and Mr arendilly up to celebrate their Haley High School points of pride foreign Fields principal at Higley High very proud to be here this evening to recognize some of the people that contribute to our school first up I want to invite our student point of Pride Allison Ewing up [Applause] so it says Allison Ewing is a hard-working charitable student who's philanthropic Endeavors are countless as a dedicated member of Hickory High School
003student council Allison helps plan and produce our student assemblies dances and Spirit-filled activities she participates in the best buddies club and can often be seen participating in Productions with our drama and thespian students at the Higley Center for Performing Arts Allison is the vice president of the kids for wish kids club and she's the president of Earth Club teachers and students often comment on Allison's dedication work ethic and her continued willingness to volunteer and Lead lending a helping hand Allison will be serving as a student leader on the husd ASCA School counseling Advisory Board in beginning in the fall congratulations [Applause] okay Allison did you bring anybody with you that you want to recognize my mom and dad miss baywick and Angie and of course my sister they all have inspired me and shaped me
004to be the person I am today so thank you [Applause] okay so stay up here all right next up is our uh classified Employee of the Month our pride point of Pride uh Jennifer Gomez [Applause] so we are incredibly thankful to have Jennifer Gomez as a vital part of our kingdom Jennifer began her journey as a night many years ago as a student has returned to us over the past last few years as a staff member Jennifer is a constant light of sunshine in the front office her willingness to always assist and help families is wonderful to see she greets every parent with a smile and is ready to assist them with whatever they need her customer service is impeccable and she makes a connection with students and the parents daily she's meticulous and takes
005pride in the quality of her work her energy smile laughter sense of humor excellent customer service and willingness to always be there and lend a hand for her fellow co-workers is What Makes Her Shine we're grateful she's returned to our kingdom thank you and then is there anybody you brought with you you want to introduce my husband Victor okay [Applause] our certified point of pride is Colonel Scott Vaughn [Applause] Colonel Scott Vaughn is the picture of professionalism he is everything you would want and expect in an Air Force leader respectful confident organized experienced however it is the extra characteristics beyond that role that make him a unique and special individual it is the late nights he spends making sure the activity goes smoothly it is the early mornings he is here with a smile greeting
006groggy-eyed students boarding a bus for a competition is the personal knowledge of each student that makes him aware that he knows and cares for them thank you and Well Done Karma [Applause] I know you brought some individuals with you from the school did you bring anybody else with you do you want to introduce just it's just the work family back there in the in the corner [Applause] thank you [Applause] then our point of Pride for our parent volunteer is Suzanne camach [Applause] o Suzanne has embraced her volunteer role for the football boosters in a way I've never seen and quite frankly and astonished she is in charge of our concession stand a task that many dread instead of dreading it she's relished it and turned to turn the concession area into a four-star restaurant experience
007she spent her own personal money to make improvements and hundreds of personal hours cleaning and dusting the football games were so popular in that area with Bistro lighting careful displays and a unique menu for each game that we had to reroute traffic flow for safety these games were an event and she shows up five or more hours prior just to start preparing the food and displays after setting records each game for customers she then has serviced the needs of our sports groups throughout the year she just did another spring a game last evening and our extracurriculars are grateful for our campus and our campus is grateful for the amazing Act of personal service thank you [Applause] Suzanne did you bring anybody with you that you want to introduce yes my husband and my three boys
008they have um put up with all this and supported me throughout the whole thing so I appreciate them for everything so thank you guys [Applause] thank you guys [Applause] thank you [Applause] now we have the joy of celebrating our Williamsville points of Pride I'm going to invite Mr Fox thank you Mr stangle coming too nope Mr Fox and I will help hand out just direct me I'll help okay um members of the governing board Dr Foley cabinet members audience good evening I am Dan Fox I'm the principal the very proud principal at williamsfield high school tonight we want to start with our certified staff coach Jason Karcher who also teaches our video production class uh just a couple couple little words for Mr Karcher here Jason is one of our most dedicated teachers on campus
009coach is always a go-to person to complete a project and even when I have a complex task a few minutes discussion is usually usually enough for Mr Karcher to take care of business uh coach imparts these qualities on his students as he preaches autonomy Independence ownership and accountability not only does coach Karcher build incredible rapport with his students so much so that he has alumni who still contribute to Blackhawk Buzz and we're going to see the results of that pretty soon right yeah yeah cool but he builds great rapport with our football team Jason is always logical compassionate consistent and helpful for students he strikes the fine balance between being an authority and being approachable we're lucky to have you coach Karcher you are a true Blackhawk dominate [Applause] anyone you'd like to recognize who
010might be here maybe outside to my wife who's outside with my kids because my youngest ones didn't nap today so like to recognize them because I didn't want to break up the meeting because he's losing his mind right now so it's my wife so I wanted to point out the dedication that coach Karcher has so yeah yeah thank you coach all right for our next one um our classified staff is Jacob Watson Jacob Watson could not be here tonight he had something come up for him which is very unfortunate because Jacob is an awesome guy and we appreciate him very much but here's a little bit about him uh Jacob represents the dominates core values of dedication and integrity he does the right thing for all our staff he goes out of his way and
011he recognizes the value of his quick attention to all details he has never said no the entire time he has worked at williamsfield high school and his calm demeanor makes any I.T emergency seem like a breeze he is always positive I've never seen him frown ever and is one of our most reliable teammates Jacob is kind and personable and as every single member of our staff has had nothing but accolades for him since he started working with me Jacob you are a true Blackhawk so Jacob thank you very much [Applause] for our student Charles entley [Applause] thank you Charles yeah here we'll I'll give you some stuff in just a second here but um Charles was named a National Merit Scholarship finalist this year this is a tremendous honor and one reason why Charles has
012helped Williams Field High School to dominate our own path as a school of choice in the East Valley Charles is an exceptional scholar is exemplified by his Sterling academic record he plans on attending Embry-Riddle University and they couldn't be luckier to get such a highly performing student the following are few excerpts from his teacher's glowing recommendations for him first off we have Miss Krauss Charles and I have been together through six classes and four years of Robotics and every day has been an adventure you just never know what he's going to say next his passion to succeed is focused in summer camps and never-ending scholarship applications he is willing to help others and ask for help when needed for Mr O'Hare Charles is an awesome Blackhawk and demonstrates what dominates means he seeks excellence in
013all his schoolwork he is mentally tough and does whatever it takes to get the job done Charles thank you very much for being a Blackhawk congratulations a little present for you foreign and then do you have anyone here that you'd like to recognize tonight my parents thank you [Applause] all right and then uh finally for our parent volunteer uh Starla Taylor [Applause] Daryl do you wanna you wanna say this one okay I'll take it over here so Starla is the booster president for our cheer program but so much more she's an integral integral member of the Blackhawk family Starla always goes above and beyond her duties as a booster president here are just a few examples she personalized she personally customizes cheer apparel to make it more personalized to each cheerleader and Coach she makes
014goodie bags for the cheerleaders cheerleaders as they travel to away games or to their own competitions and Starla makes sure that cheer the cheer closet is always clean and organized in stocks with snacks and supplies for athletes and you better believe it right they do eat a lot don't they um she always thinks of other sports teams on campus and will prepare goodie bags for their special events such as a senior night and she does that without being asked Starla has two amazing daughters at Williams Field but she is truly here to support all of our young people when she attends events she is not only there for her children but for all of our teams she's always willing to lend a helping hand and can be seen at many events running around non-stop to
015ensure that everything operates smoothly for our coaches and kids so that they can have a best possible experience thank you Starla [Applause] and is there anyone in the audience you'd like to rec uh to recognize tonight who came with you your support on campus and patience with the whole program as it's being rebuilt has just it's been felt so even went to Disney World with us so thank you Mr single [Applause] thank you so much thank you [Applause] okay I'm going to invite Mr Fields back up to celebrate our next student Champions that we have to celebrate this evening we've got some more champions so can I get the uh state champion drill team to come join me along with their instructors [Applause] foreign this is a highly decorated group of individuals here that represent
016our school in an extremely positive light on a routine basis a routine for them because they're they're a group of high Achievers and dedicated individuals but on March 25th uh they won the state championship for drill team competing against over 25 teams from across the state I'll throw in a dominate for my friends in red over there but they did win a grand champion for the first time since 2006 when the program was created they had I think at least four other Grand championships throughout the year it meets that they attended they've been recognized nationally some of them for for their achievements a very small group of individual drill team requires these individuals to earn learn multiple positions within the drill team in order to be successful or be able to replace anybody that's there
017but it's a tribute to their instructors uh uh Danny altop and and Colonel Scott Vaughn who was our appointed Pride uh outstanding program in school and we're very proud of them thank you [Applause] anybody want to say anything okay just for scope purposes a lot of the teams we compete against show up with a yellow bus filled with Cadets that stream out Gilbert's team is 37 Cadets we have 11. you have you must have 10 to March most of the sequences we March which means they all have to learn all the sequences multiple positions one student's out Plug and Play so it takes a lot of time dedication zero hour and seventh hour before school after school sometimes both it's hours of dedicated training and practice and practice and practice so congratulations [Applause] yes thank
018you [Applause] thank you and totally the celebrations we've got more because we have more Champions to celebrate where is Mr Edgar [Music] we have so many celebrations and championships we have to Stage it in sections so hold on Mr Edgar is coming so we can celebrate and Mrs Edgar's coming to Mr Edgar what [Applause] over here [Applause] all right well they're all coming in here uh very exciting uh spring season for us winter programs I had had a fantastic representation at the Winter Guard Arizona championships this is our wins Group North Side winds it represents uh both Williams Field high school and Cooley Middle School we use it as a educational kind of recruiting group gives the 8th graders an opportunity to kind of get a feel for what the marching band will be like
019as they move into the high school learn how to walk from here to there and step and play at the same time all that stuff so our our freshmen when they come in the door at williamsfield high school aren't really freshmen they have some experience to it and it's been a very positive aspect of our program I'm going to turn it over real quick where is Miss huddle there she is hi I'm Jenny huddle I'm the director at Coulee middle school and Williams Field High School this is the winner wins group from both Cooley and Williams Field again we're super proud of their state championship accomplishment this season and yeah great job you guys [Applause] ourselves all right ready here we go one two three thank you [Applause] welcome back all right our next group
020coming in um is our Coulee Black Guard we run two two guards at Cooley Middle School they meet every morning before school extremely dedicated group of kids um this is uh we have a a purple guard and a black guard basically comparable to a varsity junior varsity kind of a structure I'm going to hand it over to uh Beth Carlson the director of the group hi I'm Beth um this is our Coulee Black Guard they pretty much set the past few years have been able to set the precedent in the state for what a junior high Color Guard can be um they they come out and people are like those are Junior High kids and it's it's a for us for that for us as teachers it's exciting to hear because they work really really
021hard and we're very proud of them and this is black all right [Applause] two three thank you [Applause] so our next group we're going to invite up is our Coulee purple guard thank you so this group of kids a lot of them is a lot of them are brand new to Color Guard um this is we think the fifth or sixth year that they have won as the state championships consecutively so they had a really good season when we went to our first Camp uh Pam Edgar and I were like whoa like we were really excited um this age is really fun to teach for me especially because they're just they're eager and they're fun and they will let us try all kinds of things and we're very proud of them this year they had
022a great final run Cooley purple [Applause] foreign [Applause] all right percussion crew and last but not least we have our eighth grade percussion Ensemble from Cooley Middle School [Applause] uh these young folks had an outstanding season um very very strong performers we're very excited for the future um these these groups that we've been able to put together now are starting to feed up into the high school and um it's bearing fruit the the kids have done an amazing job and they're a lot of these students are actually performing with the high school group um in the in the Drumline aspect of things and we'll grow into that next year and are doing an outstanding job super proud of the accomplishments of this group state champions uh great kids uh our our percussion Ensemble eighth graders
023thank you [Applause] thank you all right here we go one two three [Applause] as they head out I just want to say thank you very much to the district for all the support that we are given to allow these groups to compete at the state level and we we are the largest represented District in the state as far as winter programs go and it's something that's very positive for kids and I'm very grateful for the support we receive thank you so that includes our student celebrations this evening while we welcome you to stay for the entire meeting we also know you want to go celebrate your Sensational students or or our points of Pride so feel free to stay or if you'd like to leave at this time that you are free to do so
024as well and we'll continue with our meeting in just a second what thank you it's a great way to end the school year with a lot of recognition tonight thank you everyone for coming I'd like to make a motion that we recess into public hearing for the fiscal year 2023 budget revision number three all those in favor aye we will now recess for a public hearing Mr Moore good evening president Charles members of the board tonight uh I'll be presenting the third revision of the fiscal 2023 budget this revision is required by Statute and is the last revision that we'll make to this current year budget as we've newly adopted I have our presentation acronym slide for those viewers online or who those wish to come back and review the presentation jumping into the budget
025timeline this slide should look familiar now as we've reviewed it several times throughout the year we are all the way to that third bullet there the May 2023 um this again is the third revision um for the district's 23-33 2023 budget uh this is required by Statute uh this revision is revised um back to our 180 ADM members so this chews up um our actuals um to our 100th ADM count as you know the district's operation budget and capital budget are are set from the state and are formula based and based off ADM and so when we reconcile that and revise as we're doing tonight um we revise to that 180 ADM number so it's very important when we talk budget that is the the magic number that hundred the ADM and that's what we're
026going to be revising to tonight um shortly in June uh we'll be presenting a proposed and adopted budget for fiscal 24. we've already gone through the exercise of kind of tentatively approving those and recommending those um Justice Just today the state in-house the Senate in-house approved the K-12 budget and so I'll have those actual numbers this year if you remember remember in years past we were bringing recommendations based on tentative approval or you know basically assumptions from the legislature but this year they've done the work and they do have a K-12 budget so um the proposed and adopted budget will reflect actual numbers this year and will get us off to a good start going into next fiscal year jumping into the highlights of this budget revision the main highlights include our 130 ADM as
027I mentioned um so from December our last revision to this revision our ADM is increased about just over 17 uh from the December budget revision again this uh budget revision aligns all our budget controlled funds which are mainly our maintenance and operations fund and our Capital fund and again this is the final budget revision for fiscal 23. one point of emphasis is that middle section there we're increasing the transfer amount in this budget revision due to a couple factors so these school facilities oversight board um is a state board that provides Capital funding for school districts based on a application process and on greatest need they are out of money for fiscal 23 and so right now they're taking basically applications for fiscal 24 in terms of projects that are being proposed and approved for
028funding we have not got letters yet but they provide letters basically guaranteeing that projects will be funded out of next year's budget and so we can commit with summer projects as as the state knows summer is our is our main timeline in which we need to get basically projects done and completed so they do provide letters basically of commitment that they will fund projects but they do not provide that upfront funding so what we're proposing tonight is to increase the transfer of a million dollars from mno to Capital to front load some of those projects until that funding is released on July 1 from the state facilities board at that time we would basically earn our next budget revision we would reverse this transfer to move that money back into mno as those projects would
029be fully funded from the state facilities board so what that means for this fiscal Year's budget is that total transfer will now increase to 9 million I'll go over that in a later slide as well what that looks like in addition we did in reconciling this budget against our previous fiscal year budget we found an adjustment a 283 000 where we under calculated our mno override budget amount so the state allows there's a statute or ARS 15 915 it allows districts to come back and submit corrections to capture that budget capacity so in this budget form that we're doing tonight at budget revision that we're doing tonight we are capturing that that 283 000 and additional funding so looking at this budget revision and what it means for our maintenance and operations budget as I've
030alluded to the the budget revision number two that we did in December uh was adopted by the board December 13 2022 that budget total was 119 million 873 246 dollars we're revising uh tonight to 120 million 17 446 dollars and again the majority of that increase is from those two factors the increase in ADM as well as the the capturing of the mno override budget capacity that was underestimated in fiscal year 22. um that also takes into consideration the 9 million dollar The increased one million dollar transfer from mno to Capital so that's a revised budget from number two to number three has an increase of uh 144 000 but that does show an increase if you remember in December we did have about 30 students lost in terms of ADM so we did recapture
031some of those from December to this revision so the main increases again as I alluded to is is mostly due to the additional transfer to the capital fund so in December we adopted a budget revision uh number two and that capital budget was 28 million 243 850 dollars um we're revising tonight to 29 million 243 855 again that captures the increase in ADM but the main increase here is obviously that million dollars and increased transfer from mno to Capital to fund those projects that are pre-approved from the school facilities oversight board um and then we'll reverse that transfer when we get to our fiscal 24 budget but this lets us move forward with those projects with their commitment that they'll fund those July 1 but we do need cash to to proceed with those projects
032um and so that allows us to do that for this summer so that Capital difference is an increase of just over a million dollars which is approximately three percent and that's it so really uh just a recap um you know there was talks about doing a budget Revision in April um but as we know the resolution passed for the AEL um and happy to report too that this morning there is a there was a resolution for fiscal 24 already so uh that's a relief knowing that we can go to the next fiscal year without that uh basically limit over our heads and we can budget and plan accordingly to our fullest budget capacity so tonight I presented the third budget revision again this is the last budget revision for fiscal 23 and that to basically
033reconciled up to that 100 the ADM numbers and this is what we'll adopt later this evening or recommendedly receiving for the board so with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to answered at this time it's also appropriate that if the public has any questions then you may do so at this time during our public hearing regarding the budget what presidentials do you have an idea of what the amount will be for next year with the budget passing I just got those numbers today so I I do preliminary have those I don't want to say those right now because I do need to like run the numbers and make sure I I what I say is factual um but some of the highlights include um we did realize the two percent increase in terms
034of inflation we included that in all of our budget presentations when we were talking about tentative approval that was one assumption that did come to fruition as actual inflation is north of seven percent the other increase there's some other increases that I think I feel like I can highlight in June when we talk about a proposed 24 budget and I have time to digest those and present those um actual numbers and what they mean for Higley thank you other questions thank you Mr Moore it is important that we are able to do those summer projects and so I appreciate moving the money for that there's no other questions at this time we will re I make a motion that we reconvene in Open Session all those in favor all right request to speak we value
035input from our constituents this time on 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 of our meeting members of the board may not discuss comment or take action on matters 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 a decision at a later date also we ask the audience members to please practice proper public meeting decorum refraining from either negative or positive responses including clapping or verbal outbursts to ensure fairness to All Points
036of View those that refuse to follow those rules will be asked may be asked to leave speakers please limit your remarks to three minutes thank you for your cooperation our first speaker is Tiffany Benson foreign [Music] Higley governing board I'm Tiffany Benson as public servants under oath we expect you to obey the law respect the office of governing board member and maintain decorum in public meetings we don't expect you to Aid and abet the exploitation of minors but on April 5th you approved BrainPOP as part of husd's Technology curriculum students as young as Pre-K are exposed to sexualized content and gender propaganda in your schools there are only two genders so gender propaganda is stupid male and female is all we have there are no changes and if you think otherwise your anti-science also on
037April 5th a board member violated open meeting law when she corrected a speaker about the GSA Club on campus the club is chartered as gay straight Alliance and run by students but the parent company is genders and sexualities Alliance and it's run by adult predators brainpops social media social media also contains discussions on black lives matter SEL and social justice this is CRT by another name since the fake Governor vote vetoed SB 1305 the left is taking its Liberty but did you know that social justice and transgender ideologies are actually secular humanist doctrines secular humanism is a Godless philosophy based on human reasoning and secular morals and ethics it's actually a religion that's protected by the First Amendment and you can read about this in American humanist Association versus Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2014.
038Article 2 Section 12 of the Arizona Constitution says no public money or property shall be appropriated for religious exercise or instruction so by adopting BrainPOP or any secular humanist curriculum husd is breaking state law I encourage Educators to use their Liberty to teach real science real ethics and use biblical principles to counter humanist doctrines they're free to do this under the First Amendment and under article 6 of the U.S Constitution which is the supreme law of our land if anyone who wants to blow the whistle on husd visit schoolboardwatchlist.org and submit an investigation request lastly the left likes to mock the word grooming when we use it but it's actually a nice word when it comes to board members and administrators like those in husd I prefer the term pedophiles by proxy because that's what
039you are I'm Tiffany with Turning Point USA speaker is Heather buck hi everyone um good evening to our governing board president and governing board members and our cabinet thank you for having me here tonight I just wanted to take a minute to tell you all how great the Fine Arts Festival was that we had at the end of the month uh last month the art exhibits by the students were tremendous it was well attended in addition to Art we got to hear trash can bands and see orchestras and hear choirs and the community all came out and it was just really great support and a very positive event um I do want to thank all of the staff members and students that worked so hard to put that great event on and it just really
040shows the dedication of Higley and how important it is to put our students first thank you thank you Miss Kathleen Richards Mrs I feel like I'm back at a forensics competition uh good evening board members uh thank you for all of the presentation this more this evening of all of the students it was really great to see some of the extracurricular activities that all of our students partake in I have the pleasure of running a drama club at our one of our elementary schools HTA and it's been amazing to see what the Arts can do for these kiddos in the classroom and the way it can help both their academics and their social well-being as they move forward the reason I wanted to talk today is I was listening to the radio and I happened
041to hear a podcast through KTR which had one of our board members on it in that particular podcast there was a lot of vagary and potential misdirection of information so I wanted to clarify something because as I listened to it I realized as a parent I didn't necessarily know what mtss is and I wanted to take a minute to share some of the information in case there are any parents out there like me who were wondering because it certainly sounded very scary in the Nine Minute Podcast but what I found was actually really reassuring so mtss stands for multi-tiered system of support it is a tiered framework using data-based problem solving to support academic and behavioral needs now I have spent many years in a classroom as well and it is impossible most times to
042separate academic struggles in children all the way through High School from behavioral issues that they may display there so what we have is a tiered system that's designed specifically to make sure that the academics are caught and caught quickly and treated with whatever academic intervention is necessary tier one is simply the core instruction tier two is targeted Intervention which some parents may know know as rti in our particular School my daughters have always had RTI which simply has served as a wonderful differentiation of instruction so for the kiddos that are Advanced they're going off with a teacher and dealing with Advanced topics for the kiddos that are struggling with a particular subject area they're able to focus on that subject area to be able to find their strengths and be able to find their footing
043in that area and then the third tier is intensive intervention so that's where you have a more parent involvement although parents are involved in Higley from start to finish if your child has been identified as needing any of these interventions from forms to meetings all of these things it's all readily available on the Arizona Department of Education because this is mandated by the federal government it's not something unique to husd when you Google mtss you'll find dozens of school districts that reference it on their own websites so it is not something unique to hear and I was really disappointed that a board member would go on a show like that and represent themselves as a member of this board and present misinformation so I hope that that will stop in the future thank you foreign
044thank you Mr Roy Morales hi good evening and thank you for having me here tonight um I just wanted to make a point of clarification in my last presentation I was here and we were discussing about the GSA club that spoke at Higley High School and at williamsfield high school and Hyatt called it I believe it was a gay sexual Alliance club and I was corrected after my speak my speech and uh was uh corrected to say there was a gender of sexual reality Alliance and that may be true but I just wanted to point out that you know we do the best we can with the information that we receive I was actually going off of a poster board that was made by one of the students and where they had a open house
045for all the eighth graders and it did say gender sexuality Alliance on this poster board so if anybody needed correction that to me would have been that student and not me so I just got out to you I also have a form a form from the NIH that has confirmed that it actually goes by both names gender sexual Alliance or the gay straight aligned so according to the NIH website it says both so you could probably use it interchangeably uh so I just feel that when a board member corrects somebody who has a request to speak and addresses an after they speak and they have to sit down they can't rebut they can't engage in that conversation I think that's an unfair practice so moving on um I was looking at the upcoming proposal for
046your renewal of your membership or the Arizona School Board Association it looks like that this contract is in for for the next four years and it looks like it apparently it looks about about fifty one hundred dollars per year for this uh membership and surprisingly this is a four-year membership so it looks like an All or Nothing proposition so my concern is is that you guys go into this contract the asba you're committed for four years you pay your fifty one hundred dollars per year and it ends any moment could the next School Board in two years maybe in different uh opinions with the asba want to back out of that contract they're still on the hook for 50 or whatever is remaining on that contract I see then here that um so that so
047in other words you still have to Shell out that money in order to leave the association there have been many uh districts that have left the uh asba because of their close ties to the National Association of school boards which wrote a letter to the doj claiming that parents who go to school board meetings are domestic terrorists and I understand the ASB backed away they didn't want to be part of that but that isn't to say something in the future may happen and this is an opportunity where the district can hold them feet to the fire and say you know what you guys are doing something we can't hold you accountable if we were stuck in a four-year contract because if we quit we're going to have to pay 50 of whatever's remaining on that
048contract so I would ask you guys to see if if their current contract allows you just to do the automatic annual renewal and just keep it as such that way you can keep them accountable for their actions going forward okay thank you so much Mr John Mason before I I get started uh talking I just wanted to uh thank Mr Tyler Moore for some really nice Communications that we had a long time ago and I just wanted to recognize you and thank you because I felt I put you under the gun one time and I apologize so um you know I wanted to talk about social and emotional learning social emotional learning is an intrinsic part of the district's strategic plan I request that the district have at least three open meetings to discuss social
049emotional learning at Higley this could provide the community opportunities to ask questions about SEL it would also provide an opportunity for the community to give feedback about the district's SEL goals during the last election the two the two School Board candidates who were explicitly against SEL received almost 50 percent of the vote that means that probably 50 percent of the constituents are against SEL this suggests to me that the district is not in touch with the values of at least 50 percent of the community I make no personal claims about having a high level of Social and emotional maturity however a district that teaches social and emotional skills must be willing to demonstrate those skills thus I ask that you do the socially and emotionally mature thing I request that you have open meetings to
050ensure that the 50 percent who implicitly voted against SEL to have their voices heard I will mention my primary concern with RCL SEL can be used as a tool to influence students political beliefs the district has already introduced politics into the learning environment as I explained two months ago before the school board the district illegally used public resources to influence the outcome of an election I'm also aware of instances where the students are belittled by teachers for their political beliefs in particular one student at Higley was publicly called a racist by a teacher for being a trump supporter I find that disturbing you know I I recently looked it up on I think it was the Pew Research Center racism is extraordinarily in my opinion racism is extraordinarily rare in the United States I Married
051an immigrant wife from South Africa she grew up in South Africa where apartheid was a problem she grew up under the most oppressive circumstances imaginable I've never had a problem with being married to a black lady I've never experienced racism I've never had an instance in which my racial children have been discriminated against so you know I was so so when people start saying that that Trump is a racist they're just very rare in the United States in my opinion so uh I really advise that you keep SEL and politics off from the school grounds and thank you very much for your time today [Music] yes thank you moving on to the consent agenda item 6.1 through 6.17 I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda items second all those in favor
052aye five to zero and with that I'd like to introduce introduce Mr latzenheiser president Schultz members of the board with your approval of the consent agenda you hired some new administrators for next year and three of them are in attendance today and so I'd like to introduce them to you and then turn it over to Mr Moore but um it's kind of weird I want to turn around on another back here so first of all I'd like to introduce Mr Chad Cantrell who will be the principal at Cooley Middle School next year Chad comes to us with experience as we sent to the community as a para educator a teacher an athletic director and instructional coach a testing coordinator and Elementary principal and a junior high Middle School principal most recently in Apache Junction but
053we're glad to have him joining us next year um where is Pam I'd like to introduce Pam Simmons as the new assistant principal of activities at Higley High School [Applause] Pam is currently the dean of students and has worked at Higley for the last two years and is now joining and moving up into the assistant principal role welcome Pam finally I'd like to introduce our new dean of students at sasman middle school and Nicole McCullough the call brings years of experience as Middle School and Middle School administration is moving to us from Maricopa so welcome aboard to our three new administrators for next year Mr Moore [Applause] we actually have one more administrator that is part of my team here I'd like to introduce uh Gustavo Padilla he's our new director of Maintenance and construction
054uh we'd like to welcome him from he comes from us he comes from Queen Creek uh it brings 10 years of experience in the facilities and maintenance department so we're happy to have him to be a part of our team so welcome thank you and welcome to all of our new staff we look forward to next year and while we're welcoming new staff I want to just take a minute to say good um wish all of our retirees that we just approved their retirement um with the consent agenda as well including Mrs Patty Gleason who has a special place in my heart and her work with everything that she's done with the preschool program and I just I don't um normally call out specific teachers that are leaving the district but I just wanted to
055give a personal goodbye to um a teacher that I worked with at Cooley Middle School who was my mentor and um made things a lot easier oh man I'm sorry I think it's a lot easier there and he's been in Higley for 14 years and I didn't know so I found out to say he actually attended these schools very cool so I just wanted to say Goodbye Mr McGee and to all the lives that you changed and it was um an honor to work with you very nice Mrs Anderson we will be moving on to information items 7.1 Higley High School project update phase two weatherization and exterior painting good evening president Schultz members of the board um tonight we're bringing to you uh phase two update for the Higley High School project the weatherization
056project was postponed and we're still working on pricing tonight that was previously why we haven't brought it earlier tonight we do have the pricing and we do have a few Renditions I'd like to invite up to the podium the DLR group there's a Carmen and Simon and then Chase Building we have a representation uh Mr Patrick Shepherd um but tonight um again uh in our presentation I presents an acronym slide for those who are watching online and want to uh review the presentation um moving into the Higgly High project Phase One update um progress is is moving forward um the team at Chase is is um I want to say add schedule or ahead of schedule right now um I've personally walked the building as long as several members of the cabinet and it is
057amazing you walk in one week in the next week There's drive all up and paint and so they are moving quickly still shooting for that July start data the start of school you can see a picture here you can see the rendition is almost looking like the building now we're getting closer um I think Patrick is there anything you want to add to the Phase One update this project going it's really been great I actually walked it before I came up here for the meeting and the site looks great it's clean it's safe and the Interiors are all starting to really pop with some of the finishes so overall it's going to be a great job as you can see see whenever we can match the rendering and make it look like the picture we
058know we're doing something right so it's a beautiful building and we're just we're happy to be here and proud to be a part of the project so jumping into phase two again this was uh phase two initiatives were presented to the governing board as uh recommendations from District to maintain the campus in terms of Safety and Security as well as general maintenance needs at the campus um was in well need of these projects are being funded by the capital capital dollars as you know we do not have a bond in place and so these projects while chase is on site we felt it was advantageous to utilize them that we had some cost Savings in terms of keeping on board and achieving some of the maintenance needs at the site that campus had just a
059recap gmp3 we brought that to the board earlier this month that included the restroom refreshes campus security and lighting and traffic flow modifications that GMP was 2.8 million dollars with 000 coming from the adjacent ways fund and most of that again being a part of the traffic flow modifications the restroom refresh I'm happy to report about three different restrooms are near complete I think we're just waiting on partitions and so those might open up while students are still in school and so um that is just a again a tribute to Chase and their team and working through uh with Mr fields and the Higley High campus and making sure what direction we can get into in keeping the schedule moving forward so um those restaurants will more than likely be opened again before the end
060of school moving down to tonight so tonight we're presenting gmp4 this GMP includes the exterior weatherization and painting and so weatherization again includes a number of different things so not only is it is it the paint on the exterior but it's also weatherizing the building against elements in terms of water wind anything like that to basically preventative maintenance and so it sends the useful life of the building and with that the school facilities oversight board the state they provide funding for that to maintain your schools when they get to a point of that need so Higley High did qualify in terms of some of the assessments that we had on the building for sfob funding about 98 of the campus that was eligible for SOB funding failed the assessment and so this the campus really
061was in need of this project so um tonight that proposal for gmp4 is later on the recommended on the action item but that includes a 1.8 million dollars with 1.1 million dollars being funded from the state so only about 600 000 being from from the capital budget so you're going through the math down there so again we started with a attended budget 3.5 million total project costs including everything is 4.7 but utilizing different funding resources in the state um that that basically attributes 1.6 million dollars and basically other funding that's helping support these projects and so the true Capital cost to the district and that Capital fund is only 3.1 million dollars this would be the extent of phase two in the projects at Higley High School I know it seems like it's dragged on
062but it's important to understand that pricing and long lead items have caused some delays in getting you guys actual numbers as well as working with the school facilities oversight board and making sure that they have what they need to approve this project and and basically that we have that funding available to use for us with that we do have a few rendering so I'd like to show you so I have a few before and afters and I would like to thank Simone from DLR to that provided these um I I was kind of picky and I said I I know I want our board to see like actual Renditions of what before and after would look like and so um again these are about 99 done we're still working with campus admin to make sure
063this is something that their campus basically looks feels and wants in terms of colors those are the little variables that we have available to choose from the rest of the package the weatherization is is really just making sure that we get items needed to maintain the building and keep it weatherproof and basically satisfy the school facilities board requirements so here's a little before and after of the gym and so some of the themes that from way back in the community meetings were basically school spirit campus colors and so Simone and DLR have Incorporated some of those into these here we're also looking at lighter colors to make sure this can be sustainable one thing to point out when we do get State funding um and correct me if I'm wrong Carmen but the state requires
064a 10-year warranty on paint and exterior weather station so we can ensure that the money that we're putting towards this is going to last us for the next 10 years so coming to the next rendition we have the 500 building here and so you can see um I know the new building isn't done yet but we're incorporating a lot of the colors and the themes from that new building to maintain campus continuity and make sure you know that all these spaces talk and feel and speak to each other so you can see some of the dark Grays some of the the blues and then some of the light colors into there we have the administration building along with this a lot of the metal excuse what is it called the siding the yeah okay siding
065you can see it's been it's been scraped um and just damaged from previous trees and Etc and so a lot of that is being touched up with paint um and you can see the rendition here kind of really just freshening up and giving the campus a good look and feel I think I have a couple more here and so uh this is um I think building 400 off a record and so again adding some of the the Higley school spirit with some of their branding the night logo The Shield um and incorporating some of the colors there in addition um this project we're also tackling the the httpa um we figure at the same time this building is not been painted since the existing school as well and so it still has much of the
066need as the existing campus um so one thing to note with this this is part of the reason the capital expense is so high the sfob will only fund education space and so what that includes are basically the only thing that we are funding is the the 900 building in the hcpa in the 900 building being the field house at Higley High and so those are considered excluded space in in the state's eye and so some of that 600 000 that is District costs are are being funded to to paint and weatherize those two buildings and so um one theme that we wanted to do with the httpa was create a little different space as it is its own space and do a little more of a modern feel and so there's a the dark
067black with the lower pillars there and then the metal being freshened up as well I believe that is my last slide um just a little timeline again um tonight we're asking for approval of gmp4 which includes weatherization and exterior painting um summer again major construction across the Higley High campus um the traffic flow will begin as soon as we get the final okay from the town of Gilbert they had a few comments regarding the initial permit and so we're working through those right now which is why you haven't seen major construction on that also we wanted to kind of say off of the current traffic flow to try to avoid any delays that they're to the already existing campus so we're again holding all those till summer and then again July 24th first day of
068school we hope to have a majority of these projects either started and or wrapped up we do know and I will state right now some of these will feed over into the school year we're going to try to eliminate most of the items that have an effect on the students so we're talking the bathrooms obviously the new building those are our first priority and we're going to work through the exterior painting that is something we can do after hours on the weekend that doesn't affect the education environment and so some of those may be saved or go tail into the new year and through fall break so um is there anything I kind of missed okay any questions I just thank you very much this looks great and when the kids and teachers have a
069nice place to go it feels better I I think and with the school spirit I just have a quick question on you mentioned um the town's comments on the traffic flow are those all addressable comments do you anticipate us still having a fix by the school year or yeah they're they're minor comments and correct me from Ron Patrick but the the comments uh are more or less just making sure that we are taking into consideration all the requirements in terms of ADA and all the sidewalks and um basically anything we're touching that affects the town those are the main areas of emphasis and so um they're minor comments um and so we anticipate having the complete permits back by the end of May so I can hand it over to chase to begin basically construction
070demolition on that traffic flow perfect I know that's many concern for many parents and students so that'll be great presidential my question is does Higley not do like drama out of the hcpa building or does that not count for the state staff and the Jazz you know you know I'm talking they do Higley head does not have a you know an auditorium as you know they where they use httpa for a lot of their extracurriculars but uh it is what I just said extracurriculars and um unfortunately yeah they're not it's not considered an education space um believe me we stretched as much as we could with the state but ultimately they are the ones who determined that and you know that that is what we're currently approved for those are the two excluded spaces that
071we will have to fund yeah this is Wade would just like to add a lecture hall in there Jesus any other questions thank you very much thank you moving on to 7.2 Human Resources quarterly ESI report good evening president Schultz members of the board before you have the third quarter report and before I get started on this I just want to say the preliminary board agenda did have inaccurate numbers there was no other inaccurate numbers except what was sent to the board members on Friday and through some mathematical error we came up with the correct numbers and that's what you have before you this evening so the third quarter report states that we did spend an additional 519 and 82 cents and we are at the place where we will be asking in the um
072action items as you can tell for an increase to this purchase order so you might be saying why why more why more right so according to what we have our records and working very closely with ESI we have an increase obviously in the dollar amount that we've been spending on our subs we have some long-term Subs obviously certified Subs we pay our classified subs from this purchase order as well we also have people that are rehire retired to rehire that we pay as well on ESI that is the mechanism that we use the positive things that are coming out of this is the fact that we have very high fill rates we are at about 90 to 95 percent fill rates for our subs so our students are benefiting from the subs from ESI and
073the cost that the district is paying we also have some folks who are on leaves such as like a maternity leave FMLA leave so we cover those with long-term Subs as well driving up the cost that we're seeing after this third quarter so in our ask for additional dollars for the rest the remainder of the year that amount will be six hundred and fifty thousand dollars Sanders presidentials I had asked the question I believe I was regarding the increase but um I just want to follow up with my question um to clarify what I was searching for regarding employees taking employees that were leaving taking leave and I guess I didn't state it correctly but the reason I asked is for our policy for um professional support staff generally gcca payment for unused General leave
074full-time Personnel who have been continuously employed by the district for not less than eight years may receive payment for unused accumulated General leave so I didn't know if maybe that's part of the increase is possibly their well they have moratory ears and they've accumulated some hours there a lot of teachers will try to burn it and I brought it up before of addressing this policy and it's not on we're not talking policy right now but I would love to re-look at this because I looked at other school districts and their policy regarding time frames yes and Tyler said it's coming okay sorry now I have been working with meet and confer and he can speak to the policy at this moment yeah president Schultz Miss Anderson um I just remember meeting the first half are
075here today we've been working on this uh policy and so we had a little bit of a delay with Miss Martin's leaving um she obviously was a main part of being conferred so this policy we just had our last meeting confer meeting we did we do have a red line version ready to bring we felt that it was too soon our meeting was just last week so it was too soon to get on this agenda I do anticipate having that for a first read on the June 7th but we did that was one thing that came to um to conversation like we had eight years is a long time and are we really incentivizing people to stay and so um you'll see in the recommendation that we're going to be reducing that and then um
076you know kind of incentivizing that payout scale a little more and in the hopes that people hold that because there is a little more incentive to have that leave accumulated uh when you do leave whether the reason whatever reason that may be so hold tight that is coming uh and that will be soon presented to you so sorry just so I understand um so we want to consider lowering the eight years yeah I think we can have that conversation on June 7th I just want to answer Miss Anderson's question uh but we will bring that recommendation for a first read on on June 7th so okay on that policy thank you any other questions president Schultz Mrs Reese just as I I'm looking at the report [Music] um any idea why so much in the
077third quarter well one of the reasons is that legislation we have legislation like ACA Affordable Care Act and we also have proper 206 which allows an employee to have sick time to utilize their sick time as needed so the general leave that we're talking about when employees need to be out they're out I think we're seeing a shift as well when people are not feeling well they're staying home and they're taking care of themselves and that helps to bring down the sickness spread right so I think that's what we're seeing at this point I really can't attribute to anything else at this moment okay thank you presidential and board member Reese something else that might be or at least looking in because I know that we still do blackout dates considering how much testing is
078fourth quarter if I you know as a former teacher know that I need mental health days of you know just taking time off or planning for specific things doctor's appointments Etc if I have blackout dates fourth quarter coming up and I need to get certain stuff I will try to fit it in where I don't get penalized so that could also be part of it clarify that's why their third quarter was so okay perfect thank you that's what I thought I just because fourth quarter has testing correct right um and other like end of the year stuff that they flattered or like you just so third quarter has less of that president Schultz and just so I understand so it's hard to compare you know month over month when we look at the termination and
079resignation lists unless I combine them and Excel and then sort it by date but um so since I think you asked about um as far as getting a report back to January 1st now some of these have been on the list since January 1st as that it just keeps being added to is that when the list is by the month of resignations or terminations that we have or retirement so each time it comes to the board those are current because they're current okay think in our um weekly report it was the same amount as last year correct at this time it actually was we looked at the month of May and June and we were at 82 this year and 100 last year okay so less sorry so it was less than last year for
080those for the May and June uh not excuse me April and May excuse me perfect thank you any other questions thank you Mr Johnson moving on to 7.3 special education Day School report fiscal year 23 third quarter um Mrs Miller good evening president Schultz members of the board this is the third quarter update of our private day schools that I bring forward every quarter um with you you can expect the final update coming at the end of the fourth quarter as well as the request for the approval for the um next school year so this is where we currently stand the amount brought forward originally is just an estimate as this is kind of a moving Target we don't know what to expect and as you can see we anticipate staying within the requested amount
081this year questions thank you Mrs Miller thank you 7.4 textbook adoption presentation foreign good evening president Schultz members of the board here to talk to you a little bit about conceptual physics and just provide an update of where we are in the process of adopting a textbook for this course conceptual physics is a middle school course it's a science course taught at both of our middle schools focusing on the applied ideas of physics I think like Newton's Laws motion waves Force using all those ideas in a real world application and so that's where kids get to really encounter these ideas so that's the course that we're talking about for this so on January 9th of this year 2023 this is when we began the process that's where rfps were issued and those phase one evaluations
082of the RFP submissions came in on the 16th of February at that point we determine which textbooks were suitable to go to that next level that phase two this is where the teachers who actually teach the courses were given a period of time to evaluate the materials and use rubrics to be able to provide their own input and feedback on the characteristics and qualities of the textbooks those textbooks then went on display on the 1st of March and they continue on display for the public they're right outside this door so anyone who wants to make a an examination and a comment there's a QR code that allows anyone to provide specific feedback about the books and we'll leave those on public display all the way through the 7th of June of this year so they're
083available during normal business hours for anyone to come in and take a look at those back on March 30th we had our publisher presentations where the vendors representing the two textbooks that we have available came and they spoke directly to the teachers that were a part of that group and anyone from the public that was welcome to attend and at uh this point tonight I'm giving you the update here we are on May the 10th but I'm excited to announce that next week on Tuesday right here in the governing boardroom at 4 30 we're going to hold a community meeting so that any members of our community can come in and uh get a closer look at the materials and give any feedback that they have about conceptual physics specifically about the materials that we
084have I think I'm going to be able to have at least one of the teachers who teaches a course on hand being able to uh to be there and answer any questions and speak specifically about the uh their needs and the things that they look for and what makes a good set of materials specific to this this particular course which is usually taken it's kind of an accelerated course so for middle schoolers to dive into physics at that age and Stage and then at that point we hope to bring back final recommendations taking in all the all the information input from the teachers from community members from the public display and bring all those together with a recommendation for you thank you Dr treat um if they missed this meeting or don't hear about when
085the community meeting is that's it's on our website the information and then also goes out in an email to tell people parents community members president excuse me presidential the communication went to the entire Community already in the middleware of this that went out I think the last Thursday yes I believe it was Thursday I'm so sorry I was I missed the email so I'm sorry again no it's okay I have the information last Thursday okay I I was yes I understand why I missed it no okay thank you any questions yes was there communication sent out that it was on public display because I don't remember receiving that as a Middle School Parent do you know when that went out uh board member Van Hook those were on uh the website as far as the
086notifications we've had our process and our timeline as well as the rubrics available all the way throughout this process so the notification was within that timeline on that section on our adoptions for this year so it was just posted on the website and not necessarily in the email went out letting parents know that it is on display from March 30th that was the notification the no the one the display from March 1st to June 7th I'm sorry yes that was the notification on the website at that point that the public was welcome to and and still are they're still on display today so if the public doesn't know that it's happening and they don't go to the website they would never know that it's on display correct that's where the notification is yeah and and
087and this is why I believe it's important to send out an email like we did with the community meeting because if parents don't know that something's on display they have no reason to go to the website they'd never know to go to the website and and look at something and you know I think in most cases unless a parent needs something they don't visit the website um so this is the first time I'm hearing that there was a public display that's been happening since March 1st so if we could possibly send an email out letting parents know that this is open until June 7th I think that that'd be really good because I'm sure most parents aren't aware thank you Dr retreat so parents have until June 7th and then the community meeting is May
08816th just to confirm thank you very much I I had a question I'm sorry I'm sorry um will the community meeting be recorded before people who cannot attend yeah awesome yeah wonderful vice president Anderson we can work to make that happen for sure um just like we were toward these so okay thank you and there's two conceptual physics teachers one at each school or if we hired more since one of these schools one at each School two were there any other science teachers that from other subject areas that yes we had one other teacher who is qualified to teach that course but is not currently teaching the course that individuals expressed an interest in the future and wanted to be a part of the process okay and did to be a part of the committee
089or did anyone anyone from the high school no for the transition yeah no no one no one else participated okay all right thank you last thing and anybody can answer this is when do we go to summer hours just so the community knows the hours that they can come to the district or when to look for that I don't know the date connect excuse me president Schultz we can add that to the email notification clarifying that it's still here and here are our summer hours so we'll take care of that perfect thank you very much thank you I think that's all now thank you oh no sorry sorry I apologize um what where remind me I apologize I don't recall from our last meeting when our community newsletters going out and is that something that
090we can put in it if it will catch um the information send and can we do it moving forward vice president Anderson we sent it through a separate email identifying um when this event would take place on the 16th here at the district office so please clarify for me what you're asking I was just asking in addition to or to emailing on information can our the community newsletter or forget what we called it the um the new thing we're sending out announcements on the main website okay um as well so we can ask schools to put out on their weekly newsletters okay president Teresa's yeah when we talked about sending out the Higley um that magazine thank you that she talked about in her PR initiative the for or marketing initiative that we would be
091sending we're going to re do those and start sending those out to the community and I think Mrs Anderson's asking when is that going to go out and because this goes through June 7th is that something that will make that thank you for clarifying the question so probably the the when we're talking about doing again those newsletters they're going to be more like informational that it isn't date time sensitive because they might be quarterly and we'd hate for it to it won't probably go before we send before the June 7th because that was part of the goals for next year to relaunch those as part of our kickoff so this would be utilizing the emails currently we use the emails and announcement in our website all the same so when the emails go they're also
092on the website so we double do them so for instance if a school newsletter goes home it's also sent through an email and on the website that's what we're currently doing now for for timely things that could expire by the time it would go to print if you will and that way it's more more timely and and it allows us and allows families to customize how they want to receive that communication presidentials this um kind of another example of how are we going to communicate with our community that don't have kids in our schools because this does this could be information that other people who who have kids attending Charter Schools don't have you know things like that this could be of some interest to them see what our curriculum is perhaps it could help
093you know decide as my kids get into high school this is a good curriculum this is their path that we they would be interested in um and just to be interested in what we're teaching so um again we kind of talked about that before at our at our Retreat on how to look at how we can communicate Community as a whole um because we still have lots of families that don't necessarily have kids in our schools that could be interested in like Mrs Van Hook said they're if they don't know something's going on unless they make it a habit to check our website on a regular basis they wouldn't necessarily know this is happening so just another thing to keep in mind on how to communicate bigger things like this even if it's just a
094small little postcard hey textbook and adoption look at our website something to to steer them to the website not doesn't have to be long what's the presidential was the the previous textbook adoption for science was that emailed out or was it done the same way uh president Schultz vice president Anderson if you recall we actually had a very similar conversation and what happened is it went into the newsletters of all the schools and this was a much larger adoption but very similar in its stature that again this was a one uh course last time it was the entire science but yes it went it went in all of the newsletters for all of the schools during that window time okay and if you remember nobody came to check out the curriculum except for Mrs Wilson
095um was the only one that came and signed in and out um and yes we peaked when we were we went to the rooms and we looked at it yes um but that signed in and signed out so if this is important to you as a community then take this time between now and June 7th and attend the community meeting and also if you have kids that are interested in physics and the district then this is a great time to see what the program is and the classes that we're offering here at Higley thank you Dr treat president Schultz can we acknowledge our district level instructional science coach Kimberly Morton can you stand up and wave thank you she has worked very hard to take care of all of our teachers and our students and
096today we had some exciting news we went to Higley Traditional Academy the third grade teachers showed us their ecosystems in their classrooms and were raving about how much they loved the curriculum so it was a positive thing to hear that they're enjoying it and that lady back there has worked really hard along with Dr tree thank you Dr treat can you repeat what system that was again ecosystems yes oh sorry this is accent I'm sorry presidential board member Van Hook we got to walk into the jungle the desert the Arctic the ocean and they had transformed their rooms with poster boards of learning all over and the students could not have been more proud and they were sharing they wanted to share their work so we happened to be there to hear from students reported
097over graduate and they had to pull this in to show us we want to show you our science so it was pretty it was pretty wonderful that's awesome I'm guessing there'll be pictures in our weekly report yes okay perfect I can't wait to see thank you very much all right Mr Walker moving on to 7.5 student code of conduct information good evening president Schultz members of the board tonight come forward to present to you an update on the code of conduct heading into the 2324 school year so it's a couple pieces of information especially for newer board members just what is the code of conduct it is our our document our public document that supports governing board policy jic which is student conduct it summarizes the district's behavioral expectations based on both School law and
098governing board policy and it serves as a point of reference for disciplinary procedures for Teacher students Administration in the community so last year we brought the code of conduct to the board as an information item uh June of 2022 that was the first time that the conduct document had been brought since 2017. so we conducted an external comparison an internal review and had a legal examination of the existing documents our findings was that the document was relevant and appropriate but there were changes that needed to comply with legislative changes and then we would shift our Focus to a handbook that contains the code of conduct moving forward because there's lots of information that was in the code of conduct but the connotation denotation of the code of conduct is it's the consequences we want to
099front load the expectations first and then have the consequences follow so we're in the process and I'll talk about that in just a second if I were kind of reframing the approach to that so the work this year code of conduct task team was formed a representation from both sides of the feeder system comprising of secondary Deans aspiring administrators Counseling Services special education student information and legal the cabinet and Ed Services teams met and discussed the document we brought back items for a discussion to the uh to the to the code of conduct task team who then brought information back to their admin teams the team met again we reviewed changes and then we submitted to legal for a final review of the document Tas team consisted of following people representing from all sides of
100the district as well as different departments that have involvement along with representation from Udall Shumway for our review the findings for this year you know as we did a pretty extensive review last year there wasn't really a lot of information that was tended to change but it does support our intentions and the number one intention of the document is that it serves as a purpose to keep a safe and orderly learning environment for all of our students support our teachers and our administrators and our families it follows some sort of sequential Progressive discipline so it creates a learning opportunity for students so our main focuses of this year was to maintain a K-12 articulation so the progressive discipline is appropriate for students who are K-12 students and so they understand and learn the expectations early
101and then they can adhere to them for their time throughout the time in the district we also focused on Transportation bullying and harassment hazing and then due process for especially for long-term suspension and expulsion so the steps taken was to review the sequence of progressive discipline for all of our grade levels to better align them based on the input from the teams we worked with the transportation task team to to for one to be able to support transportation to maintain a safe and orderly uh route on the bus while supporting drivers while also supporting students creating a learning opportunity but also focusing on the safety on the bus and then legally review things that are connected to legislation such as hazing and bullying procedures and then we also sent several members of this of the
102staff to the trust training on on due process our next steps is the format the code of conduct so it becomes that chapter within the handbook and that handbook will present it as an information item in June and then ultimately translate the document into Spanish publish it on the district and cite web pages implement the acknowledgments and student view and parent view and then continue on with best use and consistency training ongoing throughout next school year and then repeat this process on an annual basis and bring back to the governing board any any changes or any trends that emerge from the review of the document any questions about that one president Schultz um what is changing in the bullying policy the policy is not being brought forward to change it's the procedure and making sure
103that the sites are following a procedure that's uniform across the district got it I I have heard from several parents that of their kids being bullied and nothing's being done about it and that's that's very concerning to me kids should feel safe when they're at school and when a child is being bullied it I'm sure makes them not want to be there and I I never want any child to feel that way um there is one incident that I noticed on social media today that I will share with the um with you later this evening but um similar situation a child is being bullied parent has gone you know to Administration and doesn't feel like it's being resolved so I want to ensure that um whatever policy that we have in place that the staff
104is trained on how to handle situations and that they do take it seriously when a parent brings forward any concerns president Schultz board member me too thank you thanks thank you I think that any other questions good perfect moving on to 7.6 first read of policy jica student dress which is also Mr Walker president Schultz members of the board tonight we bring forth a first read on governing board policy for student dress preferencing this policy read this is a very polarizing and controversial subject so we're bringing forward a policy review because the last time this policy was was approved was in 2001 and so this was one of the results of last year's code of conduct discussion in June and that there was some Antiquated language and there's maybe some discriminatory practices that were outlined
105in the way that the policy was read so we consulted with the policy team as well as sought legal inputs and this was the uh the result that we're bringing for first read was legal recommendation for an update to the student address policy presidentials as I put forth in my my email the area that I have the most concern about would be the area that talks about exposes the wearer's mid-drift undergarments or undergarment areas I often find that disproportionately impacts individuals who wear bras or bra straps those types of things and I know that we had some of the language in the the part that's like crossed out specifically like if your genitalia is exposed your chest those types of things I think I guess my only concern is we move forward with whatever statements
106that we make specifically is I I feel like the areas of concern that I have are people who are disproportionately impacted by that beyond that there are certain aspects as far as like how it's in forest and I recognize like for the most part because I mean I taught here over a decade ago and the way things started and how they enforce versus today even if this hasn't been updated since 2001 obviously our our enforcement has kind of changed with how style has changed how kids have changed Etc I just would like to make sure that we look at language that includes aspects of that um like for example also like the where's mid drift my I mean we have stomachs like at the end of the day I think some of the things that
107we do and how we we write or how we enforce some of these things I I just don't see how a that impacts the learning environment of anyone and be there are certain aspects that like I mean as a female especially and it's hot in this state there are there are times you're going to see my bra strap it exists um so I just that's my only area of concern as far as like the things that we continue with that and when we move forward um is that language specific presidential's board member Wade this is one of the reasons why we put this on here for discussion tonight because the policy is your policy unlike other ones where there are pretty legal pieces that are statutory this one it has a opportunity for there to
108be input on my thought would be is that if we're going to have a policy we're going to have to be sure that we enforce it and so what do you want us to be focusing our time on and hence we're having this conversation with here's an example of some updated language for a dress code policy like to hear some thoughts for you so that we can take that back to our policy task team and begin to look at the feedback you provide us to bring you a draft so this is like as you know not on the agenda tonight for decision this is for discussion being that this is one of your policies and this is something we want to it was discussed about bringing and wanting to be addressed and so let's have
109a conversation about the thoughts and concerns you have when you look at this so that we can begin to look at that and bring it back to you so piggybacking on what Mrs Wade said is I also have an issue with the exposes the wearer's mid-drift and undergarments specifically that it makes a female feel bad about their body and that were saying that they need to cover up because a way it might make someone else feel and that is wrong in 2023 we shouldn't be doing that there shouldn't be a time when teachers need to make sure a top meets the genes or looking at an inch to make sure that you're not showing a teeny bit of your stomach or part of your stomach right now the style is crop tops and it is
110very difficult to find a shirt for my 13 year old daughter that goes past her jeans or her pants I'm not saying we all need to be naked or that we all should come to school exposing our bodies but it is more of a waste of time to me for a teacher to point out a woman specifically females um showing an inch of their stomach than it is for them actually wearing what they're wearing in addition we do have bra straps we do have stomachs so I I have a problem with that part of the dress code presidentials um for me I think that as I mean coming kids coming to school it's it's an experience of you got to wake up you got to be there on time you got to do your work
111you gotta you know I think part of that is is learning to be I mean I know that they're children but learning to be professional um that you have to you know know your environment and I mean having experience in the charter schools and and their you know rules on on clothing um you know I found out some of it to be like way Extreme as far as like you know haircuts and and things like that but um I mean for girls I being a female um I think it's also knowing um how to um not part yourself um out there to be able to have um I don't I can't think of the word right now but just not self-esteem but um knowing that you don't have to show your body parts to be
112accepted or to to prove that you're female um I mean I I've seen some students with their butt cheeks hanging out and you know I don't think it's I want these girls to know that you don't have to do that to you know to to think that you're important or that you know you stand out for whatever reason [Music] um they should know that they're beautiful whether they're you know covered or whether they're wearing you know a shirt that shows their stomach so you know I I feel differently about being able to cover up a little bit and and learning to be a more professional I agree with that I don't think showing a part of your body is not professional or having a little bit of your party body is not professional if you
113have your shoulders exposed is that not professional if I'm wearing a dress like this I don't understand the difference especially seeing the style of clothing that is out there right now for just people to pick from I would talk presidential professional attire is how how do we expect our teachers to dress um so no teachers aren't walking around with midriff showing and they're definitely not walking around with their their back end hanging out of their shorts but I will agree that it is terribly difficult to find clothes that cover my body which I've been left to dressing back in my days as I was as a tomboy everything I wear is sport shorts and a t-shirt because that's something that I can really find that fits well this is going to be a difficult conversation
114because there's going to be disagreeances on how we raise our children and how we find what is appropriate for our children and then we're trying to make decisions for other people's children's children what I want to point out is the statements that I've heard from teachers where I teach about how the adults feel uncomfortable with the clothes and the body parts that they are seeing on these children so we need to make sure that we take in that into account when we make decisions whenever males and females are seeing girls with very short shirts and very short shorts and their bus busting out um I'll just I'll just stop there but that's the point we need to make sure we understand teacher professional attire so when we talk about what's professional attire let's go look
115at businesses and let's see um out outside the schools what's going on in businesses and what is their attire if we're going to address professional attire and also how do the teachers feel what are they what are their thoughts about some of the dress that they're seeing around the school especially when we're we have had instances with behavior between teachers a teacher and a student in issue before presidential I'm kind of back and forth on this I I hear everything that you and Mrs wader talking about the hard part is is that we say exposes the wearer's mid-drift and like you had referenced you know some things are crop tops at what point does it stop at what point is it too much because we don't specify we just say midriff what what is what's
116what's midriff defined as to then if someone's wearing a sports bra that that could be well it's like a crop top my midriff's okay so it I think the hard part is um is defining and we're at what point where does where does that stop and and it's always a fine line like Mrs Anderson said everyone in this topic is going to have different opinions different thoughts um based on our own personal um appropriate style I I agree when I had my great niece and nephew and she had really long legs and to try and find shorts that were not were not booty shorts that actually covered her entire butt was very difficult because she was skinny and she had very long legs um so I hear you with the style of clothes and what's
117available out there too makes it a little bit more difficult um on what we can find um and Mrs Anderson you know that's a great point on um the part of adults being comfortable or uncomfortable and it's hard because this is a district policy and we know um the younger we are and how very innocent that starts and it's just someone's stomach and it's it's no big deal um to you're getting into high school and you're getting into the older high school and Mrs Wade I appreciate how um or Mr President Schultz you said you just don't see that disrupting the environment well um when you have boys and girls and something could be potentially exposed then and hormones that that could be disruptive to others um just on a natural behavior um and so
118it's like how do we keep not having them distract each other um so I think I think the hard part is is that we're trying to get away from defining um to a point because teachers don't have time is this long enough here's stand up put your arms straight down or your fingertips you know does it go below your fingertips and I I think we're away from those days but the hard part is that what does that mean I mean is there a portion of the midriff that's okay and then there's a portion that's not um and so this one is particularly hard and I agree it is definitely just proportionate to females I know that people are going to be likely to address a female um in this fashion than they would have male
119not trying to pick on any particular group I'm just using it as an example you notice your football players when they're wearing their football shirts jerseys game days their bellies are exposed I mean you see the belly buttons who I you know and so are they going to be more apt to address a male like that probably not so I think it's I don't know what the answer is on how how do you define how do you figure out the enforcement um and things like that and across the district and at what grade level does it change does it change at a grade level um and the first thing I thought and we've done so well at this and it I think it's just the timing I have found it to be pretty amazing if
120we were to take this to our students and ask them what they feel is acceptable nine out of ten times they're harder on nope they shouldn't do this and they shouldn't wear this and they shouldn't wear that um but I would like at some point um that we do check with our students and we're up here talking about what may or may not make someone comfortable or uncomfortable it's their learning environment and I agree there's a point because you have adults there too but it's their learning environment too so what what does make them comfortable and uncomfortable um so that's just a thought I I would like it at some point um that we see with their their thoughts are on on dress codes and what they would find appropriate not appropriate but I have
121found that they're harder on their own peers than than we do so Mrs Wade sorry to to add to what board member Reese uh expressed I do believe that at the end of the day when we give kids the opportunity to um be individual humans and allow them responsibility and choice that they routinely go above and beyond and I recognize that people make mistakes because we're humans and you know that happens I have had the benefit of working in multiple schools and in multiple States and I have had a school that had a simple dress code of no Gang Related no drug related and violence and learning went just fine we have higher institutions of the same thing where you could our group arguably you know Express that the interactions among students are far greater
122and more intense and learning happens just the same I find the message that we are expressing to our children to look at their bodies in a sexualized nature we routinely have people in the community come up and talk about how they're concerned with our efforts to sexualize kids and in my opinion that's what this does completely and for each individuals that have their own beliefs within your household and those types of things nobody is telling you that you have to change how that happens right because it is up to your choice when you come to the school to do these types of things and as far as staff members are concerned we also are adults and have the capability of recognizing what is a disruption in the classroom and what is not a disruption in
123the classroom and with respect to time you're right I don't care what you're wearing as far as day in and day out and when we have other types of things as far as spirit days where I came to school dressed as Jabba the Hutt I go what are we talking about with respect to professionals like these are kids they're not in a job and I recognize that at the end of the day this is the most job that they have but we need to allow freedom to exist as humans and find themselves in the safest space that we have available to them which would be that of primary schools Secondary School Etc and I think part of the reason that kids find themselves so judgmental of everyone else is because we are pushing our ideals
124and morals and judgments on to them in those circumstances and at the end of the day we are all now of the age in which we look at stuff and are like my God right I mean I there are certain things that I'm like we left that style to die in the 90s and yet here it is um but that's not for us to see right I I think at the end of the day the efforts that we are making we all have the same goals in mind and to give our kids the freedom of being human beings and at the same time not saying that one person's body is sexualized and and targeting it in that way because that's how it always happens and it always happens and if we reaffirm it with these
125types of policies it will continue to happen for generations to come because that's what was done to us and so I'm My Hope Is and I'm asking at the very least to consider we obviously have time to make changes and assessments before we do that but to consider where we are at and what our position can mean for our young daughters and sons as they progress because the same is true for for my son in the same way that he deserves to understand that a person's stomach is just in fact their stomach we all have them some belly buttons are weird and that's okay this is way I agree with you and well Mrs Reese and Miss Anderson I understand what you're saying about uh making people feel uncomfortable but I agree with Mrs Wade
126that we have continually sexualized children's bodies and that's not something we should do and staff feeling uncomfortable is something that we need staff that needs more education or that we shouldn't be sexualizing a child's body to make them feel uncomfortable and especially females and but I do love the idea of getting children's input on this and we could have a committee for everything and a community for everything and we go over policies right so getting the kids input on this at all grade level makes sense to me president Schultz what about parents input um I mean I think parents should be involved in that too um you know my kid might love wearing shorts with her butt cheeks hanging out doesn't mean she's leaving the house like that in the morning um so I think
127parents input is is important as well um but we can't we also can't sit here and and think that policies like that can't happen I mean it it happens it's it happens every day at my daughter's charter school I mean there's a set policy kids can't wear certain clothing and it is what it is um the unfortunate thing is no we do not want children to be sexualized but the problem is it happens unfortunately it happens not by you know not only by adults but also by other students um how awful would it be if because of you know let's say we don't put a limit on how short a shirt can be and somebody does wear a sports bra to school and whatever and there's an incident and and something happens at school between
128two students and who's ultimately responsible for that the district um does that open us up for a lawsuit I mean there's so many things that could happen and we have to also consider that we can't have teachers again measuring okay we're allowing one inch two inches three inches um and you know teachers are having to take out a tape measure or whatever um it's got to be one or nothing at all and what option do we choose and does that open us up for liability potentially presidential in Boardman Van Hook I would like to I mean there are a couple things I'd like to unpack with that the first is uh I agree with you that parents matter and as you expressed if you have a problem with what it is that your child is
129wearing that is something that you should discuss in the home I don't think it's our space to say what somebody should or should not feel comfortable with personally and those types of things and the benefit of having that is it gives the opportunity for individuals to live within their own Comfort uh as far as the idea of what if it happens I recognize that and as somebody who suffers from anxiety I spend most of my time in the what if but I think we also have to be realistic in understanding that we cannot perpetually exist in a space of when other people decide to do action and if you have a situation in which you say what if you have people who have been the victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment wearing with very
130little Skin showing the clothing is not what's there and if you're concerned with the idea of how do we teach to make sure these things don't happen and that starts with us it starts with us expressing that this is right or wrong my child knows the oven is hot because I tell them no my child knows not to walk up and take something from somebody because I tell them that's not okay when we tell kids that their bodies aren't okay we are reinforcing that aspect and whether we intend to do it or not we disproportionately do it for females versus males and I recognize that there are circumstances of being uncomfortable as a teacher and what you talk about and how you do certain kinds of things I live in uncomfort constantly as a teacher
131with the things that the students talk about with the things that they are engaging in because they are quasi-adults trying to exhibit adult-like behavior and that is always and perpetually uncomfortable we are trying to police a normal aspect of life and growth in a way that I don't think is reflective of what is best for overall equity and how we can maintain that same process I I literally exist in a space that if we constantly worry how other people are going to respond to what is that saying to our children if you have within your home and that any parent have within their home that that is not what we are okay about and that is not what we approve in our household that is fine that is what you are designed to do as
132the parent to say that we as a school have to dictate what that is for all of our students I don't think is fair or adequate and definitely doesn't represent equity also I I recognize the idea that an individual showing up in a sports bra but let's also talk about let's say you run track right and it's summer and it's hot and you're outside running track we have swim literally same things in the classroom I'm gonna go with two things one you're gonna be cold and no I will absolutely not turn that air down right like that's that's how it happens routinely I've taught in Maryland and some of the outfits that individuals would wear and be like girlfriend don't tell me you're not cold I'm cold looking at you that's not my space to
133say what should or should not be done and within the home you have absolute right and control to do so but perpetually trying to avoid the negative behaviors of others by telling them that this is something they should police only perpetuates that negative behavior presidentials um again I we're always going to have some part that we're going to agree or disagree with this is this is going to be terribly difficult to set to say it can be free and open or um set parameters but the point of policy is to enable consistency and Clarity and if we say like jobs say these this is our policy for clothing whether you're a police officer you're a teacher you work in an engineering field or whatever they still have their dress code and policy and a policy
134again enables us to say okay these are expectations that way we can be consistent with everybody and we're not sitting here playing the game of you and you and not you but this is okay we're going to spend time measuring and trying to figure out every day what is appropriate for this person or whomever so I'm with Christine I don't have an answer for this but the point of policy is sticking to setting it for everybody to follow and go home and dress exactly how you would like to dress but I don't dress how I want to dress at my professional job I can't even wear jeans except for on Fridays unless I wear my Bulldog t-shirt you know boy would I like to wear jeans every day but I can't because that is the
135policy for dress for the Professionals in my school and again there's little room to no room to give for that so that we can maintain consistency and order if you will as we maintain an academic environment but thank you I would just like to be a part of a solution that doesn't continue to sexualize girls bodies and continues to make girls feel bad about their bodies because of what other people might think or do and that's all I have to say about that any other questions comments concerns and we'll get continue with this yeah president Schultz governing board thank you for the very healthy and robust conversation I think you represent a a multiple parents and this is helpful for us to hear your context so that we can take this back and some of
136the feedback and suggestions you have and we can decide who else and what else we need to do before we bring back a recommendation obviously this is one that will take us some while to get something that I think that would capture the perspectives that you've shared with us so but thank you for giving us an opportunity to hear what you're thinking about this to help us guide this work on this next step and presidential I just want to clarify too I think parent input is important I think the point like Mrs Anderson brought I look at this as what's considered socially acceptable on our campus and in our schools and then from there parents dictate like Mrs Wade said what's appropriate in their home what's not um what are their kids walking out in
137and what they're not we've all seen the kids who show up in school and one show up in one thing they come out of the bathroom in another um because obviously they know that that's not acceptable for their home but that that's not for us to handle in police that's between them and their their parent in that aspect but I do think parents options are important and I I look at this as the framework of what we would consider creating a safe socially acceptable campus environment and then their parent goes from there so thank you Mr rocker you're welcome yeah the entire time moving on to action items 8.1 approval of the fiscal year 2023 budget revision number three uh I'd like to make a motion to approve fiscal year 2023 budget revision number three
138seconded all those in favor aye motion passes five to zero 8.2 approval of GMP number four I make a motion to approve GMP number four for phase two weatherization of Higley High School project to Chase Building team second questions comments concerns I forgot that part no you're gonna all those in favor aye motion carries five to zero eight point three I move that we authorize the authorization of the expenditure substitute teachers increase of Educational Service Inc questions comments concerns presidential this is Reese I just want to indicate I am concerned on this and it does bother me um we're almost doubling our original authorization and our original authorization was already taken into account we increased it from what it was already um we said okay this is what we learned from last year so we're
139going to give us ourselves some cushion and we're going to increase it and then just in March we said you know what we're going to ask for another increase because we don't want to keep coming back so we're going to try and give ourselves another cushion we're not two months later and we're here again and essentially we're almost doubling our original authorization um I am concerned that um we went over budget in third quarter and we're in this position that essentially we need to approve this because we're over I mean we we've exceeded um so um that's concerning to me I would like to ask I mean ESI is not going away um we're going to have Subs it's an ongoing thing um that we we anticipated some inflation obviously we couldn't anticipate for how
140much because we had this conversation where like everything's gonna go up we know that it had started we couldn't tell how much but I would like that we look at this all the way around multifaceted what are we spending um how are we spending it um is there any other alternative Solutions uh you know and I know we look at that all the time and it's on your mind as well um as well as how do we address the amount of absences that we're having um and I know that that some have to happen I get it I know people go on long-term leave maternity leave medical leave um but we also can't operate in this fashion we do need our employees to show up we we have our kids are coming whether they are
141or not um and so I'm just asking that if we're having some repeated attendance issues that those are being addressed because that that is costing the district um I'm not saying we are or not but to look at it multi-facetably that where are we why are we here and what can we do for the future I agree with this and we increase the sub budget we we don't want our teachers to have to use their prep time um and things like that we want to be able to provide subs and and have those for kids um but like I said this this is bothersome to me that we are at this end of the school year we're doubling all of sorry I'll live less than 50 000 we're doubling our our initial budget that we
142had for this um and we just approved an increase two months ago so um I just wanted to say that and just ask that I know you guys think about it too but just please let's look and see what alternatives we can do how we can maybe better plan um and and see what we can do with that so to that point I that's kind of why I asked earlier about lowering the eight years of service um because I feel like if we lower it we might be in a worse situation because people with less years of service might decide to take yeah so we we need to think about that um when when it comes time to deciding whether we lower that years of service sadly it happens thank you Mrs I agree with
143you this is why presidentials they have two things one I don't think it's going to solve the concern it's just out of curiosity of our long-term Subs not for medical leave maternity leave those kinds of things how many positions are we filling with long-term Subs because we don't have a certified teacher to be in that position if any like because that would come out of the same fund again it would be a smaller amount in general I recognize and ultimately we would still have to pay the budget because if it's not from the sub it's salary but to my knowledge there are none okay and then the the other thing for the the eight years just for clarify before we go for it and I I recognize it's not something for today the idea behind
144that is if I'm leaving and I know that I'm leaving and I'm less than eight years and I have so many hours saved up then I just start burning my days because when I leave the district I don't get paid out for them so for example I left after teaching four years and I in that four years with the exception when I went on maternity leave with my son because he came two months early I never took a day and I lost all of that time so that was what Mrs Anderson's question previously was is if you know that you are leaving the district for whatever reason and you know that you're not getting paid out for days you earn you take those days and that could be what her question was referring to earlier
145seventh any other questions comments concerns all those in favor I all those opposed or any opposed five to zero I move that we approve eight I move I may make a motion to approve 8.4 ratify payroll and expense vouchers second Christine questions comments concerns all those in favor aye motion carries five to zero moving on to 8.5 I make a motion to approve asba policy Services renewal second okay questions comments concerns um president Schultz um I do have a concern with renewing the contract for four years um I was aware that uh Queen Creek uses a different system what I'm not aware is whether that allows them to do annual renewals um I would like to see other options and um you know if there's a cost savings potentially with a different company [Music] um
146yeah so um with that concern and not having the ability um to do it annually if we decide within the next four years to end the contract then they get to keep 50 percent so um I don't like that president Schultz board member Van Hook we don't either one of the things that we did you'll notice that I received this back in March and immediately they send they start sending you a contract sign sign sign I said no no we're going to take this to the board we have met with the model policy group they're still in the beginning stages of this we're looking at potentially moving over to a different platform but there's lots of parts and pieces as you know we use both advisories as we are looking at that to bring recommendations
147to you one of the components that this holds is board docs we reached out to uh that this this includes our ability to keep our platform if you go away from that you have to do board docs separately which adds an additional cost so we reached out to asba to determine whether or not they would give us something less than four years and the answer was a resounding no so we did explore that which is one of the reasons the delay in bringing it back because this was the next board meeting since we heard back from them that they would not offer us a single year um so the issue is is that we are not are we do not feel that we are ready to drop everything board docs we have been working so
148hard to go through those policies and look at both advisories to bring the very very best one and get them good our feeling was until we see that this other one is is functions the way we want it to we don't want to step away from the format um we have a real need here in Higley we like to Higley eyes things so one of the things we've been bringing is the policy advisories from both sides looking at them looking at other examples hearing feedback from those who are closest to it and bringing it to you and either we keep the copyright or we don't at this moment this is the only option we have with asba and as a team didn't feel we were ready to step away from it and weren't able to
149negotiate they don't give you a one-year option president Schultz so by saying you're using both are you does that mean you're using the same one that Queen Creek is using as well we receive policy advisories from both groups we we because we want both um and they're written a little bit differently both of them utilize lawyers both of them are structured a little bit differently one some are more lawyer friendly some are more practitioner friendly and we like to have both examples so that when we look at it as a team we can determine how we want to if we want to modify or choose one over the other we do it's very inexpensive to just receive the advisories and so we we use both for me like I think it's silly that you know
150they take state law and put it into their own words and copyright it and then we adopt it as policy I mean it's state law so I feel like we have to follow it no matter what whether we adopt it or not um so when it comes to that when you would let's say dress code policy so when you compare one to the other like how different is it some are more updated than others model policy is still also being developed and when we met with them we also met with them I think in the May I'm sorry March end of March middle of March February March we met with them and and they are still finishing parts and pieces so we couldn't see all of them and so some of them adopted and rolled
151over our feeling at this time was we like to utilize both examples because sometimes they're very similar and sometimes they're very different and there's different perspectives depending upon the group that who's recently reviewed them the model policy group because they're going through all of them are probably more current and they're using more of a preg you know more lawyer perspective and asba is doing the same you heard last week when we had our Retreat you heard Chris talk about you know one of the things asba had was they had missed an update in an advisory that's going to cause some districts to have to update their policies this is something we're constantly doing and we try try really hard to stay on top of it so again we like having the resources to bring the
152very best one to it anytime we modify either one of them many of ours have copyrights on them and many of them don't we remove them we have an attorney review it one more time to make sure before we bring it to you some of the policies are pretty straightforward as far as the law some like dress code for just example there's multiple interpretations and recommendations depending upon who was part of creating the policy advisory for the district and is it possible to start getting that information from I forget the name of it the one the one that Queen Creek uses but to be able to get information from them maybe if we did decide to switch to them would they consider kind of buying paying for our fee to move away from asba um
153if if we can look into those and see what the numbers are and if it makes sense so if we do decide to move to them that you know if they're able to pay for our fee with asthma that we could potentially move even before the four years is up I think that we can bring we have been in conversations with Jen McLennan who has been who's moved over to the model policy group in her team we've met with them we are also because we're kind of with asba right now our goal for us as our team is to make sure our policies are as strong as possible and they are as updated as possible that was something that a newer leadership team we inherited that was not as as comprehensive and as up to
154date we had hoped so we literally are going through Section by section and we are all about providing the best product and resources I don't have the answers to whether or not they'd be willing to pay it off for us but I know they're willing to work with us because they're going to help us audit what we have to determine our biggest priorities to come for for updates in some of those policies that haven't been touched for a while for instance um dress code so more to come the issue is is at this moment we aren't willing to step away from the platform we have as we're doing this important work with both policy advisories and we're only offered a four-year contract we have email exchanges back and forth with them and they basically said
155it wasn't an option thank you made phone calls as well tried again um and it wasn't an option you mentioned board docs would be a separate cost what is that cost board docs at this time board docs is the platform that ASPCA uses for their policy and it would be a separate it's a separate we'd have to pay like a subscription okay if we wanted to continue using board docs or you can choose other platforms so my thought would be before we would ever make a suggestion to stop what we are doing we keep all of our policy work going wherever we choose to host it or house it is a platform issue and I think we bring in and have uh the the vendors show it to the governing board to help make decisions
156as when we get closer to that point and we feel comfortable to go away from what we have to what we want to move toward so at this moment we are paralleling both platforms we do we have one platform we have board docs we're using the advisories from asba but we're also using the advisories as a resource from the trust so we we don't know what word docs would cost us separately I don't have it I don't have I don't have it this I know it's not free I know there's an Acosta I do not have the exact amount of what board docs would be by itself but if we chose to continue to platform in board docs we would end up meaning to pay for that separately and what's the cost of the program
157the quick the other program the Queen Creek program at the trust and model policy I don't have that the model policy we're piloting right now for a thousand dollars yeah a thousand a year just for the advisories okay but we don't know what their full program would be is it year to year yeah that's a year to year agreement and um yeah currently that's the the only I think it's just a thousand so from year to year so for that service so so if I'm hearing correctly basically we're we're in a tight space given timelines of current things but with with valid concerns as far as cost and those types of things at the very least to look into going for it I mean in terms of like what would board Dogs cost us when
158you evaluate this the the the aspect of that I think another benefit at least being part of one of these is because as these groups can Lobby directly to state legislatures they're more aware of certain things that will pass or won't pass sometimes as far as like giving us heads up or those types of things so I mean at the very least going forward to look into Costa is smart to do anything quickly or what is our deadline to approve the renewal our our thing expires through June 30th so if you wanted to again they send the renewal to you in in March we probed back we're only given um the only option is a four-year I mean we have two additional meetings where if we wanted to bring back additional information on what is
159the cost of board docs separately the issue is is to launch this happens overnight uh I mean to launch this doesn't happen overnight and I just don't want us to not have our um platform or our policies that are at our fingers particularly when we're working so hard to get them in really good order foreign so actually I'm gonna let you go ahead and then I just lost my train at that if if this is been going to get tabled or pushed to another meeting um I want to ask this question and if and you don't have to answer today but I would love to know your professional opinion you're the superintendent what is your opinion why would you advocate for asthma why would you want to keep it laughs my I appreciate you asking
160the question my the reality is is I have a team that's working very very hard to update these policies and to get the content of what is in the policies up to date we've been working really hard to make sure we had a lot of policies that we inherited where there was no additional regulations or exhibits or artifacts we have policies as you know has been a priority in our strategic plan where processes and procedures you've heard that theme over and over and over again well that's because we have policies that aren't being implemented consistently all over the place because there was no regulation in training and follow-through I have been more worried about the quality and caliber of the implementation of the policies and getting them up to date rather than what platform we
161want to use I I am I this is a Time intensive process um we're hearing just our conversation let's use the dress code as an example if we decide to Branch out our working task teams to involve parents teachers children students to get things done and get them done in time trying to learn a whole new system and how we access those those things in a literally months worth of time before we start school would be a real challenge I feel like I feel like our policies could the quality and caliber of what is in the policies is more important to me at this moment than whether because I'm using asba policy advisories and model policies I want to be able to just keep us in board docs in the platform for a while so
162we can get them right but I also understand the the concern about the cost for four years if we want to shift them but when we when we're talking about what is my recommendation I think you'll be putting your team in an entirely terrible situation to try and launch a whole new model policy platform all we'll be doing is organizing and formatting our existing old outdated policies into this new format and to me that that would be I would rather is if we're going to make that shift have the policies in great order and have have feel really good about it so again I our team will respond to what the governing board decides and wants to do I will tell you that the timeline is not ideal and yet the contract for four years
163isn't either is there an option to help incentivize us you know the hard part is I have found is working with other entities they really that that for profit our ability to negotiate is limited to what they're willing to agree to do even even when I tell them our governing board wants this they would appreciate that perspective but may not always do it um I would say that if if we try and do this overnight we're going to end up with with a real hassle so for somebody to reach out to Queen Creek and see what that entailed for them because they were I think because at least when I went to their website it was fairly recent that it happened it was it was just done I would love to know what did it
164what that entailed for them and how long and how difficult was it and asked her staff and and um they're still using Boardman are they still using board docs do you know um no I don't think so they're building a different platform different it looks different it feels different yeah well my understanding is um Queen Creek moved completely away from asba not only board docs but they cut ties completely um I would like to know um I mean if if we can I guess if I I'd like to you know I don't know um I'd like to make a motion to table this for the next meeting and hopefully we can get some answers as far as what it would cost to have a subscription to board docs with a new company if the new
165company is willing to um buy us out of you know if if we were to go with asthma and decide we're going to move if they'd be willing to do it they they'd probably say no because they'd probably want us to go directly with them but it doesn't hurt to ask um and if we can have all that detail and then we can make a decision at that time and now you said it would be difficult because it doesn't happen overnight now what would change since we already have access wouldn't that access just continue if we sign the new contract my that would be is if we didn't have if we don't have the other system already up and ready to go and have been organized and had time to transfer it all over to
166lose access to our system now with all of our policies in there because we didn't renew the subscription would be a problem because right now board docs holds the board docs holds all of our policies and our regulations and things so that if if the transition time to the new platform with all those other pieces couldn't happen in time I wouldn't want us to go in as we're starting the school year to not have immediate access to our new policy manual because this will be a very time intensive process and it'll also require training with our administrators and everything about where we go how we access how we find um how we find that so again it's just a matter of making a big shift quickly overnight and and if possible can we get like
167maybe screenshots of what that new system would look like compared to board Docs yes thank you I was going to say we have them yeah we have a motion on the table so we need to have a second before we can move to table it I'll second the motion to table for the next meeting any other questions yes question comment yeah I was going to say I had some questions too I was just gonna ask I mean obviously she covered a lot of the same questions but if for me if it could just be a side-by-side comparison what what services I mean we get more than just policies from asba like what does our membership cover what what services and everything does that cover and what they offer and then um with this other company
168is it just policy what services do they offer the price comparison um and then there are some other aspects to it there's just so much because the law conference is still very good I still think our Administration needs to attend the asba law conference you pay non-member prices which are much greater so I mean if you can if you can look at that I mean even though we pay to attend the law conference and the new board member training in the annual conference the non-member price is much greater so if we can just kind of get estimates I know that's a lot of work I know it's the a bad time of year because we have so much going on um but these are all questions I think that help answer um where do we
169go presidential um realistically Dr Foley is this information Something That We're because if if it took as long as it did to get some of that information back from the asba I think something else we need to keep in mind is any other program that we switch to is still going to have a cost I get that we pay a thousand dollars for the the trust one out of Queen Creek but that's because we only have a portion of it not the full entity of different things and so like I recognize that the cost of what they charge and the nature of what it is I don't Envision the asba being so disproportionately overcharged because these other programs exist right like I mean that's the nature of a free market is the idea that you're
170paying for certain programs and if other things that exist they can do the same stuff what is it that we're paying for and I recognize that the timeline is is really the biggest concern and ultimately there is more than just Financial cost if we completely implode what decision it is that we're making without and I don't personally at the present moment in time feel comfortable enough making a decision that might have consequences or ramifications that we can't foresee in the next year because we're trying to get it done in a month and I recognize that that's not by choice how we are at this timetable and so I guess my concern is we are making efforts to move away from something to go towards something else that is equally going to cost and some of
171that cost is also time and hours and Manpower in order to do the same thing it's further meetings of policies that we've already adapted that we have to routinely do again and and so it's more than just the financial aspect of some of these things so my question is this this this stuff that we're requesting to get Is it feasible to get a comprehensive thing in time for us to be able to make this decision before our contract runs out so we are not getting ourselves in trouble or is the long-term safety might be spending slightly more in the interim for the next four years and I recognize the four-year contract's not great there's nothing we can do about that that's it's like Verizon every time I tell them I hate how much they charge
172me they know I need them more than they need me kind of deal so I just want to make sure that in our efforts to do this we're not we're not hastily making a decision to try to save cost and what we're saving is merely hundreds of dollars instead of thousands at the grand scheme of things that's only going to cost each one of us the cabinet and all of our staff more hours later because that still has a financial cost to it I appreciate that perspective I think what we will do obviously when you're at the when you're at the mercy of vendors and you're going to be asking questions we'll get back what information we have as comprehensively as possible I think that the amount of man hours that will be on the
173district team will be substantial in the months that several people may be not here as we prepare to take their earned vacation time uh at a time before we launch a school year so I think I I want to be conservative and careful with funds but for the fund amount for the proportion that it could be problematic my I would lead toward your Pennywise pound foolish conversation is going to take a lot of time my and I shared with you our priority is to make sure our policies are being our policies are in good place and they're being implemented appropriately and that there's good regulations and um exhibits behind them and that's been that's where we have focused our time if we're going to shift into an entire different um piece then that's and and
174that's the direct the desire of the governing board then our focus and priority is going to shift and what we've been doing and how we're going to be doing it and I completely agree and that's why I'd like some comparison I don't want you to spend a lot of time yeah on I I mean I don't want you to spend a lot of time on the information I just I need to visualize what one offers over the other because I I agree I know that we get more than just policies from asba but I don't know what else this other company even offers so I mean if they only do policy then I yes then that cost is going to be different and I wouldn't want to put anything any of our staff through any
175of that I just need to compare what the services are I mean what do we get compare um and like I said just a a brief overview of an approximate extra two hundred dollars for the law con you know that's all I'm asking for I don't want you just for me I'm guessing they have that they would have an information sheet that just shows like this is how much more you would pay as a non-member right it's something you can just look at one of their registration forms I'm not asking to spend a lot of time on I just need more of a comparison because I really don't I really don't know what I'm comparison comparing and like you said I don't know what I would be saving if we made a change um between
176actual dollars to the vendor or dollars to our staff and would we suffer in what we actually get out of it if we left asba so I just don't know I just want that comparison on what the two services do president Schultz so by this agreement this isn't this is just for the board docs and the policies right this is your platform this is this is this is for your agreement for for the policies and your board docs so this has nothing to do with the relationship with asba as far as membership and trainings and anything of that sort this is this is your policies and board docs there thank you okay can we go ahead um if this does move forward with being tabled um I just want to made a great uh comment
177of and taking in your information about the transition it would take in the time and I do not want to waste any more time I know everybody's working terribly hard um just through each day um so it would be great to get that information but I do want to make the comment I've been to the law conference and I believe the um consensus from last year's law conferences it wasn't really that great um so if we're getting mediocre information and that's what we're paying extra for and trying to hold on to for the reason to stay with them then I would I would make sure that they understand we're not going to continue the service if you're going to give us mediocre conferences you know I've been to one years and years and years ago
178when I was born secretary and it was great and I was excited to learn but at that time I didn't know what I didn't know also I've been to the delegate assembly and that that was fantastic and it was great to hear the perspectives of everyone but again I I don't know if we didn't go and attend that would that really be detrimental to our district I'm sorry oh okay um I did I did ask the question um for sending the questions early of what percent of their services do we use and how often and unfortunately and I know these questions take up your time and the responses we use resources as we needed but if if we're gonna if this does move forward being tabled can I get can we get a more detailed
179answer of what are you valuing and using exactly if you can I know that's going to take up your time Dr Foley but if we're truly going to make the right decision I understand that the policies and the convenience um and you and the calibration and everything you mentioned is 100 important and I don't think any one of us disagrees with that but what else are we getting out of asthma and are you finding that you are using and finding valuable to the operations of this District okay sorry thank you well and if this is only the policy and board Docs which I was assuming it was asba so maybe shame on me the way I read it was this is so this is only policy and only board docs your policy Services subscription agreements
180Okay so yeah then I think the only thing we would need to know or I won't say we I should say I would what is the cost if we stayed with board docs on our own um and what what is this other um offering so just a small comparison because if it's not all that then don't spend all that time um but yeah just a comparison and what is board docs on our own if we got it and um and kind of go from there we would also sorry board member or presidential uh the timeline of switching I I again I recognize that it does not feel good making these decisions with a very tight timeline at all the point is we don't want to lapse in anything because that causes far more problems than
181anything else and I think all of these questions are valid because the cost and everything else especially if this is separate from being a member or whatever else all that other stuff is and and if this does take time and how we progress for the next four years I I guess my biggest concern is in our efforts to try to save some of this what is the switchover and the detriment that that could cause in the short interim um and I I also recognize that it doesn't feel smart to financially live in that existence but we are unfortunately in that position at the present moment so with that information if if we have time to be able to say okay this is what board docs would cost us and then at the next meeting recognize
182and understand what that changeover would look like is it a possibility or is there a lapse because if there's a lapse I don't think the benefits outweigh the the detriment and that that cost but then the benefit is we buy ourselves four years of time to come up with answers to all of these questions that take a ridiculous amount of time to do that and we give you then years instead of days in order to be able to provide some of that info completely agree with you on there the thing is we're paying 6 100 right now for policies if we're paying them a thousand and this was 5100 we're paying 6100 if theirs is still a thousand dollars and board docs is I'm just throwing a number out there keeping it simple is three
183thousand for us to maintain on our own right there we're saving 2 000 per year over the next four years and I don't want to do that to you guys but there is an overall cost to that too so it's information I guess at this point and yes it's unfortunate you've been trying to ask and and it's unfortunate the timing is coming before us um for us to try and get more information thank you for not knowing this so the other asthma stuff is a whole different membership than the delegate assembly and all that so being a member and getting the member prices for those is a completely different entity okay and is there a bundle like if like when Cox used to do that oh if you drop this and all sudden your prices
184went up and you thought you were dropping a service is that do you does is that how it works with asthma like if we drop the policy Services as our other membership fee going to be different because of that do you know presidentials vice president Anderson I don't want to speak out of turn I really will look at if we will we we will provide additional information and be sure that we understand all the options no apologies currently ready president Schultz um isn't the asthma membership individual based it's per person isn't it it's not District it's per person so technically if if we're not paying membership fees for us we aren't we don't have a membership as board members yeah so we would have to the district would be half would have to pay for
185our membership for us to get a discount so for instance we went to the um the first class that they offered for new board members um I don't think that that was at a discounted rate because we weren't members and any course offered after the fact in order to qualify for the membership rate we have to become members so um it's an individual membership currently on the table is to table 8.5 approve a 8.5 the approval of ASB a policy Services renewal all those in favor I any opposed motion is denied zero to five and we will look for more information approved I'm sorry yep approved approved approved zero to five yes we will table this until the June 7th meeting printing more information regarding that moving on to 8.6 approval to increase I made
186commotion to approve the increase the annual cumulative spend for vendors listed below on Cooperative contracts over a hundred thousand for fiscal year 2022-2023 seconded questions comments concerns this is 8.6 [Music] um so I do have one item that's on there um well two items uh there's near pods and there is Renaissance um my issue with near pods is um it's it's about the whole child district-wide initiative which promotes d-i-s-e-l Equitable classrooms implicit bias in classrooms restorative practices restorative justice pronoun shift intro to equity um and I know that there are parents in this District that do not support this um and near pods falls under Renaissance and so it's it's a major concern of mine as well you know some people might be okay with it um some might not be some aren't okay with
187it um I I believe that it's um you know any curriculum that does this I think is as divisive it's also going to be used if it's going to be used continued use in our district I think that there needs to be an opt-out option um our purpose again is academics and I think by implementing these ideologies we're moving away from that and we need to ensure that we stay with academics um and as far as uh you know Renaissance goes I mean their their entire websites all about Dei um and you know there they have their action we have created a fully organized Dei culture that involves people throughout the organization and is embedded within every structure of Renaissance so [Music] um diversity to create a bias-free Equitable Talent acquisition and employee development process
188um Equity to promote educational Equity by ensuring our products adhere to strict guidelines for content appropriateness and reflect the diversity of today's classroom um to create an inclusive and attractive company culture for underrepresented employees I know in our district I hope there are no underrepresented represented employees so I I just I want to ensure that um we again concentrate on academics and with organizations I think at some point a lot of these organizations had good intentions um and I think that the focus has changed and uh all these educational organizations are shifting um to these ideologies and it's pretty unfortunate to see um because I think it it creates a division between our community when we're going with you know one sort of belief and and these ideologies and then we're ignoring a whole separate
189um group of people and when we bring it back to academics and ensure that we're concentrating on academics that involves everybody um I mean you want to talk inclusivity um how how much more inclusive can we be if we're we're paying attention to academics and not these ideologies that's all okay excuse me board member Dan hook we had we've had several discussions with the ed services team so when the decision was made this year to provide the resource of nearpod the training focuses on the Arizona State Standards and using those academic resources embedded within that system so our teachers go through extensive training our technology coaches Valerie Thomas and Janie Ramirez have done most of this training doctor treats involved to make sure that we're clearly communicating the teachers are raving about what a great
190resource this is in terms of science and math and Ela so there are always there are always things out there that somebody could go grab from YouTube or anything that as professionals we are training our teachers to use this resource for academic purposes and the components within it where you grab the standard and it takes you to the lessons it's pretty incredible it's a really good resource I'm hearing your concerns but that's not the purpose for us using that but what I mean because Renaissance and so is so big on these my fear is that these lessons include these same visions that Renaissance has so are we teaching with these lessons that they have are we teaching Dei and ultimately I mean these are all part of you know we claim we don't have CRT
191it's in our district but the this is a part of critical race Theory um so do these curriculums contain these ideologies so the components of near pod we have told the teachers how to access the lessons aligned to their standards academic standards they've also been trained that something before you use it and with anything any lessons curriculum books anything we use parents can opt out and we'll give them an alternative activity but the feedback that we're receiving on this particular resource is extremely positive okay so there so there will be an opt-out form available for well we always have a knocked out process that our parents can use so that goes for everything okay I think the Renaissance piece about the assessment package I don't know if we want to wait till um what is
192it 8.8 because I have Marcus Berkshire here to discuss the assessment pieces within that I mean I I can I can speak on that too I I plan on speaking on that too I know but do you want to come back to that component um after these other items here 8.7 I don't know if we're done with 8.6 it's real Renaissance yes we'll have to right sorry 8.6 is the Trump is what we're talking about now right so we have to stay with this one before we move on to 8.7 I'd also like to say I believe our teachers are following the standards and teaching our kids what the standards are and I have faith in our teachers and what they do in the district and and and never have had a question um I
193unfortunately have seen instances where um teachers have crossed the line um and I've had this conversation with Dr Foley and you know I I want to ensure that as I've stated before once you teach something you can't unteach it um so yes we want to ensure that teachers are following the law staying within State Standards but you know with what I've seen um that's not a hundred percent of of the case but um I mean I would love it for for it to be but it's it's not always the case so parents are concerned so president board member sorry board member Van Hook if if there occursive situation that we need to address then we work with Administration to address it so I'm not going to tell you but every person is perfect all of
194the time but our job is to make sure we train and we support our teachers on what they're teaching and how they're teaching it and if somebody has a misstep then our job is to support and improve so which happens in any organization in any uh profession that there's people that you know that that happens but the majority I feel sticking to the standard Mr Swede presidentials uh I I'm very happy to hear the positive feedback I think it is important to recognize that teachers are the ones who have to implement this curriculum and having something in place that makes it to where it is easy for us to see what state standard this aligns to so from a data perspective my kids are not doing well on this unit this specific item and it
195gives me the opportunity of being able to look at that um I I also think it's important for us to keep in mind that things like Equity aren't a danger the idea of creating a situation in which kids who might have other or differing environments in general in order to be able to process with that and so like for me from my perspective of giving the professional courtesy to the individuals who are using this day in and day out uh I I think that carries a lot of weight on how you manage your classroom and the curriculum that you are responsible for implementing and everything else uh considering I've had to work with Galileo and the individuals who have used those types of things and and understanding the programs and how much we have seen
196positive changes I think it's important for us to keep in mind the fact that overwhelmingly there is positive feedback for this program giving the idea that if teachers are enjoying it it is user friendly etc for both teachers and students the likelihood of us using it and helping to increase those academics is is really valuable one thing I didn't mention is kids can't go in there and just pick anything they want the teachers have to look at the standards selected and assign it to the kids so I think that's really important and I I do trust our teachers thank you Miss Richardson that's a great point I use I've used your nearpod and I I unders yeah it's a great platform for making interactive lessons um and whenever teachers are optioned I know it's used
197quite often because you can still continue learning and and they can run you can tell the program to run and make it move forward and quiz them and and anyway um but of course it's I've been on I use kahoot and quiz quizzes and Quizlet and everything I use them all because it's a great programs but of course um I I even took a screenshot of a kahoot which I thought was just a great thing of it was um you know somebody made it because you're you're looking at what other people are making and yeah it had something I found hateful and and you know but as a trained teacher and as my expectations I I said that's terrible and making sure I'm reading through everything and and that that's what I would hope and
198that and I hope that I know is happening and and we are um following through and making sure that students and parents feel comfortable speaking out if they see or hear anything that they feel like is against what our district is wanting for our students but I would just say all these all these platforms I've searched for lessons like hey if it's already made boy would I like to use it and there has been garbage that has showed up and I know it goes against whatever the district that I work in wouldn't want shown so we as long as we keep training and again keep parents and and students feeling comfortable reporting or or just saying hey what that doesn't seem to go with our curriculum I think that's great and I think this district
199has done a good job with that all those in favor of approving 8.6 I I post nay motion carries four to one moving on to 8.7 the approval of intergovernmental agreement between greater Phoenix educational management Council and AZ education management Council and Higley unified for fiscal years 2023-2028. second one questions comments concerns president Schultz um Dr Foley if we are utilizing um this for laws and policies um because one of the responses back that we got was um we we use them for you know for laws and and they keep us up to date on on policies um would that make them like a third organization that we utilized for for that purpose other than asbo president Schultz board member Van Hook a different context one of those things is and you'll notice that this
200is a collection of of typically smaller districts not always uh not always because there are some larger districts on there but these are districts that don't have internal um some many districts have their own lobbyists they have their own um uh legal services in addition to the trust that they use what this particular Organization for instance does is affiliation with them keeps you current on things that are happening on the senate floor um when the way we don't end up hearing about it after the fact let me give you an example um during covid uh prior to the district being a part of of guppy Mech we were learning about things that were happening from the governor's office as they were being announced to the public when a a new executive order came to be
201and so what a lot of the new superintendents at the time I was stepping into this role across the state said you need to belong your District needs to belong IR consultant at the time um said there's a resource here that most districts utilize that really helps them and what's beautiful is this organization has people who work directly every week every other week they meet with Arizona Department of Education they are who the governor's office goes to first they have someone sitting in with bills coming out this is war this isn't this is in the house this is in the Senate this failed so that we as Educators can be monitoring things as they are happening and respond to it appropriately prior to the advisories coming out to us this is on the boots real
202these are people who are Educators who are monitoring things that are going to impact educational leaders so that we can forecast it and respond ahead of time the reason I found out about this is I saw that some districts were releasing Communications about how they were going to respond to an executive order literally at the same time it hit the public we prior to having this we're just learning about it at the same time so being we are a small District our bench is not deep I don't have multiple assistant superintendents or a set of In-House we used to have an in-house attorney don't have that anymore we don't have lobbyists being a part of an organization where someone is constantly providing that information for for the district is helpful we would hope that that
203the that the governing board would want to support the district leadership in the Business Services Department in the ed services department and all the assistant superintendents with information that's coming right out of the I've been able to participate on advisory committees that were being formed before they were even out there because yappy Mac knew it was aware and I was able to apply right away so if um we would hope that we would want to continue those services for professional development there's monthly meetings there's the ability to get newsletters um I will share with you that that there are very few resources that exist like this for for educators so this would be something that we would hope that the governing board would support for us to have as professionals trying to forecast and respond
204to situations in Arizona and education um from the from the Senate to the committee floors there's someone who provides an update we know about it before we read about it in the newspaper okay and um as far as like for instance like I get as soon as an executive order goes out or any bills are signed or vetoed I get a notification we end up getting it used beforehand because for instance the governor's group or Tom horns group would go to the players of guppy Mac and say Here's what I'm getting ready to out there to your leaders can you make them aware so this is one of the this is one of the educational groups that ends up helping keep Educators aware before hearing about it when it's finally decided and and we know
205what we we understand what senators are talking about and what's being proposed and what when it dies it allows us to just kind of track what might be coming to us in the next policy advisories so that we can forecast appropriately yeah it also allows us to give input and allows us to be on communities because it's very hard for us to be we can't be on the senate floor I can't be at every uh and wouldn't be invited to every meeting with um you know what's with with Tom Horn but but this group does and they can provide updates about the conversations that are happening so for us it's an invaluable resource um that if we didn't have we would be relying on asking our peer districts to provide us what was sent to
206them uh so that we could have access to it which is what we were doing before um and so quite honestly our consultant said with with the limited Staffing you have with people who do this as a full-time job for districts you need a resource like that thank you all those in favor aye any opposed motion carries five to zero moving on to 8.8 authorization of expenditure Renaissance assessment package I'm a commotion to authorize to the authorization of expenditure Renaissance assessment package Christina okay questions comments concerns um president Schultz yes um so as I stated above an 8.6 here it discusses Renaissance DNA and then Renaissance fast Bridge DNA is pretty much a data collection um contains student profiles summarizes pertinent demographics assessments grades um it contains a light live proctoring tool and it uses
207data across multiple platforms it tracks student Behavior participation risk level um and if if you go to the website it provides a sample of the type of labeling on students so it could contain notes that the student is very pleasant um I can say that the student has no issues or mild issues [Music] and so teachers could put you know scores on certain areas of the student um the concern is this could be you know possible data mining um that many parents have have issues with as far as fast Bridge this says accelerate learning with K-12 screening progress monitoring assessments for academics social emotional Behavior with intervention recommendations used by schools as a curriculum Source it falls um so it falls under Renaissance it pushes social emotional learning whole child lgbtq BLM Equity social justice
208um reading math and social emotional Behavior it's data driven utilizing mtss um and it monitors growth and promotes Equity it sorts the report by gender ethnicity Etc um so this again is uh concerning to parents and districts like Mesa utilize it and they do have an opt-out form on their website for parents to be able to opt their children out of it so if we are going to continue to use it um I would hope that there's an opt-out form for parents to do just that I think that this is Richard sorry I said previously that there is an opt-out for opt out process for everything if you don't want your kid to read a book about dogs you can opt out to read your doc not read about dogs there's everything in opt out
209I get a form for everything I get a form for reading a book that might have a word I don't care about but is in there that someone else might care about or something so president Schultz board member Van Hook I have asked Marcus Berkshire to come and explain the components that we are requesting to use and why because there are multiple components in there in other districts have used things that we are not going to use so I'm going to let him take over here markets president Schultz member van hope the products that we're bringing to the board tonight DNA is an assessment platform what the product that you were describing is part of the illuminate Suite of products that was purchased by Renaissance and that product is a product called edu climber DNA
210fast Bridge those products will flow into edu climber and it is used for mtss purposes that kind of thing in other districts we are not purchasing edu climber uh the only thing that we're looking at is DNA which if you're familiar with Galileo DNA is a is a beefed up much better product than Galileo we've used Galileo in the district for approximately 15 years and it hasn't changed since the first day that it was introduced in the district DNA provides multiple opportunities for teachers to provide different ways for kids to be assessed both formatively as well as summatively it's a standards based product so as a teacher I can go in to the the item bank and say I want items on this particular standard I want to filter those by dok level which is
211the complexity of the question they mirror what our kids will be taking for the state assessments very well it also has predictive capabilities just like with what we had with Galileo to tell us how our kids are going to perform on the state tests so that's the DNA product it's reporting capability does allow us to really dive down and look at individual student performance subgroup performance which is very important for us because that's part of our letter grades from the state is looking at how our subgroups perform and how they improve so the ability to to pull those demographics and look at individual kids and individual subgroups and how they perform on not only our district benchmarks but individual teacher assessments helps guide them in their instruction moving forward and helping kids and and meet
212them where they need uh the other product bass Bridge does have a tool called Sabers in it we are not using savers so the only two products that we'll be using in bass bridge will be the universal screeners in both reading and math and those are available for K-12 and what those really do is they provide us with basically a pre-assessment of where our kids are and what skill deficits they may have in math or reading which allow us to intervene with those students early on before they are failing that's the idea with the uh an instrument like bass bridge is it allows us to really hone in on where a child may have a specific skill deficit for example if they take and the fast track reading they may come back and it might
213say they have it they're struggling with phonemic awareness and then it's going to provide us with information on what we can do as a teacher to address that particular skill deficit again the goal being that if we can address it now and early on before they're failing then they're going to have better chance for Success moving on um so again the Sabers piece that is part of the product however we have the ability to disable it and it is disabled teachers will not see it they cannot assign it to kids any other questions no thank you thank you questions all those in favor of 8.8 authorization of expenditure Renaissance assessment package hi I was opposed nay motion carries four to one items for future agenda this agenda item is for the governing board to have
214running record for potential items to be placed on a future agenda item there will be no discussion on the substance merits or issues relating to the approach proposed agenda item any proposed agenda items this is Anderson thank you found a communication of the of the uh science book adoption just again just keep working or we can get an update and follow our strategic plan of how that's working with communication for parents and um I guess I don't know that's a future agenda item or something that we can put in an update of any plans we have to stick to our strategic plan to communicate for communication thank you um can we add it as like an information item as far as like an update so yes this would be the time for just future agenda
215items so if we wanted to add as an information item then we can ask cabinet to add as an information item on a future agenda or communication um and I'd like to be able to add um one of the speakers tonight mentioned BrainPOP I'd like to be able to add that as a discussion item foreign okay I remember that all right I'd like to move though we adjourn the meeting all those in favor aye motion passes five to zero just want to say congratulations to the class of 2023 and we hope you all have a great summer thank you