001good evening i'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order dr foley roll call president reese members of the board please let the record show that all board members are present thank you we're going to go ahead and have a moment of silence followed by the pledge of allegiance [Music] oh foreign we're going to go on i move that we approve the agenda as it's presented second any questions or comments regarding the agenda all those in favor aye aye motion carries 5-0 dr foley superintendents report president reese members of the board we begin tonight with our very favorite part of our meeting which is the honoring and acknowledgement and celebration of our amazing students staff and employees who and community members who make our district amazing and tonight we have both of the
002high schools in the house and so we start with we're going to start with hingley high and we will invite mr fields up so that he can call up and recognize his points of pride and that we can celebrate and honor them tonight good evening president reece and members of the board weekly high school is proud to be here to recognize our points of pride uh i want to first ask yvette worley our certified staff member to come up [Applause] yvette has been a foundational member of the higley high school math department for many years she's worked on geometry curriculum for the district consistently over the years and has also mentored many new teachers yvette has a can-do attitude and is always willing to help students be successful in her class there are numerous times
003over the years when students return to her asking for a sounding board share a personal experience or ask for advice the connection with students is truly wonderful to see and it's one thing that makes higley students experience in high school special aside from doing what's good for kids she's a team lead that reminds her teachers consistently not to stress i got this she makes copies for the department plans a week ahead asks for ideas to improve curriculum and checks on her teachers on a personal level i vet students know that she really cares about them and will do all that she can to help them succeed in math yvette didn't think twice about taking online taking on an online class this year in addition to her five sections of in-person geometry she never complains but
004always shows up to work very hard for her students congratulations event you stay up here [Applause] all right next if i could have our classified staff member katie davis [Applause] katie davis is the bookstore manager at higley high school katie has consistently gone above and beyond in her service to our school students and staff she's willing to step forward and assist in any capacity when there is a need during the pandemic she has organized and ran numerous collection and distribution events for students needs sometimes spending several days in a row standing outside in the heat wearing masks and gloves to collect or distribute materials to students and families katie has also been willing to fill in when the health aide is not on campus with all the changing schedules and situations we found are in
005ourselves in this year katie has worked very hard to keep everything straight keeping the calendar is a huge job on its own but katie also deals with club paperwork finances textbooks etc she's here for the kids and does everything to make positive things happen at higley high school don't get embarrassed so my girls came with me tonight so they're here and then i have a few others that are online hopefully if it's streaming watching because they couldn't make it and of course my girl amy up here and all her daughters thanks baby lifetime achievement now if i can have our student tia huff come up please [Applause] the best buddies champion of the year initiative is a 10-week campaign where community members and local philanthropy philanthropy leaders raise funds and awareness to generate countless opportunities
006for friendships jobs leadership development and inclusive living for people with intellectual and dis and developmental disabilities marking the third year of the campaign in arizona alicia thomason an education worker with strong ties to the higley unified school district was paired with tia huff of higley high school to buy for the title of overall champion of the year through making videos handing out custom-made business cards and a deep connection form between the two of them alicia and tia generated enough support to raise nearly thirty four thousand dollars to support best buddies programs in the state winning the title of arizona's next champion of the year as well as setting the high mark across all champion events across the entire country and receiving personal recognition from best buddies founder and ceo anthony kennedy shriver thanks to the
007support and awareness raised by tia best buddies in arizona will continue to support its current chapters as well as grow its mission of inclusion by using those funds to expand into new schools and bring more opportunities for integrated employment to the state of arizona congratulations tia thank you yes so i'm so offered to be my mom with me tonight starting my online brothers and i don't think my father and daddy to help me stuff every day good [Applause] two night thank you if i could have our volunteer brook garrett come up [Applause] brett garrett has volunteered at higley high school this year serving as the united kingdom booster club president burke organized and led club events throughout this year in support of the efforts of the united kingdom the club has supported staff and students
008as well as improve the school in many ways brooke has recruited many other parents to volunteer this year and continues to unite our kingdom in many ways 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 staff brooke's efforts help make higley high school a better place for all staff and students [Applause] thank you [Applause] thank you mr fields we'd like to invite mr tannebaum and mr fox to come up so that we can honor our williamsfield points of pride [Applause] madam president members of the board dr foley and cabinet thank you so much for having this this evening we're excited mr fox
009is here to celebrate as well um tonight so we're thankful for the opportunity to uh to be here and recognize our points of pride award winners tonight starting off with our certified staff member amanda johnson amanda can you come on up front [Applause] so uh these words are my words here so amanda johnson is by far the most talented school counselor i've ever worked with amanda's incredible talent and immense knowledge base has kept our school moving forward in this very unique year ms johnson has frequently been been commended for her kind and helpful nature as numerous students and parents at all grade levels have reached out to her for help a man with many with any task in which she has been asked and continually proactively seek out additional duties her positive attitude radiates through
010our front office and we couldn't imagine our front office without her gene truly exemplifies excellence in every endeavor and we are proud to call her a blackhawk thank you eugene thank you all right our point of pride for williamsfield high school student michaela if you want to come on up here all right so these are not my words they're the words of mr edgar mr rivera i'm not quite sure who it is exactly here but uh kind of a a tag team i'm sure on that one it is a genuine pleasure and honor for me to recommend michaela bago as our williams field point of pride i have taught and worked with mikayla for the past eight years as her band director and i'm delighted to recommend her for this award michaela has shown a
011tenacity and dedication towards constant improvement that is rarely seen in addition to being a natural musically talented student she continually pushes herself to improve above and beyond what is necessary to be successful in the school band program she has taken initiative to prepare music outside of school in order to audition into and participate in multiple honor ensembles including the north central region honor band the arizona all-state honor band and the phoenix youth symphony and she has also completed successfully in solo and ensemble auditions and festivals throughout her high school career as a senior micah achieved two amazing accomplishments she is currently principal clarinet in the phoenix youth symphony and she recently received first chair in the arizona allstate band and orchestra the first williamsfield student to achieve this over the past eight years she has
012consistently demonstrated grit and perseverance to achieve excellence in every musical endeavor she has pursued and her efforts have paid off for both herself and for our band program in addition to being a talented and hardworking musician michaela is also a prominent leader in our band she offers help and suggestions to peers in a kind and uplifting way and frequently volunteers to help wherever needed to support the band and her teammates she's able to critique and give feedback to peers in a way that encourages growth and confidence in the students around her makayla has demonstrated high levels of maturity through her willingness to put others before herself for the good of our band program she has mentored seventh and eighth grade students in our after school middle school outreach program north side wins teaching future band
013members both musical and performance skills and she continues to mentor these students when they come to high school as one of the top performers and musicians in the band she has remained one of the most humble respectful and caring students i have ever had the pleasure of having in my classroom micah is pursuing music composition at the university of arizona next year with this in mind we have worked together on her composition skills arranging a piano solo accompaniment for for clarinet solo into a band arrangement she will be performing this clarinet solo with the williams field symphonic band at our next concert in may i've been extremely lucky to have michaela as my student for the past eight years she has impressed me with her work ethic determination kindness and humility that she has demonstrated
014consistently i'm so proud to recommend her for the williamsfield point of pride for 2021 thank you [Applause] for our volunteer mr travis smith come on up please [Applause] travis smith has been an active volunteer with our program for the past four years travis is very organized a strong communicator and travis seeks to see the big picture and plan strategically for the future he actively seeks out seeks out issues and helps to find ways to address them travis was an integral part of the development coordination and implementation of the covet procedures which allowed our students to practice in a safe environment he is currently in his third year as the president of our black hawk band booster travis has done extensive research into the best practices from the top booster organizations in the country and started
015a band booster networking organization here in arizona thank you sir thank you president reece would you like to present the next acknowledgement [Music] all right we also have a points of pride from the board today is administrative professionals day so we would like to honor mrs darlene reach come on i don't know if you guys understand exactly what mrs reach does she takes care of six people plus she keeps our schedules organized she makes sure we get information she does so much in communication with all of us to make sure that we all know what's happening and where we need to be when we need to be there we could not do this without her so we want to say thank you for everything you do there isn't much that happens that darlene doesn't know
016about so i will hear about that later i know i will well that concludes our acknowledgments tonight and of course we want everyone in the audience to know that you are more than welcome to stay for the meeting but we also know that you have other things to do too so if if you want to stay you're welcome to but if you'd like to leave this is the time that we it'll allow you to do so if that would be more convenient thank you for coming tonight [Music] thank you hmm president reese members of the board we have some important upcoming events that i want us to to highlight the next the next month becomes super busy as we have lots of that this really doesn't truly capture all of the events on our calendar
017but but official meetings and important dates that we want to highlight at this point as you know we have scheduled a special board meeting for monday where we have a topic on face coverings that we will be addressing at that time we also have we're excited to honor our teachers of the year we have an amazing celebration planned for our teachers of the year at a time when we'll be celebrating during teachers appreciation week and so we're looking forward to a modified but beautiful celebration of our amazing teachers we also have scheduled a retiree reception because we have lots of people to celebrate and honor some of whom have dedicated 30-plus years to this district that we're excited to honor and celebrate we have a public hearing coming up as part of a legislative requirement
018for financials on may 12th and then a regularly scheduled board meeting on the 19th and so as you can see in addition to award ceremonies and other special celebrations we will be certainly busy this month this month and coming month and that concludes the superintendent's report thank you dr foley and i'm sure i'll hear about that one later too trying to operate in stealth mode is very difficult with darlene all right we will go on to board comments president reece mrs wilson last night we got to celebrate president reese and i were both um able to attend the higley high school underclassmen honors night which was amazing to see all those kiddos who got 4.00 and plus and getting to see their awards and then also williamsfield had make-a-wish the last two weeks and they
019raised a lot of money there and i want to thank everyone who made that possible also um i want to thank all of our community members who have sent emails we have been inundated i think would be a good word for that um i have not responded i this is my response i have read every single one i promise you i've read every word uh up until four o'clock today uh i read them i'm taking them into account but there's a lot of them so you will not be getting individual responses from me thank you thank you any other board comments president reese mrs holtz um i just wanted to say i was able to attend williams fields dance concert and it was amazing to be able to see them on stage performing and their
020artistry and everything and it was just great that they sold out um with their capacity that they were allowed so they had 600 and they had 600 people in attendance and it was beautiful and they were all amazing and so uh kudos to them and i am also reading all of your emails as well and going through everything and taking all of your comments and wishes into consideration thank you president reece i'll just say ditto on the emails thank you yes i believe we're all receiving them we're reading them when we have our meeting on monday definitely the information we are getting from our community will come into play as our cabinet still gathering information and we'll have a recommendation come monday so yes we are we are receiving them we are reading them they
021will come into play on monday's board meeting is there any other board comments i'll just add i just want to say thank you for emailing and thank you for giving us insight and perspective that we wouldn't have otherwise um and again i want to apologize like everybody else i started responding and then i couldn't keep up and i just i want to say it publicly that i am reading them i am taking them to heart and you all bring um attention to details that i didn't know about and so i appreciate you taking the time to share sometimes very personal information and i really appreciate it thank you perfect thank you all right then we will go on for our request to speak we value input from our constituents this time has been set aside
022for 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 liabilities members of the board may not discuss items that are not specifically identified on the agenda therefore pursuant to ars 38-431-01h action taken as a result of public comment will be limited to directing staff to study the matter responding to any criticism or scheduling the matter for further consideration and decision at a later date we ask that you please limit your remarks to three minutes and we have mr chris gilligan [Music] madam president members of the governing board dr foley and members of the cabinet my name is
023chris gilligan member of freedom for gilbert and father of three teenage students at williamsfield high school three students with three distinct conditions that add a layer of challenge and difficulty to their having to abide by the face covering policy that the governing board of the higley unified school district currently supports asthma anxiety and autism each of these conditions on their own are a challenge for a young person to deal with on a day-to-day basis if you as educators leaders and mothers could do one thing to make living with these conditions better would you do it would you do it for my children would you do it for your own children would you do it for your students my children are a microcosm of williamsfield high school and the higley unified school district as a whole
024how many other children with asthma anxiety and autism as well as a myriad of other diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions have been and are currently being negatively impacted by the current mass policy we are beyond a year plus at 15 days of slow spread we've all learned a lot since then we've learned since then to to include that mass become collectors and retainers of pathogens that the mass wearer would otherwise avoid when breathing without a mask despite this and the negative psychological consequences to wearing a mask as a fear-based behavioral modification here we are still requiring five-year-olds and older to wear a mask day in and day out this can change governor ducey has sent the signal to the school districts of arizona to make a decision on the way forward leaving it to localized leadership
025face coverings feed the fear narrative fear creates separation now is the time to cast out fear and end the face mass policy i leave you with a definition of bodily integrity and a call to action bodily integrity is the involvability of the physical body and emphasizes the importance of personal autonomy self-ownership and self-determination of human beings over their own bodies in the field of human rights violation of the bodily integrity of another is regarded as an unethical infringement intrusive and possibly criminal my call to action to you as educators leaders mothers members of the community and members of the governing board is to do that one thing and the face mask policy for the higging unified school district just as queen creek ala and great heart great hearts academics have done thank you thank you
026all right we have no other requests to speak so we will go ahead and move on to our consent agenda all right i moved that we approve our consent agenda as it's presented second any comments or questions regarding the consent agenda all right all those in favor aye aye president reese members of the board i wanted to take a second to thank you for the did you finish the motion did you need to say something because normally no it passed 5-0 thank you thank you i i got so excited i i jumped the gun there president reese members of the board with with your action and consent you just confirmed that uh mr dan fox will be the next principal at sawsman middle school and we are very proud and excited for that [Applause] thank
027you did he bring his family will you introduce them to us please mr fox please so yeah i brought my family here with me tonight and we we are in varying states of uh getting ready to go do things and everything like that but i have my wife evelyn fox my son zachary my other son corbin and my daughter marlena so ah thank you guys thank you very much i'm very excited [Applause] thank you mr fox and congratulations and um we wish you luck at saseman i know you will be missed at williamsfield and we're excited to see the great things you do at saseman president reece mrs kaler just to comment yes congratulations mr fox and whenever we move somebody within then it leaves another hole somewhere else and i and so i know
028that now we have that position to fill and uh big shoes to fill in both places um and also i was just really excited to see some overnight staff traveling overnight student traveling out of state we're back i see a little glimmer of hope of some normalcy coming back to our school district and so i really appreciate everything that went in to get these approved and following all of our policies and procedures i appreciate very much president reece mrs wilson can i please just thank all the teachers with the teacher coverage as well we just approved a lot of teacher coverage for an hour or two hours when they've had to cover the class um due to college being out and i just appreciate them taking that extra step and doing that for us it's
029not a lot that we're improving uh money-wise but it was a big it's a big piece for me that they did cover that when we needed them so thank you to all those teachers yes thank you president reese can i add or were you gonna say something go ahead mrs anderson i'm so sorry i don't take up any extra time but i just want to bring it back to mr fox and miss fox i've had the opportunity to work with both of them and um i don't want you to go because i always drop your name when i talk about willing to be being a great place so thank you for your time at williamsfield because you've you've brought a lot of peace and comfort and some consistency to that site and i appreciate your
030time there and i just feel confident saying that you're going to do great at sauceman and what a gift to have you thank you for all that you have done perfect all right then we will go on to our information items we will go on to 7.1 our career and technical education update good evening president reece members of the board i've been asked to come here tonight and give you an update on our career and technical education programs and so here we go curtis so currently we're offering 10 different career and technical education programs between the two high schools they're listed here bioscience criminal justice digital photography early childhood education engineering film and tv production graphic design marketing software development and sports medicine all these programs are currently we just received uh news from events
031governing board that they were all approved for the next school year so the 21 22 school year that they're all in compliance and approved the enrollment of our career and technical education programs over the recent years has uh grown by uh 100 so uh looking at the numbers here between higley and williamsfield high school back in 2014 we had about 600 students at each one of the schools currently we're running just about 1200 students at each school and next year we're looking at a moderate growth in both campuses as well programs that are offering dual enrollment this is something that i think isn't uh always noticed with career and technical education programs but has been a big focus of mine over the last couple years is to really increase the amount of dual enrollment credits
032offered at our programs so here you can see our career and technical education programs are offering 63 credits of dual enrollment probably most notably there's the criminal justice program that will be offering 18 credits of dual enrollment with chandler gilbert community college next year so but all the programs are offering some type of dual enrollment ap or an industry certifications speaking of industry credentials one of the one of my big goals when i first came here was to get each one of our programs set up to be able to have a industry or national certification for the students as well as come up with a way to fund all of those certification exams through cte so that burden wasn't on our students so here's just a list of the different credentialing programs that each one
033of the programs is uh involved in currently um with that um this spring regardless of the pandemic and the the things that we've gone through we are certifying we have 375 students that are sitting for certification exams this by far exceeds any number uh that we've had in the past i think our previous number was 83 so last year was probably our one of our lower numbers in recent years because of the pandemic and closing down schools or going remote in the fourth quarter but uh this is our rebound and so we have uh 375 students currently sitting for these industry exams funding for cte comes through three different sources it comes through a cted funding that is funded through the eve at ctad that money is paid through a a property tax and then
034it goes to the state funnels through uh eva and comes back to us uh that's where the majority of our funding for our programs comes from uh since 2018 we've seen an increase of 66 percent uh in that uh that event funding so we are currently receiving about 1.6 million a year in additional funding for the district for cte programs our other two funding sources are the federal perkins grant and the state priority grant again both of these numbers are up over the recent years and the amounts are there and then two years ago the state instituted a new industrial incentive grant or credentialing grant and over the last couple years uh it's been kind of slow for us the governor grants a thousand dollars per student certification uh in a high needs industry so
035one of our programs has a certification that is in the high needs industry recognized by the governor then for each uh certification that a student receives we receive a thousand dollar grant or gift or not gift but a thousand dollars from the state government so uh the five thousand dollars is the amount that we would receive for our 2018-19 school year uh last year we will receive about six thousand dollars and you should expect that number to increase exponentially this year along with uh the the funding and the enrollment growth we also have some good news to here to uh to report uh with even with the pandemic we've been able to have our students compete in some state and national events this year and we have some students that are being recognized here for
036either state championship or state placement or national placement so our criminal justice program is being announced as we speak we our criminal investigations team has taken first place in the state and we have also um uh received first place in the uh criminal justice quiz bowl uh bioscience we have two students that have qualified for nationals alana dunn and peyton reese i believe one of you is familiar with that person digital photography our yearbook from last year actually was entered into a national conference through the journalism educators association and received 10th place nationally and two of their students emma nelson and lily saba received third place national awards as well in marketing we have uh two students rex maxwell and nick paris who have placed at the state level and are going on to compete
037at nationals right now in deca and then in film and tv this is the very beginning of this list but we're going to have a lot more here in the next couple of weeks we have three four students here maddie farrell michaela jones ethan nuttall and hayden ashton who have all received national recognition for their their work in film and tv can we just pause right there and see how many great students we have at higley just another like reward that we have another awards moment like to celebrate these kids that have worked so hard so i just i just want to pause just for a second and thank you for that list because that's awesome to see um next uh um points of pride some of the things that we're we're seeing as points
038of pride for this year um we have 507 students uh who over this last few days have sat for the state cte assessment in a year where schools have not had students in person they've been hybrid or remote this is the largest number of students that we've had sitting for the state cte assessments and i was just sharing with mr lotzenheiser earlier this afternoon the results from those programs are looking really good right now again the 375 students we're sitting for the national certifications we also have three teachers that have either received an award or have been nominated for a teaching award this year herb williams who is the first year criminal justice teacher over at williams field high school has been nominated for the cte teacher of the year and casey cook also criminal
039justice over at williamsfield high school or at higley high school has been nominated for new cte teacher of the year and then ms kellen escado is the marketing teacher at higley high school has actually received the decca rising star award so i'm very proud of that some of the future opportunities that we have in cte uh to help grow the programs and also grow ct heat here in the higley district is looking at an alignment of the middle school exploratory programs with the high school pathways to kind of uh create a purposeful pathway or continuation of programs from middle school up through post-secondary um it's something that uh some districts around us have have looked at and have set up those exploratory programs and it's something that i will be very excited to sit down
040with mr fox and mr varner over at cooley and talk with them about those opportunities moving forward [Music] back in the day we used to have a signature cte program at williamsfield and a signature cte program at higley high school at higley high school it was the engineering program and at williamsfield it was the biotech program we invested some capital resources and treasure into uh having those programs be signatures for each of the campuses and along came the opportunity to great a great engineering teacher when mr tana mom came along he brought an engineering teacher with him and so we introduced engineering at williamsfield high school and both those programs are doing really really well but it kind of took away that signature program that higley had and so i've been in discussions with mr
041fields and miss johnson about potentially adding a signature program back to the higley high school campus and the discussions we've had earlier have been about maybe offering a possible medical program a certified nursing assistant medical assistant or maybe a one-of-a-kind program and creating for the state called a patient care technician which is a position at the uh hospitals um there's just kind of a hybrid of a cna and a phlebotomy tech so the other opportunities uh strength to continue strengthening our industry and post-secondary partnerships to build our reputation and support for our programs through our advisory boards and then continuing our focus on program outcomes those certifications and licensures so at this time next if there are any questions i am open to uh i think you covered a lot we have some great programs
042and good opportunities for our students and we appreciate that and seeing them continue to grow more certifications and competing nationally is great to see for sure and that goes out to our cte teachers who put the time and effort in beyond the classroom time because those cte programs require a lot more than just the classroom time so we definitely excuse me appreciate the time and effort they put in and we're seeing that so that's so exciting president reece kaler it probably won't be in my tenure but um culinary i would love a culinary program on our campuses and i'd love to come try the food when it's done no but it's done you've done a phenomenal job with our programs and boosting them and getting those kids enrolled and staying and taking those certifications and
043and the tests and getting those college credits it's been a huge huge growth spurt in our district so well done president reese member kaler thank you uh again it goes to testament as ms reese said uh to the caliber of our teachers and their relationships to those students and and building that passion and those students for the programs that they teach [Music] president reese members of the board we'd and absolutely mr pearson talks about our caliber of our amazing teachers and administration but we'd also like to thank mr pearson for the work that he's done and really truly building and growing these programs for us to highlight and celebrate and we look forward to bringing more updates of excellence to you in the future well done this is exciting and i love the takeaway of
044purposeful pathways is that oh fantastic thank you for doing that thank you all all right thank you then we will go on to 7.2 our district medical premium and voluntary product insurance update chris martens good evening president ruiz members of the board my fellow colleagues as well as our husd community i'm here to give our yearly update as it relates to our medical premiums as well as our voluntary products so i just have one slide i'll give it just a second yes not that one thank you curtis so each year as all individuals know we sit here and we await what we are going to get in terms of our premium increase and as most individuals know and employers know that nationwide on average premium increases probably go up by eight to nine percent some
045years in my tenure at higley we have actually hit that if not hit that a little bit more and it's all based on experience last year in january december the district approved the hire through a process with our new brokerage which is hub international and so hub has been working with us very closely this past year and all of the different things that we're doing and one thing that was great was with our medical which is a continuation of what we have had um at least this is i believe the fifth year with united healthcare as our medical insurance carrier hub international worked with us initially we received an 8.6 premium increase and when we looked at our experience we get quarterly reports and monthly reports in terms of our experience of our four plans
046it was trending in that direction what they were able to do though is work with them and negotiate that down to a four percent increase and as what you've heard in previous presentations by mr gad and mr moore the district will be absorbing that four percent which is wonderful that they were able to develop that within our budget so then the increase that the board approved a couple board meetings ago will be a full increase that our employees will see with the exception in caveat of asrs asrs is increasing as of july 1. so there will be a slight increase there but that is wonderful because in previous years our employees have received increases but our medical premium increases increased beyond the increase so this is a wonderful thing that we've been able to do
047to not only see a smaller increase um that is outside of trend but also that our board is able to approve and with our budgets with mr moore mr gad as i said um the district absorbed that component with the five percent increase so that's wonderful outside of our medical premiums we also have what we have total dental administrator for our dental coverage as well as imed for our vision coverage and there are no change to premiums in either one of those areas you may or may not recall and i know some of our board members are new but for our dental insurance we're in year two of a two-year rate guarantee and when the employee pays 100 of those coverages and in imed we are in year two of a four-week four-year rate guarantee
048so there's no changes to premiums there and our employees pay 100 of those premiums outside of medical the district does cover life which you'll see on there underneath our voluntary products is going to be covered under principle so i'm going to talk a little bit more about that we do offer our array of services and products underneath our voluntary area so we have life voluntary life voluntary short-term disability critical illness accident coverage permanent life whole life slash and then cancer coverage so prior to this year coming up july 1 with an effective date those products have been covered underneath wards services and trustmark ward services was essentially what i would call a mini broker and that's what we utilize for our voluntary products one thing that we have had challenges with in the tenure that
049i have been with the district is our current platform for benefits is solarics and it has not been able to be maintained very well which has been making it very challenging for our benefits department in regards to making sure that the premium payments that we're paying out for employees are matching our active coverage and every year we've kind of had to work with them in regards to why isn't this matching up why are these individuals missing um and the the platform itself has just been clunky for lack of a better word um so when working with our broker hub international we shared our concerns shared what's been happening and they went out to help us look at what other types of benefit platforms are available that we could explore and look into they came back
050to us with three different options business solver platform was one of them and it was a product that which is great and some of you are aware of this in regards to 24 7 platform it's hosted via the web our employees will get a user id and access and they'll be able to view their insurance and their coverages at any moment anytime that they have internet access in addition to that any changes of benefits whether it's a life event to where they're adding somebody or dropping somebody they'll be able to go in and upload documents as well as add that and then there's a verification purposes that comes on our end that we verify the product and the information and that they're eligible so that's wonderful too because right now it's all a phone call
051process that's manual that our team enters and it becomes challenging in addition to that process but also then maintaining and doing open enrollment and or additional enrollment when we hire individuals and they're being able to enroll during their eligibility period so we're really looking forward to this product and the access that we have and some of you in your own employment might be aware and utilizing products where you have that access so we've been a little bit behind the game on that so i'm excited that we're able to move forward and have that availability for our employees with that though we had to look at making some changes in terms of who our voluntary products were with because of the fact that our previous voluntary products did not work with the business solver platform some
052of you have heard me say this in previous years in addition to the concerns and challenges that we've had with the platform we've also had some challenges in relation to some of those voluntary products in terms of the enrollment of that as well as the correct information both to the vendor as well as what's being relayed back to human resources in our employees and so it was a time for us to really assess our voluntary products too and again we got a variety of variety of quotes that came back to us from various carriers uh metlife aflac some of the more popular ones reliant standard and when we took a look at all of them and what worked with the platform and what were matching in terms of plan offerings for our employees as well
053as cost we looked at principal bankers and guardian and those were all programs and what we had that resembled either a premium cost similar if not less with similar benefits in which our employees were already getting and anticipating so we're looking at open enrollment in may which is traditionally what we have done in the past during my tenure here at the district and we're currently in the process of implementing business solver platform which is wonderful the human resources team specifically the benefits team have been working hard with getting our data and going back to kind of that data you know the term garbage in garbage out so we've had some challenges in terms of getting even the correct data over to principal and working with business software but we're working on that and we're working
054really hard so it's going to be a change for employees but i think a welcome changed and an exciting change so if there are no questions or i'll entertain any questions president ruth i i love the fact that it's all online and at the employees fingertips today alone i my own husband's company has always been online but there's a part of our insurance that it's not and it's only by phone that i can talk to somebody and it's always a 45 minute hour phone call and our staff our teachers we don't have time for that today to be on hold so i love this platform and i'm so glad that you are moving us in a very positive and um 2020-ish direction so thank you for that thank you miss kaler there will be some
055aspects of potentially needing to call customer service but for the most part you know everything is you know at your fingertips via the web which is wonderful you guys looking into the whole picture so that it's beneficial for everybody i'm sorry for not getting this question to you previously um so there's no change to premiums but um there's the coverage stays the same co-pays the um there's no change in like doctors or anything like that that usually kind of hits home so for our medical insurance that is correct so we've not changed anything for medical insurance there is a premium increase however as i said the district is absorbing that increase so for our voluntary products um there in terms of what the employee pays for those premiums that is correct they're either going to
056be the same or they're going to be less so with the voluntary products there isn't so much a doctor as it is a policy and depending on that policy and what they've chose you know they get paid out for example short-term disability if an individual meets that qualifying factor of short-term disability and they're determined that they're disabled then they receive the money monthly based on whatever election that they chose so with our voluntary products there aren't medical providers specifically for that that falls within our our medical as well as our dental and our imed which those factors are not changing so that the coverage hasn't changed i'm sorry i worded incorrectly the coverage isn't changing at all correct the coverage for the plans on our voluntary products are not changing thank you no problem any
057other questions perfect thank you and thank you for noting that in the past we've been able to give our staff increases and unfortunately the increase in insurance and everything else has been larger than what they have received so i'm glad that we were able to find that mr gad helped with trying to make sure that we had that available to cover those increases so thank you all right we're going to go on then to 7.3 our human resources the quality sorry quarterly educational services uh report good evening again president reese members of the board my colleagues and the higley community so this is purely an update something that we started this year we currently work and vendor out our district subs which include what we call rescue subs which is very new new to us
058this year so each site because of covid we implemented esi actually termed rescue sub um where we have permanent subs on each site at our high schools we have three our middle schools we have two our elementaries we have one and they're there and available if there's ever an incident or a situation in which we aren't having sub coverage or don't have enough sub coverage they're able to help anywhere they can and be put into a classroom as needed so in terms of our costing back in august the district board governing board pardon me approved approximately a 1.2 million dollar costing to cover these areas of substitutes rescue subs as well as our aids which fall into our paraprofessional area as of the end of third quarter we have paid out 540 000 just over
059that with the total remaining of 722 thousand so that's where we're lying right now we will say that we've had a little bit of a roller coaster year when it comes to absences you know at times we've had some heavy absences and it's been a little difficult right now and i hope i'm not jinxing myself as dr foley has commented about a couple of things this week we are steady and we haven't had a lot of absences so we're hoping that we'll continue as we have i think we counted approximately 26 instructional days left so hopefully we'll end on a high perfect thank you anyone have any questions great thank you so we will go on then to 7.4 which is our quarterly special education day school report ms miller yes president reese members of
060the board attached you will find the report for the third quarter um spending to date of our private day schools back in august we had approved a budget of 2.5 million to cover miller can i interrupt real quick i'm so sorry can you just for a moment um since we have two new board members can you just give a high overview of what it is that we're looking at absolutely thank you sorry so the list of schools that you see there are the schools that the district utilizes to provide services to some of our special education students that have needs that we are unable to meet on our sites they're a little bit more severe the goal is always for these students to go there receive the skills necessary to then return back to our
061campuses and and reintegrate back into our programs the number has steadily gone down over the years we have been extremely blessed to bring in an edp to our campuses that is able to kind of keep our kids close by which has been extremely beneficial but we still do have the need for some students to attend some of these state approved private day schools um they are tuition based and based on service so some of those students that go there we just pay tuition some of them were also paying for related services such as otpt speech outside counseling things like that originally the goal was to continue to have that number drop but as we've started these programs on our different campuses we didn't want to overwhelm them as we were getting our feet underneath us
062so we've been very deliberate in how we place those students over the last three years any questions on the purpose of those schools you'll see schools fall off of this there are several more private day schools in the state we only list the ones that we are currently utilizing so these are our regulars for right now um 2.5 million was the original agreed upon kind of threshold to not exceed you can see we don't anticipate getting there right now we're right at about 1.8 and that's with the encumbered amount so we're hoping to come in under at about 660 000. any questions your team has done a fabulous job on providing services within our district and like you said there's so many benefits of keeping them close by if we can so thank you for
063the update thank you all right then we're going to go on to 7.5 which is our monthly governing board fiscal year 2021 our mno financial report for march does anyone have any questions regarding our monthly governing report all right thank you then we're going to go on to 7.6 our major maintenance and capital projects dr fowler president reese members of the board it's my pleasure to present information regarding our proposed our proposal for major maintenance and capital projects joining me tonight is mr benny buhultz our director of maintenance and we go to the first slide there thank you first of all when you look back on how our department has operated these past five years our focus has really been working on receiving funds through the state facilities board we have been extremely successful with
064the state building renewal grant process and our district has received over 60 million dollars in grant funding from the sfb since 2016. many of the projects accomplished through these funds include roofing and painting at coronado san tan gateway point and hta renovation and construction issues resolved at williansfield and higley high school also extensive hvac equipment repaired and were replaced throughout the district the sfb has served as the main source of capital funding for our department since about 2015. unfortunately the state is is making changes to the state facilities board and they are shifting the oversight of the state facilities board to the governor's office under the department of administration so we're we are really unsure of what the future funding from the sfp is going to look like fast forward to february 2021 and i
065know the board has seen lots of information from the finance department about plans and processes there's a new budget process in place in the district i'm personally ben and i are both very excited about that we are now aligning our district forecasted needs with our plan for allocating capital funding next slide and it was a very extensive behind-the-scene plan to develop this process a great deal of work has gone on in in cabinet and finance cabinet and we really looked at three sources of data we're going to talk about those specifically the capacity study the facilities condition index and also the demographic study considering all of those areas we we looked at the district-wide needs for the next five years in that we identified major projects and major maintenance if a bond would pass and
066then also a plan for major projects of maintenance if a bond doesn't pass in in making that determination for district need again we the sources that we used as part of that determination were a school-wide capacity to review a facility's condition index and a demographic study and i'm going to briefly describe each one of those ben's also going to help with that first of all school-wide capacity review and this this was very labor intensive and i want to thank miss sherry richards and mr watsonhauser and the school principals as we embarked on this journey to meet with each principal and walk each campus to identify and complete a review identifying capacity and existing use and then also potential growth areas there there is current program capacity that exists at varying levels throughout our district um
067we have identified though three campuses that will soon require increased classroom space for future growth and then the facilities condition index is the second item and i'm going to have mr buholt speak to that a facility condition index is is basically a snap in time of the condition of like your ropes painting equipment so this is an important thing to know in time coverage on that facility conditioned index it was reviewed and revised i'm sorry thanks mom do i need a repeater did you guys hear okay great they all had good things to say about the condition of our facilities and their feedback was helpful in completing the district's facility condition index there was also report confirming a five-year projection of district needs in five areas one is technology safety and security transportation new school
068construction and addition of buildings and site and building improvements next slide the facility condition plan also has a 1.5 million dollars of capital that has already been identified in the regular budget meeting that was presented on april 7th major maintenance major project identification here are in a dish are here additional items that will be identified in this five-year proposal to address a major maintenance of major projects would only be possible to address these if new bond dollars are received next slide capital plan for 2122 under major maintenance 1.75 million dollars have been allocated for the 2122 year they were identified as the falling repaired district marquee parking lot repairs for centennial higley high williamsfield gateway cartina power and district office lighting upgrades which are way out of date in the performing arts center at haley
069dry well maintenance what are dry wells dry wells are how we take uh water that comes from the rain off the streets in and a drywall actually perks it back into the aquifers so we do maintain those we have a couple that need some heavier maintenance warehouse and maintenance roof repairs a new chiller at higgley high where we have one then children number two that's in bad condition that we're we're keeping alive until the summer so uh window replacements and engineering for building an hvac upgrades district-wide thank you mr b holtz the third and final area was is the demographic study and uh those on the board um that were here prior to covet and it seems like years and years ago but it wasn't probably that long ago mr bremer was here and presented
070information about about about our demographics um but because of covid we had him come back and or for me update some of that information and so i'm just going to provide a few highlights of that a demographic study for you and and that impact kind of our some of our planning first first is the new residential construction and the projections show an increase of of 5440 total housing units by the year he's also indicated a positive enrollment trend and projector growth of district enrollment to increase by over 2000 students by 2526 breaking that down specifically that's a thousand elementary students in 500 middle school and 500 high school students based on these demographics some schools will be um will be in need of potential classroom space and that that um really is hitting us in
071the north part of our district and um that's where we're seeing that potentially high school space as well which is a little bit harder to predict predict partly because our high schools are so close together and with open enrollment depending on where there's those students land some additional highlights the next slide in the in the updated demographic study first was the housing projection just specifically a total of um 6300 new housing units which equate to 5300 new households will actually take our district attendance boundary the 24 square miles to just over a hundred thousand people over the next 10 years in just in our attendance area that population per household is expected to decline slightly as our population ages however it's likely that it will remain above the 2.6 per household average next slide also
072the projection of school-age population per household even though it's begun to fall slightly the 5300 new households should still produce an additional 2 300 students in that in that time period mr brammer also is predicting about an increase of over 200 students and he's calling it the bounce back or i don't know if he's coined the term yet covert bounce back but expecting you know students about 800 students next year in that bounce back then then anticipating that we get back to our our enrollment trend and ratio that we've seen over the last number of years and about an additional 1400 students between 2023 and this projection year of 2030 next slide the projection by school um allows those or follows those attendance areas and you'll see with the large increment enrollment increases in the
073north and you'll see the green and or yellow that highlight that gateway point and hta of of of most note on there and both as i indicated the middle schools and the high schools will see projected growth is predicted over the next 10 years also the next slide highlighting just major projects if the bond passes again these decisions and recommendations were based on a combination of the demographic study the facilities condition index and the school capacity study but really we're looking at and our emphasis on is on potential classroom editions where needed that that's where our area of focus will be and looking for the board's direction in terms of where we want to focus over the next five years uh if that if that bond is successful also other areas that we would also
074focus on just facility standards district wide to make sure that we're we have a consistent standard that's being met through all our district schools also facility renovations that may be necessary to continue that and then finally with the cost escalating with construction we're concerned that with a passage of a bond and some of the time that it takes to get these projects off the ground that that we are allowing for some contingency that allows for growth over that period of time if if needed under major projects just to highlight some examples of major maintenance um just like the um amount that was approved are ready for 2021-22 that mr buholt showed this is an example that takes us out over the next uh next six years so this year's already accounted for and this would
075be 22 23 on again the same categories dry wells flooring grounds hvac exterior painting parking lot roofing lighting all of the areas that really we would focus on major maintenance and are based on our anticipated needs on our demographic study the facility condition index and the school capacity this is what we we are anticipating the next slide and the major projects this would be um with a successful bond passage again our focus would be on classroom additions and that's expansion of existing buildings for growth if needed during the next five years facility standards again making sure that our buildings are there's equity across the district renovations where needed either upgrading and or renovations or remodeling and then again that contingency that that i spoke to previously and then finally just our plan if if there
076if there's no bond there would be no major capital projects although because of the new budget process that we've alluded to there is a plan for our basic maintenance like like we've allowed for each year so that would continue um in that annual process also any other major maintenance we would continue still to pursue the state facilities board and you know with that process being unknown though it's hard to say for sure that the amount of success we know we have a pretty high bar from the last five years to achieve but but that's that would be kind of our source for for um addressing that without a bond and at this time we'll answer any questions president reece um dr fowler do you know how many classrooms are available in those growth pain points
077i guess we could call them at the schools that you outlined williams field higley high school um hta and gateway i think yes yeah i know how many available classrooms there are yeah so i have that information could you send that to us in the studio status report first yeah that would be great thank you um whatever whatever happened with the shaded coverings that have the seller cells on them is that still is that an option was that a program from the past um is that something that we can get funded through srp or any other things we are continue we are currently in under a lease agreement for solar at chaparral and the transportation department the the best way i can describe it is initially the district had a very poor lease a bad
078a bad lease that got renegotiated back in about 2015 and so we went from a really poor release to just a bad a bad deal so we continue to to use that and and work our best through it at this point in time um i mean we're certainly um being good stewards of the environment financially it hasn't turned out to be the best process but um you know so that that's in place um based on our experience with it though i would not recommend you know that venture part part of it is when you're one of the first districts to experience something like that sometimes you you kind of go in front and and you don't know everything sure i wasn't here when it happened i know mr bucholtz was here one of the things
079that we're working though with the state is we've requested a roofing upgrade at chaparral and we're actually part of our process with the state is they'd have to remove the remove the solar panels in order to redo the roof and then there's some and so we're working on that whole process and and in the feasibility of putting those back on and so there's some logistics related to that but we'll certainly keep the board uh in the loop um as that as that process unfolds oh i was hoping to roll instant shaded parking for the teachers and just hoping that program would work well certainly that the shading parking has been has been a benefit um i think at transportation immensely too with all of our buses being able to park in the shade so that's
080certainly been an added benefit at both of those campuses i don't know that the cost of the solar program though was worth the worth that benefit but okay and my next question are the baseball fields over at higley high or are they in any of these for as far as grounds or anything we we have um with the with a successful passage of the bond there there is um an opportunity to address you know a number of things that that um as a board we determined you know as that we would determine would be important but we've not we haven't not been specific about anything at this point because sometime that sometimes those things change as well so i know that we'll work with the sites to identify those as we as we move forward
081thank you yes any other questions all right thank you all right we will go on to 7.7 which is the review of the governing board self-evaluation instrument the governing board and cabinet met on april 10th and we had a great retreat i believe and part of our obligation is to do an annual self-evaluation for the governing board and the current instrument was not very conducive to actually covering items that the governing board can control fix respond to um and so this we were talking about our new our new self-evaluation instrument during that retreat and there was lots of conversation and suggestions and um mrs reach captured those updated it talked her fully what am i missing here president reese members of the board thank you darlene reach took the comments and feedback and discussion that
082you had about your instrument and highlighted in yellow some of those additions and so you'll see the words some of the words you added or sentences that you were suggesting there were some in yellows you slide down curtis if you could roll down the um there we go you'll see where any changes were made from the document you reviewed at our retreat on that saturday or additions that were made and i guess at this time if you had comments questions did we miss anything do you like the additions towards the uh feedback from from you at this point on did we capture everything you wanted for your for your tool president reece mrs kaler um i do appreciate the fact that we have a comment section for self-reflection and then comment section for overall board
083reflection i think that's a great thing that we added and discussed so i appreciate that being on there so overall this entire tool is so much better than anything i've ever seen um before so i'm very grateful for the hard work of mrs reach and cabinet putting into words that we might not have had completely hammered out but it looks fantastic to me thanks for all the hard work thank you and part of this was the intent of any assessment instrument is improvement feedback reflection and our previous instrument did not give us that so it was important to identify what role the governing board plays and what our responsibilities are and keep that separate while it's in here keep our assessment separate than what we hold our superintendent accountable for there was in our previous
084tool there was a lot of areas that we were to evaluate which were not within our realm of board members but it is for our superintendent and it was important to capture what we can do what we can control what we can fix and get feedback and then what we hold our our superintendent accountable for so um i appreciate everyone's input and time and effort um in our retreat and discussing this and and participating so we can can make it our own make sure it helps for us to be able to do improvement feedback with each other individually as well as a board so i i really like what has come out of this anyone else based on the changes and updates that we asked for there is two separate tools one will be the
085tool we use for the self-evaluation and as mrs kaler pointed out comments for both self-reflection and overall board reflection and then we have a self-assessment score sheet that can help as we're going through to determine each of those areas the overall rating for the standard it can it can help if you just notice that there's only one zero did not feel it was necessary to put both two zeros because never an unsure would both qualify as that value so mrs reese two i believe that takes out our our 3.5 and our 4.2 i mean we were just we were grasping at some points in our previous tool as to where did we land on a certain assessment um guideline or standard so i again appreciate the overall rating and having that number probably be not
086a point something and as board members we understand this is a self-assessment instrument this is what we are required to do for board members there was discussion at some point to be able once we get used to this tool to potentially be able to roll it out to some additional groups for additional feedback to help participate in an assessment process of the governing board at this time it will remain the self-assessment as that's what we are required to do as we continue to use this tool and see what works see what doesn't work make any adjustments that hopefully over time that will be able to spread that out a little bit further get more feedback as mentioned based on our emails we do get feedback and sometimes it's a topic and sometimes it's personal so
087um we do still get feedback but hopefully we'll be able to in the future have a actual tool for additional groups to be able to use to help provide feedback and reflection i'll add on to the thank yous thank you for the saturday thank you for everybody contributing and um and the previous board for putting getting this going knowing that it needed a lot of work and getting us to this point and the staff as well and cabinet members and administration i'm looking forward to moving forward and developing a good way to use it we'll gather data we'll self-evaluate but it's like a teacher do we pull small groups are we going to re-teach like what are we going to do after that so i'm looking forward to using this to grow and become better
088so thank you thank you everybody i agree um what good is an assessment if we're not going to use it to grow and to change and to move forward so so i'm looking forward to that and to be able to do that and evaluate and move forward to support so thank you yes exactly our previous tool did not give us the information data and ability to do that so we are too excited to be able to grow individually as board members and collectively as a board so any other questions regarding the governing board self-evaluation instrument all right then dr foley we will move on to 7.8 which is the governing board initiatives for the 2021-22 school year just a quick note on our initiatives annually we have our retreat like we did and the board
089helps set initiatives for the next school year it was amazing to be able to have a group of people our cabinet was there to be able to participate and full discussion as our cabinet and administration is responsible for meeting those initiatives so it was nice to bring back the people who are responsible for meeting those initiatives to help participate in creating the initiatives for the next year so with that dr foley i will turn it over to you to present those thank you president reese members of the board we too were very pleased about our retreat and the conversations that we were able to have and one of the things that came out of that meeting on that saturday was for us to from the words we talked about they're come back to you with
090those four initiatives so cabinet and and myself and darlene worked on word smithing these of course we are we are available to modify these we are formulating them with you so that we can be sure we're all on the same page but this is the work that we came away with from the conversation we had and we have structured this similarly to our presentation on that day when we were looking at our initiatives for this year so i'm going to start with kind of doing a little overview of what we think those initiatives will look like for this year on this first slide and then i'll walk through each of the four initiatives with what we anticipate the work products would look like sound like rhyme with when we when we bring these to you
091when you read a bottom in status when you see them as artifacts and evidence of our progress toward these throughout the year we felt it was really important for us to to make sure that this aligns with the essential work that we know that has has been done and needs to be done you've heard from you've heard us talking about a theme of processes and procedures and working together to address unique unique opportunities for our our team and to ensure some consistency throughout our system and you'll see some of that reflected in in our in our initiatives here so overall before that we identified from our conversation and again we are open to wordsmithing or clarifying if you believe that we should was the idea of updating and refining our strategic plan for the 20
092to 20 22 to 27 school years we talked a lot at the retreat about the work that we have obviously our strategic plan goes for one more year but after that we've we've come a long way there's an awful lot that we want to evolve and move forward with and we want our we're wanting to lead that initiative ourself and obviously part of that is outlining a road map for a portrait of a higley graduate and this is we talked about is going to be big important work that needs to happen next year and something the cabinet is very excited about we also talked about that continuing to ensure safety of our students and employees as they return into the 21-22 school year obviously we are evolving out of of of we are still in
093the middle of a pandemic and we're evolving and things are changing quickly and how do we ensure the safety and security which is a first and foremost of one of our essential priorities but also how do we focus on the social emotional well-being of our employees and our students as we return to normal-ish and as we embrace next year and so much work went into as we kind of we went down a little therapy session on that saturday of the evolution of last year this past school year and the work that had to be done obviously there will be some transitions and evolutions this year and that's going to be something that we will talk about and we'll look at what that kind of might look like in just a minute we talked about the
094we've also felt one of the ways we wanted to word the third initiative was continue to improve best practices in teaching and learning i mean what we do is all about teaching and learning and we we talked about meaningful utilization of technology so much uh financial resources have gone into this essential for how we reached our students particularly when we went from in-person to online virtual literally overnight but now how do we revolutionize our instruction with the tools that we have to truly be meaningful we also talked about the idea of relevant professional development coordinated through an assistant director that was connected to a strategic initiative we have and we have a we're excited on building on that so as we talked about some of these things don't go there away they evolve and then
095the intentional use of data and we'll talk a little bit a minute what that will look like but we are so intentional about professional learning communities learning together what is this information saying what do we do with that and then making sure outcomes happen with students and we'll talk about that so these are kind of describing bullets if you will that allude to a lot of work that will happen in this area and then we talked about it the theme of processes and procedures consistency and accountability we talked about some of the wording that was discussed on the 10th was wanting fiscal responsibilities and oversight going with processes and procedures as well as all processes that are created are documented disseminated and implemented so this was our our wording if you will of the conversation
096that we had which we felt would be some essential strategic initiatives for us as a team i'll walk through what we thought some examples might look like and then and then you ask questions or we can refine words and by no means is this an exhaustive list this is just an illustrative example of this that obviously when we refine and define our strategic plan we would be bringing to you as we kind of discussed at our retreat on on that saturday in october we would bring to you the outlines of the template of what are we going to do who are we going to survey what is this going to look like what would that process be who are we going to collect feedback from when are we going to do that so that you
097would have an idea of what our strategic planning process would include and who would be involved and it would be an extensive outline of who what when where why and what would the product look like obviously we would be implementing the plan and gathering that information for a strategic plan which would look like you see date you would see forums you would see feedback you would see evidence of what that looks like with us can you go back thank you um obviously we would be organizing that information and providing updates on our priorities and goals of what we're learning and then of course it would include an update of our portrait of a higley graduate that was reflective of our our community and stakeholder input on who we are and where are we going as
098a district from from now and into the future next slide we talked about work um again how do we open in school safely and how do we focus on social emotional well-being obviously our mitigation plans and strategies will be a big part of what we update and revitalize there are going to be parts and pieces that change but there are substantial details in that like what does the communication protocols look like what is the communication of families what training is involved to employees and staff all of those things are going to be important that we that we evolve and we'll be we'll be actually starting talking about this as beginning as soon as on monday at our meeting um what does that look like for higley and how do we move forward together there's a
099lot of details in those communication our screening protocols all of those things would be part of the returning safely but then we're also going to be talking about very intentional activities that we do for our employees and for our students that focus on social emotional well-being and and making that a priority in addition to the health and safety component but the emotional and overall well-being because obviously we're concerned about the academic wellness of our children but we also are concerned about them as a whole person and and our employees as well and being those intentional activities and events would be things that we would highlight with things we think it's very important that we would work with our administration to help us define what does that look like how will we implement that so that
100there's some consistency but there is also some ability for customization at each site for the needs of our of our so there's so that there is overall support but then individualization so that you know again one size does not fit all and we think that that'll be important and you'd see evidence of us working with our administrative team on that um for that initiative the next one so professional development we talked a lot on that saturday about relevant meaningful we talked an awful lot about how important it is that we have some superstars in higley how do we help how do we help share that expertise across and not having someone dedicated to the coordination and the support of professional development was was it was a detriment to us and obviously we're very excited about
101the hiring of a person in that capacity to help facilitate that but to help build upon what we're doing so you're going to see intentional explicit professional development connecting to the technology that we just talked about but that where we look at how are we engaging our learners and how are we modeling that and how ours the curriculum development that we're working on like about that and actually that's kind of the exciting part that professional learning communities process and the thing that we are excited about is how do we use the tools that we have our technology tools better in fact one of the things we're finding and that we're excited to roll out with uh dr sue borzich is in our synergy system we're going to begin to actually have a true response to
102intervention documentation system where our systems talk to each other we enter information so that our assessment things are easy to have there so when we're talking about the important things that happen in a plc so what are we going to do about this our tools are going to make it more easier for us to have that conversation and to document that and that is something that we're very excited about we're talking about the utilization of our internal expertise and embedded in this would be an again an example we talked about at uh the retreat was our higley leadership academy how what are the what are the internal things that we have that we will build the capacity of others we also have some superstar teachers who are doing great things and when we have our
103tools that allow us to uh to to see and to see our technology and to share there's no reason why we aren't utilizing our own internal expertise and making it meaningful and relevant so um when we talk about other examples the implementation of virtual academy it's big when you lift a virtual academy as you know we're beginning the marketing for this our numbers are growing but making sure that this is successful because if you build it they will come and we want something that will sustain and be something for us as a tool that supports those who choose purely online or those who want to something to support in person and online with additional options that's a wonderful thing for us to have as a district and we're looking forward to building something spectacular and
104then obviously our continued use of canvas is a learning management system there are some things that happened emergency wise as we responded to how do we go from not having these tools to having these tools but now how do we keep sustaining and utilizing those tools more effectively and so these are some examples of things that you would see of evidence toward that that when you say what does this look like what could you see and again these are not exhaustive but just some illustrative examples and then our other one is let's talk about those processes and procedures one of the things that keeps coming up and is we need some consistency in and those processes we're creating we're going to be creating an administrator handbook we realize that we are writing all of these
105processes from simple things to a donation form to consistent practices that are related to our policies that need to be in one place and one space and they need to be online and so we're going to be creating that and it's going to be something that we continue to build to and add to but this is one of those things when you talk about trans transcending or living beyond an individual these are the kind of institutional artifacts that are beyond essential and we are going to have that um we're going to be building that and we're going to have that for to so because processes and procedures protect our employees when they know what to do and how to do it and we do it right and what's exciting is that when we build it
106we're going to build it with them so that they're part of creating it and and that's another piece we're excited about that would include things like our updated emergency plans our protocols our essential procedures what do we do when emergency situations happen so that again it's not who you're going to call or what if they don't answer the phone or um now what we need to have these in place because when you need them is is when you need them you need them dr foley i i appreciate this administrator handbook so much because i have heard of previous employees leaving and saying well i left them a file on their computer and i thought oh dear so i really appreciate an administrator handbook of sorts definitely thank you and again we're talking about when we
107we have some policies that include some regulations those regulations need to be written down we may need to modify a couple of our regulations that say and this is how we do it um and why we do it that way um so and again the other thing and tyler rogan was helping us looking at this one of the things that when we talk about fiscal oversight he's aligned and again you've seen you've seen more detail in budget than you've ever seen before we're aligning those department site budgets with organizational charts in which we hold those administrators over those budgets accountable we provide specific training in and that they understand how they do that all of that is part of that administrative handbook but that alignment of district budgets and oversights is no small thing and
108that's a new thing that we're doing and is again an evidence and artifact of what that will look like for that initiative of the important work that we need to do so with that that kind of gives you a thought of what we were thinking when we thought of these initiatives please at this point please these are let us know your thoughts feedback wordsmithing thoughts well you've taken on a lot for sure creating the administrative or administrator handbook aligning the department's insight budgets when we're putting budgets back out to the sites and and giving them control over what they need um with budgets and that takes time it takes man hours it's and it's not going to happen in a year because you you just can't there's too much and so i i appreciate what
109you have come out with and that we can see moving towards this is happening we're starting to build this this is here and like you said it's evidence that for the board to see that we are making progress so i i think that i know for me this is even more robust than i expected coming out of our retreat that you've put a lot more a lot more detail and and evidence so um i appreciate that for sure this is an exhaustive list i mean this is just even um the word strategic plan alone is huge um so there's big big words in here that we know what falls underneath those big words too so i i i'm very impressed from what we discussed on our retreat um the things that you have come up
110with so well done and the importance of the buy-in that we had people there who are going to be responsible for doing these items and um for taking on creating or refining we don't need to recreate we have a strategic plan um but miss richards and mr lotzenheizer um recreate or redefining and and moving our strategic plan forward for another five years thank you so um you were voluntold for that but we appreciate it i know you're excited anything that anyone else wants to add to our 2021-2022 initiatives great perfect thank you with that then we will go on to our action items which is 8.1 sorry i gotta get back there i move that we approve their governing board self-evaluation instrument as it was presented today second any additional questions or comments all those
111in favor aye aye motion carries five zero and then we will go on to 8.2 sorry technical issue oh boy it's not the technology it's the operator trust me it is the user for sure on 8.2 i move that we approve the board initiatives for the 2021-2022 school year second any other additional comments or questions all right all those in favor aye aye and that motion carries 5-0 we have our future agenda items that are listed and we are working through them we get a lot of information as well through our weekly status reports we do have our district liability insurance coming up on may 19th because that will have to be decided fairly [Music] all soon then we will go on to 11.1 and i move that the governing board convened in executive session
112for discussion and consultation for legal advice with governing board's attorney pursuant to ars 38-431-0387 second i tried all right all those in favor aye aye we will go to executive session [Music] now you