HUSD Governing Board Meeting April 20, 2022 Live Stream

001good evening i'm going to call this meeting to order dr foley roll call please president kaler members of the board please let the record show that all members are present thank you so much we're going to have the pledge of allegiance followed first a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance okay moving on to 2.1 i move that we approve the agenda second any questions or concerns all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 next up is our superintendent's report dr foley president kaler members of the board we will start this evening with the superintendent's report with our favorite part of our meeting which is our celebrations and we have high schools here tonight we have winter guards here tonight so we're excited i'm going to invite principal alan fields from hingley

002high school we're going to start with higley high school points of pride this evening uh first up i want to invite megan aymond up to join me megan is our certified staff point of pride megan is the ultimate team player this fall when a member of the math department was out for an extended period of time megan stepped up to ensure that all students continue to receive a quality education megan volunteered to teach the college students along with her own teaching as many as 60 or more students at a time in our media center megan gra graded assignments entered grades and provided instruction for her classes as well as her colleagues without complaint or expectation for compensation the fact that megan cheerfully doubled her workload for several weeks just proves what we already knew megan

003is superwoman we're grateful to have superwoman on our campus do you have anybody with you that you want to recognize no okay what's that picture you'll be in the middle okay [Applause] next if i can have carl attack come up please carla is our classified point of pride carla is the attendance specialist at our school and prior to that she was a front desk receptionist i consistently received phone calls from parents or comments from visitors campus letting me know how friendly welcoming and kind carla is she provides this phenomenal level of customer service while also completing one of the busiest and most stressful jobs in our front office carla maintains a warm and friendly demeanor on the surface while paddling like mad under the water to complete her job higley high school is proud to

004have carla represent our campus do you want to recognize the people that are here with you to support you my goodness okay um so i'd like to recognize those that are here to um support me my husband barnaby tack my son my son savio and my daughter sarah attack they'll be and my twins will be as freshmen next year at higley high nice [Applause] if i could have carolyn lamarro come up [Applause] carolyn has volunteered at higley high school for several years serving as the leading member of the united kingdom booster club carolyn has organized and led club events throughout this year to support the efforts of the united kingdom the club has supported staff and students as well as improved the school in many ways carolyn has advocated on behalf of our school facility

005improvements the club has provided meals for higley high school staff during professional development days supported student transition from middle school to high school organized food truck fridays on campus sold higley high school spirit swag and organized welcome events for students and for staff carolyn's efforts helped make hillary high school a better place for all staff and students thank you do you want to recognize who's with you uh no because i didn't tell anybody to come and grab that night yeah we're saying god [Applause] and next please peyton pierce come up [Applause] peyton is the higley high school air force junior rotc core commander this year having been flight commander and support squadron commander previous school years peyton is a hard worker and outstanding person who will take the initiative to accomplish any tasks set before

006her payton's breadth of involvement across campus is a teammate a leader a mentor stand as a testament to her commitment and engagement whether she's tutoring peers critiquing teammate's speech conducting her own research in preparation for an academic decathlon competition or choreographing a new drill sequence for the air force junior rotc drop team payton infuses every ounce of her energy to ensure the final project represents higley high in the best possible light hey do you want to recognize your parents so i have my mom trina pierce and my dad shawn with me here tonight thank you you all right you jump on this side yeah [Applause] okay we have mr tannenbaum and mr stengel coming up so that we can celebrate our williamsfield points of pride and i will help hold madam president members of the

007governing board dr foley and cabinet thank you for having us here this evening um allowing us to have an opportunity to support and celebrate all of our amazing people that have been chosen tonight for our points of pride if i could first have miss peeden come up to the front miss peeden is an inventive creative and solution orientated educator who frequently comes up with new ways to innovate and approach all of her teaching and the students that she serves in student government she is a teacher who leads by example with her staff as as well as a department head in our social studies she's constantly looking for ways to support her team and help to drive the social studies department even during her busiest times ms pedan will always find time to make it make

008it a priority to put her students needs first above herself which speaks loudly about who she is and the purpose of an educator as one of our student council advisors miss pieden works countless hours to ensure that the school's activities are fun engaging for the student body she has created an environment where the council feels comfortable yet motivated to try new things to go above and beyond as student leaders thank you miss peeden [Applause] oh thank you foreign [Music] [Applause] would like to invite uh michelle kades to come on [Applause] michelle is a credit to the williamsfield family she has an amazing work ethic takes great pride in helping kids to ensure they have a first class experience during their time at williamsfield she has a can-do attitude and a willingness to go the extra

009mile for coaches teachers kid and kids to help create a positive culture throughout the school community michelle takes on extra duties during games to make sure students coaches and parents have a good experience at their time at williamsfield truly a pleasure to have michelle is a part of our front office staff she's an integral part of the williamsfield williamsfield high school and a credit to the blackhawk family [Applause] my husband orlando and my daughter mia and her boyfriend tanner thank you [Applause] like to invite tim raymond up please [Applause] mr raymond's been actively involved as a parent at williamsfield for the entire seven years i've been there he's been very giving him his personal time helps create a positive and fun atmosphere during our boys volleyball program and is always willing to help to try

010to support the kids he's also the announcer at the games and does a very very entertaining job and he also plays the music and it's the one i enjoy the most because it's music i can understand that he plays so um you know between sets he creates fun atmospheres they do mario kart races they do all kinds of serving competitions and stuff to try to liven up the crowd mr raymond has worked as the booster president has generated sponsorship that have helped allow coaches to provide some extras for kids that help enhance their experience really appreciate how much mr raymond has given to the volleyball program over the years and positively impacted the lives of kids in our program and williamsfield high school he is a credit to the williamsfield family [Applause] oh [Laughter] all

011of your family is here i don't know what you're talking about thank you so much [Applause] miss jc foster can you come on up [Applause] jc has a combination of positive attitude and never quit jc has a strong ability to lead and influence people of all ages she is frequently called upon to lead and plan school-wide activities to inspire inclusion and positivity and impact positive culture on our campus she participates in student council black student union link crew and fashion club to name a few she is the first in line to volunteer her time to any cause that will give back to those in need staff members constantly express how impressed they are with her and her demeanor she helps to lead by example and pushes her classmates her peers and her teachers to be

012better in all in every endeavor they have as an administrator it is incredibly fulfilling to witness a student making such such a strong effort towards enhancing her academic and personal progress and goals thank you [Applause] oh sure um my dad's here tonight but my mom's in philly for work and my brother's at football camp so thank you to all of them spiritually thank you so much we need those thank you to our importance of pride we love celebrating our students and we have more students to celebrate i'm going to ask mr sean varner to come up and i'm going to have mr tannebaum not go too far because we have some winter guard color guard percussion state champions in the house [Applause] wait for our crew to come on in i'll go ahead and get

013started as uh as they're still entering the the room um first of all thanks for having us here tonight uh president kaler members of the board cabinet it's a it's a pleasure to be able to introduce such outstanding uh students for what they've accomplished this has become quite a tradition for us at cooley middle school when it when it comes to our band programs and our our color guard program introducing state champions not just state state participants but state champions it seems like each and every year we're here in the spring and it's so exciting to talk about the accomplishments of these uh fine young men and women we at the middle school level we came home from the state championships this year with a percussion state championship and two color guard state championships so

014we have two color guard teams and two state champions [Applause] before i turn it over to mr edgar i would like to just talk about a little bit about the program as dr foley said to mr tannenbaum don't go very far because you're going to see that this success is carried over into williamsfield high school as well who we feed into and it it has become quite the program mr edgar miss huddle mrs edgar uh they work with the williamsfield students as well and again it has become quite a program of success and quite the program of not only the success but the fun and enjoyment that the students have so with that i want to bring up mr edgar to talk more and brag about his program all right come on [Applause] all right

015all right all right so we we have up first our black guard which is the top middle school guard in the state they're currently put into a division all by themselves so that somebody else can have an opportunity to win in the next one so outstanding job this is our coulee black guard [Applause] uh two years ago and then covet hit and can you hear me all right there's a live stream oh sorry we we introduced percussion ensemble into the program a couple years ago and then then coveted hit so we're we're just to the point now where it's out in the competitive world so this is uh our first place uh cooley black percussion ensemble which is comprised of eighth grade students on our campus [Applause] pull in tight here it's pretty sad when

016good job [Applause] next up on the coulee front uh we have our coulee purple guard coulee purple guard so i made i made reference to creating a separate division just for the the previous guard group this is our next group that went ahead and won the next division down so super proud of these students phenomenal job phenomenal growth coulee purple guard [Applause] nice job [Laughter] [Applause] so out of the four participating groups from cooley uh middle school in the wjz championships we had uh two state champions on the guard side state champion on the percussion side and then the runner up on the percussion side as well so super proud of the students and all that they've been able to achieve this year great job to them [Applause] so mr uh mr varner was able

017to uh highlight some of the pieces already but i do want to say an ad add to it that uh we're just so proud of of the participation with our with our students we can see the progression um from our eighth graders um and as they exit cooley and enter right into high school and um there's just an opportunity we use the word dominate all the time right and that's that's something we say constantly constantly it's it's become part of who we are and and being able to see our students transition and be there and be supported and have that opportunity to go on and do this at the next level at the high school level for them it's super exciting and it doesn't um it doesn't come without a lot of hard work again

018i can't say it enough that our our programs between marching band and winter guard and our winter season they are some of the hardest working students um and club advisors and coaches that i have ever seen in all of education that the the lights go out for everybody else and they're still out there um at night time so thank you so much mr edgar and miss huddle and pam and everybody else that is the team that helps to support these kids so i will turn it over to mr edgar congratulations guys [Applause] all right come on down here this is again speaking to the percussion ensemble aspect of our program again a couple years ago we introduced it coveted happened nothing really happened so now we're now we're out in the competitive realm this is

019our high school uh percussion ensemble the uh williamsfield black percussion ensemble state champions in the concert a class [Applause] congratulations [Applause] so in in regards to that group that was our our top group the next group would be our percussion red ensemble which is a runner-up as well so the depth the depth is is in place and it's bodes well for our future next up we're going to shift gears to guard at williams field [Applause] i gotta i gotta brag on these guys a little bit not that i haven't been bragging on everybody but um so this this group has been in the open class for a few years now the open class is the top class in the state of arizona there are currently three groups in the top class that open class this

020year it was very very competitive to the point where all three of the groups including higley high school that should be noted would have been contenders to make finals at the national level their scores were that high so super proud started off the year strong the other groups came to play they started coming back and beat us out a couple times but these guys kept scratching and clawing and fighting all the way through the season and just delivered the goods in their final performance super proud of what they were able to achieve congratulations to the williams field color guard [Applause] while they're taking this picture i think it's it's important for us to recognize the support we get from our district and the depth and the breadth of the programs at the elementary level bridges

021power ranch and coronado all received the highest rating of superior for their their trash can bans in the color guard side of things hta gateway point and chaparral all received superior ratings the top ratings that you can get for their color guards saw some in middle school had a phenomenal drum line and a very strong guard program as well so those things need to be noted the depth and breadth of the program within the higley unified school district is significant and we're very proud of it and grateful and grateful to our district for the support also also sorry i left one group out of there our our wins group which is a relatively new activity we use it as a feeder program on our middle school and high school side so it's combined middle school

022and high school students to help them understand the marching activities so when they come into high school marching band isn't as intimidating they understand i march from here over there and i play my instrument and i'm okay and uh and we treat it as a a feeder development group whereas other programs treat it as a strictly competitive group meaning it's all high school and it's the best kids and they came in second by just a couple points so super proud of them as well mr edgar we're sure proud of you and your team here you are more than welcome to stay but we also say you can leave at this time if you would like to thank you for coming tonight we have one more celebration tonight next week is a very important hallmark holiday

023if you all don't know but it is administrative assistant day and we have one of the best in all the land so darlene please come up [Applause] even even if there wasn't a holiday for you i would make one for you because you are so good to us and we are forever grateful for all you do for us [Applause] all right [Applause] president kaler members of the board not much gets by darlene reach so that was kind of nice thank you um the upcoming events as you can see uh although we haven't hit the 90 days of may yet it's starting to amp up ramp up and this is a time of year where literally there is somewhere someplace we could be ancient every night and uh with competing events obviously sometimes it's hard here

024just a highlight of the few fun things that we have coming up obviously we're going to be celebrating teacher of the year reception a lovely reception for our teachers of the year we have so many teachers to celebrate and we're looking forward to that we have a beautiful fine arts festival coming we have a superintendent's visit to higley traditional academy we also have governing board meetings retirement receptions and graduations on the horizon along with lots of other awards end of the year celebrations too many to list here but just a few highlights of the coming events in the next few weeks thank you dr foley yes 90 90 days in may has begun it began for us last night several of us attended the underclassmen awards at higley high it was fantastic there was one

025particular student with a 5.0 which was absolutely astounding so we celebrate all those kiddos and it's nice to see the fruition of some of the decisions we make up here into the children that we don't get to see quite often so it was a fun night and i appreciate higley for hosting it i also got to attend the williamsfield dance presentation i believe it was last week i could be wrong and they did a fabulous job picking music and all their dances were outstanding and that dance crew will be well missed at williamsfield that is getting ready to leave i know a lot of seniors are getting ready um to leave us but they did a fantastic job and i echo mrs president kaler's statements with the underclassmen awards it was absolutely fantastic last night

026i text dr foley and just let her know it was really a remarkable event to see all those kiddos freshmen sophomores and juniors go through so thank you mrs wilson it was last week and i also attended the dance concert and it was amazing it was amazing i think that all those kids need to stay that are graduating another year because they were so so good i even cried at several points because it was just so [Music] amazing i wanted to go the second night too it was such the best by far that i've seen and i told uh mrs lewis that it's the best i've seen her do so it was a great great prediction mrs kaler also in reference to last night's undergrad as you said we get to see some of the

027decisions we make up here and we celebrated like they said some pretty amazing kids but to hear these kids that have proficiently and done multiple languages while they've been whether it's through our middle school into our high school or just our high school we had one who they're doing their third language and they're only a junior so it's it's amazing to see these opportunities that they have and it just warms my heart to see that the students taking advantage of them and one's planning to go on to be a translator and so it's it was just really exciting and they still have another year of high school so um to see the opportunities that we do have to offer our students and the success that they have with it was was pretty amazing so um

028it was a very enjoyable evening yes the end of the year is full of excellence um okay next step request to speak i'm going to read a little paragraph we value input from our constituents this time has been aside for anyone from the audience who wishes to address the board please remember this is not an appropriate venue to evaluate discuss or criticize district personnel policy keb provides a process for complaints about personnel speakers should be aware that 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 38-431.01 h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further

029consideration and decision at a later date please limit your remarks to just three minutes and i have one speaker leslie lander you did i say that correctly thank you yes all right thank you governing governing governing board members amy kaler michelle anderson christina reese jill wilson and tiffany schultz for setting apart this block of time to allow anyone from your audience to address you i respectfully will keep my words to less than three minutes my name is leslie landrieu and i'm here with my husband rob uh as a representative of the williamsfield boys basketball booster club of which i was elected to the position of president this year which was also formally held by my husband uh in 2019-2020 of high priority that we as a married couple have ascribed since 1994 is the importance

030of teamwork that concept has naturally been pulled over into our parenting allowing all five of our children to thrive in their academics first and foremost we are celebrating our youngest induction to nhs tonight making that on our perfect quin quintuple for the landview family so we are incredibly grateful to all the schools and amazing teachers that have played crucial positive roles in our children's success stories teamwork is a concept that also leads to success in our students extracurriculars and on a much bigger scale the achievements of our school districts to excel and dominate teamwork by definition means that people will cooperate using their individual skills and providing constructive feedback despite any personal conflicts between individuals it's a selfless it's selfless focuses on end goal and runs on the concept that the whole is greater than

031the sum of the parts here's where my requests become specific as per your agenda's request to speak section i would like to action to be taken to direct staff with administrative power in the spirit of teamwork to proactively contact rob and myself for an interactive transparent discussion regarding matters that three of them have respectfully made been made aware of since february 28th the follow-up after three on-site in-person admin meetings one assistant superintendent meeting since the aforementioned date has been regrettably non-existent on their part many issues been brought to their attention by us that they would not have been aware of without us consequently consequently my husband and i feel unfortunately disregarded and not important team members as we've spent countless hours on properly preparing details for their review time is a precious commodity to all

032including us our personal time has suffered through this process just as their employee considerations of time has been we ask for your assistance and upholding gold three goal three from higley's uh strategic plan in regards to communication and community relations to engage all stakeholders through transparent respectful and consistent communication thank you once again governing board members as well as superintendent dr don foley associate superintendent ms sherry richards executive director miss martens miss darling reach and mr chris treat thank you everybody i appreciate your time thank you so much follow up with them thank you so much dr foley for following up with them appreciate you coming in can somebody hit the lights in the back by chance please feels funny thank you i appreciate that i know the kids were all against the walls and

033the light switches so thank you all right we are going to move on to 6.0 consent agenda items i move that we approve consent agenda item 6.1 through 6.15 second comments questions or concerns yes mrs schultz no i'm sorry um i i do want to note that there was some acceptance of gifts and donations can you pull that up for me thank you so much and these were big amounts that were donated for several different schools and these were in our status of who helped do these donations and these fundraisers through our boosters our ptos intel uh just thankful for all those that do donate to our campuses because they fill in a lot of the gaps and we're very very grateful so i want to point it that out with that said all those

034in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 president kaler members of the board cabinet and community i'm excited to share with you two new members to our administrative team first i would like to introduce miss heidi lindsay she is your new executive director of elementary education [Applause] also with us this evening is mr marcus berkshire he is your new director of assessment and student information and i believe he has his wife dawn with him thank you so much and welcome to the higley family we look forward to working with you all thank you is this a welcome back for mr berkshire yay good to see you again [Laughter] we're excited to have him back and also excited to have heidi thank you so much for pointing this out to us tonight okay we are going to

035move on to there's some information items and again these are just informational items our educational day our third quarter special education day school report our human source resources quarterly esi report so um if there's any questions or comments on those if not um no no no on those reports okay so we're going to move on to 7.3 and president keller can we just take a minute and thank you guys for putting those together to keep us updated and um so that we know where we're at budget wise money's been set aside for this and um so that way we know throughout the school year where we're at so thank you for for putting that together and even though we don't have any questions we've had the opportunity to review it yes thank you all right

036we're going to go on to our science adoption process president kaler members of the board we have had honestly an amazing year working through this process we're excited to bring you the informati information and recommendations this evening i want to start out by acknowledging our steering committee and a couple of people aren't here this evening because they're at school events with family members but david lotzenheiser the executive director of secondary and athletics dr chris treat can wave over there he's our assistant director of professional development mr jim pasic the director of informational technology wendy garretson is here she is our purchasing manager and we also have kim morton she is our amazing k-12 science instructional coach and as you can imagine she has poured her heart into this project so we've got a little presentation

037here and i would be amiss if i didn't acknowledge the 31 teachers that worked so hard to make all of this come to this point so i'm going to turn it over now thank you president kayla members of the board i want to talk to you a little bit about the needs and goals that we saw that drove us to kind of do the work that we did to involve those 31 teachers and all the folks that uh ms richards just go ahead and introduce you to so one of the things that kind of drove this work was those new arizona science standards that we got in 2018 so at that point it was very important for us to start looking as a district to make sure that we could say that we're not just

038in alignment with our teaching but that our instructional materials support the teaching so that we can give our folks the tools that they need to bring those standards to life because these standards probably more than any other have kind of represented a radical departure from maybe the way that science was taught when we were in school this is more about the doing of science it's more about a hands-on approach it's the student in the role of being the scientist and not merely a passive learner in that process with that in mind we knew that it was time to also update our materials to make sure that our teachers had the tools that they need to meet that new challenge because that's a big jump from from being more vocabulary driven exclusively to now diving in

039and actually doing science as opposed to merely hearing about it and with that in mind we had several goals that we kept kind of foremost in our process here obviously those aligned materials that was the first it was very important for our teacher experts and kim wharton to be able to see hey are these materials that are being presented to us aligned to those state standards to which we want to adhere we also wanted to make sure that we gave our teachers a lot of opportunities to be involved and provide feedback not just one time but many times and i'll detail that a little bit further so that they could take long extended looks at the materials that were offered up by the various vendors that go out went ahead and answered our rfp we

040also wanted to make sure that they had chances to give not just quantitative feedback where they threw down a score and we had an average and that was it but rather tell us what you liked about it we wanted teachers to be able to interact with the materials both on their own and then later with those vendors where they could put the features to the test and lastly we want to kind of look at digital platforms i mean as we move to this one-to-one environment it only makes sense for us to go ahead and leverage the power of the materials and tools that we have here to make sure that our students are able to interact in a 21st century way with these materials and so with those goals in mind we took on this

041task and here i want you to see the timeline that we kind of follow this isn't something we started yesterday of course this has been going on all year long as you see we kicked off our initial planning back in august we went ahead and put together this timeline of action that we were going to take and this information was always shared with the public along the way we've maintained a website that not only had the timeline of information but relevant announcements decisions from uh one phase to another and where appropriate inviting the public to come in and participate and view the products as well as hear vendors you can see that in january that's when we had those uh vendors finally kind of submit their proposals to us and our steering committee the people

042that mr richards just introduced you those folks had a chance to evaluate whether or not that those vendors did adhere to the rfp and that's kind of how we kind of went through that phase one and wendy garretson will give us some more information here in a moment and then on into phase two and phase three and we're just kind of wrapping up that 60-day review with our uh chosen finalists and so you can see where we are in this process to this moment right here at this april 20th board meeting where we're introducing our process to you and kind of the approach that we took and hopefully we'll be purchasing some new materials in the next month or so so that we can start getting those inventoried and getting teachers trained and able to

043put those things into action next year see if i can advance it there we go i'd like to turn over uh now to uh wendy yardson before we go on real quick dr treat can you tell us what when we adopted the science curriculum we're currently using well that's a great question i don't know if i have the answer to that kim can you help me with that when when were the materials that we're currently using adopted i'm not sure okay sorry it just popped into my head normally i would have asked that earlier so you guys could be prepared i don't like yeah it's it's quite all right it it definitely predates these standards that we have so we know with that we were already using materials that were kind of out of alignment

044with the type of instruction we know those were adopted in 18. that's well over a decade ago yes i was going to say i since i've been on the board we have not adopted a science curriculum or anything so i just didn't so that predates me so there's our decade and so i just didn't know if if you were aware so we know it's at least 10 years okay thank you sorry i didn't mean to put you on the spot with the adoption process on my side of it with the procurement rules and the adoption rfp process components rfp means request for proposal there are many acronyms in my line of work so you kind of get used to doing this so to start off we start off with the curriculum as rule one of

045the rules is ars 15-721 and 722 the curriculum rules and education principles tell us what the legislature sets for the district to follow and adding on to that with the procurement rules and requirements are adopted by the school board of education and that dictates the process for both the adoption and the procurement so with that we have our rules and we have our thresholds on which the district must follow through all these step-by-step phases in which we continue to do with this our curriculum costs so in the evaluation criteria all interested offers understand that their proposal will be evaluated in accordance with the criteria outlined in the rfp and that is all done specific so they have to go through the curriculum checklist in which the scope of work was given by dr treat and

046then obviously down to costume which we have to look at and phase one is you're non-responsive and you're unacceptable you're non-responsive meaning they just didn't follow the guidelines in which the scope of work or requested and in the unacceptable it is it does not meet the basic criteria curriculum in which the district what we uphold and what we require i think isn't that oh here we are and the technical advisors curriculum feedback this was a great face too i really really enjoyed this the teachers were incredible i think they had a lot of fun with it as well with the teacher individual analysis of the viable curricula and then phase three is the top five vendors in which we gathered all together came and presented their curriculum to us and then that's when everybody gotta

047well everybody the teachers got to come and ask them certain questions and kind of that touchy feel that we all need to do sometimes to see what it's like so that was a great presentation and i really look forward to getting this wrapped up as we have been working on this for quite some time and this was a big task for me to take on the first two months of me being on the job but that's okay so i look forward to moving forward with this and see where we go welcome was it that the teachers had five two presentations to them is that it was the five that kind of passed the argument yes and taking and taking in evaluations and then the committee doing the their evaluation as well because we take theirs

048into consideration we chose the best top five yes yes uh president taylor what the way it worked was from that initial kind of uh call for proposals with that rfp the steering committee they did the work to make sure as wendy said to see that the proposals were appropriate but we left the science expertise to the teachers and so once we determined which ones were appropriate those were the uh vendors that advanced to phase two and and you can see here on this slide kind of some of the work that happened with that in phase two we we really use the power of our canvas uh course to build um kind of a four-part area for our teachers who are going to be giving heavy feedback we wanted them to first be oriented to the

049task so in the canvas course we gave them a chance to be able to see exactly what it is that they were going to be doing we wanted them to have an opportunity to be trained in how we wanted them to use the rubrics and the tools to be able to evaluate the materials we wanted to supply them with those actual materials so that they could go ahead and look at the various proposals and look at the various offerings from the vendors and be able to score them and then to be able to score them actually within canvas so they became kind of one-stop shopping for the teachers and so this contrasts with the way that maybe this is done has been done in other times and places where you put all the teachers in

050the room at once and maybe give them a very limited amount of time to interact with the materials instead by using canvas we were allow or we were able to give our teachers four weeks for them to interact digitally with the uh submissions from the vendors and to be able to really kind of on their own time decide you know at their own pace how much they really wanted to dive in and look at a particular product and not feel rushed and also not feel that table bias that can sometimes happen when there are five of us sitting around a table and maybe one person really likes the product but then someone else says they don't then they start questioning their own judgment this way they were able to on their own do their own

051investigation evaluation and put those scores in but it wasn't just done in isolation and digitally we also maintained the physical materials that the vendors had sent in phase two in two rooms and labeled them appropriately here in the district office so during that month any of our husd teachers whether they were a part of that group or not could come in and examine those materials and many folks did and they were able to kind of provide feedback so if you were a type of a person who didn't want to just look at the digital uh offering you could come in and actually look at the physical materials too and handle it and and provide feedback that way and what we found is that teachers were able to we would have greater participation it wasn't always

052at the expense of someone's personal schedule but they were able to say yes when we wanted them to be able to participate in this committee and i would hate for somebody who's willing and has expertise be shut out of the process simply because they have other obligations in their life and other professional obligations too this way they could still have their voice in the process which is why we had such a large number of teachers that were able to be uh able to be a part of it and so then in phase two at the end of that four weeks they entered in their scores and we were able to go ahead and look at not just those quantitative scores but the feedback that they also provide provided to us and determine by grade band

053and by course what the two finalists were for each of those so that teacher feedback was very important in determining okay from these viable offerings these are the the products that need to advance to that phase three and it was in phase three then that we had our two finalists not in total but too fast by grade band by course so each group is being able to look specifically at what's meeting their needs and that's when we began that 60-day review where it's available to the public and we had announced that on our website and they're still maintained here in the district office we also had during that time period that time that wendy had mentioned when um vendors came and did presentations so all those teachers who participated in that phase two kind of

054canvas based digital evaluation were then invited in here to the district office again by course and by level when the vendors came and made their their pitch and demonstrated what the capabilities were this was particularly important because of the digital uh importance that we had put on there they needed to see so how does this interact with canvas how does the gradebook really work how do i really assign something how do i really edit or adapt materials and kim morton and i were able to sit in on many of those meetings and i want to say right now how proud we were of of how assertive the teachers were in taking the opportunity in that moment to interact with the vendors and not sit back passively but to put them to the task and ask

055them tough questions and ask them to demonstrate the very features that help determine whether or not they should choose one or the other at the end of that time period those teachers were able to fill out evaluations again based on okay of these finalists and what you saw what is it that still kind of resonates with you and it was very interesting to see how their scores kind of then drilled down to clear-cut leaders and so on and what their aspects were that they really appreciated about one or the other as they left qualitative feedback all the time during the period when these materials have been on display we've also had a qr code in the room where the materials have been displayed for any of our members of our community or teachers to come

056in and examine the finalists by level and use that qr code to be able to give instant feedback on any of the materials and any commentary that they wanted to have so uh this is what kind of leads us to this final recommendation and i'd like to go ahead and turn it over to uh kim morton here to talk to you a little bit about the photos that you're seeing reiterate something said one of our goals from the very beginning loud enough to give as many teachers as possible the opportunity to participate in the committee um and even if they were not able to participate we encourage their feedback through the entire process starting on january 18th when phase two began we set up two rooms in the ed services and one was for elementary

057and one was for secondary we put in all of the vendor materials that made it into phase two and although the committee members were evaluating electronically we encouraged them to come in and look at the physical materials as well not only the committee members but we did offer all the science teachers in the district if they wanted to come in and look at those materials they they were able to do so and we definitely encourage feedback from all that did come in on february 18th we started our 60-day display and so we took the finalists and we condensed the rooms into one room and we supplied a qr code because it was now open to the public as well and so that way again we we wanted as much feedback as we possibly could get

058and so the community that was able to come in was able to supply feedback as well as any teachers throughout the process um regarding the public viewing just i'm just going to kind of lift off my list off my questions and whoever wants to answer me that'd be great first one um how was the public informed of the 60-day viewing i mean there the qr codes were posted but how was it announced was it email was it letters at home how do they know to attend if they wanted to uh president taylor vice president anderson we maintained a website with announcements on the front page of that website we updated and announced out to everyone as each kind of stage went along so that not only do we have the timeline which kind of gave

059the overall picture of what we were shooting for but as each event came along we would go ahead and kind of uh make that uh aware or make it uh signify it on that kind of top page of the of our website they need to be a little more proactive to know about it the viewing is also still going on so so the thing of it is it's not done yet this is also a public conversation where this information is being shared this has been an open process this entire time been following been following actually exceeding the expectation of a procurement rule around any and all of this so obviously if there's anybody who has questions concerns would like to see these recommendations they are more than welcome to come see look scan because again

060this is all coming back this is an information item to you tonight these are the top recommendations that have gone through the scrutiny of the multiple phases perfect and that leads to my next questions um so far how many would you say have come and attended i know the online i don't know if you can track how many but and then for those that have attended so how many um the feedback responses um who is reading them and how how is it being taken i know you're going through the phases and how is it being taken into account for the decisions being made yes uh at various phases we've had different groups that have been a part of that so in that phase two when there were many vendors uh materials still in uh under

061consideration uh those were teachers in the district that came in and they would be able to give their feedback through kim so everything focused uh funneled through kim morton so she would be able to have an expert that would be able to kind of take all that in and became our point of contact and as far as uh at this point with the 60 day we we haven't had any traffic yet so hopefully we'll get some folks that'll come in but those materials are there and and we're ready to hear what they have to say is there any way we could send this out like maybe in our weekly email because i know as a parent a lot of times i don't check the website as often as i maybe should and so maybe we

062could send it out on that friday email out through and just let people know it since it sounds like no one's come in anyway it might be a good time to maybe proactively tell our parents hey by the way we're looking at adopting a science curriculum and it's on display at the district office president kaler board member wilson what we would probably do is have that come from the sites we find that that that that those things are read more closely from the site so we would inform this that we've been following this process this has been a long part we're completing the end of this we've just done an update we can work on a little blurb that will come from the site rather than at last in the district because we typically wouldn't

063of course i was talking the friday email from the sites that go out to every friday i get an email from all the different schools update to it it just might be nice to put it in there we could put a link also to the website to the website of where we're at even better than even coming in but i think that having that offered to the parents so they can see would be beneficial for everyone to see hey we're doing a science curriculum update and here's you know options for you to view it thank you i just i had the same questions as mrs wilson and miss anderson but one question did you just said no other teachers have come to look at it i know you mentioned the public but we're open to

064teachers and no one else did i just wasn't sure if i heard you correctly yeah uh president taylor board member schultz uh since that point we haven't had any other teachers but we had a very it's such a large participating body in the process that most of the folks who have a vested interest have kind of been with us from the start and they were in that phase two and phase three we didn't turn away any teachers that wanted to participate in this process and and and asked for a great deal of participation all the way through so i think that at least to date anyone that had a real desire to see things was probably in on it from the beginning but they are all still more than welcome and we would love to

065hear what they have to say and you had mentioned beginning 31 teachers correct um in the beginning was that a variety of teachers as far as across all the grades i'm not sure if i missed that president caleb michelle when you have a second here they're going to progress a few more slides and they'll show you the different areas and so you've had representation from each area you'll also hear about how much um there was great um consensus through this process and and only one dissenting one in which a new resource came along and that's the only one we're not adopting and they're going to go out for it next year because we'll follow procurement on it so what you're going to hear in just a minute is kind of the amount and you'll see

066the the list here um and how much again consensus there was around this process because truly anybody who wanted to be involved in this process could have been involved in this process i mean we made it very very easy because keep in mind if you'll remember those of you who are on the board in the end of 2019 we tightened up our process for uh for textbook adoptions we actually started this process in the middle of covid and a whole lot of new resources came out and we wanted to and and some new things came out that our team wanted so we started the process all over again at the end of this year so we have been science touching for the last two years so this is uh this was almost a restart you

067read in your status report we literally restarted this so there is some tiredness of science touching with our teachers having lived in this in two years because this is an extremely time intensive process when you go through all of this the canvas course was one of the ways particularly in january when we had a lot of people out and our and our coveted cases were rising that we were hoping to make sure we kept as many people participating as possible so ultimately we feel really good when we science touched this at the end of 2019 and into this year 2022 the amount of people we've had involved so from us we're going whoa we've had great involvement so thank you that answered my other question about the consensus so i appreciate it um throughout the

068process i'm sorry i just wanted to before we stop the topic can you tell me the date at which the public viewing will will stop when is it over do we have a set date because it has you know started february 18th as a 60-day public i mean it should be ending soon according to this but i didn't know if it goes it's gonna end end of may ish 90 days that's one this is 60 it's a 60 day public viewing so it should be ending soon april i'm just going by okay honestly i think we had intended to leave it until we bring this back okay in may okay so okay we we have a spot for it it's all set up and we'd love for people to come in and touch it and

069you guys too okay you're invited oh yeah i think i i already clicked on the link and signed up for the free whatever but it's a little little extra work but we'll figure it out um thank you for making this possible for the public and for all your hard work and to the teachers i know you have more to say but it sounds like you've done quite a lot to make sure that everybody has input in the viewing of it i appreciate it so boss president anderson i think just to add on to what they're saying i think it worked to our benefit to have this extended time period because new publishers came out with resources that were better aligned to these new standards so sometimes things work out for the best and i think

070we've learned a lot through this process and should we go through this again canvas was like the gym honestly so and these guys worked really hard to make it work efficiently so the teachers i think appreciated the flexibility with the schedule so very much i wanted to um share this slide with you because throughout the phase two and the phase three process we use several tools and evaluation techniques so the teachers could give us evaluations on the products but we also gave them an opportunity to give us feedback on the process this was just so amazing what i did is i made a word cloud and the words that are larger those are the ones that we kept seeing over and over our teachers are they said that they were good choices they said the

071process was easy and it was simplified i loved that they said how happy they were throughout the process it was exciting the thing up there unanimous was interesting because we had 14 different grade bands or courses that were evaluating almost every single one of them was unanimous in their decision it was just it was an amazing experience and i can't tell you how many thank yous i got whether it was in person or on one of the evaluation tools or during the um during the phase two and the phase three sessions and you'll see some other comments up there that i put up them up there because i thought it was very powerful that they thought that the process was so easy and convenient i know that a lot of our teachers were a little

072apprehensive when they went into it they thought it was going to be this very big time consuming how am i going to have enough time for my family and textbook adoption and for them to say it was so easy and convenient i think that was just pretty amazing um i heard that they were excited about the materials that they they thought that all the choices were great choices and they're really excited um and they're looking forward to having materials that will support their curriculum and our new standards but the one that really stuck out to me and this was from a high school teacher it was during the phase three um the phase three uh publishers when they came in and he said usually this time of year i am just waiting for summer he

073says he's done and he just he doesn't want to think about next school year and this teacher said he's so excited to return next year and get started on these new materials because he's so he's just so happy to have something that will really support him in his classroom some additional feedback that they love the flexibility of the course it made it easy again they're excited for next year which i think is pretty great especially you know as a teacher i know how april is and you're like okay but they're excited for next year they're ready to come back and use these materials they thought that they were great options and they can't wait to see where we go next and um they're they're very excited to get the products when they're when we do

074have them the results you'll see up there those are our results and one thing that i wanted to point out you'll notice that we did not adopt a blanket publisher where the entire district has the same publisher the reason for that is before when we said that we really wanted to give teachers a voice we really did we wanted them to find the product that they felt would suit their needs the best and that's the way we went into it and we told them we're not looking for one publisher we're looking at what will help you and what will be the best materials for your course and so these are the top results i think in the rfp process we had about approximately 14 to 16 um vendors come in and then we narrowed it

075down and this is where we are right now president keller members of the board what's really important to note is every single one of those are comp because they had to in phase one their comprehensive curriculum that is aligned to the new standards that are far superior than anything we currently have in our warehouse or in those classrooms right now for the standards because we have staff we have a lot of stuff but these are now aligned to the new standards and are comprehensive and in some cases will provide our teachers maybe more updated resources than they've had at their fingertips in a very long time and the um conceptual physics is on hold yep until next year right and we'll explain why yeah uh president kaler it it's what happened was the committee of

076teachers who teach that course they didn't really see the book that they wanted none of the books that made it to that point really truly address their needs and one of the publishers had uh in kind of the beginning of this had hinted at a book that was something that maybe they would rather have and so in order to go ahead and and be faithful and true to the process it was more important that that we would go ahead and kind of restart with that group and take it back to the beginning and move forward so that we could uh honor the process obey the law and also make sure that the teachers got the book that they really wanted and so they kind of went into that with their eyes open knowing it might

077mean a bit of a delay but it's not it's not saying no and it's not saying never but it's making sure that they have the product that will work best for them president kaler members of the board my my passion and joy and love in in in teaching is curriculum and i will tell you having had over a decade experience of being a curriculum director in some way in some fashion publishers or sneaky individuals they're wonderful they're lovely but when they do have an opportunity to come in front of of teachers they will come with here's what we saw but guess what's coming and again it's nice that they shared what's coming and that might be the next best thing but if it wasn't part of our entire process that's a violation of procurement and

078we can't do that following the procurement laws so what we say is if you don't love it and you don't want it that's just fine we'll go back and and follow our process and include those resources in it so hence um we're not going to stop the whole group from moving forward we will adopt the ones where there is consensus on or those who have been deeply invested in this whole process going yep this is what we want move it ahead again this is going to go out to all of our our again we will add all of our teachers are going to see this again in a summary of this of this presentation anyone who wants to learn more no more to see to come see they can we will encourage our we will

079have our sites add the link to the website about the districts doing this come see it conceptual physics will go out again next year so we follow procurement and and again we're pretty excited about the fact that for the most part this was the most harmonious curriculum adoption i've seen done in a very long time particularly for us with science because prior to this year the end of the year the previous one they weren't so excited happy or thrilled so this was a positive experience and a real highlight for how we followed the procurement laws we followed our processes and ended up allowing for more people to be involved anyone who wanted to be can be anyone who still wants to come see can thank you for doing this i think it was a long

080process it sounds like it was i'm excited to not just see one name actually because i have heard in the past some feedback on that so i'm excited to see all the different names here of what we're doing i'm excited to see that conceptual physics will be um getting what they desire or they want or need all those words that they probably need and not just settling to me that's a big deal but we're not just settling and giving them you know we'll just do this for now i want to thank you and your committee please pass that along to anyone who couldn't be here tonight with us but thank you so much i'm sure the excitement was pretty big in the room i've had the pleasure of teaching at cooley middle school back in

0812016 and i've seen those books in the content and i can tell you teachers pay teachers is going to take a little hit after getting some better content in the classrooms here and i'm sure it was an easy task because uh the standards for science aren't super clear on what to teach they're very broad and and it's felt in different subjects so i'm glad that they have landed on um vendors if you will people or businesses that they felt comfortable with i can't imagine how difficult that was to make sure that it was going to really fit in into that big bubble of what they need to cover um and it is interesting thank you for pointing out the different vendors that it that savas is how you pronounce it it's good it's in your

082middle schools and it seems to carry over into your high schools and then it kind of branches out to the mcgraw hill for the specialties anatomy and all those so that's i imagine that's going to be good to have be have familiarity with the middle schools and then as they transition to high schools that's that's really neat to see thank you guys for your hard work that's awesome president caleb member anderson you're absolutely correct our arizona standards are unique they're not they're they are unique and so publishers weren't written for arizona standards they were written for more of a national standard so picking the right resource that aligned the best that had the resources is why we wanted to involve and and and why you can't just pick one publisher and stick with it because

083there are strengths and weaknesses in all of them the good news is is that there is alignment and there are greater resources than there have been and that way this is a win-win for us um we talked about how no one can remember the last time this was adopted 10 years ago how often should it happen and is there a process moving forward that we're going to revisit this every five years what does that look like president kayla remember schultz excellent question one of the things that typically happens is that you have a rotation schedule you've heard about tyler talk about a funding schedule and sometimes what happens is what prompts buying new new resources is usually the change in standards and the change in standards is actually a multi-year process then resources come out

084and then they're adopted once once you want to adopt a core material usually it's anywhere between three to five years that you purchase that now you can renew that you may not go out for a new adoption if it's working and it's fitting and it's adopted and the standards haven't changed what you'll do is renew subscriptions um quite honestly as curriculum has evolved hence one of the reasons why one-to-one having devices is so important is that curriculum has been become more individualized to meet the needs of the learner which comes with a digital component so sometimes it's textbooks sometimes it's licenses that allow us to customize it so which is a challenge for adoption and you really have to track it because once upon a time you could use the old textbooks but after a

085certain point you keep track of it because licenses expire and they disappear so if your curriculum was reliant upon entirely so what you do is you budget carefully and you have a schedule which we maintain in ed services following this meeting we have a work study where we'll be talking about our stan chris center's curriculum instruction we'll talk about some of the the definitions we're going to also talk about the procurement rules that that bind us if you will but ed services maintains that so what you've heard us say social studies would be our next content area that we currently would adopt because those have had new standards and we haven't purchased new resources math and ela had an adoption um they re they purchased resources um we will not be going out for a

086new adoption what we would do is renew subscriptions to those adoptions that were working but we would do it in budgetary time so we maintain a calendar and it's individualized based on content and where we are with purchasing of licenses for when we bought the adoption so it is a well-maintained process in the ed services department that has been tightened up significantly and highly in the last two years um and we will happily expand upon this in our work study tonight dr oh sorry guys sorry and just i don't know is arizona or just for my own knowledge pretty much um arizona standards being unique in a good or bad way um great question so president kaler board member schultz great question actually it's a good thing because one of the things arizona has prided

087itself on is always being unique and one of the things over the last probably 10 years the arizona department of education has done is a beautiful accordion model with its experts in our state to look at them work with committees to refine them so that they are they are what's ideal for arizona or best for arizona they rhyme with national standards but they are some unique components because arizona has chosen to add some unique pieces that have come from the field and from the community but it is in our case a good thing the challenge is is that because arizona does not fund education like other states do textbook companies aren't quick to jump on creating entire textbook series for arizona because the likelihood of a district being able to afford it would not be

088worth their time so large districts or large states that spend a lot of money when texas does a new adoption textbook companies create new resources so here's your new unique standards that are great for students and teachers but we're not going to give you any money sounds about right just research okay awesome thank you just one quick question um is there an extra fee to use the online resources um president keller board member wilson yes it depends and what happens is this idea of this best and final so what happens is that there are uh sometimes subscriptions or purchases based upon these that depend upon so everything is not the same that what what what the cost per student is for seventh grade might look different than third grade or ninth grade but again it's

089appropriate for the resource that we're buying and one of the things you heard in that phase one was in order for it to meet our threshold it had to have certain had to be comprehensive had to have electronic components had to meet the standards because going back to textbook companies being savvy they'll throw anything they have in there if you might like it you might buy it and it may not align so there is an extra fee for us each grade level has and i'm assuming each one of these little different boxes on this divide previously depends on the resource sometimes it's included sometimes it's additional depends on the resources but we work on the best and final and in this place we're buying the comprehensive component thank you so board member wilson that was

090really part of the whole process that we made sure we understood digitally what they could get and if that would include a book how much it cost and i'm going to compliment ms garretson because she is working really hard on this best and final offer and i i believe we're going to come in under budget but that's not short changing what we wanted and this is a five-year adoption and like dr foley said we can continue that and buy additional licenses or resources but it was real real important that we understood how we're going to use the one-to-one piece with with every one of these going to the point though hence the importance of that timeline and knowing what you have and what you're going to do because from a budgeting standpoint you wouldn't want

091to do a massive a renewal and an adoption in the same year hence we have a timeline because otherwise it would be difficult to fund hence why we're tight and on top of that at this particular point any other questions or comments um yes this process has definitely taken a um a tighter step when it comes to processes and procedures i think one of the reasons why maybe we haven't heard from teachers and community members so much is that it's it's awesome and it's doing what it's supposed to be doing it's reaching the right ears and the right people are getting their hands on it i love that we open it up to the public and love the feedback but at the end of the day the loudest voices are our teachers they're the ones

092that have to put their hands on it and teach it every day and i think we've done a stellar job and including anybody that wanted to be part of that and again welcoming again them today tonight this week come look at it i know some of our math teachers like to see what's happening in science so i would welcome our math teachers as well to come and take a peek but again it's it's been a very tight tight policy and procedures followed completely procurement thank you so much um just different than in the past and i appreciate that i appreciate the fact that we're on this rotation we are staying on we are going to stay up stay on top of our curriculum we are budgeting mr moore i know is not here tonight but

093he's working hard in that budget area to make sure that we are funded for the future my only question is is taking on a new curriculum what is the timeline and this may come next month to us but the timeline of training the teachers in this curriculum just kind of give me a brief overshot view of how that looks for them president kaler it's really different vendors offer different levels of professional development that comes with that that was one of the things that we made clear in that scope of work that within that first year we wanted as much hands-on as possible so part of it depends on when those materials actually arrive but that'll be some of the work that i'll be doing particularly with kim morton as we start to build a schedule

094of specific implementation and follow-up professional development for these teachers so that we didn't buy something because it had a feature that we then don't know how to use or that we're not comfortable with and so it's going to be really important that we don't just accept the professional development from the vendor and we say well that's good enough off you go we'll certainly take that but we're going to incorporate an ongoing kind of care process that's going to go along with that it's just the timing is going to kind of depend when the materials come in and are available but kim and i have already talked about how that's really job one next year is to make certain that we actually get all of the advantages that were identified by the teachers in these particular

095products definitely thank you for that i know that i just waited um six months for dishwasher parts so i would really hope that curriculum is a little bit quicker than that and it didn't fix it so that's really disappointing um so again thank you so much for all that you've done on this process we very much appreciate you a couple of us have lived through previous adoptions and this is absolutely top notch has been done every eye dotted every t crossed and we appreciate you all okay we're gonna move on next up i think we have mrs martens with a benefits update good evening president kalar vice president anderson members of the board my fellow colleagues as well as our higley community i'm here to present a high-level benefit update part 2 from our march

0969th meeting that we had had so as the request of the board we're back here to talk about some of the ancillary products that we didn't have an opportunity to talk about because we didn't have all the full details at our march meeting we had the primary details related to the healthcare products um for medical but not the ancillary and or sometimes called voluntary products so as just a reminder we have kairos who is starting with us effective july 1. you know they're a pooling entity that represents public entities and for us one of the biggest things in this process is the fact that it's the buying power that we have and because we are going self-funded we get to maintain our own independence within this process as we move forward so as we talk

097about the ancillary products um the biggest areas in terms of that are dental and vision so we have other items that are tangent to some of those components and that's in terms of health equity for our hsa as well as our fsa the health savings account and the flex spending accounts and then metlife will be the carrier that will utilize for all those other items in terms of basic life which is district paid and that ranges depending on the employee group that you're incorporated in whether it's via contract or policy supplemental life ad d short term disability and other work site benefits and i'll talk more in detail about them as we get to that point in the powerpoint so outside of i'm actually going to go back one so outside of uh these ancillary

098products other things that we offer real quickly is that there is going to be a change into our employee assistance program and that's available to all benefit eligible employees and that's going to move to com psych so our current employee assistant program is by the holmen group so it's the same setup six sessions when the employee calls it can be for lots of various reasons whether it's works place stress other financial components and or death or a limited time and opportunity maybe setting up wills or trusts or things of that nature as we look at our first item in terms of delta dental i'm just going to talk about the highlights so this plan is almost identical to our current plan i will say something that's a plus is that the rates are a little

099bit lower and the biggest difference here really is the fact that there is going to be a maximum of orthodontic services to our children or children of dependents of the plan that are 18 to 19. so that's one of the biggest areas outside of that the reality is dental just isn't what it used to be in terms of insurance insurance in general has changed over the countless years but dental particularly in terms of it's really a discount program and not a full insurance program in the bigger picture but that will be our hmo and then we'll have total dental administrators which is the exact same plan that we have now for our dental hmo pardon me our ppo was the delta dental i think i might have misspoke and this is our hmo in terms

100of total dental administrators and the rates are comparable and if i didn't note this earlier what i do want to say though is the fact that our ancillary voluntary products outside of that basic life are all employee paid plans unlike the healthcare medical plans through uhc and umr where the district does play a portion of those but we'll see some benefits as we go further along to where that buying power did matter in the bigger picture where there are some savings so the next item is our vsp and we currently have vsp right now through principle however it's the plan design is slightly different so we will see an improvement in this plan and with that the rates are a little bit higher but with something that's nice for individuals that do have glasses um

101the frame allowance is going to be upped by fifty dollars um so that's a plus as well as you can get frames every 12 months versus every 24 months um which is nice i commented at one of our road shows that um well i wear glasses but i wear contacts during the day but i unfortunately have to succumb to reading glasses um so you know you get to go to zeni or a lot of the other different plan products that you have and it's nice because you can get those for fairly inexpensive these days too which is a plus a lot different than what it used to be where you had to go to your eye doctor or pearl vision or a couple standalone stores where now that you can probably get them online just

102about anywhere the other plus is that we're going to see an increase in the contacts allowance for those that were contacts you're going to see an additional 20 benefit than what you'd seen in the past metlife so there we are moving to metlife for all of the items that i mentioned earlier as i said basic life is district paid so i don't have that on here but supplemental life with a d and d is listed on here and really in terms of supplemental life insurance in this instance the biggest outstanding items is that the guaranteed issue amount for employees is a hundred and fifty thousand dollars which is nice and if you don't know what guaranteed issued or gi means is that you can get insurance for up to that amount without providing what they

103call an eoi evidence of insurability which for some of us who know when we want to increase our insurance we have to fill out long surveys about your health your history and then they tell you whether or not they'll be willing to cover you or not so that's a plus that there's an increased amount what employees can get if they want for themselves in addition to that they can get up to five times their annual salary not to exceed five hundred thousand and then the spouse or partner benefit is actually an increase in terms of a gi of thirty thousand um as opposed to what it was before in terms of the short-term disability um something that's great was initially metlife came with a less benefited plan we negotiated worked with them with our kairos

104vendor and they were able to mirror our exact plan that we have currently with our short-term disability which was a plus you may or may not remember when i did this presentation last year we had moved in terms of sudden life to our current short-term disability with principal and now to met life and the reason for that is we were seeing a lot of issues with teachers particularly those that had been on short-term disability related to pregnancies and the payout and some questioning in terms of the elimination period and dates so it was great to see that metlife worked with us and they're mirroring our plan to have those added benefits so our employees can continue with that this year or going into next year pardon me accident insurance um again not different than what

105we have now with the only exception of 50 wellness screening benefit each year so if our employees do their wellness screening every year they can get a 50 gift card um to use for whatever they want so that's just a nice little plus if they purchase into this so and this does carry and you know injury if a lot of people uh in regards to what they recognize when they hear accident insurance usually is athletic commercials um so this is very similar to that hospital indemnity this is actually brand new we have never offered this during my tenure here at the district um so if employees opt in for this product they can then get benefits that include hospital admissions or i see pardon me icu admissions and you could see how much that benefit

106is per day and a maximum of the days that that has so that helps carry whatever insurance plan they opt to take this could help supplement that especially if there are an employee who knows there might be something that's coming up or other dynamics of their family history that would be beneficial to them so the next item that we have is critical illness this is something that we offer currently um and really the difference here is that unlike our current plan employees can use this up to three times in a plan year if there were some things that happened to them that falls within those categories of what's defined in those lists in relation to that and i'm not going into the details of class because obviously they differ based on your age your spouse

107all those dynamics so it'd be very different for every single individual that we have and then the last item is currently we offer two additional ancillary products that kairos does not and that's guardian with cancer and bankers with whole life insurance so we will continue that on separate continuing with those two vendors so our employees can continue because of the fact that we have a number of them that are in there um just over i think 120 and one um and about 150 in the other so i do have to acknowledge i would be remiss not to our benefits manager ms isabel magado as well as our benefits admin assistant miss valerie enrique have been working really hard i think i know a lot of us know and the board members particularly all of you

108that this is human resources busiest time of year as we're hiring we're transitioning we're posting positions so implementing a whole new insurance system on top of it um has been busy uh but we've been doing a great job and i have to give kudos to them because i've been pulled away for certain things although i've been heavily involved in each part of it um sometimes up to seven hour meetings every week in this process because we want to make sure we have all of it correct but they've really been doing the the follow up and meeting with our employees and we've done already at this point as i flip through we've done road shows we've done webinars we've got another webinar tomorrow we sent out an email yesterday in regards to a link to a

109video as a recorded webinar we'll be sending out another additional video to talk about what this process looks like when they go through this and register online and what that's going to look like so the department has been crazy busy working with our employees we've gotten some questions we've had good attendance we're answering questions and then as more people view the videos or the webinars hopefully more questions will come in and then we'll be able to answer and help and assist those but the one that i initiated last week for one of the road shows we probably had about 30 participate so i thought that was a really good number and then yesterday and today we probably had another 25 to 30 participate between the two so after that i'll entertain any questions mrs martens

110i just want to thank you i know i asked for this to come back and i just want to thank you this is a lot of detail and i really enjoyed making sure that we're doing right by our employees and i know you've put a lot of effort into this and your whole team has so thank please thank them for me because this is awesome thank you thank you board member wilson insurance isn't always a fun topic but important topic that's all i was gonna say is i really appreciate it um most most companies other the employees will get a book a little booklet and they sent on their way to sign up so you guys really went out of your way so i appreciate everybody that asked for it and did it and made

111it possible and helped them to understand and benefits are huge and mistakes can be made and changing costs can be surprising especially when you're going down during the workday you may not be ready to hear all the information and processes so having the online options and recordings and speaking it here i appreciate you guys and 420 was your road show so you probably did you do that all day or did your team members so i was fortunate um president kaylar vice president anderson i was very fortunate that the team took that over so um there's been a lot that's been going on just a variety of things throughout the district and so i initiated them i modeled it and then there are such great individuals that they took it over and went from there so

112it's important that they know that too well done yes very well done mrs martins and i know you're tired and and we just appreciate you so much you have brought so much um wisdom to our hr department and having your benefit background was huge in this process so uh yes we are very grateful for you and all we can do from every point of standpoint is encourage our employees to attend and watch the webinars and obviously there they can watch them later too that's how i understand it so find that time to watch them and educate themselves as well you know we're offering it so we hope that they take us up on this fabulous offer so absolutely thank you president kayla yes the most important thing and if we have individuals watching is that

113because it's a true open enrollment everybody has to participate and if they do not participate then they will not be eligible for insurance so everybody must participate this year in following years um it'll be open enrollment but only necessary if you're going to change plans drop or add right the first year you have to pick everything that you want and then after that you can either keep what you'd like or make the changes so this this june period of time is going to be huge right it starts yes open enrollment for us actually starts next week okay um we want to make sure that we're able to hit all of our employees because we have a number of 10-month employees and certainly don't want to get too close to the end of may as dr

114foley's mentioned it's the 90 days of may right um so sometimes it gets lost and everything else so we thought if we which we did we rushed to make sure to get everything ready and prepared so we were able to do it starting next week into the first week of may oh excellent wonderful so they'll have time absolutely so no excuses um it's easy for us to say that but president kaler members of the board i'd like to stress again one of the things that mom and her team have done is in this decisions every every time we can err on the side of making it right for the employee the most the most most coverage the least amount the most time whatever we can do those have been the the in favor of the

115employee has been the decision that has been made so that is something that i feel really good about the outcome of this entire process definitely thank you okay we are going to move on to some action items um for this uh seven i'm sorry 8.1 our capital outlay budget uh we've gone over this several times now board and we are doing our tentative approval tonight so that our summer projects will not be delayed so if there's any questions that you may have feel free but i think we've all seen this multiple times now and are good with it so i move that the governing board approved the tentative 2023 capital outlay budget as outlined in the attachment second all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero moving on to our this is always

116fun we love to do this any chance we get so this is for our classified employees work agreements i move that the governing board approves the issuance of classified employee work agreements for the 2022-2023 school year and please note that their pay has been increased by seven percent second sorry we all want to second this and third it and fourth it all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero and again we yeah this is this is good for us and good for our staff and our district and we are grateful i just can i follow up yes please go ahead um i did read over every name like i did the uh certified staff for classified and i just want to thank every employee who is going to sign their contract preemptively thank

117you because i know it's always a hard decision on where to go and especially this one a little more hard because i've i'm seeing the pay increase elsewhere and we're trying our best and i just i appreciate every one of you who decides to stay with higley thank you yes all right 8.3 this is our salary schedules and rate adjustments i move that the governing board approves the adjustments of the salary schedules and base rates as presented in the attached excel spreadsheet effective for the new fiscal year july 1 2022. any questions comments or concerns go ahead no okay all those in favor aye aye motion carries five zero okay moving on to 9.1 is there anything that my uh board would like to see in a future presentation or work study president yes um

118i know we're going to be going over our strategic plan and and update information i was just wondering when we do that could we also i want to make more work i know you guys have a lot going on but can we also hit on the areas that the goals we previously had and that they were how they were completed and a lot of that is also driven by dr tree i this board has had a goal and vision of our professional development and it took us a long time to find the right person as our professional development director and coordinator and all the professional development you've done and then the care that you're putting into this adoption for our staff to make sure they're supported and um so that's only one portion but there's

119so much from that initial strategic plan and goals that we've talked about that even the previous board had a vision that you guys have made a reality and so if we can when you do your update if we can just touch on you guys wanted this professional development was a priority look at this is what we've done you don't have to list it we joked about it in our board retreat a little bit some of our status reports are are the dr chris street report because he has done so much in a particular week on supporting our teachers and the professional development and i think we went from no professional development to i just like i said the whole status report's full of it and it's so appreciative and and i don't know if any

120of our teachers don't feel supported please come forward and and talk to somebody because everything that we're seeing i just don't see how that's possible so um just when we do our update can you blind a little bit and touch on what we are doing we we were going to do professional development update in june so do you want it to you want both i was just using that as an example of okay that was part of our initial strategy okay um there's so many things that we had for goals and strategic plans that have now come to fruition yes professional development was only a piece of that i was just using that as an example i don't i don't want you to do a lot of work but you guys can check mark and

121just do brief updates when we do our strategic plan um update like this is the old one look at check here this is we have dr chris treat you guys read everything he does you know another one was our science you know our textbooks and look here check this this is what we're doing so if you can just provide that when you do our update president caleb maurice i'm thinking something similar to what we did in our retreat a few weeks ago where we hit each one of those goals and we'll do a quick summary of the progress made toward it i will be happy to provide that update for the for the general public thank you because i think it's important you guys do so much work but you don't talk about it there's

122so much that goes behind the scenes um miss martin's miss richards i mean everything we were talking about that you guys have done behind the scenes um i think that we just need a little moment to to be able to show that and show everything you've done without creating a lot of work please no problem thank you anything else all righty we are going to go into a work study now at this time are we staying in this room are we going to our educational conference room um educational services conference room and we will be adjourning in there so thank you and good night that that meeting is continued to be open public so if you want to join us you are more than welcome you