001e e e okay 5:30 I'm G to call the meeting to order um can I have a motion to adopt the agenda I'll take a second all right all in favor I I we still have to vote motion carries 5 to zero but we're going to vote so everybody can see it online maybe ah finally okay so now today we're we're here uh what oh we're going to do the pledge all right let's do that Al to the flag all right today's just a study session so um a little bit more relaxed we're not going to make a decision so we're just it's purely informational discussion is um definitely encouraged a lot of it so um that being said 4.1 um discussion information on policy Services options so Madam president members of the board for
002this discussion item we invited the trust and asba to come make their presentations each of them have a presentation um on the uh uh in the backup you will see their presentations but then there's also that same information we presented to you guys at the last meeting so there's a a ton of information that you can take a look at uh with respect to this but uh and and uh we will go ahead and invite up the trust first Then followed by asba and there's a presentation and and Craig will go ahead and run it from in the room hello okay great uh good evening Madam president members of the board superintendent Wyman members of the cabinet my name is Lillian Lee and I am one of the um trust model policy program managers alongside
003as you can see on the screen Jennifer mclenon who is unfortunately not here her daughter is getting married this weekend so she couldn't make it okay so what is the model policy program I'm just going to give a little brief um background on the program um so the trust created these model policies for K through 12 school districts we did um also start with with making a CED manual as well because that was requested from us from a few ceds um what the trust did is they got a group of Arizona um education attorneys together and they spent a number of months really going back to the basics they looked at what was legally required of districts and said okay districts need policies on this and then they also looked at what would reduce risk
004for a district and created policies off of those why was it created this is a fantastic question this was not a space that the trust wanted to get into um if you're unfamiliar with the trust they provide your liability insurance with a slew of other programs and policy was not one of those programs they were offering um around late 2021 2022 early 2022 districts approached trust leadership and asked if they would get into the space um these districts wanted another service um they wanted a nonpartisan simplified solution and the trust leadership had con some concern about this they thought okay if the district leaves their current policy provider and they're left with no policies or they're left with subpar policies that's a liability concern and as I mentioned the trust um supports districts in risk
005management and so they thought the best solution was to enter this space they knew okay we can get the appropriate attorneys together and make quality policies um a few of the benefits I've already mentioned this nonpartisan of course um while this is a template it is customizable we know every District every Community is different and I'll kind of show an example of what that looks like and then the um numbering system is actually interestingly enough something we get a lot of feedback on that people districts really like that so how our kind of um manual works is it's for example chapter one it would go one chap policy 101 and then policy see 102 and then 1 103 that's how it looks throughout the entire manual and here's a breakdown of the chapters themselves so
006chapter one District governance that is really all about you guys as the board um chapter two is Administration it's our shortage chapter there's only two policies it's all about um hiring and evaluating your superintendent chapter three is business operations and then HR is chapter 4 and then of course our last and largest chapter is students which takes up probably a little bit more than half of the entire manual and then we also include a glossery of terms and um our template does have a form bank and when I use the word form that's similar to what you would call exhibits and like I mentioned before we did create an entire separate manual for cads I believe we have three cads right now operating within the program um of course these are all public polic excuse
007me um so how it works and you'll see a little screenshot of it is on the Trust website we have um listed and linked all of oh here you go this is the Trust website so this is the model policy program page and here are um a list of some of our adopted districts and if you click on these links it will go straight to their policy manual and you know if you ever have some free time and you want to browse our website you can see there's a line that say click here for the trust template and that link takes you to the template itself um of course the template is copyrighted our policies are copyrighted just to protect our work product but any new um unique policies to um you of course will
008not be copyrighted so if I clicked on one of these districts it would take me to their home page on our platform which is called microscribe and on the platform itself we C customize it to you your logo will be on there it um will be linked to your website and then there are tabs for each chapter so here's chapter one if I had clicked on the tab this is exactly what I would go to and it is broken down into subsections and within those sub subsections are the policies and procedures um and when I use the word procedure that is regulations for you um and you can see the numbers of the policies and procedures are blue those are links if you click on one of those h Lings it will take you directly
009to a policy which looks like this so this is an example from daart and this is what each policy will look like um this is a unique policy to them they decided they wanted um their mission and vision and their goals to be their very first policy so they put this in themselves um but you'll see it has the policy number the adoption date and if there are any um legislation that pertains to that policy it will be linked at the bottom as well um I just kind of want to go through the platform since I can't um show you the platform but you'll see on the left um top left side there's a bunch of buttons and so through those buttons you can download each policy as a word or PDF document um you
010can get direct links to each policy so for example if you want to directly link your leave policy to your employee manual you can do that and then on the top right side there is a um quick search toolbar that kind of serves as like a control F or control search function so you can type in any word any phrase any statute and then it'll pop up with a list of every single policy that references whatever you typed in and then you can also translate um the policy manual above that search bar you'll see the letter A that um if you click on that button it'll give you a drop down of different languages you can translate it to so the next couple slides it's just some data about who is in our program and
011as of today it's already changed this changes every week so I've just broken it down to who is currently adopted and is currently transitioning into the program on this slide and um these are the districts that are currently transitioning that means they have not adopted and we are currently supporting them through the work and one of these districts um actually today finished and they have fully adopted and they um their platform is being made as of today and here is just another breakdown by County throughout Arizona and how many districts we have per County okay the program fees so these are our current fees for this this year so just to access the program itself um as a firsttime member you will be charged a onetime fee of $255 and then you'll also be charged
012an annual fee of $240 um after that you will never be charged that setup fee again you will only be charged um the annual member fee and um I just to be fully transparent this fee structure is set by our board um this year they decided not to raise the price from last year so this has been our current fee structure for the past two years um but there has been talks of them raising the price of course this is still in the works I do not have a number figure for you um I have heard talks of in the coming years so multiple years from now um it being raised at most 2500 I've also seen the number a thousand thrown around but again I don't have that exact number it's not been voted
013on or decided but when it is of course we would let any current member or prospective District know um and additionally with that I do want to mention about our contract um our contract is a one-year contract and there is no penalty for leaving so you will not be Char charged an additional fee if you decide to not move forward with us in the following year um PPL fees if you are part of um the PPL program and you want to utilize your um PPL Council of course you will just be charged through that program and then the comprehensive policy review this is optional if in three to five years you feel like you need us to kind of come in and look through your entire manual and audit it and make sure you've been
014up to date on all of our updates and that you're still compliant um we would go ahead and do that for um $1,000 but again that is optional you would never be charged that unless you decided to pursue this um service and I also wanted to discuss what is included in this member setup fee for that first year and your member annual fee included in those fees is of course access to the platform microscribe you will not be charged an additional fee by them um policy updates throughout the year of course you're going to get a legislative update around August um wouldn't it be great if it was sooner too um and we also do updates throughout the year so we just had one go out late December early January we have another one coming
015out in a couple weeks as we know in education things are always changing so we'll do an update when it's necessary and of course we um always let our members have Blackline versions of the policy so they know exactly what is changing within our policies what is also included is constant support from our team um we provide technical assistance through the transition process and afterwards so once you've adopted you've done the heavy lifting you've done the majority of the work however policies change so anytime you need to edit or change your manual we will support you with that whether it just be the logistics um for example you just say hey we've approved this our board approved this um can you get this on our platform we'll do that for you or if it's a
016little bit more complex um such as you need us to craft language for you um or you need us to find a policy or find a form for you we'll support you with that as well and the transition process um that is included in this fee we do not charge any extra to support you through that process and I'll kind of go a little bit deeper into um what that transition process looks like and what our support looks like and then we also um include trainings within this fee um we have a list of trainings the last one we did of course was new board member orientations and our trainings are customizable we go to sites themselves um so for these board member trainings we went to the districts themselves to give indivual ized trainings
017um and along with those we have resources so for that training we did create a manual for those new board members I have a question oh all right um tell me what PPL is stands for yeah prepaid legal okay and also so you have a comprehensive policy review so you suggest doing it every three to five years after you youve you've already looked through them at the F at the beginning thank you madam PR that's a great question yes okay but um I should clarify that is kind of up to the admin T the admin team um if the admin team feel like they are on top of it and they have been on it with all the updates they feel like they're unique policies which we don't you know necessarily write um are compliant
018up to date then they can make that decision okay thank you thank you madam president oh and I don't want to forget um another thing that is included in that Fe is you do get a discount with board docs as well and we um can work with you on that do you know what that discount is um well every district has of course a different fee they pay um so the discount percentage is um similar to what you have now okay okay so how should districts join well step number one is you really need to preserve your existing polic polies we always recommend a hard copy and an electric electronic copy um you would just notify us that you are looking to join um I've already sent the agreement but we would send the agreement
019again and then of course it would have to be board approved and then we would just work on R end to kind of finish it up execute the agreement work on the invoice and processing it and what the transition looks like so like I said that is the heavy lifting um I know this first point says work with your District PPL attorney or your prepaid legal counsel but I'll be honest we really step in here um we have found it's just easiest and quickest if we support districts through this process and this looks different for every single District so what I will say is for every District what we will do is we will send you resources we will send the policies and a Word document we will send you a checklist of every area
020within that policy that you need to in that policy manual that you need to make um a selection so an option you need to fill in a blank or you need to customize it with some kind of information and then we'll also provide you with a crosswalk so what that crosswalk tells you is for example your leave policy is this in your current policy manual where does where does that lie in the trust template and that'll help you see okay what is missing or what is in addition within the trust template um what we will also do is look through your current um policy manual to see what policies are unique to you so what is not copyrighted and we'll work with you if you want to move those forward within your next policy manual
021um or maybe you don't um and like I said this after that this looks different for every district and it depends on your admin's capability and of course your um turnaround time when you want this to be fully adopted and we'll always set up a call with um the administrative team to kind of talk to them through this so we have some districts that um have you know not a huge administrative capacity or they have a very quick turnaround time and in those situations we usually take the bulk of the work we just say you know what we'll do most of the work for you of course with input from them because they still need to customize it and we'll produce the manual for you and the quickest we have done is I'm going to
022say two weeks and then we have on the other Spectrum other districts that have a very robust admin team and a robust structure that they've created to do this and we don't really hear from them until the very end and then we have everything in between we have districts where we attend you know Saturday all day Saturday study sessions with them we have districts where we have weekly working calls with them and so we're very flexible we just kind of work with your administrative team to see what they need and how we can help them okay so how should districts transition um well of course the policies need to be worked on they have to be reviewed and then they have to be approved by you um and once that happens we will um ask
023you if you haven't yet to contact your current policy provider and let them know your discontinuing services with them um and then what all you need to do is provide us with a Word document with the policies and then we take care of the rest we'll work with the platform you know we'll get your logo up there and they typically take around two weeks to get your um platform up and running and then after that you get a link to to your specific platform and then it's yours to post on your website um I do want to mention working with the platform you do have options you can have someone on your administrative team be trained to do backend editing um or you can just let us handle it and that's what the majority of
024districts do they just send us updates um Word documents whenever they want to update their manual and then I take care of it from there and we CH chose to do that we understand um the transition process itself it's just a lot of work for the admin team so we just wanted to take off that additional task from them and then after you transition we always encourage districts to look at the downstream documents that need to be changed anything in a hard copy in electronic form that references a policy has to be changed right any links need to be changed so um we can definitely help you with that um I've definitely helped districts change up their forms with their new policy um numbers and titles and I've kind of touched on a few of
025these but I am going to do it again so what you can expect after you transition and you're fully adopted like I said annual updates um and then again that comprehensive policy review if you choose to do it um we do have a law education conference every year it's in August we have our third one this year and for the past and again the fee for that is set by our board in the past two years our board has decided to make it free for every single member that wants to attend um and of course that could change in the future and then like I said site Based training okay next steps so next steps is you can of course contact Jennifer or myself we do have webinars on our um website that really goes
026into each chapter and also just an a breakdown of the program itself I'll be honest I think just picking a district and exploring their manual will give you a lot more information um just so you can see how the platform works and what different policies look like and you can see the language that is used um and of course we can always come back and do another presentation um so here is our contact information up on the screen um I am welcome um welcome to any questions okay you guys have this is your time got it you got any you have anything Jason okay Melissa oh Stephen let's hear it I don't have any questions what are you crazy I'm crazy I don't okay Lisa come on I do have questions here we go um
027you had mentioned at the beginning that it is a nonpartisan relationship um how do you ensure that it's nonpartisan during trainings or um other points of contact and working in that relationship um that's a concern that I currently have um to ensure that what you're saying that you're offering is what you're getting thank you madam president Mrs horn that's a great question I will say everything that we produce whether it be our policy manual whether it be technical support whether it be policy updates or um education conference is all vetted and looked at by attorneys so of course Jennifer mclennen um is a seasoned education attorney here in Arizona for the past 20 plus years um and anything that we send out is always vetted by a group of attorneys so and they're looking at
028okay well what does the law say we're not looking at the partisan issues we're looking at what does the law say and how is that reflected thank you thank you and then I also want to make sure that I understand the time to transition so say just for sake of conversation that we said okay today we're deciding that we want to go with the trust is that a two we or was the two week that you mentioned is that at a different point in time and there's actually a longer period thank you madam president Mrs horn um I'm that was my issue I didn't clarify well enough that two weeks I was discussing is once you've adopted and you've sent me your policies it will take the platform two weeks to get you a link
029to your platform okay the trans transition process itself can be as quick as two weeks like I said with that one District or it could be one year and anything in we've had anything in between okay and I would just say if we're going to do any changes we would look to do a start at the beginning of the of the New Year July one so whether that's practical or not we'll have to see but but if that's the decision that's the most logical time to change and try to switch in the middle of the year when you've already already started and may have uh people operating on under one platform and haven't switched another so I don't know what that looks like but that would be my suggestion thank you um I have a
030couple more questions is there a cost per revision or addition additional policy um so is there a certain limit like if you've had 10 revisions in a year now you're going to be charged excess or is it all inclusive thank you madam president Mrs horn that's another very good question there's no additional charges for any amount of support or revision you make I have some districts I'm best friends with them I talk to them on a weekly basis so um and that kind of ties in both of your questions we do have districts that want to transition quickly so they say okay let's just quickly transition let's get this template up and then we're going to spend the next year working through it methodically and if you're choosing to do that route you're going to
031contact me a lot with policy revisions so we don't charge for that okay and then one final question that I have um in a previous conversation or study session that we had um the employee handbook was brought up is that something that you look at and review on an annual basis at all um how does that work and is that a service that you provide thank you madam president Mrs horn um we do not provide an employee handbook and that is not a service we have provided in the past um that does not mean that it's not something we would do in the future for example we had a need and a request from one of our members for a um board secretary or admin assistant manual so they asked us for it so we
032said okay let's get together and let's put it together for them okay thank you anyone else okay I do have some more questions yeah um so you provide a list of trainings um what if there's something that we would like to be trained on and it's not on that list thank you madam president for that question um you just let us know and we'll figure it out we either find another organization that does it and on that training list we don't provide all of those training some of those are provided by different organizations that already do the work okay or um we can get together with staff at the trust um people from you know State departments or even the attorneys we work with to put together that training for you so then if your
033list is on there and you don't provide it then do you provide like the fee that it will be or okay yeah thank you madam president yes we'll tell you on that list if it costs an additional fee for you or if it's just a free provided training perfect okay at this point I don't think that we have any questions so but if we do I guess we can call you thank you madam president thank you members of the board all right thank you okay asba good evening members of the board um we are pleased to be here today my name is Julie bacon and I am director of leadership development for the Arizona school boards Association I am a longtime servant of public education a volunteer um as a parent but I also volunteered
034as a governing board member so I spent three terms on the Paradise Valley Unified School District governing board which does not have any schools in the town of Paradise Valley just want to make that clear it's a very uh diverse District in Arizona my daughter is a sixth grade teacher both my parents were teachers um education's in my blood so we are thrilled to be here um today and you might wonder why the director of leadership development is coming with the policy people well the reason we're coming together one of the reasons is our executive director had to have surgery so she's doing fine and she's she but she couldn't be here tonight but the other reason is that we work so closely together in the office as a team to provide um policy and
035education and professional development um we'll go over some of the services that we provide a little bit later on um but I wanted to also say um what we do is you that's all we do we are only we only exist for governing boards um to be members there's no other um thing that we provide um other than service to governing boards so that is something I think unique and it is something that we all um when I when I was um on the board in Paradise Valley I was an officer in the asba board of directors the executive director always said to us we are a mission-driven organization and you know I'm like okay all right yep you're all Mission driven I get it doesn't every organization say that and then I started working
036at asba and I realized oh they are Missi driven everyone in the office is has the the vision and the mission of doing what they can to help governing boards be the best they can be so that your schools can be the best that they can be um so that is it for me right now I'm going to hand it over to Lynn Bondi um who will give you her background but the one thing I'm really proud of about our policy servic team is that they're both Educators so they know how to implement policy they've been in the classroom doing it um and so as we write policies and as we look at them they're looking at it from a different perspective um in terms of implementation of policy so I'm gonna hand it over
037to Lyn evening board Dr Wyman and cabinet um I'm Lyn Bondi asba policy analyst and my background is also an educator I was a high school English teacher for 20 years adjunct faculty for Rio solato Community College and a student teacher supervisor for the U OFA so uh definitely education is in okay I have to say though I graduated from ASU same I did the same I Am A House Divided I am too must clarify but you have a paid me so that was great but I truly appreciate the opportunity to be here and highlight um how we support you and answer of course any questions that you may have so as it has on the screen we are here in service for you so that means continuing to provide nonpartisan policies that are in
038compliance with state and federal law agency rules and legal opinions we also send upto-date policy advisories and alerts throughout the year and just to clarify a policy advisory are those that directly impact your policy documents and alerts don't necessarily impact your documents but it's information that we feel you should be aware of um for example we recently sent out an alert on the uh teacher contracts and that uh update and statute the on or after uh March 15th date for teacher contracts um to be sent out and so again that didn't impact anything in the policy manual that date but of course especially this time of year that's information that you should be aware of so that's the difference between policy advisories and alerts and we're always going to be sending you um those anytime
039there is an update um we touched on the employee handbook so we offer a complimentary employee handbook it's compliance focused it is customizable and it's aligned with your policy manual already and your District does have that information uh we also provide unrestricted on call consultation for board members for superintendents for Administrative Professionals and we never start a timer when you call we are here to answer your questions no matter how long it takes and get you the information that you need I know my colleague um a district had asked a question and she spent so much time researching and researching and researching to make sure we came through and gave you that information so um as uh educational practitioners we love research we love getting you that information we also provide policy Amendment service at
040no additional cost so we want your policy documents to reflect your local uh needs and so uh we are a huge proponent of local control so if you need us to help you amend create any kind of policy we do that again that's all included um we also network with the American Association of State policy Services which is a wonderful team of legal and policy experts that we collaborate with and we speak with them quite a bit so um that's a great resource that we have we also provide policy Q um assistance for the policy Bridge uh software platform so you can be as handson or hands off as you like I know Judy is very Adept at processing documents through policy bridge but um we give you that option so if you want us
041to handle it and say here's our adoption dates you take care of it we're happy to do that as well um we also offer a optional comprehensive policy review and I have our objectives up on the screen so anytime we do a policy review and it's recommended every um four to five years is we want to make sure your um policies are aligned with your practices of that everything's in compliance and we want to make sure there's no kind of internal or external conflicts so we are checking for a myriad of issues as we look through your manual because if any documents in your manual have issues with any of these um and they're not addressed um we want to make sure we can help you address those quickly so you can get back to
042focusing on what is most important for your District so we handle all of that um how we accomplish those objectives is we go through every single um policy document in your manual and we compile a pre-analyses and we send that to the superintendent prior to ever setting foot at the district so that they kind of have a heads up of how we're going to navigate um how this starts the conversation of course it's not limited to what's on the spread sheeet and our prenotes it's just that serves as a guide and so this is an example of that spreadsheet one a page of that spreadsheet would look like it's got the policy information any policy advisories associated with that document again my pre-analyses and then that final column is based on our discussion at the
043actual policy review so anything that we discussed is going to go in that final column everything is also colorcoded we try to make it as easy as possible so the color coding matches the comparison doent so once we're finished um processing everything I send the superintendent this spreadsheet the comparison document and also a document that looks like this again we want everything to be very very clear and so this document provides all of the policies by section number that have to go to the board and then the second portion of that document has the regulations and Exhibits that are going to be um for the super approval and then the last portion is anything any regulations or policy or exhibits that we discussed but they are going to be retained as is so everything is
044very clear on the spreadsheet on this document as far as this conversation and we give additional steps moving forward as far as how all of these things can be adopted so we provide support before after um during this entire process so we are always here to answer questions throughout um we also publish a calendar of recommended and required actions that's an additional resour resource that we provide as far as policy Bridge um policy Bridge allows you to access and search over 200 manuals and you can search those all together so that's a large Bank um of of topics so if you're interested in something again you put in that search and it searches all 200 over 200 manuals at the same time so that's a great feature we also have the global function so if
045you click on that little globe in policy Bridge it gives the URL that you can copy and paste to send or if you want to insert that um link into a document we have that we also have the download feature and that downloads the documents as Word documents so that they're easy to edit and customize and then we also utilize the Google translate feature so you can anyone who looks at your policies can look at them in over 100 languages so that's a nice feature as well um most importantly we listen to your feedback so we are in the process of conducting um comprehensive manual review and we're rolling that out to districts um in sections so easy to manage we just sent section A last week and um you might have noticed in that
046policy review um policy advisory summary that this is done with a team of policy and legal experts we're also have outside reviewers so we're sending these to districts we're sending these to educational leaders and they're vetting each document before we send the sections out to you so uh during this process this really great for us because it's given us the opportunity to look at other policy manuals and we are very comprehensive we're more comprehensive because we are focused on what is going to assist you and your governance and your operations so we kind of uh cast a wider net if you will um to make sure that you have policies regulations and Exhibits that support your districts um functions so for example if you look at section B which is board governance that is very
047robust because we created that with you in mind and what's going to be most helpful as you um in your work and your role so we were really really excited about that project we are also um our policy Bridge software platform is being upgraded and so we are going to be um transitioning districts over to this upgraded sofware program by the end of April so that has the latest technology all the new features um and we'll continue to provide those free trainings for our super users um in in we can go to them remote or inperson free trainings for that we also recently launched our uh e newsletter a monthly newsletter pulse on policy so we can keep you informed with all things policy and recently created a policy list serve just for our super
048users and so they have a place to ask questions and um and network there so with that I think I will pass it back over to Julie and then we will be here to answer any questions you may have okay um so I just wanted to go over some of the things that are included some of the services that we have um in terms of your policy manual um but also to talk a little bit about the things that are not policy related um we do in-person um and remote um this is says trainings on here we're starting to call it professional development because we don't think that you need to be trained we think you need need the information and education that you need to do your job to the best of your ability
049um all of our webinars are free um and access accessible on our website all of the um we have a very robust phone a friend program at asba so if you ever call the office and want to talk to someone and get information then we um are always available to talk with you about that um we have um a list a very comprehensive list of about 20 um professional development topics that we can come out and provide but we also can provide anything that you want um because the people who are doing the training and the professional development from asba are people who have sat have have been in your shoes um we are the the department has two former governing board members in it so we know where you sit we've lived that um
050responsibility and the tremendous um both Joy and challenge that you live every day as a governing board member um we do have the also the discounted board docs fee um the policy manual uh reviews are $500 and again Lynn talked about that um and the super uniter trainings and the list serve are included we also have a very robust list serve for um a group we call ASAP and that is um the Arizona Administrative Professionals so that is a group of um administrative assistants executive assistant to superintendents and governing boards and that um when I say active I mean two three four times a day um people going on and asking hey what do you have this do you have that what do you do about this how should I write this agenda item so
051that is also another um benefit that we have that um and we know who you know the real bosses are right um so that's another service that we provide um to our members at no charge um let's go to the next slide what's a super user so a super user I'm gonna let Lynn I I I could try to explain that somebody that bugs the heck out of you or what like I'm just wondering it's our main point of contact for policy Bridge software so Judy is the superv or super user for your district and then she can set up editors and so you're the one that bugs them all the time is that what you're saying no I'm just teasing no the super users are incredible because they're always yeah in they're asking questions
052but it's our main point of contact to process documents through policy brid okay thank you yes any other questions about that um should we wait till the end Madam president four questions oh I don't care whatever they want to do um okay then I'll go to the next slide um so obviously policy is necessary um for governance and to run a school district effectively um and it's one of the most fundamental responsibilities of a governing board when I was governing board president one year I my goal was to review the whole policy manual and I had a couple of board members say to me well that's not really our job and I said um yes it is that is what we do right uh so it's a very important part of the work that you
053do um and they belong to you as a Gover board um and we're happy to serve you as your professional association and supporting you in this role um we believe in local control and the responsibility of governing boards to determine their policy based on their Community right that's you're elected to represent your community and so your community's values beliefs um should be reflected in your policies um you have access as a subscriber to a m multifaceted team of legal policy operational and governance professionals um we currently have a relationship with the law firm of Pierce Coleman um in I don't know in Mesa they're at the their headquarter in Mesa um and we have a great relationship with them in terms of reviewing all of the things that come to us um from a legal
054and and policy perspective um we really if any of you were at law you may have met Justin Pierce who sang um he did a presentation on um legal issues with a guitar so oh you guys saw him last week yeah um so anyway that is who we've been working with and and we're proud to work with him Justin is also a former legislator um he was a member of the Arizona legislature as well so um I think we're well covered in terms of that piece yes and we also work with another attorney Martha Taylor who was the senior director um for desegregation in Tucson unified and so as an educational lawyer she's been helping us also with um our policy manual revision and so we have two very um seasoned wonderful attorneys though um
055so this is just kind of our um wrap up here policy service subscribers receive all-inclusive pricing we don't do any billable hours whatever you need we will provide um it's subscription based and it's available to member districts and the subscription is for 48 months that that's changed in recent years it used to be a fouryear um I mean I'm sorry it used to be longer than four years but we can we're flexible on that I believe um in terms of how we can structure that that subscription and it is based on a sliding scale Fe fee based on your enrollment so any questions um Lynn and I will be happy to answer them okay Jason do you have any questions okay Dr Wyman how long has it been since we reviewed our policy I do
056have that information Dr Wyman it was um 204 I believe was the less um comprehensive policy review huh it's been a while okay I just want to add though that Judy doesn't let things sit in the queue so um a lot of times the policy reviews especially for districts who are keeping on top of the the policy advisories and alerts approving new policies um are they're all kind of it's just a function of making sure you are up to date okay is that all you have I I think so okay well we can come back to you if you need to let's hear let's hear him I see you're writing over there do um or does asba have a advocacy or legislative group that Advocates on behalf of asba and or education in Arizona so
057we have a government relations department um that works to provide um information around legislation um the r 501c3 is a obviously nonpartisan um and we don't advocate for um individuals or or um in any sort of campaign the thing that we do do is all of the advocacy that we do is done um with our political agenda in mind and that political agenda is set by our members so we don't at the office ever say how should we vote on this or how should we advocate for this we go to the political agenda and see what our members have told us that they want us to do in terms of advocacy so um I hope that answers your question do the members typically lean one way or the other or do you feel that it's
058pretty even well here's what I can't tell you because I've been involved as an officer of asba for for four years and I've worked almost six years and I can I hear from both sides that we're to the other side um so I wonder sometimes what that means um you know if what we would say the left is saying we're to right and the right is saying we're to left um we try we are not we are about what you need and your local local control is all about you so that is the only thing that we support in terms of um any kind of legislative advocacy is what you tell us to Advocate around that's all I have for questions that's it every year in September there's a like where they yeah delegate assembly
059right the delegate assembly where they go over all the stuff and every member of each board puts in their vote so it's a collective um vote of all the districts that are part of that and that's how they come up with that political agenda that yeah that's something our members vote on and we talk about it before that before our delegate goes and tells that person what we want my question was when was the last time that we reviewed our policiy thank you Melissa for saying something um so your subscription fee of what was it what what is it well it's based on a sighting scale so about 5,000 is that what ours is at this point just under 5,000 and that's for 48 months yes okay so it's not yearly no gotcha okay any
060other questions no if you guys have questions that we can since this is a study session I mean we can ask the trust as well if you have a if a question if something popped up so speak now I do have one more question I think it was mentioned that there's a 48 Monon um contract where are we at currently contract expires in June 30th of 2027 the 2027 okay and if we were to end that prior to are there penalties or how does how would that work I would have to look at your contract but I believe it's 50% I think it says it in the I think we have it in here if you um yeah I think it's attached to it okay I think I think we are are good so like
061I said we're not making a decision this evening um but we appreciate I very I very much appreciate both of you guys coming and answering our questions um what else anything oh yeah so that is uh I saw it asba policy service agreement I have it I'm just trying to rip through it real quick to see what what the agreement is but it it's in it's in the backup it's it's some place where it said I know we have it here oh here we go I found it it's number eight termination okay all right okay so one more time I'm GNA ask one more time any any questions okay okay all I'm just making sure okay so then um we are going to go ahead and move on to um our executive session so um
062I would like to make a motion to go into executive session there's there's a second so all in favor I I yes I think we need to work oh there we go and now is there any way that we can take our computers in okay because I wanted to be able to access our policies no Stephen did Stephen did a second oh okay e