001foreign good evening you all got quiet right on time thank you Dr Foley roll call please president Kaylor members of the board please let the record show that all members are present thank you so much we're going to have a moment of silence followed by the Pledge of Allegiance all right 2.1 I move that we approve the agenda second any questions comments or concerns all those in favor aye aye aye motion carries five zero Dr Foley superintendent's report please president Kaylor members of the board tonight we start with one of our very favorite things which is our points of Pride and tonight we have two schools here with us and we're going to start with Centennial this evening so we're going to have Mrs Bradley and Mr Virgo come on over so that we can
002celebrate centennials points of pride thank you okay well good evening can you guys hear me okay um it's it's always great to be here for tonight and we're super excited for I guess really everyone but we'd love to just highlight uh four amazing people that make Centennial just a awesome place to to be so first like to start off with our certified staff Mrs Marin Cole [Applause] this year Mrs Marin Cole has graciously demonstrated an unwavering commitment to our to the success of our students and the rebuilding of our school culture she leads by example with a positive outlook towards everything and anything no matter what it is thrown at her whether it be toxic amphibians venomous desert dwellers or dis disrespectful Intruders she remains calm positive and hopeful in a classroom Mrs Cole has
003truly invested in her students success both academically and personally she recognizes students needs and interest and develops lessons and instructions that are both meaningful and engaging outside of the classroom Mrs Cole is an extremely supportive and Cooperative colleague and professional she's constantly and consistently there for her team whether it's an open ear to listen share a funny joke or story or just there for constructive feedback and ideas she's very well respected we are extremely great thankful to have her thank you so much [Applause] me too okay thanks man [Applause] okay and for our next um points of Pride recipient uh Mrs uh Estella Flores foreign just turn around because this is like every day like it could be the craziest day and she's just like smiling she's like Mr V I'm just happy to be
004here I'm like well that makes one of us so I joke I joke um but we are extremely grateful um for you thank you so much um we cannot thank her enough for her hard work attention to detail care for our campus and most importantly who just her positive attitude she has a natural ability to connect with staff students colleagues she greets everyone she sees with a genuine smile and hello and shows true pride and joy and all that she does she's a pleasure to work with and she has quickly gained the trust of all of our staff just for the day-to-day responsibilities she's such a hard worker and it has an attention to detail and has made it a significant and immediate impact on the overall cleanliness and safety of our campus as many
005of you from Centennial know last year was tough and now it's just a beautiful place to be back at because of all of your hard work you have your Trend tremendously supported by our plant foreman and he allows you to take care of the things that you need to with that trust I would also like to thank you for your leadership and your cooperation in the cafeteria and rebuilding that staff just the the relationships and the attention that she provides in there to our students it's just a fun release for them to come and just kind of enjoy their their lunch and just have that time for themselves and a lot of that is attributed to you thank you so much [Applause] thank you hello family you're good [Applause] all right so we're gonna go
006on to our parent volunteer Miss Daniela Milne you can come on up [Applause] this lady right here is such a lifesaver and all the way she also subs for us and we just we're so appreciative of you I just hope you know that um Miss Milton has been an amazing volunteer for two years now she's always willing to help out whenever and wherever um we need and asks what she can do to help the students and any teachers Miss Milton is very engaging with the students and cares deeply about how they think and how they learn when she comes in she brings in realia to share with the students for example when she was working on a writing lesson it was about sharks so the next day she brought in shark teeth to share with
007the kids that she had found and collected students love to share stories with her she gives her whole self to anyone that is talking to her and is genuinely invested in each student's learning and exploration of new ideas and Concepts she always goes above and beyond what is asked of her and truly makes an amazing experience for our students she is very positive and a loving person and makes students and teachers feel important and valued so thank you very much would you like to share with you today yep so we've got the the little ones here if you want to say like who you brought oh I brought my three kids uh Oliver is my oldest in sixth grade Isla is my middle in fifth grade and Everett is my youngest in second grade yes
008okay thank you [Applause] all right we're just getting close [Applause] and of course we are saving the best for last Miss Rose cope come on up [Applause] we've had the awesome experience of having Rose since the very beginning in kindergarten and we're very proud of the young lady that she's evolved into and grown but she's always maintained that sweet gentle spirit and just a fun-loving attitude towards school so I see the look maybe not at home but at school that's how she is so we're going to read what one of your teachers wrote about you okay so Mrs Cole says Rose cope is one of the hardest working and kindest students I have ever had the pleasure of teaching Concepts do not always come easily to her but she throws herself into every task with
009her whole heart she asks questions until she understands what to do and always goes the extra degree at every opportunity Rose constantly looks out for others every single day she makes sure people know what they need to do or how to get where they need to be but more importantly that they're feeling good about themselves and that they always have a friend in Rose I cannot think of a better example of a student who exemplifies what acting 212 is about we also are going to go on to say a few more things about you we are extremely proud of all the hard work and dedication Rose has demonstrated over the time she has been here at Centennial we know that she will continue to do amazing things well beyond our school walls and look forward
010to the many more accomplishments she will achieve and we hope that you come back and visit us even when you move on to sasman next year okay okay we're going to get to talk about who you brought so rose has a huge family and we've had the pleasure of having them at our school as well but she's going to introduce because we have some other people here as well so you want to introduce who you brought um I bring Stevie my dad Curtis um my oldest brother Hank my second oldest brother Sam and my grandma grandma Darcy and my Uncle Jack and then I know a few people here miss Lowry Miss Cole Miss and Miss Smith and Miss Holloway yes awesome so this is yours all right so we're gonna do a picture [Applause]
011be one amazing young lady and we're so proud of how to play congratulations foreign [Applause] we're so proud of our Centennial points of Pride I now am excited to invite Mr Mercado and Mrs Lindsay Reeves up here so that we can celebrate our San Tan points of pride I was told I couldn't dance we have to say all right we are excited for this opportunity thank you so much thank you president Kaylor board members Dr Foley cabinet all the Santan peeps thank you for coming out and everybody else thank you I asked for more time and they said no stay to the script so stay into the script but I'm gonna change this order so that's my little we are going to start with our student Jackson windley come up Jackson yes Jackson has shown
012a lot of interest in learning every year he has been an excellent student all these years in DLI not in only academically but his behaviors have always been positive being a true example of the eight habits while he is in class and outside of the class as well he likes to help his classmates and he has great leadership skills he is also the co-chair of what are you the co-chair of group that leader rasgow in Espanol wow pretty impressive he recently spoke on our morning announcements in Spanish about Hispanic Heritage Month Jackson is amazing leader of the eight habits in Spanish and English awesome job sir [Applause] foreign who did you bring with you my mom Amy and my dad Blair awesomeness right here awesomeness foreign [Applause] our next awesome employee is Miss Don Litwin
013[Music] [Applause] [Music] I could just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and so can Don so I'm gonna stay to the script Ms Litwin is a dedicated supportive educator on our campus if a student or colleague is in need the answer is always yes what can I do she is constantly challenging her students on a daily basis to be critical thinkers and lifelong Learners if students need extra assistance before or after school she's always willing to support them Dawn they need to sign in when are they coming Don oh I just tell them to come whenever they want they need help that's Don's attitude and so I absolutely love that we will do what we need to do to support Kids all the Time attitude when San Tan was asked to host
014the robotics program several years ago she volunteered and said I have no clue what I am doing but to this day we have a thriving robotics uh program at San Tan because of your dedication your support and your love for kids and so thank you for all you do in that program see I got a script uh Mrs lindwin is a true player team player on campus Mrs butal said she spent her lunch period entertaining the fourth graders with the Giant game of Charades during a heat advisory day with no lunch recess the kids were engaged entertained and mostly not out of control what a team player awesome job thank you for everything you do at San Tan [Applause] who'd you bring ouch my husband Rob my son Zachary and a lot of great parents
015and my staff members that I love working with I appreciate you all principal and some students and some students look at that [Applause] Karen our next awesome individual is Miss Karen Smith our building manager for classified staff [Applause] [Music] Karen is another one of those individuals that comes to work and just gets the job done no if ends or buts about it let's get it done um our campus I believe is a really clean and tidy campus and I can tell you it's because of me no it's Karen she gets there every morning and she makes sure that campus is clean and it's safe for all of our students and staff and she takes great pride in everything that she does in her job Karen is just amazing she does everything Karen keeps the school
016running and teachers happy with meeting our needs quickly and efficiently she keeps the air conditioner running and always makes sure I have working desk chairs and tables Karen also makes sure school events run smoothly and volunteers have what they need to have a successful school activity that's from Donald did you guys [Laughter] um let's see here Karen is always available to help all staff members she takes care of all the building maintenance from repairs to assembly and moving furniture cleaning supervising painting Etc Karen also covers crossing guard duties when assigned which is a lot and does it with a smile Karen is a valuable and multi-talented employee at SanTan and that's from Miss Ryan Karen wears so many different hats and gives her all to Santan as well as the campus from covering crossing guard
017to helping in the lunchroom moving furniture cleaning various cold calls moving all the furniture in and out around campus picking up slack from the custodial duties to full on being our amazing building manager plan Foreman for person and all things in between Karen like all has good and bad but she does her very best to get everything done on a daily basis Karen takes great pride and joy in what she does to make Santan the best around thank you Karen [Applause] and who did you bring um I made my son Austin come tonight he's in the back and then everybody from santand here and a couple of friends so yeah thank you Karen foreign I will tell you we are absolutely thankful and blessed for all of the parent volunteers on our campus um each
018year that first day meet the teacher I have parents when can we start when can we start volunteering and so um we give a timeline of when we start our our volunteers but I will tell you we have some committed individuals in our community that support our teachers every single day if they ask and so really appreciate our volunteers at San Tan today we are recognizing Alicia Simmons please come up foreign [Applause] Alicia has been an amazing help to myself and Miss o'heather over the last quarter as a new teacher my to-do list is quite long she reached out asking if she could come in once a week and make copies for us she Faithfully shows up each Thursday and stays for about an hour to make our copies for the upcoming week she is
019flexible and has been very dependable she has lightened our loads and I'm so thankful for her and that's from Mrs Clough and then Alicia is a huge supporter of our PTO she offers the help with setup and cleanup for staff luncheons she has helped up prep Gore for events set up for Carnival and assists at events when she can she always she's always someone I can count on when we need an extra hand and that's from our PTO president Jin zour I just want to say thank you for all the support that you give our teachers our school it makes a tremendous difference whether it's 30 minutes an hour two hours whatever it is anything that you can take off their plate is truly appreciated so thank you so much [Applause] the million places all
020my people are living their life they are running around crazy but I do have money tell your family this didn't get out until like eight or nine o'clock so go thank you congratulations congratulations thank you very much thank you to our San Tan points of Pride we enjoyed celebrating you this evening foreign president Kaylor members of the board I'll continue with the superintendent's report we have just some upcoming events as you know this is just a glimpse of the many things that we have coming up this month in fact this evening we have multiple things happening around this District including the Electrify your strings event over at the Performing Arts Center but we have some upcoming meetings we have school visits we have our Higley achievement foundations fundraiser for student scholarships coming up so the
021month of November even with lots of other holiday and family events happening it has lots of things happening in Higley and that concludes this evening's superintendent's report thank you very much Dr Foley and we have nobody for request to speak we're moving on to consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.13 I move that we approve as presented second any questions or comments I know um can you open up gifts please Curtis thank you I always like to recognize goes a lot to be fundraising um it takes a lot to fundraise and so uh hats off to power ranch who said use the money where it's needed at most I love that eighteen thousand dollars and the Higley High School boosters I know they have a big Retreat coming up and they raised um 13 and then
022we have Amazon was that Amazon that gave us money for our Fine Arts Festival for a thousand dollars so thanks Amazon although I think we all support them enough that you know at least my house does so thank you to those all those in favor I need a microphone motion carries five zero we'll get this right Curtis for you yeah okay so next up we are going to go into some action of some presentations tonight in our first one is 6.1 special procurement audits yeah uh good evening president Kaylor members of the board um just before I let Mr Dennis masskey present the results of our procurement audit I wanted to remind the board why we are doing this and why this came about so um back in July 22 or 22nd 2021 the Arizona
023auditor general um office presented evidence to the state grand jury which led to the indictment of four individuals for Combined 27 felony counts related to procurement fraud fraudulent schemes and practices fraudulent schemes and artists um misuse of public bunnies conflict of interest filing a false return in conspiracy um the district you know received that report and um immediately wanted to clear its name as none of those individuals listed in that report were currently working for the district so we then approached our attorneys and brought to the governing board on December 8th a consent judgment where the district was agreeing to terms um one of them being a procurement audit in addition to um two annual trainings with from an attorney with our general administrator group regarding procurement practices um to kind of recluse um in
024itself from this report and uh kind of close the uh report in Higley unified for any future um consequences whether it be fiscally or um personal so with that I'll turn it over to um Mr Dennis mashke with cwdl who conducted the special procurement audit this is separate from our annual audit which is still being completed and this took a look back uh the last three years but without further Ado I'll let Dennis present that thank you good evening president kaler members of the governing board um so like Tyler was saying we're going to go through the the results of the procurement audit that we did and so the purpose of the audit was because there was some violations and the consented judgment with the attorney general so that's where we came in and the
025scope of the audit is is pretty um inclusive to all the procurement that happens with the district um it's all procurement of major construction projects over a million dollars all we looked at all of your sole source vendors we looked at all emergency procurements which there wasn't any in the year we audited all Cooperative purchasing over a hundred thousand all procurement over a hundred thousand and then that needed to be issued and was issued with the attorney general by um the end of October and so uh all the pro construction procurement projects there was two vendors identified with sole source there was 10 vendors identified Cooperative purchases there was 23 contracts we tested and we also tested three procurements over a hundred thousand which basically is is all the procurement that happens at the district
026for fiscal year 22 over a hundred thousand we basically looked at at everything that was done over that threshold um audit results so this is going to be pretty quick because we didn't find much which is really good we had one finding in the area of sole source procurement in which your sole source vendors all need to be approved by the governing board so some of those purchases went through a determination for sole source it just didn't get to the action items for the governing board to approve those so the purchases were being approved but it didn't have that last step of the action of the governing board approving those as sole source vendors everything with the major construction projects everything looked good as well as the Cooperative purchases and any other procurement over a
027hundred thousand dollars and that's that's really it I mean really short but um you know we again we looked at a lot of you know all of your projects basically over a hundred thousand and we just found one minor item so overall for fiscal year 22 a procurement looked really good and uh you know I want to thank the staff and Tyler and his team they did a great job getting us our information and it was a really smooth process thank you so much any questions yes Mrs Greece just wanted to clarify on that sole source that the board did approve the purchase and the price the the cost came through the board it was just that it wasn't flagged as a sole source so that Mr Moore has been made aware of that and
028that's been corrected going forward but it's not that a large purchase went through with outboard approval it was just like you said the the tag of the sole source since it was a specialized item yes it was for our mobile bleachers so um it's right here in front of us so thank you so much for helping us and closing this chapter for us we appreciate your time so much thank you have a good night thank you thank you Mr Moore our next information item I believe is going to be our letter our school letter grades that were just released Dr Foley president Kaylor members of the board this evening our our director our director of assessment is at a conference and he is currently right now I believe online if we have questions but one
029of the things that he did in anticipation of knowing that he'd be with his team at this energy conference was is that he recorded some information when we recorded this we knew that legislatively that by November 1st letter grades had to be out but a lot of decisions have been happening pretty quickly in the state which is what what what what what figuring were they going to do in order to determine what is an a what is a b what is a c and what does that mean and so by the time he had recorded this it they had not been released yet they were released very late on Halloween Monday evening um so tonight is going to be some more information about how the grades are calculated we're then going to show the grade
030and then in our next meeting in November he's going to be back and we're going to do a deep dive into each of our schools and understanding one of the things this team has been doing is building a beautiful website that we will be sharing that has links for information that helps people truly understand how these scores and and our grades are calculated because it's really important to understand what and how goes into why we have a certain score so this evening we have just a quick little informational session from um Marcus and then we will answer any questions and hopefully he's online but know that at our next meeting we're going to go a deeper dive into how each of our schools were calculated good evening president kaler and members of the board thank
031you for the opportunity to present tonight my objective in tonight's presentation is to provide you with the details of how the a through F letter grades are calculated at both the K-8 and 912 levels School letter grades are required to be released to the public no later than November 1st and I will return at the next board meeting to review each site's letter grade and component scores as of this recording we have not received the final letter grades from the state our Focus tonight is on our strategic anchor 1 teaching and learning Student Success specifically we are focused on indicator 1.5 supporting a collaborative culture using data and research-based practices I wanted to briefly remind you of the component scoring for both the K8 and 912 models for K8 30 of the score is based
032on student proficiency on aasa 50 is based on student growth from azm2 in 2021 to aasa this past spring 10 is based on El proficiency and growth and 10 percent is based on acceleration Readiness measures there is also the possibility of bonus points with science providing up to three percent and special education enrollment up to two percent additional points for a school for 912 30 of the school's letter grade is proficiency on the ACT 20 will be based on growth from azm2 as 10th graders in 2021 to the ACT this past spring El proficiency and growth will also be 10 the school's graduation rate is 20 and the CCRI is 20 percent I will go into more detail on how each of these are calculated for both K8 and 912 over the course of my
033presentation before I share how the scores are calculated I wanted to share with you that there are a number of acronyms that I may be using throughout the presentation Fay means full Academic Year Ela is English language arts azella is the Arizona State assessment for English learners El means English learner aasa is Arizona's academic standards assessment for grades three through eight for ELA and math msaa is the multi-state alternate assessment for grades 3 through 8 and 11 for ELA and math and grades 5 8 and 11 for science AZ PSI is Arizona's science test for grades 5 8 and 11. a.c.t is our Statewide High School achievement test for cohort 2023 for both Ela and math and then ACT Aspire is a Statewide High School achievement test for cohort 2025 that will be used to
034calculate growth in the ELA and math starting in 2024. they is one of the most important terms that we will be working with per a through F the state determines Faye based on the following criteria one year full Academic Year our students enrolled within the first 10 school days of the school's calendar and continuously enrolled until the first weekday in May which was May 2nd 2022. two-yearfe are students who are fed two consecutive years in a row at the same school three year Fey are students who are Faith three consecutive years in in a row at the same school and a Zella Faye are students enrolled within the first 10 school days of the school's calendar and continuously enrolled until the last day of the azella State Testing window which was March 18 2022. the
035first calculation that I want to share with you tonight is the calculation for proficiency which is 30 of the letter grade for both K8 and 912 a School site can actually earn more than 30 points in this category but they are only allowed to receive up to 30 points student performance is weighted for the proficiency calculation using their performance on both Ela and math on aasa or msaa this means that schools receive points for students that were partially proficient and highly proficient with partially proficient students counting for 0.6 points proficient at one point and highly proficient students at 1.3 points due to the higher weight for highly proficient students schools can earn more than the 30 points possible for this category but remember that they are capped at 30. proficiency is calculated in two different
036ways with the school receiving the better of the two scores one method looks at proficiency of All Phase students using the formula you see on the slide the other method Waits students proficiency on both achievement level but also how many years the student has been fed with adjustments for sites that may only have a maximum of two years of pay such as our middle schools for my past experience there is generally very little difference between the two scores usually less than a point growth is worth fifty percent at the K-8 level and twenty percent at the 912 level both models use a student growth percentile calculation to determine the growth score I'll provide more of an explanation of how student growth percentiles are determined on the next slide but essentially we are looking at a
037student's growth on the current Year's assessment compared to other students with the exact same prior year test score for this year the model will use the difference in scale score between azm2 and aasa or act and only look at full Academic Year students once students have a percentile assigned to them then they are classified into three levels ranging from low to high the growth score for the school is then calculated using a weighted measure that looks at their prior year achievement minimally proficient partially proficient proficient or highly proficient and their student growth percentile category since high growth for a prior year minimally proficient student has a weight of two and similar are for partially proficient and proficient there is a chance that a school could earn more than the weight of the category so the
038score is capped at 50 for K8 and 20 for 912. I'd like to spend a little time on how student growth percentiles are determined when students take a state assessment in addition to getting a performance level such as partially proficient or proficient they also have a scale score assigned to them which is a way for researchers to compare different tests student growth percentiles compare students that begin with the same scale score then ranks their Improvement on the next year's test in relation to each other here we have two students Jane and John that both took the azm II ELA test in third grade and the aasa ELA test in fourth grade they both earned a scale score 434 on aasa this past spring however Jane earned a 301 scale score and John earned a 364
039scale score on azm2 in 2021. as a result Jane and John are compared to a different group of students to determine their student growth percentile Jane as compared to all students in Arizona that scored a 301 in 2021 looking at the chart her score of 434 in 2022 places her near the top of all students who started with the 301 so as a result she earned an SGP of 90. in contrast John is compared to all students in Arizona that scored a 364 in 2021. his score 434 compared to the other students that started with the 364 places him near the bottom of the range and as a result he earned an SGP of 20. because student growth percentiles compare like students across Arizona from the administration of azm2 in 2021 to the administration of
040aasa in 2022 it is important for us to review the context between those two years in Arizona during the 2020-2021 school year there is a wide range of learning modalities that students engaged in throughout the state some were in person but many were remote for most if not all of the Year higley's students however were in person for most of the year there's a great deal of evidence that shows that in person turning even disrupted was more effective than remote in the 2021-2022 school year though students across the state were far more likely to be in person for the whole year therefore there is a good chance that those students that were remote in 2020 2021 and back in person in 2021 2022 may have shown more scale score growth than our students that were
041in person both years the unfortunate reality of using student growth percentiles is that even if our students are growing that growth is compared to others in the state so even a lot of growth can result in a low growth percentile if everyone else grows even more El proficiency and growth is worth 10 percent proficiency which is worth five percent requires that a school have at least 10 azella phase students while growth which is worth five percent requires that at least 10 a Zella based students also have a second test record some of our sites will not have the required 10 of zelipe students in those situations their overall a through F score will be out of 90 points rather than the full 100 points for or the five percent proficiency measure each school's reclassification percentage
042is compared to the current year State's percentage schools then earn one two three four or five points based on how high above the mean they are for the five percent growth measure each student's growth on a Zella reassessment from the previous year is weighted and then compared to the state's growth percentage again schools earn one two three four or five points based on how high above the mean they are the K-8 model spinal ten percent is made up of acceleration Readiness measures this category is capped at 10 points even though there are far more than 10 points available each component requires a minimum of 10 phase students except for chronic absenteeism the different categories are grade 8 math performance grade 3 Ela minimally proficient chronic absenteeism subgroup Improvement and special education inclusion our middle schools
043have the opportunity to earn 5 out of the 10 possible points through their 8th grade math performance by increasing their percentages students that are highly proficient and decreasing the percentage of students that are minimally proficient on the 8th grade math assessment they can earn two and a half points for each additionally those points can also be earned if we have more than 60 percent of our students highly proficient and fewer than 10 percent minimally proficient our elementary schools have the opportunity to earn five out of 10 points by decreasing the percentage of students minimally proficient in ela and third grade alternatively if a school has fewer than 12 percent of their students minimally proficient they can also earn the Five Points chronic absenteeism is worth two points this includes all students in grades one through
044eight except for those students that are flagged as chronically ill in order to be considered chronically absent a student has to have greater than 10 absences whether excused or unexcused school can earn points in this component by either decreasing their prior years chronic absenteeism or having a current year rate of four percent or less schools can earn up to six points out of ten by improving the proficiency of their subgroups in both Ela and math from the previous year each subgroup that has at least 10 Bay students is evaluated using the same weighted proficiency calculation as the overall proficiency score and compared to the prior Year's subgroup Proficiency in both Ela and math all of our sites have multiple subgroups and as a result have multiple opportunities to earn the six points schools can also
045earn 2 out of the ten points by placing a greater than the state average of bay special education students in the general education classroom for 80 percent or more of their day graduation rate for 9 through 12 schools counts for 20 of their score this is determined by looking at their 4 5 6 and 7-year cohort rates and receiving a weighted rate up to 10 points for each cohort with the four-year cohort receiving the greatest weight the other 10 percent is determined by looking at graduation rate Improvement or maintaining a high rate schools can get 10 points for having a four-year graduation rate greater than or equal to 90 percent or improving their rate by more than two points if their four-year graduation rate is between two below or two above their prior year then
046they will earn Five Points the final component of the 912 scores is the College and Career ready which is 20 percent of their score this is compiled and reported by the assessment and student information team with input from the sites and the assistant director CTE schools can earn up to 23 points for this component based on accumulation of individual student Points each student receives indicator points based on the College and Career ready rubric one indicator Point gives a student 10 CCR points two indicator points generates 20 CCR points for the student and having one point on the college side and one point on the career side of the rubric will generate 22 CCR points per student the CCR point points for students are then totaled and divided by the total number of students in the
047cohort to determine a school's total points schools can earn a variety of bonus points they can earn one one and a half or two points for enrolling special education students based on a percentage of the state average of enrollment they can also earn one and a half or three points for their performance on the AZ side test as long as they administered it to more than 95 percent of their eligible phase students then finally 9 through 12 schools can also earn one and a half or three points for their participation on ACT Aspire the State Board of Education set the cut scores for this year's letter grades on October 17th the K-8 cut scores are the same ones that were originally established in 2016 and have been consistent since that time due to the addition
048of act for 912 rather than a state assessment the 912 cut scores are new and based on a standard deviation model as I shared at the beginning letter grades are required to be released no later than November 1st as of this recording they had not been released I will be meeting with site leadership over the next two weeks to review their letter grades and begin discussing areas of improvement and celebrations additionally I will be sharing the letter grades with you at the next board meeting and how each of our sites scored in each component I apologize for not being present today but if you have any questions please share those with Dr Foley and I will follow up with you as soon as possible thank you for your time tonight president Kayla members of the
049board were going to pull up real quickly just so that we can acknowledge the letter grains um and then here we go as you can see an Indian will go more into this next week as you can see we have eight a schools and a means excellent or distinguished performance in five b schools which means highly performing demonstrating high performance on Statewide assessment as you heard from the calculation a score isn't just as simple as a score there are many components that go into figuring out letter grades and it's really important for us to look deeply at obviously one of the most important things we do in addition to Safety and Security is the education of our of our students and how we use data across the board including this one this one indicator is
050really important and so understanding that is one of the things that we use in our system and so we're utilizing this information with our leadership and we're also going to come back back next time so that we can share a little bit more with you about what we've learned and what we're working on thank you Dr Foley and I may have a very um different opinion than most but constantly changing the tests and constantly changing the standard does not develop a standard and I think this calculation and the way that they did it the growth and not taking into consideration those schools that were in person for a very long period of Time Versus those that were not um I think this is the most complicated grading system that I've seen in my tenure as
051a board member and it's completely unfair so I stand by what we do here in Higley and we've done it well and I hope and I pray that the teachers out there and our staff members that were given bees do not feel to be defeated tonight we support you and we know that there is great things happening in your schools I know specifically even Gateway has had some tremendous growth and so I have Goosebumps right now as I'm talking because this just infuriates me but anyways that's our state for us and we will just respect their decision even while I may disagree president kaler Dr Foley wasn't aren't we very close on a few of these bees so there is some is there some wiggle or no that the state wouldn't go back and is
052there anything keep go ahead uh President Taylor board member Wilson obviously there's an appeal process we look very carefully we're really lucky to have a very strong team that helps us look at that to determine I will tell you that um president kaler your settlements are shared by many across the state who are looking at this and what it means to them and their system particularly for those schools who were in person uh quite a bit in the previous year and again that the amount of the growth score and its impact on the overall letter grades the other component many people are concerned about is the idea of a chronic chronic absenteeism in the middle of navigating covid when the message was if you are not well stayed home being that again that we utilize
053some of the existing components in this um obviously there's a lot of frustration I I think the important part is for us to go back to understanding how these are calculated and using these for how it's meaningful and keep doing the good things that we are doing every single day and that's what we will focus on but we really truly want people to understand when you see that it's not that something wasn't done well in fact in many cases when you look at when we break down each school and show you the amazing things that are happening in those highly performing b-schools you're going to see growth you're going to see positive momentum you're going to see good things that are happening and and just like all things if there's opportunities we identify what those
054are and how we address them so overall I think we're approaching this very healthy and we want everyone to understand it so thank you thank you Marcus you're welcome have a good night we appreciate you off okay all right moving on 6.3 is just a report are there any questions for our first quarter special education Day School report okay thank you thank you very much Mrs Miller staying under budget too I see I noticed very well done um and then we have our human resource quarterly is I report any questions or concerns okay thank you very much preschool update and we have Mrs Patty Gleason in the house turn it over so excited to be here uh good evening president Keeler members of the governing board um Dr Foley and members of the cabinet I'm
055Patty Gleason director of The Early Childhood Development Centers and this is Stacy Utley my assistant director we are celebrating 10 years of Early Childhood Excellence this year and we are here to give you an update on what we've been doing these 10 years and our proposal as well so I take it this is fine okay all right so if you'll take a look at that picture right there those triplets that you see in that picture we're one of our first graduating classes they are now freshmen in high school they were pretty amazed they were my students yes so it's been an amazing journey and boy have we learned a lot and grown a lot over these 10 years but it all started Once Upon a Time back in July of 2013. two state-of-the-art preschools were
056placed on the campuses of our middle schools and we welcomed 335 students to a lonafly Cooley and we welcomed 345 students to sue sauceman ecdc the little cougars and the Little Spartans were born I don't know why I get so nervous but I am so I'm so sorry okay so we have been an extraordinary program from the very beginning a standout among Valley preschools and our mission States it perfectly if I may read our certified Early Childhood Educators and staff Inspire curiosity build problem-solving skills self-esteem and Foster a love for learning in our young children within a nurturing and play-based environment not only did we have highly qualified teaching staff at both of our centers but we were thoughtful about adding unique programs that also set us apart our dual language programs Mandarin at Coulee
057and Spanish at sasman and our think highly gifted preschool program that is also at sasman it gave families more educational choices for their young children and then our preschool it's all about connection and relationships something I think we really do well but we seek to build them with the children and families that we serve and with our hidley community too conscious discipline is one of those ways we share with our community um we actually have workshops for our families and husd employees every year and this year we had so many people enroll in the class and you can see the picture there we had to move from Coulee to the do in this very board room and it was pretty amazing almost 90 people attended that night it was very exciting another thing that we
058do that I've been very proud of and it's part of the dream that I've had for our centers is that for the last three years we've partnered with hidley high and Williams Field high schools their CTE Early Education or early childhood development programs we have several cohorts of high school students that come to Cooley and they're in our classrooms participating with the teachers Hands-On activities and learning all about Early Childhood right from the beginning there were such great mentors but again we're growing our next generation of Early Childhood Educators it's pretty exciting and then we also partner with Sussman Middle School to welcome teacher assistants into the classrooms and I see that I missed one here we've also been partnering with Arizona's first things first um over the years and both centers are now enrolled
059in the program Sassaman actually has been grandfathered in when we opened in 2013 and our classrooms were all already a part of the program because Cortina classrooms were and so when we observed their teachers we absorbed that as well but this year Cooley was also enrolled in the program foreign so through the years we have served over 8 300 students we've increased our tuition only twice since we opened in 2013. we are well known throughout this community and it's pretty amazing that um a lot of our enrollments come from parent referrals which to me is the highest compliment that they could ever give us and we are currently at 89 capacity at Coulee and 96 capacity at Sossaman so we are growing and it's wonderful it feels great which brings us to the gift of
060the present huh okay hold on one second one second oh there we go all the time I think I have to there it goes I said I'll let it wait time see I got to practice wait time or two okay so our current enrollment is 830 students we have 660 tuition students and 170 special education students between both of our preschools this year we have 34 certified teachers and 56 classified staff between both centers and we have an additional 10 certified staff with our preschool eval team speech otpt and VI services on both campuses our staff salary and benefits are covered by the tuition that we charge and we are continuing to rebuild a contingency fund to ensure sustainability as a standalone program in Higley unified we are currently receiving grant funding from the child
061care stabilization Grant and scholarship and tuition assistance from quality first and Des no it's going the wrong way and it keeps kind of looping thank you oh there it is okay thank you a little house is always nice thank you so it's never too early to start looking towards the future um and looking at the future of our early childhood centers so salary and benefits costs continue to rise yearly and our certified teachers and staff are the reason that our families seek out our program so we want to make sure that we can maintain that over the years in addition to our salary and benefits cost Rising their increased Supply costs and now 30 percent um average increase for substitute teachers that we use for our program as well as we look forward we want
062to be able to maintain our high quality program and continue offering unique experiences for our students because so many of them stay right here in Higley we capture them and then they stay and that's why we're proposing a tuition increase for the 22 or excuse me 23 24 school year and Stacy is going to share those numbers with you I might need that although I'm afraid of it a little bit now okay um I get to tell you what a great value along with all those wonderful things we are what a great value we are in the East Valley as well currently um we are charging for a full day Kinder prep classrooms 710 and we propose to go to 750 as you can see the schools in between which are are on these Valley
063are anywhere in between um in that in that same range um we are currently at about 5.63 cents an hour and we go to 5.95 so it's just a small increase that we think that our families will be able to um manage okay I'm putting it forward [Music] she's going to do it for us very good okay um thank you um our half day classes um our current price monthly tuition is 370 and our proposal is to go to 400 the school districts in the nearby area charge anywhere from 331 well 280 I guess for PM up to 420 dollars so that still puts us in the range and these numbers that we're looking at other than Chandler will probably go up these are this year's numbers and most of the districts are all looking
064at increases as well with everything going up and the last slide very good it worked this shows all of our brilliant Beginnings programs um as you can see the brilliant Beginnings full day and the first four or five days and the beginnings half day for five days that 710 and the 370 that you just saw on the other slides is the same price for the beginnings as you recall brand Beginnings is our threes and early fours Kinder prep is those kids that are going to kinder the following year um so you can see the prices we want were the proposal is from 7 10 to 750 uh 430 to 460 300 to 330. 370 to 400 and so on to and the lowest and um in the research that we've done there are very few
065private private programs much less school programs that have those part part Day part week programs so we're quite a good value in that area as well questions go ahead Mrs uh listen I just want to say how fantastic it is to visit the preschools I've been able to visit Cooley probably more than Sossaman but it is just fabulous to see those little kids and they're just our earliest Learners and you guys just do such a great job and I just want to give you props publicly because I don't think we always get to and I just think you guys are fantastic your team the whole staff is just great I got to see the puppet show I think last year uh and they those kids were so excited for the field trip of the puppet
066show to come into their school and I just I really just enjoy you guys and I'm gonna miss you when I'm no longer sitting in the seat you can always come to the puppet show thank you Mrs Gleason and Mrs Utley um Sossaman and and Cooley both get the best best reviews everywhere out there social media neighborhood chat you name it I've never seen anything negative about our preschools they are just really the top notch in this area and and I know that they um bless many and I love the fact that we do offer so many different options because so many other preschools don't do that so um thank you for that and we appreciate you both so very much and had he never be nervous up here we just love and adore you
067so I but I don't think we have any do you have a question go ahead I was just going to say how many nice things do we have to say to make sure Patty doesn't leave ever he kind of gave me a date so I'm like I don't want to even think about that I mean having the only thing that I can say is that having to I dropped my daughter was in 2013 um at Cooley and then dropping her off at Junior High which felt like a minute later was just the saddest thing at quality and that's the only thing but the program's amazing and and it's very affordable for for parents compared to other programs out there especially what you get with it too yes for the for the certified teachers and on
068the and just everything that we offer these prices are well within the range of today and um I don't think there'll be any issues with that so we appreciate you thank you thank you all right thank you very push and Clicker okay next up we have our Community Education presentation good evening president Kayla and members of the board thank you for your continuous support in all your leadership for our district I am Kimberly Ohanian the Community Education assistant director this presentation is to inform the board and the community members on a short update on our programming and our proposed rate increase to offset raising expenses first I'd like to provide you with a highlight of our current program I so enjoyed sharing Community Education Program with you all at the August governing board meeting and
069I'd like to give you a short update on what we've been up to since then over fall break we held Elementary camp at Coronado and preschool Camp over at Coulee each room had a theme with student decorated doors so there you'll see a picture of our Traditions room which was a student favoring we celebrated Dia de los muertes and had a British Tea Party the top Center left photo is from our thanks in giving room where on this day we made 270 blessing bags so we partnered with Matthew Matthews Crossings and donated these bags with snacks and hygiene products from students and families in need on the right side is from our Pre-K sites during one of our dress-up days in a sun sun a fun science project overall 300 students per day participated in
070Fall camp and we were able to generate 95 000 in Revenue we are looking forward to our Winter Camp which will be hosted at SanTan Elementary in Coulee preschool as we are planning an all-day fun adventure at Fat Cats heading to the movies to see Polar Express and elf in what's a winter without having a fake snowball fight registration is open and we anticipate filling up filling up so to our community register today additionally our Higley Youth Sports League continues to grow in participation for a quarter two we had 520 students which enrolled in sports out of the 10 teams we were able to offer site-based basketball team at six of our schools with actually two of those schools having two teams we added in Lacrosse as a new sport and we have 30 kids
071participating in that you will see more communication for quarter three which will start the week of January 9th so be on the lookout for after Thanksgiving for more information we invite those interested to register now or to reach out to us for some more coaching opportunities so thank you for your support shifting gears we'd like to take this opportunity to share some ideas with regarding kids club fees this recent year we have noticed increases in everyday products we use to keep our program thriving from Gas Pipe prices paper products cleaning supplies professional development courses and even snack prices are rising with the current job market we need to be competitive and we're able to offer our employees kids club is offering unique experiences to our students and we want to maintain that high quality and
072consistency we are experiencing an ongoing demand for our program and we need to ensure sustainability Community Education has a goal to build a contingency fund as we are not part of the state's formula and the district's operating budget increasing fees will support in this effort in maintaining a self-sufficient Department we are RX nearings in ongoing demand for our program and we want to ensure we stay on that demand our current rates include a 50 registration fee for the school year and a 25 registration fee for the summer this does not change in our proposal our suggestion would to be at a 25 registration fee to the other intercession camps that we do offer this will help offset those additional costs our current morning person per our current morning portion of our program is a nine
073dollar flat fee in a 1350 for the afternoon and this includes half days The Proposal rate is for 11.50 for the morning 16.50 for the afternoon and a 20 rate for those early release days the daily rate for camp this year is 40 per day this which changed to 45 and for a 50 for those special event days on average we have about one or two of those special events that happen during camp and this would be either an on-site field trip or an off-site field trip this slide this illustrates our proposed rates in comparison to our neighboring districts well our rates may seem slightly higher in some categories I do know that other districts are proposing increases this year due to the current market conditions but unlike other districts we do not add unreasonable
074additional fees to our families as you can see them noted on the bottom so I want to thank you president Kaylor and members of the board and taking this proposal into consideration if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them thank you very much did the board have any questions Mrs Wilson I actually sent my question before and I thank you guys for getting I asked how much the other places around us were charging because I think that's more important sometimes than what the districts around us charge and I was happy to see our rates were well within what some of the outside before and after school care gives so thank you for sending that thank you for doing that research for me because I found that very helpful you're very welcome yes
075you guys sent us a very detailed report so appreciate your time and energy on that um yeah again the great programs I know there's some families out there that are so excited that the sports are back in our um in our after school Community Ed programs they're excited for quarter three and we said we're going to get it out there we are working on it um but we appreciate you very much and thank you for this great presentation thank you very much President Taylor and members of the board well done all right next up we have some uh policy reviews so president Candler members of the board the policy advisory team as you've been reading and as we've been sharing with you have been very very busy and we've been dividing and conquering and working
076through teams to bring some updates for you because it's not just sometimes the policy but it's also the regulation the exhibits and the supporting resources that we roll out so that we can ensure things are implemented once we adopt the policy so this evening Mr lochenheiser and Mrs Lindsay are going to share with you some of the work that we've done here in our recommendations and um connecting with it because it references the regulation what we are what we are proposing for this policy good evening president Kayla members of the board today we're bringing forward policy JRR student surveys this is a new survey as we did not have a student survey policy in the past so this is a new survey in response to ARS 15-117 which outlined different specific categories that we have
077to have a approval from before we are allowed to survey and so when you take a look at this policy a teacher or other School employee may not administer any survey regarding ARS 15-117a without updating written authorization from the superintendent or designee so our goal when you look at the policy is kind of short and it references the regulation so as Dr Foley brought up earlier normally we do not do it however we feel it's very important tonight that we present the policy and I'll talk about that quickly then Mrs Lindsey will show you the regulation that goes behind it and looking at it we do have a process created that upon approval of this we will roll out to our principals and then our teachers so that they will understand what the process is
078to go through to get a survey approved we worked very closely with our attorneys who's been working with our peer districts and we've compared a lot of different resources together to come up with our policy which is very very similar to our peer districts so once again this is in response to Arizona revised Statute 15-117 a and I think unfortunately those numbers will become part of our everyday talk when we use the word survey from now on so I'm going to turn it over to Mrs Lindsay who will discuss the regulation good evening president Keeler and members of the board the regulation of policy JRR student surveys speaks to the specifics of ARS 15-117 highlights of the regulation and statute include no survey soliciting personal information about a pupil regarding any of the 14 listed
079categories that are listed for you on the regulation shall be conducted without being approved by the superintendent or their designee furthermore a teacher or staff School staff member may not authorize a survey regarding ARS 15-117 without written authorization from this superintendent or their designee the regulation also requires specific steps for parent consent prior to administration of a 15-117 survey including providing specific information and details about the survey the regulation includes a parent complaint procedure and an opt-out provision which requires students receiving receiving an alternate educational activity if they are not participating in the survey as was mentioned we have consulted with legal and drafted an internal process and a set of forms for operationalizing this regulation to ensure that we are in compliance any surveys that align with topics in the categories require District leadership
080approval and in that case we'd also get legal opinion before pursuing following adoption of this policy District leadership will provide training to site Administration on the internal process which would then be rolled out to school staff we're happy to answer any questions any questions from the board I think we all study this very um deeply over the weekend and we're able to um understand it all so I appreciate your further unpackaging it all I don't think the attorneys thought we'd be here talking about surveys but we are so thank you for bringing this to us and again we don't normally have a policy that is an action or that is an information item and then brought to action but because of the time of this being rolled out we did want to bring it back
081quickly so it's going to be an action item here in a few minutes but first we are going to talk about another policy Mr Walker sorry I looked over at you and that I didn't say anything thank you president Kaylor members of the board I'm here tonight to present about the amendments to policy Ki which is visitors to the schools uh it's a policy that we already have in place but there's an amendment that's based on HB 2025 that amends ARS 15-341 section 46 talking about local governance of schools that the governing board shall adopt a policy that requires accessibility to visitors for parents or prospective parents of students in our school district it also requires that to be done in a governing board session along with the availability of the policy on a home
082page of the school site additionally it also includes language that's amended to include the lifting of the Mask requirements as a requirement to tour a visit a school so it's Ki that's already in place with those those changes to it to be in compliance with the new legislative updates any questions or concerns for Mr Walker tonight any clarification needed okay very good thank you Mr Walker thank you and no more policies are coming too this is a constant ongoing committee so Okay so I move 7.1 I move that the governing board approves and waves the second reading of policy and approves policy JRR second all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero and again I move that the governing board this is 7.2 I move that the governing board waived the second reading
083of the policy and then approve policy Ki as presented second all those in favor aye aye Moshe carries 5-0 future agenda items anything else the board would like to see for the future anything we have some other things coming up our Middle School lease and our course guide and we're also going to have our [Music] um it was our suicide risk assessment that was going to be tonight we did move that for two weeks from tonight will be our work study so that is also coming to us in just a couple weeks all right with that I move that we adjourn to Executive session adjourn to Executive session with governing board's attorney pursuant to ARS 38-431.03 A3 second all those in favor uh I motion carries and we will adjourn our regular meeting in our
084executive session so thanks and good night