001good evening like to call this meeting to order sorry Dr Foley Dr Foley roll call when are you ready I'm sorry about that that's okay president Schultz member of the board please let the record show that all members are present perfect I'd like to take a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance all right I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda questions comments concerns seconded all those in favor aye five to one uh Dr Foley the superintendent's report president Schultz members of the board we start tonight with one of our very favorite Parts which is our points of Pride so tonight we're going to start with our Cortina tigers and I have the joy of inviting principal Mrs papke and assistant principal Mrs debono to come up here so that
002we can celebrate our Cortina points of pride thank you Madam president governing board cabinet thank you so much for allowing us to be here tonight to recognize some very special people this is one of my favorite things to do and I wish that we had the opportunity to do more frequently um but we're going to go ahead and start off with our certified staff member and so I'd like to call Mrs Leslie cook up to the front [Applause] so Leslie is the kindergarten teacher that every child needs she understands the importance of reaching the whole child and finding ways to make genuine connections with students in order to bring out the best in them Leslie brings a great deal of knowledge and expertise to Cortina she is a critical member of our mtss team and
003is someone that other team members depend on when looking at data and making goals for students Leslie comes to school each day with a smile and she faces challenges with a positive attitude she is in the process currently of obtaining her administrative credentials and she's had lots of opportunities to continue growing her leadership through many projects and she even helped us to create a school-wide informational pamphlet that's been very helpful and beneficial with information for our newly enrolled families Leslie has forged trusting Partnerships with parents and she implements a lot of different impactful strategies to support the various needs of the students within her classroom administrators and colleagues alike appreciate her willingness to share her knowledge materials and skills with others she is dependable and sometimes even uses her own time during prep to assist
004others Leslie's involvement involvement truly helps make Cortina a better place to learn and work and we are so grateful to have someone like her on our staff so thank you Leslie [Applause] Leslie who do you have with you this evening I have my husband Brett and my son Cole who's at Sussman in seventh grade and my daughter Kate who's at Power Ranch in first grade back and we're gonna have you stay up here members of the board cabinet and to all of you thank you for allowing me a few moments of your time today um I am Chrissy de Bono the assistant principal and I'm super excited to congratulate and recognize how our volunteer points of Pride Miss Molly gershikov could you please come forward [Applause] questions Molly has served Cortina in many ways for
005many years but most importantly as a member of our PTO board she does anything and everything from assisting in the classroom as well as the overall School participating and organizing our festivals our dances restoring our candy supply for our spirit wear on Fridays make a difference day is one of her big projects as well and it is truly impactful on our campus as each year we beautify more and more areas of Cortina Molly is super super caring so much so that little tidbit funny story if you have ever been experienced with the task of helping to control the crowd when um there might be an injured furry friend on campus Molly is your go-to girl she helped to ensure that our baby bird who wanted to be a little tiger one day was safely um
006well taken care of she even drove our baby bird all the way to a rescue shelter in Phoenix to make sure the bird was safe and cared for it and that our students understood too that all are welcome on cortina's campus but also that we have Caring Hearts and look out for even the littlest among us we are so fortunate that she gives of her time and is a resource with a sincere desire to help make Cortina a better place to be so Molly thank you to partnering with us and being the parent involved here that you are you are amazing [Applause] oh Molly please introduce your guest and who you brought my husband is in the back and my two that go to Sossaman Elijah and Chloe and my last one at Cortina Claire
007thank you all right and next up we would like to recognize our student so Andrew Morgan can you please come up to the front [Applause] here we go all right a little bit about Andrew Andrew is a sixth grade student at Cortina and he has been a Cortina tiger since kindergarten his teachers and I have watched him grow from a curious kindergartner into a delightful young man Andrew takes his academics seriously and he is truly an example of a tiger who roars Andrew is involved in so many different ways from being a member of NHS a tiger Ambassador playing in the band and he is a member of the robotics Club one of his former teachers Mrs Melanie Bodner shared a little bit about him and said that he has always been a very respectful
008and responsible student which I would definitely agree he's a great leader when working in a group or with his team he is our go-to person when it comes to helping others in our club at one of our last tournaments she said during the finals he was the only one all day that she saw who offered his hand to the other team for a handshake and she was so proud and I think that that is just one example that speaks to what a wonderful young man Andrew is Andrew sets an example for others and represents Cortina with tremendous pride and we couldn't be more proud of Andrew thank you Andrew for setting the standard high and showing what it means to be a tiger who roars foreign [Applause] can you share with us who you brought
009tonight I have my grandparents here and I also have my mom it's always here for me [Applause] Mrs pepke and I are so fortunate to have an amazing classified staff at Cortina and tonight we're excited to recognize and celebrate one of our very amazing paraprofessionals so would miss Francesca come on up thank you [Applause] Jessica you're welcome as I shared Francesca is super dedicated to Cortina she's a paraprofessional in our Special Education team in one of our cross cat classrooms and she is absolutely adored by all of our students and staff alike when you walk into a room you feel light and energy just radiating off of Francesca her smile is so contagious and a delight to see anyone who encounters her cannot leave visiting with her without feeling better about themselves she connects with
010everyone has such a helpful heart she can genuinely be seen all day every day working with kids for kids and the betterment of our school as a whole our students respect her greatly she genuinely displays and they genuinely know how much she cares for them on a daily basis her positive encouragement her delightful meaner is so uplifting and I honestly cannot thank you enough Cortina would not be who we are without you thank you [Applause] and Francesca who did you bring as your guest tonight um my husband is here my son Ricky my mom and my brother [Applause] we're gonna pause for a brief picture congratulations I gotta give you okay thank you okay that was fun to celebrate our courtina tigers and now we're going to celebrate our power ranch Panthers so I would
011like to invite Mr reuter and Mrs Coda up to celebrate power ranch points of pride [Applause] I'll help hold what can I do foreign good evening president Schultz members of the board thank you for giving us this opportunity to present tonight my name is Chris reuter and we're going to start by nominating our by recognizing the student we nominated and I'm going to have both Ethan and his teacher Miss carlucci come on up here we have Ethan Zavala all right thank you this is Ethan zovala deserves every bit of that Ethan is a model student he has been a power ranch for many many years he is responsible respectful and hardworking to say the least he is probably one of the best mathematicians I have ever met in my entire life he loves math future
012right here his ability to persevere through challenging life experiences has resulted in a young man who is self-reflective and one of the most compassionate students I've ever seen his ability to show empathy for people around him is incredible it is just innate it is who he is Ethan loves to learn and is motivated to be the best student he can be every single day he comes into the classroom he is ready to learn he helps others even though he is exceptionally intelligent and he knows that he is he is humble in his demeanor he never brags about it and his intentions to support power ranch his teachers his school his friends is unprecedented he is in so many clubs I think I might have left one out student council choir chess robotics did I leave
013anything out Junior Ensemble he does it all he does it all so I am honored to recognize you today Ethan congratulations [Applause] and can you share with who you brought this evening so I brought my dad mom and my two sisters Ella Sophia [Applause] and next up we are going to recognize Lindsey Keaton our classified employee [Applause] Lindsay Keaton there are so many things to say about this lovely lady we are so lucky to have her on our campus um Lindsay is an exceptional paraprofessional she's so full of joy and comes to work every day with the biggest smile on her face so what you see up here this is what we get every day all day long she brings so much positivity and light to our school she builds relationships and makes connections with
014all students not just the ones she is assigned to work with she understands their needs brings great ideas to support students and works closely with teachers to help students succeed we are so very lucky to have her on our campus [Applause] who who did you bring with you today oh I brought two members of my family here I have Emery Keaton my daughter at Power Ranch sixth grade and my son Julian Keane who I shouldn't say but is that Castile High School sorry about that [Applause] also for any of you who drive down Ranch House Parkway in the morning before on the way students are going to school she's the one enforcing that speed limit on ranch house so make sure you don't cross her because she has close ties with Gilbert PD so um
015next up we'd love to have Jackie Johnson our volunteer come on up here to be recognized so Jackie Johnson is one of our parent volunteers she is on campus as much as she can be and she was actually nominated by quite a few of our staff members for the efforts she goes above and beyond to support our teachers so she has two students here with her that she'll introduce in a little bit but since one of them is in kindergarten this year she's on campus even more than she was in the past she supports our PTO she's in charge of all our restaurant nights and the evening events with our fundraising committee she works very closely with classroom teachers to support in the classroom to make copies but one of the things that stuck out
016to me is that she really goes out of her way to connect with teachers even above second grade where she doesn't have students to support them in their classrooms whether it's making copies getting things for them in the lounge in the work room putting together things for them for upcoming events or activities and our staff really just appreciates everything you do do and she also knows that there's a great possibility that there's a hole in our PTO next year that we might nudge her to help Phil because she is very capable of doing that so thank you for all that you do for us [Applause] and I know that she is very proud of her family and also appreciates their support because she asked if there was a limit on how many she could bring
017so I know she wants to introduce them hey um I brought both of my Panthers My Little Panthers Brigadier in second grade and Bridget in kindergarten and I have my sister-in-law my husband my father-in-law my mother-in-law and if there were more seats I'm pretty sure more would a game I'm a very supportive family and you guys are included in that you guys made everything very welcoming so thank you [Applause] and last but not least Ashley Grimm come on up [Applause] so Ashley is our Music Teacher on our campus and the things that are written about Ashley pretty much have everything to do with everything else she does outside of what she just does in the music room because she pours her heart and soul into her music lessons and giving the students in our on
018our campus those opportunities during music um so I'm gonna read it because the person who wrote this really knows you and what you mean to our campus Mrs Grimm goes above and beyond in her duties as a teacher staff member mentor and role model Ashley goes out of her way to help anyone in need and pours her whole self into providing memorable experiences for her students between being an excellent music teacher putting together concerts running drama club and choir and helping others out with after school clubs she shares her positivity throughout the entire school and makes it a better and brighter place to work and I think one example I can share is when she came to me a few years ago and asked if she could do archery as one of our electives and
019I remember reaching out to Mrs Richards and asking her and we worked out some things but she never really just takes the easy Road she's willing to do whatever it takes to give our students those amazing experiences and I know that your colleagues that are here to support you know that we can see it in the winter concert and all the time and energy you pour into that but also in drama and choir giving our students those opportunities adding Ensemble to it this year to add to the program we love you and we greatly appreciate everything you do for us [Applause] did you know um I'm sure my parents would have come if I had actually asked them to be here but I brought my husband uh Dylan his third row back [Applause] picture time
020okay thank you to our points of Pride tonight we we always like to share that you are more than welcome to stay for the whole meeting but we also know some of you have school tomorrow and if you choose to leave at this time our feelings are not hurt but we always want to give you that opportunity thank you for those who are leaving for coming tonight to celebrate our points of pride okay president Schultz members of the board I'll continue with our superintendent's report always we conclude with upcoming events as you know by no means is this an exhaustive list just a few highlights of things that we have coming up we want to highlight out that we have another parent evening is connected with our strategic plan that will be hosted later this
021evening or later this this week apparent evening these have been well received we also next Tuesday we'll have a full house for our business partner breakfast and we're very excited about this because we're going to be showcasing some of our incredibly bright talented and beautiful students who highlight parts and pieces of the Strategic plan that is alive and well and and being implemented as well as Kindergarten Roundup and other and other events so as you can see just a few things to keep us busy for the next few weeks and that concludes the superintendent's report thank you Dr Foley a request to speak we value the input from our constituents this time has been set aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue
022to evaluate discuss or criticize District Personnel policy Keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware of the false statements about individuals may result in civil liability members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ARS action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to direct staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date please limit your remarks to three minutes first we have Hayden Nguyen hi my name is Hayden I go I'm 17 I go to high school not here in the Higley family but in neighboring Gilbert and even though I don't go to a Higley school I just want to say that I speak
023for I think everyone when I say that mental health matters and right now we as students are going through a mental health crisis we know this we know that suicide rates are up and we know that people are really suffering right now in our schools but within this crisis we also must recognize that at the Forefront that at the heart of this crisis are our LGBT kids accused students we must acknowledge and you must acknowledge at the board as the board the lgbtq students are suffering the most that according to the Trevor Project nearly half of all lgbtq youth considered suicide last year that nearly one in five trans and non-binary kids considered suicide last year and you must acknowledge this as a problem and we you must take this into account when we talk
024about gsas I was told that there might be people coming here tonight and there probably are people here tonight to tell you about how why you should take down gsas change your name get them out of Higley schools but gsas are a safe space for lgbtq kids and students to express who they are not a place of indoctrination you must acknowledge that because we know that lgbtq affirming schools are safe spaces for children and the LGBT affirming schools report lower rates of suicide and lower rates of self-harm than other schools we know that transgender kids who are allowed to use their preferred their preferred pronouns and their preferred names for poor better mental health than when they are not we must provide a safe space for our students and we know that investment into counseling
025with this issue and not sros are the only way that we can fix and save lives of students in our districts so you as a school board have a special responsibility to fix this in my opinion and I think on behalf of all students when they actually go to public schools know that these places are safe spaces and not spaces of indoctrination you have a responsibility to our parents and to our kids to students in your District to save gsas to support them and to provide support for our students and their mental health as they're going through these struggles right now this is a real problem and as people come up here today to speak I just want you to know that on behalf of students on behalf of teachers people actually in public schools
026that gsas are for students they're helpful for people's mental health and they keep people alive and these are lives we're talking about thank you next up we have ginger Smith oops I think hello my name is ginger Smith um and this is a community where I thought I could raise my children in a safe wholesome community we're not supposed to conform to this world we're supposed to sorry I wanted to quote scripture specifically Romans 12 2 do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will be able to test and approve that what God's will is his good pleasing and perfect will we're not supposed to sexualize children it has no position in the schools after school during school I don't care and I
027don't care if my kids are involved their peers are and we're all raising our children in the same community and they're going to have to eventually grow up and work together in this world and if we start sexualizing them so young it's it's taking away their innocence and it's just by Design This is not what schools are meant for there are kids that are graduating they don't know how to read write do basic math oh gosh the math um it's just really heartbreaking as a mother to see what's going on in our whole world and why is it we spend more per pupil in this country than any other country yet we do have these kids that are graduating and they're completely illiterate and they can't do math we need to get back to what
028schools were designed for and that is to educate our children we need to get back to teaching American history and why we are where we are I don't I don't hate anyone I love everyone and I want people to feel accepted but we cannot accept sexualizing our children it is completely inappropriate to bring up any sort of gender identity all of these ideologies into the schools it's just inappropriate and I don't want I don't want to abuse children I don't want to see other children being abused and that is all I have to say thank you next up we have Heather balk hi everyone how are you guys tonight and Heather I am the very proud parent of a junior at Higley High School he's not an athlete he is shy but you know what
029he found his people in the robotics club and you know what they're doing going to State and that is so exciting and what I love about Higley Unified School District and Higley High School is the diversity that we have in our community that we have something for everyone that they feel supported that they have the mental health that they can connect with other people who are like them and that is so important to build and nurture our students from the youngest all the way through high school and I just love that Higley has so many different opportunities for our students little story just to tell you about the success of Robotics club for my little guy the robot comes home every Thursday night and it lives at our house and it has ruined our dining
030room table and that's okay we'll get another one when everyone moves out but um the robot has like changed and varied and my son came home one day from school and he was so disappointed he's like I don't even know why I go to robotics it's so much work it's not working last weekend you guys his robot I don't know the stuff but it Scoops up the disc it shoots the disc it launches the rope and they are just thrilled and to see my son grow and Thrive with people that are like him regardless if they are into robotics if they are in G GSA if they are black athletes it doesn't matter you find your people you love your people and you be with your people and thank you hidley for supporting that thank
031you and then we have Miss uh Mr Neil Carter president Schultz distinguished board members and guests my name is Neil Carter I serve as one of the two state legislators for district 15 which is all of Queen Creek most of Santan Valley and a little bit of Southeast Mesa I'm on my way home from the capitol right now but I wanted to stop by and read my contact information into the record so I can be even more easily reachable my number is 480-628-1037 and you can reach me at n Carter azledge.gov um I'm just here to be of service so please let me know how I can be of service a funny story when I was in the sixth grade we had to do a career report and we had to interview someone and I
032interviewed this superintendent of our local District who I think was bemused that's what I wanted to do um but anyway thank you members thank you thank you Morales good evening members of the board Dr Foley Tyler uh it's been brought to my attention recently that we had discovered that there is a GSA Club here at Higley High School and then there's a another club at Williams Field called the queer Club I I forget the name of that and I was surprised as a community member to find out that such Club existed and when I went onto the website uh on the Higley school website it just says GSA to the unsuspecting parent we would know what GSA meant and it just seems kind of innocuous that it's there we wouldn't question it I'm wondering why
033the transparency is and why isn't the full acronym listed on that website and I've also noticed of all the clubs at Higley High School there's no way for a parent to be able to click on each and every Club to find out his purpose his mission and why it's there and how is that going to enhance the student experience so I'm concerned about that now in addition to that there was a recent article that was written at the Williamsville High School newspaper which appears to be written and edited by students on why sex ed needs to be part of the Arizona curriculum and not only just the basic part of sexual head but about gender and identity and sexuality now mind you we all know that the human brain isn't fully developed until our mid-20s
034and Beyond and yet we have students in this club and in the in the public forum in a school newspaper talking about gender identity and sexuality when they themselves have not been fully formed in the home or in their religious communities the concern that I also have is that because of the lack of transparency it may be violating some of the Arizona's revised statutes more specifically 1-602 Section 8 which does not which parents have the exclusive right to make sure that their children education isn't obstructed by the state or by the school system the parents rights is also to make sure that their upbringing of a minor child is under their Direction and not at the schools and that the right to direct moral religious training of a minor child with these clubs in place
035we don't know whether or not our students or our children are going to these clubs and if they are are they actually coming home and telling their parents are they Parts participating in these clubs and if they aren't then we're enabling them to live with their parents by excluding that information the parents have the sole right while the miner is in their care to teach about sexuality and gender identity based on their cultural ethnic and religious backgrounds it should be not be left at a state to do such a thing now as I understand this District does not have a sexual education but yet somehow there's a club after school that is talking about such subjects and it's outside the purview of the parents again the parents are the ultimate deciders about what education their
036children receive so please I asked you to reconsider this and discuss it among yourself that this is not an appropriate venue for sex talking about sexual topics for students thank you thank you uh moving on to the consent agenda I'd like to make a motion that we approve consent agenda 5.1 to 5.10 one zero sorry um any questions comments or concerns I'd like to make a motion to poll five six from the consent agenda for further discussion to pull 5.6 from the agenda for further discussion is there a second any okay so 5.6 stays on the consent agenda I have to do all in favor no way to say because we don't have a second okay thank you um and then um questions comments and concerns did you want to talk about 5.6 or I
037do um so I want to ask some questions not only because I'm curious but I think parents should um understand some of these things when reviewing the information I wanted to understand what the sleeping arrangements are um on this camp it was different when I attended but things have changed the world has changed so um I want to know you know are the boys separate from the girls in the paperwork it says by gender is that by biological gender um I also noticed that in there it talks about whole student holistic social emotional curriculum um and I don't understand how that's associated with science camp um kids and parents think that they're sending their kids to science camp um but there's all this information in there about safe space you know safe from who fostering
038empathy vulnerability inclusion I mean it makes it sound so nice trust environmental stewardship is that related to climate change experiential play what does that even mean when you look at the camp it says that it's um curriculum is ngss so you just have to keep digging and you go to all these different websites that is directed from the camp website gocampway.com and when you look up ngss align science camp you can see that um Arizona is not an ngss State and it's not within the Arizona stand State Standards so our kids are attending something where Arizona state standards are they're being taught something that's not within the Arizona State Standards so um again like I I want to understand like are kids going to science camp or are kids going to a counseling Camp do
039parents have a way to opt in or opt out or parents notified what the curriculum is going to be because I as a parent would want to know what type of curriculum because if I'm sending them to Camp science camp I'm assuming it's going to be science related so I think it's important that parents are aware but at the same time it's going to make it very difficult for parents to be able to send their kids to science camp and be able to opt out of the social emotional aspect of it so I wanted a make that known um so that you know parents are aware and that these conversations are had with parents thank you Mr did you have something you wanted to yeah and then Lindsay I just wanted to follow up on
040that um I think you're reading a little too much into it just saying I I chaperone for two of my kids for science camp my husband chaperone for my son at science camp the the location is simply a camp space it's our teachers it's our curriculum we're not sending them off somewhere to be taught an unknown curriculum the teachers work they do in-class stuff prior to science camp they prepare them for what they're going to do while they're there they use the outdoor space to do the Natural Sciences they dissected owl pellets um which the kids absolutely loved but it's a it's a rotational group that they do different types of science at and it is all done and taught by our Higley teachers no one from this gnss is teaching them anything they're not
041doing anything it's our curriculum it's our teachers we use their space so they have cabins most of them have cabins some may have tents just like Girl Scout camp things like that um as a parent who chaperoned science camp for some of these sixth graders the social emotional piece is some of them may have never been away from home some of them have may have never even spent the night at grandparents house that this is their first experience away from home away from their parents um and kids struggle I mean they struggle um being in a a different place away from their parents they usually allow depends on how many parents volunteer for chaperones because they can only have so many that they will do if they have more than they need they'll do a
042lottery and it's females versus males there were to adults per cabin with the kids if you if you have when my husband went with my son there was another dad there who had a daughter well they weren't going to put him in with to chaperone the girls overnight he was with whatever group his daughter was with during the day because they're assigned different groups they don't stay with their cabin and then at night he was in a cabin with the boys and somebody else was in the cabin with the girls so we don't mix that and it's based on biological gender if for whatever reason there's a concern somewhere within those assignments the teacher the principal and the parents can can meet to discuss to work out what's appropriate but we're not doing a gsaa
043curriculum we're not the majority of our schools I think there's an exception of maybe one or two elementary schools who don't go away for science camp I know one of them goes to the zoo and does science camp it's our curriculum it's it's our teachers that are teaching it it just gives them the opportunity to be able to do Natural Sciences in that um in that environment and stuff that we couldn't do in a classroom and like I said for the social emotional safe I I was one of those parents who had to really work and comfort children that they they were okay and it was um even a matter of okay let's call your mom let's call your dad you know um because that like I said for some of these kids maybe not
044for our yours mine whoever but for some of them that's the first time their experience in being away from home so there is a lot of of social emotional support there on it's okay we can be away from home you're okay you're safe um and and letting them trying to help them work through that so that they know that they are okay um we would never try and send them out somewhere they're not and they that's how they learn and build trust so um so I I don't I I hear everything you were reading and that's not our science camp so um it's a really good opportunity for our kids it's a great learning experience it's a great bonding experience and our teachers the science teachers it's typically the whole sixth grade team that goes
045so they know all these kids um sometimes the music teacher also goes the principal or assistant principal or both there's a lot of people who go and help support and run different different learning opportunities and parents have the option to volunteer to to chaperone so that they can go and do it and parents also have the opportunity to opt out if when we first returned to science camp after covid that was a very difficult decision for some parents on the comfortability of sending their children to be in a enclosed place that they don't know have they been sick are they sick this and that um I was fortunate enough to experience science camp with my son when the swine flu came out and guess who the whole sixth grade Coronado came back with slang flu
046it was very very fun um but they they do have that that opportunity to opt out and we have had parents who opt out and that's fine and their children can still go to school even though the whole sixth grade's gone and they just have an alternate assignment that they do um and so there's nothing wrong with that people opt out for many different reasons we never want them to opt out for a financial reason that we are always able to work something out and use tax credit for to help financially support their child to go to science camp so we don't ever want them to choose to opt out for a financial reason but any other reason they can choose to opt out and the teachers from what I've experienced from all three of
047my kids there were always kids in their grades who opted out and they were very respectful and and everything else it didn't did everything they could within their power not to have that kid felt left out so um I appreciate you doing your research on where they're going and and everything but it that is the location of the camp we use several locations um we went to one in Prescott um I want to say I don't know there's so many up there um but that is we're only using their space we're not using their curriculum we're not they're not teaching our kids it's our children it's our teachers it's our curriculum and it's a continuation from what they're learning in the classroom then they transition to Natural Science presence one point um also having chaperone
048um the social emotional well-be uh part of it is also um that these kids come together to and create uh a a group so there there's a purple group and an orange group and then they have a cheer and they work together and some of these kids aren't friends because just the way it goes with the cabins you get to pick one friend I mean I went my daughter I had she had two of her friends but then the rest of them weren't they didn't exactly get along but by the end of science camp then they did get along and they were able to learn to work with different people and we were the purple group and we had a purple cheer and we performed it and it it was a lot of fun and
049there isn't um I rarely saw the boys and the men and the only thing in like Christina said the camp is just a space they cook the food for the kids and that's it I never saw any of the other people besides when we left and when we ate and arrived president Schultz um and I I did go when my oldest was in sixth grade I don't know which location it was and it was great I think I was actually there with Coach Ross um and um and I I do remember like it was a great experience for these kids um but that was what six years ago and so so much has changed and and trust me like I'm not against I know there's the kids who are afraid of being away from home
050and and for teachers to step in um and and act as that parent role to comfort them and and that's not what I'm against um and so um maybe I am reading too much into it but this is the information that I had from their website and then you just it just kept going like it would create one link and then it would go into another link and the the current curriculum um for the SEL and the whole child and the whole school you know is what I have an issue with but you know obviously now understanding that it's just us using their space it makes such a huge difference um and so that's comforting to hear um because then none of this other stuff comes into play so please don't think that I'm against
051like teachers comforting children because that's not the case it's this curriculum that I found that I have a problem with thank you just and you said you went six years ago I went last year um I actually missed a meeting because of science camp and so last year it was the same as how Christina described it as well I went to the Prescott location but um yeah this is Lindsay do you have presidential can I make a comment um uh Miss Reese Miss Schultz thank you for the thorough explanation and sharing of your experiences um my kids went I didn't go I was in education and I just needed a break um but I do um as we had speakers today speak out on um views of um a Hot Topic in reality in this
052country I appreciate Anna you asking those questions I appreciate you the things I didn't think about and it's clear with our community members that it there are people that care on both sides so thank you for asking that and thank you for the clarification as well foreign anything else sorry did you have anything else you wanted to share only if you have questions okay any other questions okay thank you um okay uh Christina's second in um so all in favor of approving consent giant under agenda items 5.1 to 5.10 hi all right the consent agenda passes and then we'll go on to informational items with the transportation department update and today uh is National Transportation day so it is a perfect time for an update and we appreciate all of our drivers getting students to
053and from and everything they do if I'm a president Schultz and members of the board introduce uh Mr Josh Crosby our director of transportation and uh Mr Tim Harrison our assistant director of Transportation uh both have been with the district a number of years and so uh yeah it is fitting that this presentation is on national school list driver appreciation day so with that I'll let Mr Crosby uh Lord thank you for having us tonight uh yes we are celebrating love the bus month and today uh was a big day we celebrated with burritos at early release and a little rain and wind and it was a fun day so thank you again for this time to share a little bit about our department and changes that we've seen in the past year uh so
054we currently employ 51 bus drivers 18 bus AIDS seven office staff five mechanics and four van drivers our Fleet consists of 87 yellow buses that run 272 routes a day and over 700 000 miles a year our buses obviously service our 15 in district schools as well as 15 out of district schools that are required for some of our special needs programs and students in transition we have 5415 students that are eligible to ride the bus twice per day uh we were the first district to offer the here comes the bus app in the state of Arizona which has shown to be a great benefit to many of our families we do offer paid training for all of our prospective drivers and the Higgly bus chart is actually a certified ADOT site for the State
055of Arizona for third-party testing so we do all the road tests and everything in-house in our district we also provide that service to some of our other neighboring districts around and we do also participate in other activities besides to and from school and activity trips the aps electric light parade the wimps field haunted bus and those kind of things so we try to stay active in our community uh so who qualifies for transportation board policy states elementary and middle school students who live outside a one mile radius from their school or are required to cross railroad tracks major thoroughfares we transport those students so pretty much every Elementary School in our district has a boundary of the arterial streets around it the exception is Higgly traditional with the train tracks going by there it kind
056of shortens their boundary a little bit so we bus across the street for those students high school students who live more than a 1.5 mile radius from their school are eligible for transportation as well I do want to point out that with covet and the driver shortages there have been many districts around the state that have increased their High School radius from two miles and some are even up to three miles down in the South so fortunate enough we were able to keep ours at the 1.5 I mentioned students in transition or the Sip program those are students who become homeless and once they become homeless their education is protected wherever they move the two districts share and transportation of allowing that child to continue to attend the school of they were in when they
057became displaced so that makes up for the majority of our 15 other schools across the metro area that we drive to um we also do special needs students in our district and that is a big part of our program those students have to qualify through Shawna Miller and her special education department through an IEP to qualify for transportation and we'll provide services to them not only to our indistrict schools but any outplace students that Shawna feels fit for that student and lastly we do allow a limited number of boundary exceptions each year if we have space on a bus and a family submits an application it's a first come first serve process it can be revoked at any time if the bus is needed for capacity for those that actually live on that particular route
058on-time performance uh that's one of our biggest goals in transportation obviously is to get the kids to school on time I'm proud to say that we have a 99.27 on-time performance for our uh District which is uh remarkably well I know there's some districts around that are doing double backs with shortage of drivers and picking up kids 30 or 40 minutes late after the bell ring in those kind of scenarios um but some of the reasons we're late we got to experience three of these in the last two days early release schedules are always tough for us we have a shorter window to get the same amount of work done and we struggle with that sometimes emergency vehicles and traffic accidents we have student delays and behavior issues heavy traffic in and around the schools
059particularly the beginning of the school year or on rainy days everyone drives to pick up their kids and we're stuck in the same traffic as everyone else uh yesterday we had an example of a Train delay where a train uh broke down blocking the Higley Road railroad crossing which as you know is right next to our bus yard and those kind of things show up without notice whether the past couple mornings we've had some rain we do have driver errors we have changes in routes and we are not exempt from bus breakdowns or an error with our dispatching office and sometimes we just have drivers that are new to the route and they're still trying to get comfortable and we try not to rush them we'd rather them take their time uh something we're really
060proud of um is the elimination of charter buses this year so far knock on wood we have not chartered a bus in this District we've done everything in-house last year we spent over 195 000 chartering buses and again we were able to bring that all back in house this year and save the district some money some of our biggest expenditures budget wise second to salaries is fuel consumption as you can imagine big buses aren't the most fuel economical vehicles around what we're looking at here on this slide is just the first semester of last school year in the first semester of this year um you'll notice in 2122 we consumed a little over 68 000 gallons of fuel at a cost of 185 000 this year we actually only consumed 65 988 gallons in that
061same period but the cost was 243 164. we all saw the same thing at the pumps when we fill up our cars as well so looking at the last line there we consumed fewer gallons but yet we paid almost 60 000 more for what we did consume so that is a big um like I tell Tyler you know when he wants my budget I said tell me what the fuel price is going to be and so and if we all knew that we would do quite well aligning with Street strategic anchor number two highly effective Personnel all of our buses and passenger vans that are used for student use have this particular tablet in them it's it's provided to us through a third party vendor named synovia which was recently bought out by Cal amp
062um this is kind of the backbone to the here comes the bus routing system as well as it allows us our drivers to do electronic logs and pre-trips kind of go paperless inside the bus they recently uh turned on a new feature that we played around with the end of last year and then rolled it out this year which scores our drivers on their performance as they conduct their routes it looks at on Time Performance excessive speed harsh braking harsh turns and idling and I did want to point out that um if a bus is running late we're not dinging the driver for that we don't want them to try to speed to catch up or anything like that so the way we have it set up is if they leave the bus stop early
063meaning like the bus stops at seven o'clock and they leave at 6 57 they may get a deduction for that idling is anything over five minutes obviously when we have high heat warnings we loosen that up a little bit so that they can idle to keep the buses cool in the in the summer uh this chart just Compares last year to this year the dark blue is last year and the lighter blue is this year you can see that last year we had 50 drivers this year we're at 51. last year we had 22 AIDS and we're down to 18 this year and both years we've had four routes that are unassigned I want to be clear that the routes are still running there is just no driver available to bid on those routes so
064we're running them in-house with office staff and mechanics and other people that have their CDL licenses and then the last column is absenteeism with covid and other things we were pretty high last year at 6.32 bodies apps and every day and this year we're around four so we've seen an improvement there and so we'll take a a little bit deeper dive into our driver shortage uh it's obviously not unique to Higley it's Nationwide and you've probably seen it on the news here as well we have received 26 bus driver applications uh this school year of those 26 uh 12 of them were hired four of them eventually resigned after finding a better pay position four were disqualified at the interview and 10 declined when offered the position by HR with the most common reason given
065was compensation um so that brought us up eight drivers essentially from that application pool if you marry that up with our existing uh drivers we had two bus drivers that retired we had two others that found other employment two resigned and we had one internal transfer so our net gain is one driver up from where we were last year the next slide is is the exact same format but using bus AIDS however we've only received two applications to be a bus Aid this year of those two one of them was hired and one was declined when offered the position internally with our existing aides we had two that found new employment and one transferred internally and then two resigned and that's how we lowered our number down by four for our overall bus Aid count
066on this chart we're kind of deducing some things that obviously pays a big thing for our drivers here we we have struggled staying with the pack as I guess you would say higley's in green there we have a starting driver pay of 1833 and the other districts around us kind of our competition as I like to say um are higher than that with the exception of combs School District I also want to point out that just about a year ago January of 2022 we gave a mid-year salary increase to our CDL Drivers our bus drivers of two dollars an hour which we're very appreciative of but had that not occurred we would have been at 1633 essentially down at the bottom so um salary is a big thing the other piece is that it is
067a split shift and they're only paid when they are driving the bus they're not paid for the in between time while the students are at school so unless they pick up field trips and other things you're essentially at work for a 10-hour day getting paid six to eight hours a day on average so with that that is our transportation update I'd be happy to answer any questions any of you have president Schultz Mr Crosby I wanted to understand why the number of gallons went down and how often we're looking at our routes to maximize the savings on the mileage sure absolutely we looked hard at that we just completed our state report we feel that our biggest reason for that is is we had a student for Shawna Miller in the sped Department that was
068a one-way trip twice all the way off the 51 North every day last year and since that student is no longer being transported to that out of District placement school that cut a big piece off off of that um additionally some of our sports teams have been more local this year we haven't traveled as far so I believe that's a piece of it as well other question Mrs Reese presidentials thank you um Mr Crosby I was wondering if you can tell me how we're getting the word about here comes the bus app out good question um it is included in a letter that is received by every parent that has an eligible eligible child at the beginning of the school year it is also on the school's web pages and also through transportation and it's
069also on the husd app once you log into the husd app it's one of the apps on the second menu there as well because I've had parents and I know we've had some ups and downs and some concerns and been a little bit late to some schools on different days like you said primarily early release days um and parents expressing some frustration they're like you know the bus is 20 minutes late or I don't know where my kid is and it's like well did you check the here comes the bus app and it's what's that and I mean I had it long ago when it first came out so I just don't know if we if there's something we can do to continuously promote that um and try and get our families more used to
070being able to look on the app it doesn't change us arriving late but it does help the parents know where their children are um you know especially with those from Coulee to Coronado I mean that it's a long route it's it runs later as it is for the kids to get home and so if we're running a little bit late whether it be traffic whether it be you know trying to just deal with with the routes and and everything um it's a peace of mind for those parents but every I'm not kidding every parent I've heard complain about buses and I said well did you look and were you notified could you see that they were late and they weren't even aware of what the app was and and information is a huge part of
071the frustration at that point you know they at least they know right so I think we have just under 3 000 parents that are using the app right now last time I checked but that could also be one student with a mom and a dad that would be two in a two accounts so it's always hard to say but we can try to push it up on our website a little bit and I will say when parents do call us asking where a bus is we're certainly helpful and we'll look it up for them but while we're on the computer looking it up we try to tell them you know this is something you can access yourself with the here comes the bus out yeah and it is a great tool for us too because
072we can message parents on a specific bus if there is an issue and I think too the other thing is um for you know after breaks or I'm sure you have writers fluctuate at the semester there's especially in high school you you get those who now can drive and no longer riding the bus and then you have those other ones that hey they weren't riding the bus before maybe they got the car take it away but yeah that's a good point because even with sports we see it change from semester to report if they have practice or things like that for sure so I just I hope that if we can just find a way at a specific intentional times two to share that to try and get more people brainstorm with our public relations
073and see what we can do and of course and I'm it's not high school parents that have the concern it's the elementary middle school and um and I just wanted to touch too on the the different costs just like every other family we don't have the option to raise our prices here we are spending so far an additional 60 000 almost in fuel we have no control of those prices and we have to do it but we don't have the product to raise a price to to try and help offset that cost and so that continuously it's got to come from somewhere right same you have it with fuel we have it with food same thing all of our families are dealing with as well um but while we're not a store that can raise
074their price to offset that with that it's got to come from somewhere so we're still paid the same per student with these Rising costs so um thank you for putting that in there I know we all feel it but I don't think we always see it from the school district side and it's volume it's a lot so thank you for sharing that welcome thank you Mrs Reese um anyone so sorry I actually have two but they're quick the first one I have is um we're down for bus AIDS do we currently have buses running that are in need of an aid that don't have them like are you guys internally picking that up as well like the four routes correct if the IEP States they need an aid on the bus Which most of them
075do and a second adult is on that bus their job title may not be busted it might be routing coordinator or myself or our secretary but the buses still have the second adult on there sure awesome uh well and by that sorry that's a lot um the second question I have you and I'm gonna fumble what it was your word choice exactly as far as the ADOT with our stuff do we get revenue for that do we save something for that like I just I'm curious what that is we do so essentially we have a painted course on our blacktop that is certified by ADOT and we have a third party examiner on our site and then we're subject to audits basically and that's what we have to do to keep compliance for our benefit
076for our district is our trainees can train right on our lot we don't have to go somewhere else so that saves time and money and we're also able to test our people which means we don't have to make appointments at MVD and wait in line and all that since we have the course and everything set up we do charge other districts to use our course so we do collect revenue from that and I mean it's not a lot but it is something for them to at least come and use our course inside sure so for sure thank you not take a moment to share something I always had an appreciation and I knew that there was a lot involved in transportation I had no idea until last year when we were in the middle of
077our highest cases of coven and we had a lot of people out one of the things many school districts had to do was actually cancel bus transportation because they simply could not get drivers I will tell you that Josh and his team Josh and Tim he was often the very first person who was on my phone probably about 5 30 in the morning and he was usually the very last person on my phone and I personally witnessed him and every person on his team literally doing every job in that in that department to make it happen and I will tell you they were joking about you know needing people to drive buses and I'm really glad that neither one of ours ever ended up driving buses because we probably wouldn't have done very well on
078anything but I will tell you truly appreciate the amount of work that this team did to make sure Transportation happened and continues to happen and we were worried about plans and back-up plans should any one of these gentlemen end up being sick at the exact same time but could not have done it without their true servant leadership and truly I learned myself a whole lot more about Transportation more than I ever wanted to know and I'm deeply grateful about the work that happens in that department so to you and your team thank you for what you do every day thank you thank you Dr Foley I I had reached out to Mr Crosby when I had concerns um and he was extremely helpful and extremely responsive and explained to me different um things about the
079bus and what was going on and and uh one of the reasons I brought this up is because I had heard about buses being laid and I experienced it firsthand and so we're at 99.2 percent now earlier in the year was probably a little less or that's our average up to this average so okay um and I should point out that that is just mainstream routes we removed sped out of it because there are some other issues with special needs there's some students that take longer to load and so if this is just looking at mainstream perfect and I understand compensation is very important and you said you showed that the people showed up for the interview but then when offered it then they turned it down because of compensation did they not know what
080the compensation was when they showed up for the interview or they were asking something better I'm just trying to figure out if our communication isn't that we're offering yeah if they do their research they can see the range that's offered when Tim and I interview were not at Liberty to say if we hire you on it's going to be this rate so we do the reference checks and all that and it gets sent to HR and then HR aligns them where they feel they should be and then they make the phone call and and I hire people all the time and I understand they don't read the job description sometimes and so um that might be the thing um but I also uh wanted to ask or when you had when I reached out to
081you about the middle schools and being late and you had brought up the amount of time in between elementary school and middle school being an issue and in the way the policy was and voting on it years ago is there something do you think that it would be better and we would set drivers up for Success if we were able to alter that schedule a little bit and then in addition it was windy today I can't imagine driving the buses in the wind you know those type of things affected and it was an early release day as well so I don't know if if you were late today or if there was any lateness today but having the middle schoolers wait around for 20 minutes could be an issue for middle schoolers yeah it's been
082happening um for many years our hands are kind of tight it would be nice to have what would be your suggestions yeah what would what would help to set up for success I know that you know it would be hard to go later than four o'clock you mentioned that you know parents didn't like that but is there something that could make sense that we could alter change of policy so that we can't set you up for success um yeah I mean just the amount of time between bell times I know there's a set number of minutes um for each grade level they have to be in school so we're limited on how we can adjust it but on the back end Elementary to middle school is hot tight on early release days we're down to
083between the two bells ringing we have 35 minutes to load Elementary take them all home and rdb lined up at the middle school so and on a normal day we have 45 to 50 minutes for that so um so adding an extra 10 to 15 minutes in the middle it's right and I'd want to take a look at it in more detail because there's other factors that play into it with preschool bell times and some of the middays as well so I mean it's something I would be happy to look into but that would that would be about my only suggestion and I think the Middle School Bears the brunt of it because they're the third tier so whatever trickle effect between tiers one and two it just all gets pushed down I'm just you
084know Middle School's sitting idle for 20 minutes you know they could get into some trouble amongst each other or that's the one time they love the bus right other than that they hate it I'm sure of it um I'd like that if we could talk about that and that could be something that we could bring up um you know to help out because we want to set you up for Success so that you're not having to rush and you don't have to deal with it and Mrs Reese brought up the here comes the bus I also have parents who turn off the notifications because they start getting them every day and so then when something does happen then they like what happened well you turned up your notifications so turning those on even though you
085know they might end up in your email but it is important to be able to see and I appreciate like I said when I reached out to you and ask you questions about and I had a question with that or an issue with the app and you were very helpful um for that President Schultz members of the board we will what we will do is what we do whenever there's these tasks and questions bringing all the people with the multiple parts to the puzzle together in the room to make sure that we have explored every opportunity if there are opportunities or challenges that weren't considered before would they make sense now with where we're at from required instructional minutes to additional components and schedules with what we currently have available with his resources if anything
086could or should be adjusted we will bring back recommendation perfect and just in your opinion uh where would we need to fall to be competitive to not have a shortage of drivers again that's a loaded question I know the district I know I'm sorry uh and as much as I hate to say it will will fall to the middle of the pack and then the other districts will have a board meeting and a presentation and they'll it's just gonna do this I mean you know fifty dollars an hour oh I would like that as well we would be fully staffed right so um no I think it's good to be yeah everybody will our two biggest competitors um are Queen Creek and Chandler and Queen Creek came to the game this year um they were
087quiet for a while they have really stepped up advertising they've incentives and all that in there for what I understand almost fully staffed right now so I would say those are two competitors to keep an eye on so we just need Mr Moore to find us another 25 an hour I think right foreign any other questions um president Schultz Mr Crosby um I'd like to know if there's if we have any like Financial mechanism like future contracts or financial agreements through the state where we can fix um the fuel costs against future increases for coming years or do we just have to just buy as we go we all know you know recently gas dropped but it's going to go back up and are we going to have that um you know I want to
088make sure that when it does go back up that we are covered for that increase in cost uh great question I'm actually glad you bought it up brought that up but we get sent fuel pricing every day by multiple companies and we actually track it on a graph it's in the lobby of our office we try to track it really closely we're not buying fuel just from Circle K or Chevron we have our own fueling station and we are able to purchase fuel through the Arizona Department of Transportation ADOT so we're paying the same price that they do for their Fleet we're able to piggyback on their contract so um and and then how often are bus routes evaluated um changed for maximization and um what other avenues can the district pursue um to lower
089feel cost mileage driven um so we do use routing software through Tyler Technologies and that's probably our biggest asset in determining which routes are efficient it creates all sorts of modules and simulations for us where we can improve some of the suggestions we can take and Implement others just don't make sense based on student counts and things of that nature um but every summer every route is essentially torn apart and rebuilt a lot of them stay the same because the neighbors are the same and things like that but essentially we start fresh every year and then throughout the year as buses become overcrowded or undercrowded we're always balancing that out mainstream routes in our district have essentially stayed the same for the past three years they're all fairly efficient and as you can imagine sped
090routes change [Music] they're always changing so those routes we always try to leave a little room on because oftentimes there's a time constraint of getting a student started in a fairly quickly for Shawna so thank you for that um also on page 11 I noticed that you know the the districts that we're utilizing to compare us to um different is different than um let's say what the auditor general would use as a comparison to Higley um why aren't we using those schools that the auditor general is using for our financials that would give us a more accurate um number instead of comparing us to so many districts that although I like the fact that we're comparing ourselves to Ben Franklin and ala I you know it's nice to see the difference but um I'd like
091to be able to see the same comparison that the auditor general uses we can look at that I don't know how valid the data will be because our bus drivers live in our area so those are competitors of who's going to snag up our bus drivers as far as rates that pay if I'm hearing your question correctly one of our comparison districts may be you know on the west side of town and we're clearly not going to have a driver that lives in Gilbert drive over there for an hourly salary change so but we can certainly look at who are yeah that President member van Helk that the outer General comparison districts is but for similar size and budgetary reasons and so um while Mr Crosby's comparison chart works at just competitiveness in terms of
092employees and and basically our surrounding districts and who we can basically attract these are our main competitors in terms of employees the comparison districts on the other general report are by size and so like you stated we have several comparison districts that are in the West Valley North Phoenix and so polling their hourly rate would not necessarily make complete sense in this case but maybe pulling their route miles or their comparison on that Avenue in terms of their expenditures for transportation would be a more a fair comparison I'm just thinking a bigger school would obviously have more money so that they would be able to pay a little more and obviously by Gilbert and Queen Creek and even Mesa I mean Mesa is huge so their funding would be way more than ours so I
093think that would make a difference compared when we compare them to us so that's the only reason why I ask thank you hear what you're saying um just the fact that the reason why we have the shortage is because of the other districts and that's what he's trying to show from this correct so while we Mesa is a larger District they're our direct competitor because they and they can pay more and so we we're short seven drivers from the side I remember right right now and and one of the reasons and the biggest reason is compensation because we can't keep up it it's a difficult position because once they have that CDL they can drive commercial vehicles for anyone other school districts they probably hire them you know walk in the door and they might
094drive that afternoon and I also wanted to bring up since we're talking about CDLs the exact same CDL that our employees have here or any school bus driver at the State of Arizona also allows them to drive water trucks trash trucks and other large commercial vehicles and to be honest with you two of the people that left us this year are driving for the town of Gilbert trash department and I'll just say that it's kind of sad that we value and pay a trash truck driver more to haul trash than we do our own children but that's one thing so I know that a lot of times it's retired professionals that they come to get their license and then they want to drive is there anything that we can do to offer where they could
095split the time like maybe they don't want to commit to you know every day of the week or they have a vacation they're going to Florida things like that where we could hire I don't know two people to alternate or we're currently doing okay so yeah we have some drivers that only work a couple hours a day split it with someone else that only wants to work a couple so when we can make it work we certainly do and we figure even a partial day's work is better than none at all so so they could do something where it's like a month and then another person Works a month or something I'm just trying to think of yeah but we've done AM and PM where it split and things okay thank you that's a good
096point we also had talked about at one point because our drivers like you said their split shifts and everything where we were running low on um like lunch AIDS and things like that that during that middle portion of the day can they drive in the morning go to a school be a lunch Aid help there and go back and drive so essentially we can give them a full day's work even though it is different roles and responsibilities so um I know we had looked at that and I know some were kind of doing that but that's also I think we need to explore that because I believe all of our schools still need that and it keeps them busy and that it doesn't enter the only time it interferes is those early release days which
097obviously sorry the school's got to give so we can get kids from there but um so I think those are also good opportunities and and I think you know I appreciate you asking um about why are we looking at these ones because there are our competitors and unfortunately this is a conversation we have all the time when it comes to compensation whether it's a bus driver whether it's a teacher these much larger districts Chandler Mesa they're they're our neighbors they're huge districts they have huge budgets which essentially gives them buying power and gives them the ability to offer higher salaries for teachers for bus drivers for essentially any position within their District which makes it difficult for us as a smaller District that we can't we can't offer the same and that's part of why
098it's also been our District's focus on how we treat people that sometimes it's not always about the amount that they're paid but how they're treated and sometimes it takes going for that larger salary to be like oh nope I liked my home right I I mean it's like yeah that larger salary was great but they don't even know who I am where you know as a much smaller District we're we're much more inclusive we know who people are you know I see Mr Crosby we can't give you enough props here but I've seen where on husd parent page someone would post something about the bus and Mr Crosby's like here's my number call me I'm happy to help and I mean it's his work number but he's putting it out there on social media for
099everyone anyone you know you're always willing to help and we're much larger than your one bus that you when you started um or was it it was seven buses but it sounds pretty good I was gonna say or was it a tractor pulling a trailer with kids it was a horse-drawn carriage you know I mean you've you've seen our district grow and everything so the kids running across the field wait the tractor left without me so um but uh that is it's our ongoing conversation on our budget with our competition those are our closest neighbors those are the ones we compete for employees and they have much larger budgets so it's so much more important that our culture is what it is and what we've worked really hard for to really make people feel valued
100and want to be here because we just can't compete all the time in that salary area so are we still doing incentives we do have a referral incentive through June of this year so this summer it will expire okay so we're still trying to do referrals for other people um okay thank you something else to keep in mind with the salary as well as benefits the larger districts have more people to play into those benefits as well so if we can't offer the same benefits but offering salary to help keep us competitive is also a benefit thank you um I a couple things first of all I remember back whenever I was helping out with Benefits when I worked here and we went to the transportation department and walking into the back it really was
101like a family um it you can't speak enough for the department so working wages and working where you feel respected and you have good leadership it absolutely is true um the wage competition no matter what aspect of education is always whatever whatever time you look at there's got to be a challenge um I think we were able to not fix but make better for substitute teaching with the company that we use is there anything similar to that for transportation and maybe that's not a comp yeah I'm not sure all right hold tight and I'll be covering that soon I will just add off of Christina's Reese story back in the day we'll end on a positive note but we did have bus delays from time to time because the Sheep were crossing from one field
102to the other and the road was blocked so we're past that now we just have other delays but just a little memory there so thank you Mr Crosby any other questions I just want to say that well Ben Franklin and ala are on here it's not a fair comparison as they're not required to do the busing that we're required to do um as well and that's it thank you Mr Crosby appreciate it thank you moving on to 6.3 um oh sorry 6.2 I'm sorry Mr Moore I was which just kidding review of the 2023-2024 maintenance and operations budget thank you president Schultz and members of the board uh tonight we're presenting our second review of the fiscal 2024 minutes and operations budget um as I mentioned earlier it's a perfect segue as we will talk
103about our recommended compensation increases for next fiscal year which does have a heavier impact on their classified hourly Group which includes our transportation drivers um just as a reminder here's our budget timeline so we are always working um you know it seems like we're always working one fiscal year back and then looking forward um but this is the budget that we're discussing today uh we are working towards that June uh 2023 timeline where we officially uh propose and adopt the budget so all this conversation is regarding that proposed an adopted budget that we're discussing today um and then the timeline into next fiscal year would be as follows if in December if we needed a budget revision we'd bring that back to the board um that is if the budget that we adopted exceeds one
104percent of what we adopted the mere statutorily required to bring that back we did have to do that this year if you recall back in December 13th and then may we have to do a final revision to True up to the 100th day ADM count that is required by Statute and then June we get to do it all over again so um seems like I'm constantly talking budget here's our budget acronyms so um again there's been a public comment and and a board comment that we I know we use a lot of acronyms and so this is for our viewers online or anybody listening um this is a slide to reference for all the acronyms that are in this presentation tonight all right so looking at the fiscal 24 20 24 highlights not as much
105has changed since the first review uh the aggregate expansion limit that was Exempted this year um but as as I stated earlier this budget is looking towards next year um and so that exemption that was passed at the Senate was an exemption for fiscal 23 so this current year there was no exemption for fiscal 24. so yes we will face the aggregate expansion limit again next year I do not know what that limit will be yet I think early estimates come out in May by Ade and so we'll get a good indication of what that budget implication would be for our fiscal 2024 budget other budget implications we know the Arizona State Retirement System is increasing by 0.12 percent that increases both incurred by the district and the District employees as both are members of
106the Arizona State Retirement System so we do know that will be affecting the district to the tune about 60 000 and to our employees uh 0.12 percent um on their paycheck bullet point number two uh our mno transfer to capital for our Middle School lease payment I do have a full slide to discuss our new lease payment um that uh lease refinance did not get rid of our lease but rather refinance our lease to reduce our payment so that estimated payment is 3.55 million down from in previous years which we have been carrying over 4.4 million again I have another slide to further dive into that in addition we are transferring additional mno to support our Capital needs I highlighted that amount of 6.6 million in our Capital presentation and that supports that capital budget
107that I presented what was that April or February 8th um bullet point number four uh the only real assumption that we know or that we're taking into consideration in this budget is the estimated two percent inflation inflation adjustment to the base level support So in statute it states that if inflation realized inflation is over two percent uh statutorily the legislature uh should appropriate two percent at a minimum two percent um to the base level support and the base level support is the per pupil amount that schools are funded in the State Foreign funding formula the third section there employee Insurance enhancements we're still researching options and as I mentioned previously this budget cycle and our insurance cycle are two different timelines and they're not tied together so as we talk about uh compensation increases and
108contracts um employees signing that does not obligate them to Insurance um plans and so those are two timelines there's this whole separate insurance enrollment um which Ms Karen Johnson will have a presentation in April um about our benefits package for next fiscal year I will note our benefits survey has went out to all employees I did talk to Isabel magnato our benefits coordinator she said that it's been well received and there's been a lot of input already so we're going to leave that open through next week collect that information summarize it and work with Kairos our insurance administrator so fiscally outline what some of those enhancements would be budgetarily uh just to note we would not be funding those enhancements from the ml budget as I mentioned earlier our switch from fully insured to self-insured
109has saved the districts and funds and so we're looking to put those back to the employee and help offset um you know we may we may not be able to do as much in compensation but if we can help in benefits that's still going to help their take-home pay and so we're going to put that money back to use more to come on that as we collect information and work through our insurance administrator through our renewal process so AEL again I know I keep talking about this but uh it's not going away uh fiscal impact to 2023 there is no impact as that was Exempted um I do want to note that again that gives us full budget capacity for this year so uh the budget we adopted is the budget we can use the
110impact of fiscal 2024 uh there may be a potential operational impact as um we work through the recommendations um later in this slide you'll note that we'll potentially be tapping into some of our budget contingency and I know Miss Reese I can see you cringing over there but um we do not have the luxury to continue to set aside um the amount of money that we've been doing for the AEL we do not have we proposed a bond that failed and so now we've been balancing our budget by transferring mno dollars to Capital to support that as well as trying to balance offering a competitive salary as well as all the increases that we've incurred and terms of insurance and basically cost of living increases across the board utilities Etc so I just want to
111know there may be a potential operational impact I do not know what that is yet as I stated the first pass at what that limit would be or what the districts would be exceeding that limit in fiscal 24 will be in May in 80 evil send us that information I will be certain to include that in a report to the board so some good news uh we did close on our middle middle school refinance this chart here is outlining just three fiscal years but this is a 30-year term is what we refinanced so how you read this is on top so we have our fiscal year we have our old payment and our new payment and then we have a savings column and so going across starting in fiscal 24 you'll see our old payment
112principal payment 985 000 compared to our new principal payment 870 000. the next column outlines the interest for both the Old and the new and then the next column outlines the additional fees and this is where you'll see the biggest change right um the the previous lease had various fees associated with it we've talked about these in a board presentation it included fees to maintain the buildings in which the leaser was responsible and owned the buildings they were obligated to maintain them we can argue whether they were maintained or not but there's also additional fees for basically Insurance because we do not own it we also insured the building so we were double paying insurance but we could not rely on the lease or um when it come to when it came to coverage um
113and other various fees and so those equations about 515 000 on an annual basis and when you take those out as well as the final interest that we settled on in our new refinance those estimated savings for fiscal 24 620 000 which is money right back to our operational budget so again I can't emphasize how big a win this is the lease is not gone but it does um reduce the financial impact in the district um to the 200 620 000 which can go a long way in addressing teacher pay or other compensation areas where um you'll see recommendations later if you roll that out through 30 years that net cash flow difference is about 18.6 million so again that's 18.6 million back into the operational budget um over the next 30 Years so um
114a big win for the district and definitely something to be happy about even though we saw the lease but it is better terms um and to the district's favor okay so the mno uh 2024 projections um the FY 23 estimated revised budget so this has not changed again this budget was revised in December 14th we had to make a revision uh due to the district exceeding one percent of its adopted budget that budget was revised to 119 million 873 246 dollars again that does not that we have full authority to use that budget as the AEL was Exempted and that does include a budget balanced carry forward of 23 million looking to 2024 our estimated proposed General budget limit uh we'll continue to project no ADM increase as we've done in previous years as I
115mentioned earlier we're we're the one thing that we are putting into this estimate is our projected two percent increase to the base level support we do know the asrs is increasing and so that is taken into consideration um and then one thing that changed from the first review uh was the the trued up number of the m o transfer to Capital so we were initially earmarking 10 million which showed uh basically a lesser estimated JBL increase and so the difference in why that's increased over the first presentation is because we finalized their Capital plan which was reviewed but the board earlier this month and that transfer is 6.6 million instead of the 10 million that we originally estimated so we worked that down a little um and so that is why that has increased we
116are currently realizing a budget bounce uh carry forward of approximately 26 million a lot of that is due to vacancy savings we do still have some covert relief funding that's expiring at the end of this year and that's having a budgetary impact we're holding that because all those items will now come back into the budget next year and so that will quickly go away as we look at fiscal 25 budget but that's a little bit down the road so one budget at a time right I do want to highlight that the total estimated increase is the 4.3 million from our current revised budget to our estimated proposed fiscal 24 budget um so we do know some some more about some of our fixed cost increases if you remember previously these were all to be determined
117we have worked with some of our insurance carriers to identify some of these increases First Property Casualty Insurance we have heard already preliminary increases to five percent to a property Council insurance that equates to forty thousand dollars workers compensation is about two percent increase that equates to ten thousand dollars and then annually every year we do hold an FTE contingency that has been reduced this year typically we've hold up to five hundred thousand um and and welcome to Higley Karen you get a reduced contingency um that is that is gonna be three hundred thousand this year going into next year and so of of that re contingency slash reclassification and so what that can that 300 000 is used for if we experience any sort of enrollment growth um or additional needs we basically utilize
118that contingency to address that enrollment growth so this year I can tell you that has been largely used at the secondary level uh with Mr lawsonizer in terms of six fifths that Williams Field has seen drastic enrollment growth um far more than expected and so a lot of that has used with six fists because we were unable to hire teachers so teachers have picked up additional shifts the remaining uh dollars in there the 69 350 uh was reclassifications for employees that were hired in the year fiscal year 2019-2020 um during that time the district did not offer any sort of experience and so uh what has happened is created some inequities um in our salary schedule and so those employees can literally quit today and be hired back for more money and so working with
119Miss Johnson um those we feel like we need to address those because that is not um I don't think it's an equitable situation so that is that 69 000 um moving down the list the utility increases these are drastic this year water electricity all those we have received word that they're all going up so we have budgeted 275 000 for those increases um and that's again for all our additional utilities so water electricity and I'm sure as as consumers in the community have all seen that cost increase as well the Big saver here is a removal of contracted services and so uh what we are recommending for next year is to we currently contract out uh custodial and grounds at six of our elementary schools we did that this year out of a need if
120we could not fill the positions and so um if the board remembers a lot of this stemmed from covid too in which we had increased custodial needs we have maintained those and those we still haven't been able unable to fill the position so this year we took initiative and contracted it out for the whole fiscal year with some changes that we're recommending today as well as working with the maintenance department we have been able to rehire a number of positions and are currently almost fully staffed in custodial and so we feel confident that we'll be able to fill the um basically those six schools both custodian grounds going into next year with our own internal staff and and if you've contracted anything you know that it costs greatly more than what it would if you
121can bring it in-house and so um that is that a million dollars that we would be realizing in terms of savings into next year you take go ahead can I just ask you on the contract the savings is great I just have a question do we have a contingency like what happens if we aren't able to fire or higher sorry sorry so that number that number includes contingency the the total contracted costs are closer to 1.4 million okay uh we did hold some contingency in there because I while I'm while I'm optimistic uh I still need to be realistic and we still have a need at our schools and so yes that that number is have con that does have some contingency in there okay thank you president Schultz to that point um so this
122is a savings for not having internal contracted staff this is a savings from moving to internal we're currently Contracting and so to the tune of 1.4 million um we if we eliminate contracted Services we will not have to pay that anymore and we can bring those staff on board okay so I'm thinking the other way okay thank you yeah foreign fixed cost and this is an anomaly in most fiscal years I will note that because of the removal of contracted Services um it's actually a savings of 305 000. next is our fiscal 2024 uh proposed compensation increases so we've worked through with meet and confer as well as with Administration in departments on our Compensation Plan previously we have presented the board with options um this year we are not preview to I guess providing
123the board with options we feel at a minimum this is this is uh a recommendation the district um should proceed forward with so starting at the top teachers and other certified staff other certified staff include your otpt instructional Aid or structural coaches other various staff that support our instruction a two percent increase from the mno budget which equals 950 000. the bullet point two would also increase 1250 to their classroom site from planned and so that's another bucket um that is another two percent um from the classroom type fund bucket that's fun 10. so that is not included in that cost so the two percent is the 950 000 and that's what's being proposed from them in a budget but in total the compensation increase would be four percent classified hourly South I think you
124just heard from Mr Crosby what just one of our departments that have a high vacancy um in terms of classified hourly staff all his bus drivers are classified hourly you can consider it in that category as well as our Landscaping custodial grounds areas where we've experienced a number of vacancies and basically unable to fill positions we're proposing at a dollar an hour increase straight to all classified hourly employees as well to our salary schedule in an effort to help move the needle forward we know these employees are some of our lowest paid and probably our hardest hit with inflation and so this increased a dollar an hour is an average of 5.5 percent increase and so um it was definitely a point of emphasis with District administration as well as meeting for support that increase
125down to Administration and classified exempt these are our principals our department heads and our managers we propose a two percent increase at 150 000. in addition we've talked about adding on to the budget cycle increases to our supplemental schedules and also a one-time stipend so the first bullet point is 750 dollars type into all employees is an employee recognition as I've mentioned we've been realizing a lot of one-time savings and so rather than a whole dot we want to put that back to our employees in an effort to show our recognition to all the the work they've done in addition our activities in coaching supplemental schedules we would propose adding a two percent increase to those as those have also stayed stagnant for many years in addition uh subpay adding it to our annual budget
126cycle so if you recall this year mid-year we brought a subpay Edition um and we're always being reactive and so the goal of bringing this Increase five dollars is approximately 2.5 so we rounded up we didn't want to put 425 on there um is to be proactive in an effort to just to stay ahead of districts and continue to be able to fill um our sub positions at a high rate um this makes it easier on me budgetarily because I know what the budget's going to be throughout the year rather than Switching gears mid-year but I understand the need when we do that so this was an effort to be proactive and increase that subpay along with the the total Compensation Plan um so just highlighting that Compensation Plan and what it will do for
127our proposed teacher salary schedule um up top um you can read this would be our proposed teacher salary guidelines for fiscal year 23 24. a base would that includes the classroom site fund would be at 51 476. um the pay performance and supplemental that is all paid from that classroom site fund again it's not mno dollars that's a separate bucket that's um a six tenth sales tax from the state that is they just renewed that a couple years ago so that goes through 2042. um that would be the remaining portion of their salary of 4 700 for a total salary of 56.226. um looking at a teacher salary comparison in the East Valley we don't know much the only District that we do know has made an increase is Queen Creek and that increases two
128percent and that's reflected here based on what they've posted online and what we know um that these amounts do include their classroom site fund allocations so it is a comparable apples comparison with the exception of we do not know what they're going to do for fiscal 24 on the the four districts that are asterisks so this does put as a leader for now but I do want to know again we do not know what other districts are doing and if Chandler I've heard rumors that they're in the four percent range that would put them right up to where we are so I do want to note that your question it was a spec ific Speculator did I clarify it nope I'm good okay Mike president Schultz members of the board if you'll recall this has
129been a huge Focus for us as three years ago we were one of the very lowest painting and this has been a huge priority for us and this is why this this year is unique instead of coming to you with the same percentage for each employee group we're being very intentional and thoughtful and making sure that we're recognizing across the board in all areas as we work to maintain competitive and attract people to Higley as we've identified as a huge priority in multiple areas on our strategic plan so taking all those into consideration and putting those in a summary this is the total budget impact and so if on slide seven we talked about the 2024 estimated General budget limit increase of 4.3 4.3 million uh we on slide eight we talked about the fixed
130cost decreases that's an addition of 305 650 in terms of budget capacity the total salary composition increases uh totals just over 5 million and so that's a net position of negative 399 000. um that negative budget implication we would propose reducing our fiscal 2024 budget balance carry forward to balance that budget as I noted earlier uh we are slated to carry over 26 million so I feel confident that that budget balance carry forward can support this net budget decrease and with that on we work to our budget calendar um February 8th as I mentioned we provided the first review tonight we are providing a second review of the budget March 8th if there is any further question or discussion regarding the budget I'll be more than happy to do another information presentation but if there
131is no further discussion I will just bring a tentative approval of the mno budget as an action item for approval we will also have the second review for capital budget and then April 5th we'll bring the tentative approval for a capital budget to move forward with our capital projects and then legally in June we will adopt this same budget that we've talked about today and with that if there's any questions I'll be happy to president Schultz Mrs Reese this makes me very nervous I've had long discussions with Mr Moore on contingencies and making sure that we're covered because as we saw tonight with Mr Crosby's presentation we would not have projected our fuel increases the way they were um and Diesel continues to stay really high as well and just going up and so thank
132you for putting it all together um I it does make me nervous because just as we had this conversation last year and I remember Mrs Wilson having the conversation with our building and you know we we could not have expected the we knew costs were coming up but we could not have expected it to look like this so um so I am concerned with what we what we take forward for unexpected costs um I'm hoping for the next year it looks better than it does this year hopefully we're more on the the recovery versus continuing so um I appreciate you taking the time and putting it together and and I know it's been kind of a ongoing conversation and joke with us because you never know what's going to happen and what we're going to
133have to do and what those costs are going to be so I mean I I agree I think it looks great at least right now we can see Higley kind of leading that compensation because as we just said we don't see that very often um and it has been a focus of ours so I appreciate putting the budget together and that's that's very important especially just as everyone else our our teachers and their families are going through the same thing they have increased costs and and everything so um I I just it makes me uncomfortable not not to the point where I'm like oh no but it I'm leery because I don't know what's going to happen if we're going to be better or worse next year but I also have to say you know
134thank you because you're probably one of the very few who could refinance something right now and actually save money so um that's just not happening right now so thank you for going through all that and refinancing our our leases and we're actually saving money so that's certainly helpful that we can put towards our our employees so I just want to say thank you on getting that done and and you've done a nice job putting it together I it does make me a little nervous and as we move forward hopefully things will start to look better not worse Mrs Reese thank you I am fearful that it is going to be yours and it's just the reality that we're in I wish we were in a different place right now um it's sad where we're at
135um but Mr Moore I know is very thorough and finds different ways to be able to keep us afloat and we do have to pay our teachers and our staff to be able to have good staff and to teach our kids and and we don't want to cut programs and so I appreciate the juggling that you do with the budget and I hope that we can be in a better place I just am fearful it's going to get worse presidentials something that I would like to add to that I guess is we look at the slide that shows what we had to pay for Contracting out if we can't afford to get our staff which I recognize ultimately you don't want to get too ahead of yourself when it comes to what budget you have
136but if we don't do those things and then we still can't support that staff it ends up being far costly right like in the grand scheme of things so I feel like it is it is risky and I understand that but at the same time the trade-off seems worse if we don't have that and things get worse because then we have to contract out I mean at the end of the day we still need custodial Services we still need these types of things and we can't not do them so as risky as it is I I argue that it's riskier to not um just because of how expensive contracted work will only increase as well any other questions um I do have a question um so I spoke to a few people who had um
137concerns obviously we want to see our staff paid well um but last year there was a six percent increase um and then the the 5 million more in salary increases this year um you know they feel like it's this forever budget that just items that keep going to the mno and what happens if voters refuse an m o extension in a few years and what plans do we have for that long term to ensure that this is you know able to continue and not just a one-time yeah so everything we proposed tonight with the exception of the classified hourly matches the increases in budgets that we're assuming from the state if you recognize the two percent is the two percent that we realize are expected to realize from the state and so that's just a
138dollar for dollar or percentage for percentage um offsets we're not essentially increasing costs with the exception of classified hourly but we're basically matching everything we're getting from the state additional it's going right back to our teachers they they brought up a good point in terms of our mno override we are slated to need a renewal for fiscal 2024 in which we'll need a voter approved election to um renew that yeah if that is not renewed on fiscal 24 the immediate impact for fiscal 25 will be approximately three million dollars and then for fiscal 26 another 8 million uh and then fiscal 27 that'd be completely expired and that's 13 million that's currently providing additional mno um so yeah it is a concern um the mno override if you looked into what that is approved for
139it is improved for a lot of our extracurriculars and so that is currently what that's funding so if that were not to pass I hate to say this but we would go there first because that is what that is funding is funding those extracurriculars our Arts our music there is a portion that's funding staff increases as well and so um there could be potential for salary freezes and so that is an impact but it's it is on the table too and we're realistic of that or forward thinking and looking at that but we can't stay stagnant and sit on on money and not put it back to our staff when realized inflation is close to seven and eight percent um that's not going to change that is reality and so um we do have to
140make forward progress as a line to our strategic plan and what we've approved and be optimistic and that some of those overrides will be approved but if not we will go to directly what those are funding and go to make Cuts in those areas first um I did a comparison um I mean we're doing another 6.6 million from Amino to Capital um and it seems like we're transferring so much dollars to cap um to Capital so often um when doing the comparison to other districts um Higley was at like 83 percent um in our mno dollars where other districts are like 12 percent and and lower Sometimes some even seven percent um and you know community members are concerned about the fact that we have so we're so much higher than other districts in in
141capital yeah and so that's a fair comparison but looking at Higley unified we do not have a bond we do not have a capital override a lot of our neighboring districts are comparison districts in the in the pure not a general peer groups have these additional Capital um Revenue sources and so we do not and so we budget according to what Higley has and so we do have Capital needs in excess of our capital budget which is six million dollars a year um if you remember from our first review our Capital proposed budget is about 17 million and if you look at that it's hard we've already made some Cuts uh I have a hard time cutting more and so yes we do fund a large portion of our capital budget from our mno because
142that that is the reality of higley's budget and how we have to maintain our schools hmm thank you any other questions thank you Mr Moore I appreciate it and I'm hopeful that our community will come through for us and we'll continue to fund everything that we do now moving yeah you can ask another question I do have more questions sorry um just not on that page um now the the hiring freeze on page five um that would only be if AEL didn't pass again next year that's a potential impact um as we don't know the implication just yet as I stated like it may we'll have I think Ade provides us the first pass of what that they take the cumulative budgets of all the districts and figure out what that limit is and then
143we'll get a percentage of of what that would impact higlia um what that Ado will be for Higley and so we'll we'll take that percentage um reduce that from our budget and see if we if where we land um I just put that's proposed um because I don't I don't know what that limit is and so I want to be fully transparent in what may occur and I don't want to hide anything uh because I don't know what that limit is going to be for next year and then with the with the one dollar increase um so you said that that's five and a half percent um is what it equates to now is there a way um that you know I'm guessing you've already looked at options to be able to possibly you know
144cut somewhere else to be able to pay our bus drivers extra because if it wasn't for bus drivers or kids wouldn't be in school for you know for them to be taught and you know obviously that's tied to um money coming into the district based on the number of children so I know what the Esser funds um we hired several counselors now because those funds are going to be going away um how how are we going to fund those counselors um after the fact and then um is there a way to maybe I mean I know Administration increase was what 150 um yes so I don't know if maybe like even half a percentage can go from there to um to our bus drivers um I just want to make sure that we do take
145care of them as well and knowing that they're at the bottom compared to other districts to be able to help them out yeah so to answer the bus driver question first so that this dollar an hour will put us we've worked with Mr Crosby we feel like it will make us competitive and put us in the middle of that pack um it would be 1933 which would put us uh just above Mesa but right under Gilbert um he does feel like that would be competitive wage we've also made a recommendation going into next year to um honor up to six years experience it was one area in which we um we're only offering for and so um experienced bus drivers were being capped at four years of experience and so we've worked with Miss Johnson
146to basically say hey this is another area in which we can basically attract um qualified experienced drivers and compensate them for their experience while still maintaining Equity I do have to note that because I always forget that but uh um and be able to hire those so we hope those changes going into the next year and and with Mr Crosby is fully aware of those he feels confident that he'll be able to fill some of those vacancies uh the second part of your question in regards to the sr3 budget and the salaries that we have allocated in there we have been holding in that contingency um enough the that salary implication to bring back into the budget it has definitely been miss Richards can express this but a relief to our elementary schools and to
147have these counselors while we don't have one at every school three years shared or nine Elementary um it definitely those counselors we are planning to bring those back into the budget it aligns with their strategic plan it aligns um with everything we do I in terms of providing students with resources that they may need so we have been planning to bring those back in and we're holding the funds to do that presidential board member Van Hook one of the other things is tonight you had an opportunity to look at the bus drivers and their their compensation compared with their neighboring District we didn't bring you the other areas which would have been very similar because our our increases had been in percentage as we're competing in the same areas for custodial grounds and those things
148one of the things one of the components when we were talking about transportation and you looked at one of our competitive districts to the south of us here they initially were all contracted Services particularly during coven and one of the things they did was bring it back in-house because they were spending more on contract and services but that's why they upped the cost to bring it in so that you saved where you were being able to bring it back in and that's one of the pieces that's important for us for all of our classified areas as well as making sure we're competitive because we focus tonight on Transportation but if we were to look at all of the those other areas we would find ourselves more on the lower end of the scale than toward
149the middle and this is where addressing it at that particular thing for the classified hourly staff will bring us up more competitive in all the areas we're trying to to attract and keep people in that are Higley employees rather than contracted Services because that has been a very expensive thing you saw Even in our transportation tonight one of the pride things that Josh has been able to do is bring back in the contract of services not sending it out when we needed to get students to football games or other things outside of school days and we didn't have our enough internal people to cover it so again whether or not we can hire the people we still have to provide the services so that schools are clean and we get them there and it's been
150kind of an important uh Focus for our team president Schultz um and another question I had is um since the employees are already getting a raise um why give an additional 750 bonus to everyone versus targeting the money to where it's needed most such as you know bus drivers or to bolster pave you know versus similar districts certainly so I mean uh meeting with with meet and confer and our conversations with district-wide we've worked vigorously to make sure every employee feels valued um and that is one way I feel like we can do that um that does go to bus drivers as well and so um providing that and it the reason we can't do that into the salary schedules because the point you brought up earlier it becomes an ongoing cost we're realizing savings
151on a one-time basis so we those those are salaries that we cannot if we make those adjustments those are budgetary implications going forward you've made that note earlier when we have one-time costs um it's basically vacancy savings and so how can we show our employees recognition and treat and basically put that to use one of the ways is to do that is employee stipend to all employees um thank you I think also since transportation is top of mind because we heard that presentation but as Mr Moore said we want to Value all of our employees and so we don't want to cause shortages in other places if we just bring up one air one area as well correct right and that's I mean you know the the salaries being increased across across the board it's
152just that 750 that I'm talking about um I mean yes it's you know it's nice to get a bonus but I I just want to make sure that that's um that we're utilizing the dollars to where it's you know most needed um and then also I looked at the average teacher salary for 2022 and 23 the adopted budget and there we had um like in 2022 it said 62 000 173 and we have 56226 um for 2024 um and I wanted to be able to understand why the decrease so it's not a decrease so what what is presented on this slide is the starting salary going into fiscal 2024. uh what's presented on the budget forms in the AFR is the average of all our teachers currently employed in the district so this could be
153teachers that have experience up to 20. I don't know if we have 25 years but I know we have some 20-year teachers um and all our news your teacher salaries we combined all those average that out and that is what is presented on the budget forms this is a starting teacher salary going into next fiscal year if a new um teacher or to apply for our district that would be the starting wage okay to give some context when I got hired in 2012 the average salary I think was still around in the 60s and the starting salary was 35 000. so the base is is is really important for teachers who are looking for places to go because the base is where you're going to start from and then you add each year of experience
154on top of that or my masters and everything else so like when I came back I had 10 years of experience they only gave me nine those types of things and so then it starts at the base salary and they add I think on your slide it's 350 per year of experience and then your Masters and everything else so when I'm looking around I don't look for averages I want to know the base because that's where I'm going to come in at if that makes sense one other note on the 750 Mr Moore we're giving a two percent increase in inflation is at seven percent so we're already behind and so being able to give 750 are employees to hopefully help them with some of the cost of inflation is important too any other mystery
155just a quick question on that 750 when would that be paid we we talked about following this similar as we've done in our our retention stipends and the previous fiscal years um and so if an employee signs their contract and returns for next fiscal year and works up until August 31st would be paid that either first pay period in September or second pay period in September so we want to get that into our employees Pockets you know as soon as possible okay I see your thinking on that um but I also noticed our board packet after that August meeting we had a large um resignation list after that so they stayed long enough to get the um the stipend that we paid for for returning teachers so um I don't know that that was overly
156successful in that aspect [Music] um just like I said I think that was probably one of our largest um board packets with um resignations and and pay or that part I just can't think tonight so I don't know what the answer is do we do it right at the beginning of the school year or do we do it in until August um I mean I want to get it in their hands I'm not nearly suggesting that we go later I'm just wondering if if that was overall successful because in that on our consent agenda for resignations and everything that was besides the semester which is normal for people moving I think that was one of our highest resignations was after that was paid out president Schultz board memories particularly when you're looking at the classified
157ranks because our teacher ranks because of a contract unless they met one of the Criterion in which we would waive it the fee would have cost them to get out of their contract more than the stipend that they would have gotten so and again it was I think a fifteen hundred dollar one at that point but there were individuals who were classified who stayed to get that and then they went to another District that was paying more per hour and it was truly a money thing particularly in the classified hourly range and hence being if we can pay them more on their base salary they won't stay for it I've put in so many years and now I can go and make two three dollars more an hour in another District if they're making closer
158to that they're likely more likely to stay I think the thing that we didn't have going for us particularly with that employee group was the additional compensation for the hourly that palliative Factor as we saw when we looked at why they were leaving so we need to look at a lot of teachers will travel the the across cities and sometimes to Phoenix and Beyond and then the pay the pay goes up pay goes up here pay goes up there then they start having to take into consideration the travel and then you know when the salaries change and they have to make a decision so I think sometimes that plays into it what are we talking last year is that what you're referencing or when did this occur just this past just this past year this
159past August that they also received a one-time stipend for our renewing employees those who signed and stayed and it was as long as they were employed through the end of August then they got there um they got their stipend so I remember that the language and remind me I apologize um how many years have we offered this type in how many years have we offered this stipend the stipend house so this is this is relatively new that's coming from the m o budget the two previous years were funded from the covert relief funds um so this would be the third year this will be the third year yeah and which in which I stipend such as in this characteristic has been offered and then so last year was the second year in the first year
160before that did we have similar Behavior or was that in language if they stuck around to okay so it's hard to use that data to determine if that was a either people left to begin with people didn't move around like they did last year last year people were more comfortable and started moving around okay all right thank you with respect to some of those who left it might be interesting to look at how many were returning employees versus because I know we had a lot leave of individuals who under ducey's law to try to help increase the number of teachers that anybody can teach and I know a lot of them uh learned that maybe student teaching is kind of important president Schultz um Mr Moore now one of my concerns um I I've been
161in the finance world for over 20 years um and I have never seen a a budget approved based on a PowerPoint presentation um I am used to seeing Excel spreadsheets all the line items all the GL lines to see all the dollars that are involved in a in a budget obviously our biggest expenses are our salaries and benefits um and and tonight we've seen Transportation um but for me it's it's really important that if if we as a board are going to be approving a budget um with all these line items that we should be able to to to see an Excel spreadsheet of of line items and um you know I asked if we have study sessions to be able to not just go over the presentation yes this is the third time we're
162seeing presentation but um not just seeing a PowerPoint presentation but actually seeing the entire budget which would also help us understand fully what is in our budget and I was told no we don't have study sessions um but for me I you know I think it would be irresponsible um at least for me to to approve such a large budget without seeing all the numbers and basing it just off of a PowerPoint presentation that were being presented not that I I you know I have a reason not to trust what you're telling us it's just we need to be able to see that and obviously I I've scheduled an appointment to to be able to meet with you and and review those in a little more detail um but I don't know if we all
163have to do that separately to be able to get a better understanding of it um or if you know or if it doesn't matter to if it's if this PowerPoint is sufficient for everybody else um but at least for me I just would feel more comfortable approving a budget being able to see the full details so um that's all thank you presidential yeah I mean we do have a meeting scheduled to go over in Greater detail uh what what this is proposed in March is tentative approval of the budget this is not the formal approval the formal approval is done in June in which we bring you if you've looked on our website we do have all our budget forms up on the website those are in Excel they're in great detail it's our whole
164general ledger you can see every single transaction those are public on our website and we'll bring that to you in June those forms are not out yet for next year but districts in Arizona cannot proceed forward and be competitive when other school districts are offering issuing contracts in March February this is the reality in which we are in in Arizona we tentatively approve the budget and then we come back and formally approve it but this tentative approval allows us to issue contracts to our teachers and lock in those stat those positions so we know our staffing for next year if we waited till June that would be I'm sure give Miss Richard a heart attack not knowing what our staffing is going next month right into the school year and so that is why we
165bring this in PowerPoint form because we do not have the budget forms yet from the state but we do know tentatively I know the formula and certainly we'll go over that when we meet and how we come to this number but this is why we go through this process and then we bring you the formal full adopt proposed and adopted budget in all its Glory Excel Nine Pages multiple the whole GL basically in June um so I'm glad to hear that that we will at some point be able to see that before final approval and I'm not saying anything that you know we shouldn't approve it in March um but I want to make sure that we are seeing the details um other than just in a presentation form I remember Van Hook one of
166the things that we worked with the governing board with over the last three years is to bring the information in this form and in this fashion this was the preferred way so we could walk you through the process that we were doing on the side because you hire people who are experts in these areas who are monitoring this and being compliant with it which so formulaic previous boards if it members and I think you know particularly board member Reese could speak to the fact we are bringing more level of detail and explicit in what the process is than has ever historically been brought to a board and we're working really hard to to provide the answers to the questions that you have with the information that we can provide and so um again questions we
167are happy to answer um but this is the process that the multiple reviews of this with additional information was what the board had asked for us to begin to bring to them at the level we bring them which is why we do it multiple times thank you and just as Mr Moore said all this information all of this is public information we are a public entity and we have to provide this information line by line and the website and everything so we're not just looking at a PowerPoint and adopting a budget Mr Moore I know we'll sit with you and answer any of the questions you need to understand the budget and go line by line with you as well as he does has done with many of us I know Mrs Reese and Mrs
168Anderson for sure um so yeah I appreciate it thank you very much and to that point I how often is the one online updated it follows this timeline here so we don't we don't annually change the budget unless we have to um and so we'll adopt and propose in June again we'll revise in December which we did this year so we had we that is you'll see the revised budget posted on our website you can also compare that to our adopted and proposed if you wanted to see the changes that occurred between June and December and then in may we revise again so at a minimum you'll see two budgets for a fiscal year um but this this current year you're going to see three revisions and so you can compare those um each uh
169to basically see where the changes were made I'll also highlight those when I do the revision on a high level on where the changes were in budget so um that's that's what we do statutorily again in our office we have a complete team that monitors this regularly we have a staff I have a team of about 11 individuals who help schools but also help with the budget process and all that cumulative work comes into these forms and so what you see is the culmination of every single transaction in the district and to those forms and so it would be a lot of work to revise those every single month but at a minimum you'll see two revisions in a fiscal year and again this year you'll see three because we did exceed our budget in
170one percent by one percent in December so and whatever's on our website is that what's also on the Ade website correct yeah you can also find that same information on Ade okay I just didn't know if whatever was submitted to the state and then updates are being made on our end um in the meantime before it's updated again with the state no whatever we formally update or revise we have to statutorily submit to the state and so um those are both running on a same schedule so what Ade the state has the district has as well perfect thank you so much all right thank you Mr Moore we will now move on to 6.3 uh the marketing plan but this is Joseph president Schultz members of the board are going to ask there's a quick
171bathroom break here members of the board I'd like to introduce Teresa she has is our our has put together a presentation here tonight this is something that if you recall last April when we were in a study session we were talking about um marketing and our strategic plan and goals and focus areas and she has been diligently working on this work and then miss Teresa Joseph had a baby in October and so we gave her a chance to come back so that she could present to you so many of the things she'll talk with you about The Five-Year Plan it's an alignment to the work we identified in our study session or our our our our April meeting with you when we meet on a Saturday um and she has got some updates for you
172as well and this is a good opportunity for us to discuss the progress we're making okay tonight I'll be discussing um husd's marketing plan which is a comprehensive plan um to help broadcast all things Higley and better aligner marketing strategy moving forward foreign so our marketing plan was designed to align with the district's strategic five-year strategic plan that was implemented this school year so this plan will set the foundation of the district's marketing efforts moving forward for the next five years and it was a refresher to members of the audience the district devised a strategic plan with its third anchor being communication and community relations so the goal of this anchor is really to engage all stakeholders through transparent respectful timely and consistent communication so as part of the Strategic plan our district came up
173with 2022 2023 Focus areas with one of those Focus areas being developing a district marketing plan that will help us enhance our relationships with our community in addition to this we committed to redesigning the district's website relaunching the business partner events and establishing communicate communication protocols for various circumstances to help guide The District in providing effective and informative communication so tonight we'll be discussing this marketing plan which also encompasses those other 2022-2023 goals so you'll find this marketing plan online under it's under about us and then on the Strategic plan so which this goes over core marketing goals Target markets and marketing tools that we plan to use within those five years so tonight we'll we will outline aspects of those core marketing goals and just provide a quick update on what our public relations
174team has already started to do so with our core goals our Focus areas are really wide-ranging as there's so many different aspects of marketing when it comes to a school district our goal is really to showcase the amazing work of our students employees and sites while also providing thoughtful and consistent communication and broadcasting that messaging to our current audience and our Target so our Focus areas are enrollment and employment re-engaging and expanding Partnerships aligning branding district-wide and streamlining that process of district-wide communication so we'll start with enrollment in employment this has been an important area for us as recruiting employees and enrolling students is absolutely crucial to any school district now before I get started with these slides I do want to stress that we are already advertising these things this isn't new we'll just
175be taking a different approach these next five years with this with this year and the year to come to really focusing on those analytics to driver decision making so we'll be looking at our the analytics will decide our strategy and the channels that we will will use moving forward so key areas key areas will with enrollment will focus on redesigning on marketing materials to be more engaging and align with our husd district branding so we'll be creating flyers and postcards and social designs that can be shared at Kindergarten Roundup or other hsd events and also shared with our sites at our preschools at external daycares and with external Partners like HOAs we will continue to promote enrollment through advertisements and again the biggest thing here is we'll what this entire plan is we'll be looking
176at analytics after each ad that is run to see what has been the most effective strategy when we advertise through print for example we'll be using Q unique QR codes with each ad to or to track that success and with digital ads we'll be using unique URLs or yeah unique URLs so we will determine the best advertisements moving forward from there and again we'll be advertising across all channels really to spread our best this next year so we can be more agile and double down on years to come we plan to relaunch our digital Higley magazine I know this has been a success in previous years prior to covid so we do want to relaunch this it will be a digital magazine and annual so it will be at the end of the year to
177really try to re-engage our families and also provide some District information and then we will be remaking all Schools Enrollment videos in our district white about Higley videos so these will be used for advertisements and other school marketing needs and as we've begun to analyze our current social media strategy organically our posts with students have ranked better with sentiment and engagement so we would like to double down on this specifically during enrollment season I will be sharing stories and posts on why our students really love Higley we want to share the unique aspects of our schools through our students and our parents eyes and then with this we'll also be sharing more student success stories on the website so as we revamp our website we really want to drive traffic there so we've also recently
178updated our District's video which can be found on our website it's a bit longer at six minutes so we and it discusses all great things in Higley pre-k through 12. um so we have created a shortened video too that's about a minute long which we'll be showing you tonight um and this is also used for advertisements so hopefully you've already seen some ads on social media running with them [Music] Higley Unified School District prepares students for a life filled with Limitless possibilities we are a distinguished District in Arizona that serves more than 13 500 students in the East Valley in grades pre-k through 12. from academics Arts Community involvement to extracurricular activities we offer a well-rounded safe and inclusive learning environment that puts students first with 16 schools located in Gilbert and Queen Creek our
179exceptional teachers and staff prepare students today to become Leaders of Tomorrow our school district is committed to not only ensuring students graduate high school but our 21st century ready by cultivating students to be Innovative Learners responsible citizens and College and Career ready Scholars [Music] this is Higley Unified School District thank you Curtis for putting together such a wonderful video and you may recognize that voice it was his as well so now we'll move on to Higley uniform we loved it so much we're gonna watch it again um so now with employment so we plan to recreate all of our employment flyers and brochures that can be shared with Arizona universities as well as displayed on our website and so we want to make sure that our benefits are clearly outlined and accessible and that way
180our prospective teachers and employees know what makes Higgly unique and as we engage potential Partners we will be launching advertisements and we already have that highlight various openings and our job fair so this will be through um LinkedIn or other job our job platform so job boards and again utilizing those analytics to drive decision making and then as we update our website we will be revamping our human resources page to just ensure all the benefits are clearly outlined and accessible and we are going to be remaking the applicant video so it was last updated four years ago and a lot has changed since then and then we will also be doing a why work at Higley Series so there are so many great reasons to work at higley's and um we can go on and
181on and list them by hearing from our employees might have a larger impact and with that why work at higley's campaign and the why I love Higley that I discussed with the students those are both Evergreen campaigns so they're really going to be running year long um with more of a or more of a push during that enrollment in employment season but they will be running all the time and then moving on another area of focus is partnership so we have already launched our business partner breakfast this school year and it was a tremendous success so we had over 90 people in attendance as you can see by this photo it was a packed room we had principals and District leadership at each table just really engaged and talking with our business and Community Partners
182so we are excited that it will be happening again next week and we are already at capacity and with a wait list and the breakfast the breakfast is not the only thing we are doing so we are also to engage our Partnerships um so we are also doing sponsorship brochures for student and employee events like Chinese New Year teacher of the year retirement reception and Arts Festival we will also be doing quarterly emails which will be sent to our community and business partners about upcoming events and just ways they can engage with our community so they're not just hearing from us twice a year or just when we need sponsors um and then we'll also be engaging with new businesses um in building a relationship with the Gilbert and Queen Creek Queen Creek chamber and
183sharing positive stories with this network and then branding our goal is to align branding district-wide to ensure all schools marketing reflects husd in our updated Mission Vision and core values so to do this we will be updating our website to be more user friendly and accessible and as we redesign our website and look more closely into those analytics with our advertisements um we will be also looking closely into our conversion rate and other website metrics so we have currently started to track the top of that funnel with those advertisements but as we redesigned our website incorporate and incorporate some of those website tracking mechanisms we'll begin to analyze the conversion rate as well as other website metrics and then we will be providing employees with a brand toolkit with various marketing materials like PowerPoint slides
184and Logo designs so we can make sure we're staying consistent and with that we'll also be doing Style Guidelines so we are currently updating those so anyone who has access to edit our website or just sending out communication is making sure we're staying on brand so this isn't just our visual identity but also making sure our brand voice is aligned as our marketing strategy really builds Upon Our brand identity and then lastly we will be revamping marketing materials we've already designed business cards and we're working on updated brochures and pop-up banners for all the schools and so our new website is currently underway and so we have an expected completion date of April so around spring break time this is it'll be site by site so you should start to see our new design sometime
185around spring break with all the sites done sometime in April which is exciting and with the news or the new website it will be a video on our home screen so as people come to our our home page they will see a video there and our last Focus area is streamlining communication so we will be streamlining the communication process by providing guidelines and templates for crisis situations I will add this is something that we already do we just want to make sure the process is perfect um because when the crisis situation occurs we need to make sure we are responding accurately and as soon as possible because families do need that communication and then we will be updating our communication rubric when to contact to and how to contact again we already have this we're
186just providing the process of making sure it's perfect and then we'll also be providing training on sending out communication when I was on maternity leave we already started to do this and we will just continue to make sure that everyone who needs to be trained is and with that does anyone have any questions just a quick question um how can non-current families receive information how can they opt in to receive emails on what's going on the Higley digital how if they're not currently in school how do they do that yeah so there is a way on our website um and it's under one of the short links for them to to register for communication they can do it by school or they can do it as the district-wide communication so there is an option there
187it will be just for the community messaging foreign this looks great very fresh it feels energized thank you to everybody involved in this I remember one of my first uh emails I think received was a Community member making a comment about the pictures online why aren't they more of our real like our our students and and it looks like we've we've met that request and Beyond um I don't want Higley to be like a school district because we're unique but one thing that the district I work in does very really well is it is constantly sharing what's going on and it's it's us like when I run a lab I get I take the pictures I take the video I send it to our admin they they approve it and then they'll it's on Instagram
188it's you know of course they have their their legalities of which students and faces could be on there but it's great as a teacher to represent these kids and the kids go out there and the parents like it and they share it and it just spreads like wildfire and beyond that is I appreciate as a teacher to see what's going on in the other classrooms and what's going on I don't leave I don't get to go I don't go outside much so she's working at six Fifth and being a department chair like theirs and it's dark when I come in and almost dark when I leave but I I know there's a lot going on and it's exciting to see that and like them and share and you know and talk to the kids about
189it man you did that I'm not saying we have to do that but I think that is something that works really really well in the district that I work in but I I this is beautiful I love seeing the faces that we are here today for you know shining and being shared and representing that's what I appreciate thank you president Schultz vice president Anderson so yeah that is something we are trying to do more of so we are working with our principals and sending out communication to them that we want more stories so we are going to be sharing more stories so hopefully you'll start to see more of that on social and in status Mrs Anderson you do already share things but I agree that the Personal Touch the teacher aspect the details you
190know or what parents want to see and what helps be shared rather than the overall yes um okay one thing I'm sorry okay um the pop-up banners that you mentioned are those to use at events or where will you use the pop-up banners yeah presidential so they will be used um for the school's marketing efforts so they when they're at job fairs or just anything enrollment based too so um just wherever they are um for any marketing needs so even if they're just if power ranch is having an event they can have it up and welcoming parents in so just all marketing needs um the video the one minute video was very pretty and very nice is their um attention pans are very short um about 12 seconds and so are we are there plans
191to create other videos that are about 15 seconds long and I'm very proud of higley's programs well Mandarin but also Spanish and gifted and all of the different act things that we offer as a district to be able to share that with the community as well in a short video president Schultz yes so Curtis is doing a lot of different videos right now so he is working on just the All-Star doing a video for every school as well as just shortened videos um for advertisements awesome I can't wait to see him thank you oh one thing before I just have one last thing uh I know I asked Christine do you have any feedback yet I know it's early um I saw a mailer that was created and it was really pretty and they have
192a QR code on it and so I wanted to see if there was any data on that yet so I contacted a presidentials I contacted um a Valpak today so there is not any results yet because the mailers just finished this week but they will have us results or the analytics by next Thursday so I'll include that in status perfect thank you very much this is Van hook thank you Okay so I'm not trying to be negative really but um I do have one concern um in Anchor one um strategic anchor one um the part about the portrait of a graduate and again this social emotional aspect is just being embedded in every aspect of our schools of our lives and um and I don't know if um I mean I'd like to know where
193this the whole portrait of a graduate came from um I know it's you know it's Again part of this whole child whole school group think um you know teaching kids to think as as a group and instead of how to you know how to think and teaching them what to think and not being able to think individually and out of the box um so I'm curious to know where where this idea of portrait of The Graduate was brought into Higley and I it's okay if um you can't answer that but I'm hoping that I can I can get the answer to that at some point um would you like to answer where the portrait of graduate came we were extensive in the board yeah go ahead absolutely um and I I grappled with that a
194little bit just because it was in the slideshow that if it was okay but we'll move on and then um thank you discuss that later um and and just how you know it was initiated but um we can discuss that later um with um this moving the district away from State Standards because um uh it's moving the district away from state standards and towards more social competencies um superintendent Tom Horn superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horn is trying to rid our schools of social emotional learning and still we can't talk about that right now because we're talking about the marketing plan and so it's not part of the it but it is related because it's the portrait of a graduate is not to State Standards but we're not talking about the portrait of a graduate
195right now we're talking about the marketing plan if we want to talk about the so how do how do I address that that's part of our strategic anchor one [Music] so while the Strategic part of our well the Strategic plan is here we're talking about Community Communications and community relations we're not talking about anything that has to do with social emotional Teresa is not working on social and emotional at all right now she's working on a marketing plan to Market our schools and that's what's on the agenda right now to talk about okay so we're yes you can okay right I will do that thank you okay thank you are there other questions for the marketing plan currently I am very excited to see this as you know that I love marketing and so I'm
196excited it's my background sorry I don't just love it this is Wade sorry um but I'm very excited to to see this and I love the videos and I look for more and to be able to get more kids involved and and staff involved at the district thank you very much thank you all right moving on to ml of a 6.4 F fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts this is Johnson yes president Schultz and board members I present today some of the changes that have been made to the certified employees contract that was the contract that we really wanted to outline all of the pay elements um in the past it was put into one big paragraph basically and so we felt it was in the best interest for the employee to understand exactly what
197they would be paid for based on the their base pay of course and then the classroom site funds base and the classroom site funds retention stipend and as well as the pay for performance and I think in the next section under the action plans we'll be talking even more about the contracts but we wanted to point out what had really changed this was the biggest change probably in any of the contracts is really separating out the pay elements as we do when we present an offer to an employee I also need to say as we get to the contracts there were some dates no language but dates that had not been changed for the next fiscal year and so we will need to make an adjustment to those as well any questions at this point
198I'm sorry any questions at this point Thank You does anyone have any questions thank you very much moving on to 6.5 amendment to policy gdl support staff workload presidentials and members of the board I will speak to that change as I'm reviewing the policy for our employees under Personnel I noticed that this was a very interesting one that the week started on Thursday and ended on Wednesday we believe that happened in the past based on our text being printed outside of the district and that's how the work week had to look we now print our paychecks within the district and so that change is necessary because that really is our work week we start at 1201 a.m on Monday and we end on Sunday seems reasonable thank you any questions comments or concerns all right
199um thank you very much moving on to 6.6 amendment to policy jlcb immunization immunization of students I talk so loud you could probably hear me anyway so I didn't even notice um the immunizations of students so what you see in the blue is part of the new legislation and from the state and following those laws that come into the ARs codes so we have the board follows Arizona law as it applies to immunizations of students and then under that we have the following immunizations are not required for School attendance this is what's being added and you have the human papillom my virus that's known as HPV and the covid-19 or any variant of covid-19 and under that it says a school district or Charter School is a government entity that requires a person under 18
200years of age to receive a vaccination for covid-19 which the state will not but they're stating that so you know any variant of kova 19 must obtain the consent of the person's parent or Guardian and to add just below that the board authorizes the superintendent to create procedures for verifying immunizations records of students when we're enrolling them in school which is we already have in place do you have any questions um I wanted I mentioned to Dr Foley that I wanted to um ask for an amendment to be added to the policy according to um a statute um because I do notice that in the policy um I think just on that there's just one area where it says unless student is Exempted um but the policy um we have a statute 15-873 um that
201allows children to utilize exemptions and I think that that should be mentioned through the the procedures to say um you know verifying immunizations or exemptions or exemption records of students and any anywhere where it says immunization records it should also state or exemptions because that is in State Statute as well um and I'm sorry but I didn't see it oh it is it is listed at the bottom um but it would be nice to be able to see that verbiage um throughout the document as well president Schultz board member Van Hook what we can do is bring the process that we have done and that's why you see as an information item and you see is an action item is is that our committee reviews those you'll notice at the top of this one it
202has a copyright that means that asba and and their resources have looked at the policy they've looked at the most updated laws and they made the recommendation to us we and our policy committee looked at that and chose to keep it as it was and bring it to you whenever we choose to make a variation what we do is we would take the feedback you'd have if the rest of the board wanted us to consider doing that we would bring it back to the policy committee we would look at it if we then decided to add it or change it we would have an attorney review it one time just to make sure again that that we weren't adding or customizing this in a way that would rare about you know not be legal being
203that you're referencing a law that's already listed on there it would just mean that we would remove the copyright so if that would be what the direction the board would want us to do we would we would pull it from uh action tonight and bring it back and another meeting as another policy review if if that is something you'd all like us to consider thank you sorry so we do that during that any other questions or concerns all right perfect thank you thank you thank you for sticking around so long okay moving on to action items 7.1 the approval of the fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts I make a motion to approve the fiscal year 2023 2024 employee contracts excuse me second yep you're perfect in favor aye aye all right five to one
204and 7.2 approved policy jdl support staff workload I make a motion to approve policy jdl support staff workload I apologize seconded all those in favor hi hi all right um 7.2 passes and then 7.3 I make a motion to approve policy jlcb immunizations of students second questions comments concerns at this time is when you would make a motion to oh sorry so so Mrs Schultz if you would like to move forward what you can do is make your motion um to not waive the second reading and that the administration take a review at it because the the motion is usually we have two readings unless they're pretty standard this motion is to waive the second reading so we can choose not to wave or not to we're not going to waive the second reading we
205want it reviewed again and brought back to us so yeah so I can make a motion to not waive the second reading I make a motion to not waive the second reading and have the staff bring it back to us a second all those in paper I okay so what's happening is that we're not voting on this right now we're asking that the staff looks at this again because we usually have second reviews of items and this is a policy that was pretty straightforward so were great not necessarily unhappy I just think that there's should be verbiage added that's part of that's part of law um that's in-state statute yes so just it's just the word exemption in addition to it I'm going to say no too so um but and Christina I couldn't hear
206you not to wave it right I mean not to not wave it okay let me understand I'm saying Amanda is your is your motion to waive the second read and move forward with it as it's presented yes okay but that's okay hold on that don't mind us we'll just have a little conversation here okay so I made a motion to not wave the second wreath so and to send it back and to send it back yes and then there was a vote right and I'm voting nay yes okay I think the confusion was on the vote there um and then Michelle voted yay okay and Christina yay okay so three to two bring that back so we're not voting on it oops I'm sorry so three to two we're asking for you to bring the
207administration to review it um Simply Having the conversation of the concern take it back to asba it is a copyrighted is there an issue is there a legal issue if it's statute if there's a legal issue the way it's written and if they choose to come back and say there's no legal issue the way it's written and district is comfortable with that they'll bring it back as is if they're still even if they say there's no legal issue we reach with our attorneys and they say it's fine as is and that's what they want to bring back that's what they can bring back and the board can vote if our Attorneys at that point say you know what it's perfectly fine to throw that exemption in there we take the copyright off we throw the
208word exemption wherever it is in there already in an area um that then they'll bring back an amended copy so either way the next time it comes back that is our second read and we will have to vote on approving or not approving the policy so you'll bring this back to US president yes president Schultz board member Reese that is our process and that's why we use that process so that we can make sure that we're here and then we approve and we also get that second vetting um and we'll bring back our thoughts questions or concerns should we have any in that process but it allows us to hear your thoughts and allows us to make those changes if if if if we do and then we bring it back for you to vote
209again and I'm not necessarily concerned I mean the word exemption is in there um already and for just for me I'm not concerned if it is or is not because it the word exemption is in our policy here we do say that um but because our process is is we usually allow two reads someone can give feedback they can go back and look and so that's why I'm comfortable to have them take a look at it again because we were just waving the second one seems pretty standard but if someone has a question and would like it looked at then I'm okay with that so I'm okay with the policy The Way It Was Written me personally but someone wants it looked out we can look at it because the second read is typically part
210of our normal process all right thank you um and then uh 8.1 future agenda items anything we have a full calendar ahead and as we get towards the end of the year it will continue to get busier anything that you want to see on a future agenda right I don't so we do have a just referring to Mrs Van Hook we do have a strategic Plan update in March and April um perhaps with knowing maybe if you review those anchors and can get information to Dr Foley on these are you don't have to go into detail of your concern but these are my areas I have questions or concerns in so that way they can be more prepared there's a lot of history behind this so to understand where it all came from and how
211it all came about um is probably more than just a board presentation because that is years in the making um president Schultz board member Reese we'd be happy to probably being that we literally spent oh to I mean probably combined together 50 hours last year uh presenting parts and pieces of this and we did a massive study what we can do is do a uh individual session if you'd like to to learn more about the process the history and very similarly um to kind of our conversation earlier this evening about assumptions on terms and and things without understanding the process and how we went through it and who was involved and what it means to Higley and how we're operationalizing it sometimes we can get very caught up on buzzwords or terms and their intention
212or their meaning without understanding the context so perhaps we could do that because we will be bringing to you additional strategic plan work and updates as part of our goals as you've been seeing the conversations you've had tonight even we're connected to that so for upcoming agenda item as you do have more strategic plan updates but we can also do a study session or individual sessions for individuals who want to learn more about the work and history that went into that so that the whole board doesn't need to repeat it for those who have been involved in multiple hundreds of hours of collective time I think if you can for the purpose of that presentation small summary because I think that's always good for for us but as far as details in specific and like
213Dr Foley said sometimes it's hard because there's certain buzzwords portrait of a graduate means a lot of things you look up a portrait of a graduate it has a whole thing that it means which is not necessarily just those are the words we're using it doesn't mean the same thing for us same with restorative justice we had that conversation restorative justice is a specific program but it means something different when we were talking about it in context so I think if you have the opportunity to meet to get all of that I think would be really good um also so your certain areas could be addressed it doesn't mean it can't be addressed in the update as well but there's a lot of information there from the whole strategic plan and I think if you
214just give a summary um what our old strategic plan was when you guys started working on it who was involved and how this one evolved a little bit I think would be fine for the presentation piece but I would highly recommend to find some time because there's a lot of work in there and I'm blinking there we go um and and I'd like to be able to do that and and be able to learn for myself but also for the public who would like to learn more about that whole aspect that um has done their homework and thinks it's something else and I would recommend them to go back and look at our board meetings because this went over a board meeting over board meeting over board meeting I mean this was all done publicly
215in the last two years okay so I I hear it two years well it is I mean and so I understand maybe people weren't as involved or paying attention back then but it's not that it was done behind closed doors it was done very publicly all of it lots of presentations on each of the anchors and who who was responsible and how they were going to do that many community members from the preschool kids all the way up so everybody was involved in this and we've discussed it for two years so if we are going to talk about it again I'd like for it to be very short that's what I'm saying a brief summary yes on that piece but if anyone wants more information I mean I I would say go back and look
216at our board meetings for the last two years because it's there so okay uh 9.1 board initiatives nobody all right I move that we enter in this meeting a second all those in favor meeting adjourned