001e e I'm gonna call the meeting to order at 5:30 yay um I would like well welcome everybody it's early huh half hour early um we're gonna I need a motion to um adopt the agenda I move to adopt the agenda as presented need a second I second all right all in favor I I I so motion carries five to zero but what do we need to do oh now it goes okay we're doing something a little different so you guys got to just kind of bear with us for just a minute we good yes oh God I thought that that that their little music was like oh guys voted good I really wanted the music though okay um yeah I need the music please okay thanks like Yay good job guys okay we're gonna
002go ahead and do the pledge but I do need to call up some um some students Dayton Fuller Gemma Matthews and Oriana bear come on up and you're gonna lead us in the pledge okay any questions on the meeting minutes no all right I'll need to take a motion on the meeting minutes I move to approve the meeting minutes for governing board January 2025 okay I'll take a second I second the motion just regular board meeting 4.1 all right all in favor I I motion carries 5 to zero l oh I'm I messed up where is it okay this is going to be all right bear with us yeah all right are we ready so um any um any questions on Executive session all right I'll take a a motion I move to to approve
003the board meeting minutes for the executive session on January 22 2025 I second okay um all in favor I I so all right so it should all right you know that doesn't come up on our stuff like it doesn't come up on mine it just comes up there okay so it was uh motion carried five to zero okay um so then we had a special board meeting on January 22nd um any um questions on that board meeting or that that meeting minutes on that if not I'll take a motion I move to apport the board the board meeting minutes on January 22 2025 as presented I second that motion all right all in favor I I motion carries all right motion carries five to zero okay so 5.1 we have a superintendent's report thank you
004madam president uh lots of different things happening we want to start I'm going to move some of these things around that's up on your screen but we want to start with the the boy soccer uh having their best season in the history of the school they uh are 10 and two and ranked 11th in the 4A they actually play this Friday at six o'clock for a playin game to the playoffs if they win that game they'll be in the in the playoffs um they've scored 46 goals this year and just 14 allowed uh a significant increase from last year where they finished 30th um in the in the um state so it's been a great in uh a very successful season JB's also having a very successful season so coach Mike Holberg has uh really
005done a good job with the kids a lot of them have been playing since they were freshmen and the longer you play together the the better off you are uh Leah Patterson up at the high school uh received a nomination for excellence and resiliency in mathematics teaching uh award by mid for mid-end career veteran teachers uh category um uh through the center for Recruitment and attention um so we want to congratulate Leah marketing department received an honors for uh honor with a merit award from the Arizona school public relations Association for the video that we did with Career and Technical education um we sh showed that last fall I believe it got done so we showed it to the to the board and we've actually showed it in several um different U uh events we've
006had like our when our foundations come so it's uh good job on the behalf of Mr scrogum uh for his efforts and and with CT being highlighted tonight it's kind of a double highlight of of what's going on and also thank you to Mandy for all of her help with uh getting the uh the the video made the drama class the drama students uh received uh Superior rating um at the regional theater competition got 21 Superior rankings and eight excellent rankings um and they're going to be invited to perform at the international thespian Festival cta's building Comm community community uh they're working with uh uh Central Christian Church based on the Community Cafe that we had a couple uh weeks ago um and Central Christian Church will be working on their school guard and they
007also have um a successful Kindergarten Roundup and some new enrollments the Trap and Ski Club clay clay Crushers uh did a fundraiser uh on the 25th of January at Ben Avery uh shooting range and the funds will be used uh to help the team um I don't have the exact dollar amount but I'm sure Mrs Hargus might we we made $15,000 after all bills were paid so that's that's a a good positive uh thing that's happening there under their spring season um at Ranch Elementary they participating in read to finals which is aimed to Aspire all AR Arizona third graders to develop a love for reading uh they shared that the students uh surpass the average of 5 500 minutes each and are embracing the challenge um and they are continue to get uh a
008number of different uh gifts as or prizes uh for the job they're doing uh CHS math uh the math team participated in Scotts Sil Community College stem field day uh it was a new opportunity for the for for the math team it's a brand new um club that they have congratulations to drexon Clair for his top performance um stuco is working to support uh Athletics clubs and other programs they recently funded a 250 minig Grant to support these ex extracurricular activities um they also helped out when the Coles Middle School 8th grade students came up for a high school visit on the 30th along with link crew and other student leaders gave the tours shared information and welcome the class of well this will make you feel old 29 um congratulations to our poetry out
009loud winner winners uh first place went to Emily Matson second to Laur Lee risland and third to Anastasia wo and the Esports team continues to be ranked number one in the State uh and began their uh spring season uh with a victory for all four teams band continues to to be successful Matthew rera his upright base performance earned a third place State finish with over 500 top level students auditioning um that's a significant uh accomplishment uh he plans to 10A isue to continue his pursuit in Musical musical performances and at a recent Festival Jacob Brighton and Riley Maguire earned a spot on the All Region Ensemble only 50 students were chosen from the 800 who auditioned uh out at Simington uh they had festivities for the 100th day celebration uh embrac the theme they embraced
010the 100 Day themes by uh dressing as if they were 100 years old some of us resemble that remark um class pictures were taken for each uh of the home rooms and capturing a great uh event Orchestra students delivered a successful concert um and the sixth graders uh were excited for their opportunity as the sixth graders around the district visited Colmes Middle School to tour and learn about um what's going on at Colmes Middle School I was there for one of the groups of students that came in and again what was fantastic about that uh particular um event much like what was going on at the high schools was student L and so the students helped show the new students what uh seventh and eighth grade's all about so that's always really nice to to
011see um let's see uh C uh CCS pathway of services through ART the pathway of services through art program continues to make a meaningful impact through its Community focused projects they've created blankets for rescue animals at a at a local shelter providing Comfort to pets in need designed alphabet learning games to support Early Childhood uh education over at the head Start program uh and their student advisory council is working on uh drinking uh drinking vending machine uh at the uh at the school so exciting things happening and I am G to I didn't read one but I wanted Mrs Ridge to come up to read a special little presentation as part of my report for CMS first um good afternoon board presidents member of the boards Dr Wyman and of course our guests um I
012love talking about all things CMS so I am excited to share um another celebration taking place in our district um we have a person who started out as a volunteer with with us for I don't know how many years throw it up six years volunteered um his own time to help our wrestling team and then there was a change in personnel and he took over as our wrestling coach and in his first year um he has been named Canyon Athletic Association Junior High girls wrestling coach of the year [Applause] your mom's to take a picture so oh one more not embarrassing so really quick um just a shout out to the leptic family in general his mom um has been our math teacher and been my partner at CMS the whole time that I've been
013there and just a family that we're lucky to have have that oh look there's more oh I'm supposed to be quick but come up girls we had two girls on our wrestling team and I don't know if you've ever been able to see girls wrestle sometimes they don't always have female opponents which means they had to wrestle the boys and when I tell you I am from Englewood and I don't want to run into them in the Hood um so just super proud of them as well so again just great things are happening at Colmes middle school and thank you for sharing the success with us and Mr leptic thank you for not only working for free for a little a really long time but for when you get paid being the coach of the
014year [Applause] nice okay school and staff recognition I'll go ahead start with that uh we do have some people we want to recognize this is a time of the uh meeting where we recognize those uh individuals that work in a specific area as um each month obviously we have uh days of the month that Rec recognize different individuals or months in total and and CT and some of our staff is not here today because they have the sickness that's going around that many of your kids may have so some of these people won't be here but uh February is CTE month CTE is Career and Technical education and Governor Hobbs proclaimed uh uh February 20 25 cent technical Education Month and it helps to CTE help to helps to equip students with essential Technical and
015professional skills through practical practical meaningful application of core subjects fostering academic success leadership and Community engagement our CTO program CTE program has 14 different Pathways uh they must be aligned to either a terminal degree meaning they can get a degree at a higher education or to certification so that when they leave uh our school um they will go ahead and be prepared to to join the workforce um and we also provide opportunities for some of these students to uh go over to uh evit e valy Institute of Technology so we actually give kids two different ways to get um uh to work on Career uh development so we just wanted to recognize our students or excuse me our teachers we actually uh start working with career Pathways all the way down the elementaries uh and
016then move on up into the high or the middle school where they get to to work on some Hands-On activities and then move on up into the high school where they actually pick a pathway that they want to go on and they uh go through a two or threee program to go ahead and get trained up so I'm not sure how many are here but I'll call them up anyway we have at the middle school Craig Palm from C CMS film TV stagecraft and career exploration teacher I don't know if Craig's here at the mid at the middle school Renee baldenegro for digital [Applause] photography yeah we'll take a picture at the high school we have Amy Stewart for the medical assisting and Sports Medicine teacher we have Mr Michael uh aventage uh agriculture science
017teacher [Applause] Mr Brian Taylor who's not here because he's ill film TV digital communication teacher at the high school Mr Paul shrill graphic design teacher of the high school and Mr Chris Wood who's also audal at digital photography teacher at the high school again these individuals work in CTE and they do an amazing thing to spark the fire and our kids as they choose their passion and move forward with that passion so thank you so very much for everything you do at the same time we also have the first week of February as National counselor's week we want to recognize our counselors I'll see who's here and then say a few words uh Sabrina weart she's here Kim chartr over at the high school Heidi Durant at the high school Jolene Peterson at the the
018High School Elizabeth Nala at the middle school Kobe Edwards at the middle school Julia Goden at CCS um Shannon kuu at the CCS Latasha Roble um Michelle camt they're all busy tonight John grafing Christina tandler and I know nisha's here Amisha tanni so she gonna come up by herself [Applause] and what I will say is uh there's a lot of things going on in our society today and coming out of um covid and some other issues we know there's any number of kids that struggle uh and these counselors do an amazing job to help kids as they get through all the different things that are happening in their life um and they're there for these kids on a daily basis to help them through um any of the struggles they have to give them some
019guidance as they move through in in life um and so uh they do something that's valuable we don't always have we have different crowd every month uh but there's just a lot of things that happen in public school and a lot of different ways that we help your kids and this is just one of the many ways and so we really do appreciate and thank our cers so thank you what's that who did I miss okay Mrs F I'm sorry I didn't have the name there so if uh she at least be recognized where she at yeah I don't know that and now we'd ask Mr Quinn to come up and uh do a little presentation on Ranch I'm truly blessed um all my staff members know how nervous I am and so they're here
020to cheer me on except one who said she wants to make faces at me while I'm talking um Madame President esteemed board Dr Wyman Miss Judy and the amazing comes Community um thank you so much for allowing me this time go Birds um this year this year Ranch Elementary partnered with Arizona major events in an effort to spark a lifelong love and interest in Reading uh we are currently in the top 68 schools in the entire state in their read to the finals initiative I am pleased to introduce Dayton Fuller Jemma Matthews and Orie bear to speak about read to the finals and how it works to build up our readers please come [Applause] up hello my name is d and I'm going to talk about what read of the finals is read of the
021finals is a free reading challenge for Arizona third grade readers the goal is to become a long life reader read to the finals is important so I can read and get my reading rate up benefit to so I can read better and become a long reader so that I can read more and be smarter at Reading you should try to do it too it really helped me read more to 154 to 186 thank you for listening to my speech have a good day and I'm really looking forward to reading more now because I read to the [Applause] finals hello my name is Oriana bear I go to Ranch Elementary I going to to talk about how read to finals helped me it is a reading challenge for third grade students to increase reading skills and
022to become an informed reader reading to the finals I think it is a really cool program because it makes kids want to read to have fun and I think reading to the finals is good because it can show you where you are at in reading and I think it is very important to do reading to the finals so that you can read many genres of books reading helps increase your knowledge it can also open your mind to Adventure magic and a world of imagination thank you for letting me be here and share my love of reading hello my name is JMA Matthews and I go to Ranch Elementary School I am in third grade and I love to read today I would like to talk to you about read to the final read to the
023finals is a free reading challenge for Arizona third grade students the goal of this challenge is to help students like me become a seful reader I believe read to the finals is an important program to help students practice reading and encourage them to read more too students get to keep track of their reading minutes and help win prizes for their school that makes reading even more fun when you get to see how far you have comes as a reader I hope to encourage other students to read to the finals and challenge themselves to become a better reader I hope to inspire them to fall in love with reading too I would like to thank the school board for allowing me to me me the opportunity to talk about read to the finals it's a wonderful
024program for me and my fellow third grade classmate thank you so much I can't wait to read to the finals with you third grade [Applause] rocks thank you guys amazing job um this is my first year being part of the road runner team at Ranch and I have been blown away by the team there and their love and dedication to their craft the following individuals I am proud to present to the board consistently making a positive difference in the lives of students in the community at Ranch we are truly lucky to have them as part of our team and the amazing work that they do for their students it is with great pleasure that I am here to present the blue Apple Awards to the following Heidi Fardo please come [Applause] up Heidi is one
025of our first grade teachers and has had so many amazing moments this year the way she has implemented station rotations even with such a large class of squirrely Wiggly first graders has been so much fun to see she was nervous at first and was extremely diligent with her instructional coach Dr peoples to make sure that she had a great plan going forward and oh boy did she the kids love it and they have been getting so many great supports throughout the lessons this was shown directly through our middle of thee assessment where every student showed growth in their assessment I'm going to repeat that every student in her class showed growth in their middle of the Year assessment where one first grade friend friend even moved up a substantial amount of a 100 points from
026the beginning of the year assessment seeing the response on his and her face when they got to share that news showed so deeply the impact she has had on him and the passion passion she has for what she does thank you so much Heidi for pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and trying new things in the classroom I'm glad you get to see those dividends [Applause] it's my one goal not to drop an apple okay support staff member Jacob Garcia Jacob [Applause] Jacob has been a recent addition to our family at Ranch and has been an absolute joy to have on campus though he is new he has jumped in with both feet and has been extremely proactive responsive and thoughtful for everything that he does he connects well with the students and staff
027and works hard to provide the best campus for us all we work to throw a lot of different experiences for our students from lunch on the lawn Awards ceremonies Battle of the books PTO events special guests and so many more no matter what the special setup is for the experience Jacob is quick to work to transition between usual setup to whatever is going to best serve our students and the experience we are extremely lucky to have Jacob and thank him for everything he [Applause] does got aure I'm Letting Go this is on you now I'll bring theat our resource teacher Christine [Applause] purle Christine is a resource teacher extraordinaire for us at Ranch this year a lot of challenges fell onto her plate and she has conquered each one with absolute upom she has been
028a huge support to the other resource room general education classrooms families staff and most importantly her multitude of students anyone who watches her interact with her students quickly sees the immense impact that she has on them she provides a multifaceted support that goes beyond just academics but also physically and emotionally Beyond tailoring instruction to the individual needs of her students she Advocates and fosters complete accessibility for each unique student she serves by consistently offering and listening ear and caring connection she helped students build resilience and self-esteem for themselves she is a blessing to her students and us here at Ranch thank you so much Christine for all the support you offer to every one of our stakeholders you are instrumental in the reason so many successes are felt each and every day [Applause] I would
029also like to recognize one of our amazing volunteers we have at Ranch Candace [Music] Alton I should say I should say very quickly none of them knew that they were getting these I tricked them and gave them false pretense why they had to come to the meeting today and yes thank you Miss Fel for your help uh Candace has been an incredible asset to our kindergarten class she always comes in with a smile ready and eager to work with the students her willingness to help in any capacity whether working with small groups assisting individual students or creating crafts with the class has made such a positive impact the students absolutely adore her and are always excited to see her constantly asking when she'll return Candace makes it a priority to get to know every child
030personally allowing her to provide the best possible support for their needs we truly appreciate C Candace's dedication enthusiasm and the genuine care that she shows for the kindergarteners and all of us at Ranch her presence has made a meaningful difference for both of the students and Ranch Elementary Candace is a great representation of parent partnership with ranch and we are so grateful to have her [Applause] thank you [Applause] all good evening Madame President and members of the governing board and Dr Wyman and members of the community tonight is our favorite night as we recognize Stu our students and some of the great work they're doing this month we are focusing on global awareness for our students of the month so I first want to invite down next to me um Lisa Garcia from comes High
031School Lisa can't be with us so we will find another time to celebrate her at the high school how about uh Andrea Neo and this is from combes I'm sorry I said the Middle School com Center for success and this is exciting Andrea is an early graduating [Music] senior who has demonstrated dedication both academically and through service she exemplifies kindness acceptance and civility qualities that we all need more of in today's world CCS looks forward to seeing the positive change that she will inspire in others congratulations if you go right over you'll have a [Applause] picture all right now from comes Middle School Aurora [Applause] Mills Aurora always wants to know the why behind everything discussed in class teachers report she is quick to understand different perspectives and cares in spreading knowledge and different points
032of view to her peers even advocating recently for a school newspaper to increase awareness and knowledge Aurora thank you and congratulations [Applause] our next student comes from comes Traditional Academy Jack [Applause] munes come on up Jack Jack is a hardworking kind and enthusiastic learner who always gives his best effort in classes he is conscientious about his work he's a great friend to his peers always willing to offer a hand and offers a smile to everyone around him thank you for being a shining example way to go [Applause] Jack and next is from Ellsworth and this is Christina philong all right right we will find a time to celebrate Christina at Ellsworth from Harmon Isabella [Applause] Orban Isabella has hi it's good to see Isabella has shown a remarkable enthusiasm for exploring exploring and embracing cultural
033differences demonstrating a deep respect for diversity she approaches new experiences with adventurous Spirit eagerly trying new things and encouraging her peers to do the same congratulations Isabella all right so you're GNA go right on [Applause] over our next student is from Rand Elementary Braxton [Applause] barup Braxton is a sixth grader and the sixth grade team has nominated him for this award as he has made significant contributions to the school as the student council vice president he inspires students to take care of their environment and demonstrates leadership and responsibility braxon [Applause] congratulations and last from simonon James [Applause] Lily this is what simonon has to say about James James takes an interest in a diverse range of subjects always eager to learn learn and participate in class discussions he is mindful of others feelings and situations
034showing kindness and understanding toward his classmates and teachers he wants to make a difference in the lives around us [Applause] congratulations as James is getting his award one more hand for all of our students congratulations we will take about a five minute break so that you can get pictures those of you that want to leave can leave and then we'll continue the meeting in just a few minutes so thank you e e e okay all right we're going to go ahead and start we um any um governing board uh updates anybody have anything I do okay um in January I was able to attend several of the comes High School soccer games for J AV as well as Varsity um my son plays on the soccer team so that was really exciting um Dr Wyman
035already mentioned the success that they've had and it's just really neat to see the camaraderie um that they have coach homberg and Coach Vasquez they really have done amazing things with that group of boys um so that was fun to attend and see the basketball games the cheerleaders um I also have a daughter that's on the che team so of course I was also at basketball games lots of basketball games and one of the things that I wanted to share was um it's so it really is so neat to see we're so close to Phoenix yet we're kind of out there right and we're Rural and you don't always see kind of it's really kind of like a sense of family that you see at Colmes high school and and I would imagine when you
036start attending um other events at the other schools as well but particularly at one of the basketball games we had girls that were coming back from their away soccer game we had boys that had just gotten done with their practice out at the football field um and people were just slowly coming into the gym and we filled up all of the stands and that is so neat to see the other students supporting one another you don't always see a high school band at a basketball game the band has been at almost all of the recent basketball games that's really cool um so so there's just been so many things to celebrate um at the sports not just the actual Sports themselves in the competitions but just to see the sense of family and support that
037they all have with one another so that's been really fun to see um student council also was mentioned in the superintendent report and they have been amazing at supporting the sports and one another um they they just got a real great Community there um the mascot shows up and if you haven't seen the mascot I don't know who purchased that if it was student council or who it was but they did a really Stellar job that mascot outfit is it's really good um I also visited uh Ranch Elementary as well as comes high school as their liaison um the facilities just great the children the staff um just seeing the learning happening in the classrooms it was great um they are the PTO is doing a or or planning to do a fundraiser for a
038new playground um so it was kind of neat to see you know what are they working on what are the needs what's what's happening there and at the high school to be able to see and and we alluded to it the uh career in technical education and they have you go in and it's like a real emergency room um for the health assistance and just all of the different things that you see I have a background in TV and radio and so to go in and see their setup that they had was it was really impressive I have to say it was really really impressive and so um hats off to everyone for all of the work that they've done to build these schools up these children up in the community to where they are
039um finally I was given the opportunity to visit the I have a small farm in the area with goats and donkeys and horses and chickens and everything and so some of the kids at the high school they were excited to show me their setup and so I was able to see the FFA and a science land lab and it is very cool and if you ask them to see their baby pigs and you think you're going to see cute little Charlotte's Web like I don't know like little tiny pigs they're huge just yeah they are some big boys out there and girls so it was really neat to see what they what they've built out there um and that that is it so I've just been super impressed by by everything that I've seen um
040just in the last month all right thank you anyone else all right um public comments think we have one so I get to read this now um this is time for public comments the board invites viewpoints of the citizen throughout the district and considers the respons the responsible presentations uh of these viewpoints vital to the efficient operation of the district members of governing board may not discuss items that are not on the agenda and will be limited to directing staff to study the matter for further consideration of possible decision at a later date um so the procedures uh any individual Desiring to address the board shall complete a form and so that's I have that board president will keep three minutes that you have three minutes to to speak uh questions or comments on matters
041under legal review will not receive a response members of the governing board may not discuss items not on the agenda personal attacks are discouraged highly um at the conclusion of all of a call to the public individual members of the board May respond to any May respond to any criticisms made by an individual who addressed the board um the expectation of the governing board and district is that everyone treats one with respect and that the speaker presents their viewpoints in a civil manner um so at this point I have Ali Ali Day come on up uh good evening everyone uh members of jomes board superintendent and community community leaders my name is Ali day and I am honored to serve as the president of Santan Valley little leag um I wanted to express my deep
042gratitude for the unwavering commitment this district and especially the leadership at comes middle school has shown our community's youth comes middle school has become a true model of Community Partnership every week 600 to 900 community members come together on campus in a safe well organized space where children families and neighborhoods can grow connect and grow the level of dedication requires Vision leadership and Heart for Service qualities we see in principal Ridge and Steve the ranger thank you principal bridge in recognition of this commitment to our youth and Community Santan Valley Little League is proud to donate a new set of outdoor bleachers to comes Middle School oh wow awesome more than just seating we hope these bleachers become a gathering place where families create lasting memories and the spirit of community continues to thrive as
043our league continues to grow we ask that all the schools receiving our rental requests consider their impact on the community while we're we've been offered F fields at American Leadership Academy and previously rented from Florence Unified School District we chose J comes because it's truly represents Santan Valley and we by bringing our athletes into campuses right their own neighborhood right in their own neighborhoods we increase exposure to your outstanding facilities and the opportunities available within your schools that thank you for your leadership generosity and commitment to putting Community First it's Partnerships like these that create a lasting impact and we are honored to stand with you in service our youth thank you thank you [Applause] okay awesome all right so now we have we we go to the consent agenda um do I have any
044questions does anybody have any questions on anything on the consent agenda no okay are we ready to vote here soon are you guys ready I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda I move to approve the consent agenda as presented okay I'll take a second second all right so all in favor I I so motion carries five to zero oh somebody did a I I don't know what happened it's oh there sorry it's okay all right there we have it so we're going to go to um 8.1 discussion consideration of approval of the education technology Consortium agreement with NAU yes Madam president this is an agreement that we've had with na for significant Mitten amount of time in the district uh it just uses uh some of the software programs uh to help with
045Personnel supplies and others items necessary to maintain computer systems networks for data processing so we've worked with any I believe probably since uh about 2010 so this is just a renewal of an existing contract it would go into place March 1st and run from uh this year through to basically the end of February on 2030 so I would recommend uh approval as uh presented okay do I have any any questions comments concerns okay if nothing I will take a motion I move to approve the education technology Consortium agreement with any as presented I'll second that motion all in favor I I I motion carries five to zero I'm just gonna say this vocally and it'll come up on here you guys can see all right 8.2 discussion and consideration for approval of the memorandum of
046understanding the chos for LA that early huh um oh childhood development program this is another approval of an existing uh agreement we have with uh Cho sport lalsa uh and uh it works with our Head Start program down at CTA it's it's been uh working uh with our district for again very similar to the previous agreement for a number of years uh and so we're just looking to move forward uh they work with uh the Head Start program and preschool class classrooms in there uh in down at CTA um and it gives us a chance to work with uh students um birth to three years of age uh it's a positive uh partnership uh that's probably been going on I know with Head Start we've been going on for uh at least 20 and so
047this is just an annual agreement update so I would recommend approval as presented I move to approve the memorandum of understanding with chosa as presented second okay all in favor I I I motion carries 5 to zero thank you guys thank you all right so now we get to .3 discussion and information regarding changes to policy recommendations of telecommuting second reading yes this is a policy we brought forth because we have a as we've come out of Co there's been uh obviously changes in the workforce and how the workforce uh moves forward with any number of of different jobs both in terms of trying to find people as well as keep people and so uh we've gone ahead and moved forward with a telecommunity uh policy Series in actuality uh you guys are responsible to
048prove the policy uh we also have a regulation that has much more detail in in it and an exhibit that would go with it the exhibit would be the form that anybody that was requesting t commuting uh would fill out uh so the discussion tonight is uh approval of this policy if you choose to approve this policy then tomorrow I would send to you as well as the leadership team the actual regulation and the uh exhibit um what we have is again uh at times finding people for jobs uh is difficult and so we have a couple situations that um we felt that it was in the best interest of the district to have them work remotely um but we also realize that there's not a policy I know we're having a discussion at the
049end of the month between asba and and the trust neither one of them have a policy for telecommunity um and so what's happening around the state is different districts are are creating uh telecommunity policies across the country quite frankly some districts have done it but a lot of districts are still debating what to do what where we started Dr Middleton uh started was to take a look at what other districts were doing across the country and across the state and then we crafted um uh a policy regulation exhibit that we felt uh took PL took what we needed for our district um and uh we've had it reviewed by asba as our policy Services Group as well as by legal counsel um and they've both reviewed it and and believe that it it fits the
050needs while still being in compliance with either other policies within our policy manual any any and any existing laws that they need to comply with so I'm open to answering any questions but at this point I would recommend approval as presentative you had a question what are the specific examples where that you're talking about where it came up uh we have a uh in it we have an individual that actually moved to Ohio that worked for us um and because he was doing work that could be done remotely relative to Ohio or excuse me relative to the job he was doing we have him on on remote Jacob Jacob Harden is his name uh and then we also had a nursing situation where we couldn't have a lead nurse and so this lead nurse is
051helping clean up um uh our nursing situation we have a part-time person that that shares the job she's not on full-time and she's working out of Oklahoma so those are the two main ones that came up and it was just over a shortage of individuals uh that were present uh the way the regulation will work will be limitations obviously there has to be a job that it works for uh and so many cases quite frankly teachers would not qualify for this because they're supposed to be in front of kids every day so you can't necessarily be there uh there's probably more jobs if they Cur that are potentially district office jobs uh uh business services for example could do some things from uh from home if we had a a situation or a problem there's
052a process where they have to ask we have to review there's some conditions on whether we would accept it in terms of of what they have for internet capacity and and computers there's language to hold the district uh uh not liable for anything associated with with the computer technology that they have um but there'll be certain jobs that just won't apply a bus driver obviously we're not going to do to uh that telecommuting um so it's it's limited in its scope uh but we just felt uh to be consistent across the board we should bring a policy and then a regulation exhibit so if anybody asks then we would go ahead and and be able to follow the same process for everybody the policy as well as the regulation gives me the authority if something
053is not right within the structure that I can go ahead and and stop the remote uh the telecommuting at any point in time so if they're not delivering on the expectations for what they should deliver then we would go ahead and stop it I have another question um how does so if they're telecommuting and we hire them do they still have benefits as in health benefits how does that work if they are if they are a full-time employee they would still have health benefits um associated with us if they're not a full-time employee and and by full-time employee um it varies whether it's a a um certified staff versus support staff um but it's essentially about uh 28 to 29 hours a week might be 30 um above that they get benefits below that they
054don't get benefits um uh and so in the case of a certified staff tends to be 75% of the job so that's a four fifths three three and a half fifths um so yes they would still get benefits okay I'm just wondering how the benefits work like if they're in a different state I'm not sure and but there are benefits packages through correct me if I'm wrong Julie but I believe it's United Health care and so there it's a it's a national okay um it's a national uh uh group and so there's there is out of state out of network coverage out of state coverage and so they may pay a higher premium uh in one case one of our employees is not fulltime so I don't believe they would have those benefits in the
055other case they are and so I believe they have the benefits uh associated with it okay I have a couple of questions one of them would be concerning monitoring um with the Advent of a lot of work from home positions we've seen this a lot during Co um depending on the nature of the task there are applications that can be purchased whether on a monthly basis or annual basis um so that there's some sort of monitoring whether it's just seing constant activity on the computer or what not um I think that might be something that's advantageous to looking into um in regard to the policy um so kind of more of a comment and a question on that one my other would be uh my concern would be to request um that if this does
056move forward and is approved that similar to our regular suspensions report for example that there would be something to the board whether it be on a monthly or a quarterly basis so that we can see what positions our um telecommuting and for how long what the position is um obviously we would assume that everybody's you know doing the best and trustworthy and all of these things um but I think that it would behoove us to know that we have certain individuals that have been or certain positions that have been you know why is this person Telecom communting for so long so that were aware right the two people that that did go to telecommunity that was in the uh in the consent agenda for the hires when it when they took place because it took
057place in the in the spring or excuse me in the fall but yes we can go ahead and give the names of any addition people um we'll address each one and then and then communicate to you what's what's going on right now we currently have two and then we just wanted to make sure we had a process that was was there for all employees okay any other comments questions concerns all right wait yeah sorry okay I just think it's a slippery slope that's all no and I understand I'll be honest with you uh I would have said the same thing uh probably a year ago um and we had that conversation but when we start to take a look at recruiting and retention uh and we have good employees that work for us and there's
058an option there that could maintain that um with the the tough job market that's out there I I probably spun a little bit um uh in the opposite direction but I had that same concern especially uh coming out of Co I think the other issue is we we've tried to do our due diligence to make sure and again the policy is related to the law to the extent when you get to the regulation and exhibit it's meet on the bones so when you get the if you pass this when you get the memo from me tomorrow morning you'll see that the the regulation I believe is five or six pages long so that tries to address and deal with all the different things that people may be asking a question the form follows up in
059lines to that uh to try and address the concerns but I do understand your your concern Mr Ray like I said uh up to a few years ago or up to about a few months ago I should say I probably would have the same concerns but given what we could do with some of the people that we thought were beneficial to the district we decided to move forward with this and right now you only have two correct we only have two and we wouldn't anticipate uh the other one that might help out with this would be um and we have to be very very careful with this but if there's a a situation within family uh medical or otherwise that they may be for a period of time a short period of time that we
060would be allow them to do uh and when we say telecommuting rather than work from home because depending on the requirements for what they need to do with uh with technology it may be that they don't have it at their house and they may have to to work from a parent house as an example but we may be able to work with our staff to to make it so that we don't lose them uh and we can meet their needs that that may be going on with the family situation and it may be for a short period of time one month or two months type thing and so that that's the other group that we'd be looking to to get at but because there's a process it's not an automatic and we would review it
061uh uh very carefully before before we made any additional agreements I don't have a problem with it at all having done it a couple different times working from home this also gives us a a greater pool of people if we have a position that doesn't have to be done in office we can broaden the talent that we can be looking for it's going actually give us a chance to find more people for a job than just being local for our current people okay let me get this straight so we've already hired them they're already working the these two so this isn't asking us whether we want to hire a just giving guidelines giving us yeah it's it's the guidelines to do it we we put two people in place but if if you told us
062no and this was voted down then obviously as we go into the new contract year those two individuals would not necessarily receive a contract in the new year um if you voted up then we're just having a process in place and again we did it because it was the best interest and they were working for us but then in hindsight we said we need to put this into a process which is why we're bringing this forward at this point so why wouldn't they be rehired at this point they would but if you say no to a telecommuting process and the telecommuting policy then we'd have to say are we going to bring them back because the board directed us not to do telecommuting and so therefore they potentially wouldn't if we have this policy in
063place because what we're trying to do is make sure that any person that comes to us with this request is treated the same so that we don't get the notion of oh you like this person and you don't like this person and that's why you gave it and so as a board we're asking for permission to move continue to move forward with it this if you said no we do not want this then we would honor the contracts and agreements with them through the end of the year but then we would have to assess the fact that the board has directed us not to do telecommuting and we would go ahead and publish those positions and look to replace them I guess that doesn't make sense to me okay I mean why why they would
064not continue as a job with a job I mean that's the way they were hired I mean is there a way to well I mean if the board directs that we can again I'm assuming just vote Yes and then they can continue right but but but yes we'll find out what's in the right but if if if the motion is to say no we don't want the policy but you're directing Administration for the two people to continue to work with us and now they'll go ahead and have a contract um or tell me to bring it back as as a contract that we would hand out to them when we hand out contracts then I'll hand it out I'm assuming if you vote no you're telling me you don't want this to occur then that's
065why I would remove them but if you want to to allow those two people to continue then we can address that in the when we hand out contracts and the list we bring to you in March that says these individuals will get it I will highlight those two individuals so you know who they are and then I would go ahead and move forward I'm making an assumption and we know what happens when we make assumptions so if you give me different direction I'll do something different I I can see the reluctance um that many people would have um I telecommute I do marketing for a national nonprofit Prof um and there is a lot of freedom in that as an employee of a company um we also own businesses and we hire individuals that telecommute
066um my husband and our family um so I've seen both sides of that coin um I do think that there are some concerns but I do think with a couple of um items that might be able to be added such as monitoring on an as needed basis perhaps not every position would need to be monitored um with a service that they have online for you to you check in and you clock in and they're monitoring your activity um some of them also have video cameras so it's it's it's as monitoring as much or as little as as needed um and in some situations maybe not at all depending on the task but then to have complete transparency and instead of the position or what not is mentioned in one of these meetings such as we're
067at right now now um but with a consistent report so that we're all consistently aware of positions and who and what they're doing I don't know if that would ease any Minds um or if there's other ideas that anybody on the board has um that would be a potential catch so that we could not let things happen that should maybe not be happening I I just want to make sure that so is this going to open up the door to the our staff that we have on campuses right now to where they say oh I just I'm going to work from home today no and that's part of the regulation and again the the the detail of the regulation goes to five or six pages to deal with that um but the board's Authority is
068only for policy so I have to get you to approve the policy so when I send you the uh when I so a couple different things when I send you the regulations tomorrow morning and you read through the five or six pages you'll see that we've tried to address many of these issues if you believe we've something then please reach out to me as a regulation or an exhibit the administration can go ahead and make those changes and all they have to do is share them with the board so you see it but like I say you'll see I think it's a five or six page document that tries to address all of those issues and I can tell you that your specific question is addressed and no you can't just say hey I woke
069up today and it's a little bit late so hey I'm going to tell commute today summer yeah no they have to have they have to ask for permission ahead of time fill out the forms go through their supervisor who then goes through to Dr Middleton and myself to have a conversation so there's a whole process that says that this is going to take place we've asked I believe I could be off a little bit on this a two or 3 week lead time on when this is going to occur so no it's not just a wake up this morning okay you have to do a two or three week lead time that says this is what's happening in my life and therefore and oh by the way no it can't be your vacation so you
070can't say hey I'm going on vacation we'll use coming up we have a three-day weekend and so I'm going to go ahead and telecommute on Thursday and Friday so I get a five-day weekend no that doesn't work either so we've tried to address address that in the regulation this is just the policy that the regulation would follow um and we're just following the the practice within all school districts that you guys deal with policy and then we show you the regulation that exhibit uh as an administrative uh charge so I guess then I have another question so maybe I'd feel better if some of those regulations were in the policy what what we've done is again uh based on legal council's advice we've shown them the whole ser Series so we haven't just shown them
071the first series and and we've crafted the policy and the regulations based on legal advice we can make that change and I can bring it back but so when we went ahead and said okay this is what we want to develop um that's why we've been working with both asba as well as uh legal counsel to say take a look at what's else is out there uh tell us what other people are doing and then we'll craft this we can go ahead and add more to the policy But but so if you have a concern based on what's in there and you want to add let us know but that's our starting point was to say this is what we're trying to do and legal council came back and said we believe this is compliant
072with what you need to do we can make changes but that's how we started where we started from so can we see the can though we only approve policy and not regulation right can we see the regulation before we approve the policy if you would like we can go ahead and push this to March and and I can share with you the regulation yes I'd feel great about that okay I agree okay so we're um is every is anybody is everybody in agreement that they'd like to table this till March I would but that's me okay I'm good with it now but I'm gonna make a motion that we table I'm gonna make a motion that we table this until March till we can see the regulations I will second that okay all in favor
073I I did you got would you two I yeah yeah okay so motion carries so we're going to have to make a new motion on that one right it doesn't prevent them from working right now and it gives us a chance to be comfortable with the policy that's I think it's a good choice I will go ahead and send out the memo tomorrow morning so you have a full month to take a look at it it was stepen no problem Steve have you ever worked from home under extreme duress under extreme duress I got to do it a couple different times and I thoroughly enjoyed it all that the motion carried 5 to zero okay um 8.4 discussion and consideration of approval of The High Ground um political consultant and con to conduct a Capital
074Bond and M override Community survey oh is this wait a minute are they doing an M override survey as well no I in writing the in writing the um agenda item I I want broad as possible um uh based on the conversation uh we would we would do some follow-up conversation they may not pres present the m&o piece what this is is as we we as I've told you we had Steel make the presentation which our uh bound uh uh individuals that do our bond work they presented to the board in January the tax rates and the implication of the tax rates the biggest issue with our bond because of our to make it simple because of our increasing uh uh property assess valuation in the district and our decreasing debt as we pay off
075our debt uh we are in a position that we can go upwards of $80 million without raising taxes we would keep the same tax rate 100 excuse me $110 uh for uh the next uh depending on how much money we went out for upwards of about 10 years and then it would start to fall down that doesn't preclude what may happen when uh LG the LG plant uh comes on board because that'll impact the taxes for the taxpayers in a positive way but I don't know what those numbers would be we currently have a bond committee taking a look at all of our potential needs uh and they'll be coming back with a uh a recommendation at the same time we have to go ahead and look at a community survey and and so we
076went out and asked for six different individuals our companies to see if they would do a um survey for us two responded uh primary consultants and High Ground we brought them in for an interview with a team and based on that interview we're making the recommendation for High Ground to do the survey they would go ahead and meet with us after tonight if you approve them uh and based on that we would look at and finalize what the survey looks like they would go out for the survey probably mid March to uh end of March and then come back with us in April with the numbers we went and used High Ground back in 2020 um when we looked at this topic uh they have a if I remember correctly they have a line in
077the sand so to speak if you don't have a 60% uh favorability rating in the survey they would recommend that you don't go out the board has the right to go out or not go out irrespective of the of the survey um but they will go ahead and ask uh High efficacy voters voters that have voted in multiple elections it will mirror the makeup of our district so they're not just going to go out for D's or not just go out for RS they will look and say what's the makeup of Republicans what's the makeup of Democrats what's the makeup of Independents and it's a phone interview uh that they go ahead and do the interview ask a series of questions and then we'll get the data what our goal would be is that in
078April uh there's a chance we will need to have a special meeting in April just to deal with this issue we would look at what the survey said as well as what the committee made uh to then have a conversation about what you guys think of all of that based on that conversation if the decision is to continue to move forward we would look to bring forward something in either May or June for approval to go out for a bond if the numbers don't pencil out relative to the survey then it may die at that moment in time and then it becomes a moot point but this survey is probably the most important portion of it because it's going to give us a flavor of what our community thinks about what we're looking to do
079um and obviously the key question I don't know how it'll be phrased but the key question is going to be if you did not raise your taxes would you be supportive of a bond and and they will ask questions about the different items that the bond would would go for like safety School Safety and Security it could be extracurricular it could be infrastructure it could be curriculum uh they will ask those types of questions and then come back with it and uh the both primary Consultants who was not chosen and um High Ground are the two preeminent pollsters uh for school districts Beyond school districts but for school districts in the state and so I feel very comfortable moving forward with this uh survey the funding of this survey will come out of our donation
080uh account rooftop fees not out of m&o um and so I would recommend approval as presented it says that budget resources M I know I T that's my ER I apologize I talked with Julian we we decided that uh uh rooftop fees would be a better Source what what percentage of the community do they um poll the the Comm the polling is for 400 um 400 people within the community that mirror those that voted um last time it's a 15minute uh 15minute uh uh phone interview so it's a phone interview it's not a it's not a u Internet or texting type thing it's a call to uh 400 uh in uh individuals in our community so here's my main question if you were to call me I would say how is that not going to
081raise my taxes right and the the series of questions I don't know what they are because we haven't finalized that uh there would be a series of questions that would potentially try to explain it part of it will be that we will have to do the job um and the and the Pol political action committee that will be formed if you decide to move out on for a a bond will have to explain that as we go around and talk to our community in a 15-minute um uh survey you're not going to be able to um go into all the detail because they're trying to have the same series of questions for everybody um and that's part of it if if there's a I'll use the term don't want to use it but I'll use
082it but if there's distrust of the district and therefore to your question as you just said I don't trust you telling me that I'm not going to raise your taxes and I'm going to tell you that I wouldn't vote Yes for it and everybody that they call or the majority of people that they call come back and say that then um we'll have to come up with a different strategy um to figure out what's going on the reason we're moving forward with this Bond as I've said to you be to to the board before we're getting to the point with declining enrollment and budgets the way they are in this uh State um that well I think we've done a very good job with our Esco and other things to fix all of our facilities
083but it's getting to a point where I'm not exactly sure how we maintain our facilities given the current state and so we have to look at other options but if if the community as a whole uh does not feel like uh that's what they want uh then we move forward but you won't get all of that answers out of there because the only reason why I'm asking that question is because you said one question though I say is if would would you would you vote for a bond if it didn't raise your taxes right so that would be like if you called me that'd be the first thing I would ask how is that not going to raise my taxes and again I don't know how the the question will be framed because I haven't
084seen it I'm giving you the again steifel was here and I know you weren't on on there but but their 35 slide with detail Way Beyond my scope uh and knowledge level basically in very simplistic terms because we're growing so much out here and the primary or excuse me the secondary assess valuation continues to rise therefore it's increasing at an a average of about 10% % annually we just got the new numbers for the tax rate from panal County this week and it's another 10% increase over what the secondary tax rate or excuse me secondary assess valuation was last year because you're growing at 10% but you're also paying off your debt the gap between the two is what determines how much a district can go out for and that's going to determine then whether
085you whether you increase your taxes because that Gap continues to change you're not going to have to go out increase taxes issue that's going to be there is you're not going to get that long-winded um explanation because it's 15minute uh survey and so and you got X number of questions so you can't sit there and have a conversation each time so the data we get is based on the on the survey but it may lead to some questions like you have that other people have that's where we'll assess what the survey says and then decide whether and there'll be a presentation to you guys in April it's not it's not just going to be I'm going to come in and throw a number at you we will have uh Mr B he would have been
086here today but he had a prior commitment and and couldn't make it but Mr B who will do the work for High Ground will be here to explain the survey results he will also explain the survey results to the committee so that the committee will make some decisions uh moving forward and so again the committee may come out with a decision that we don't think it's worthwhile to move forward because the negative uh perception of the of the survey or we think it should move forward because of positive perception of the survey all any other questions if you don't have any questions I'll take a motion my motion to approve The High Ground political Consultants to conduct a capital Bond mmin override Community survey as presented I'll take a second I second right all in
087favor I I I motion carries 5 to Zer we'll wait till it gets up on the board check my work check your work okay 8.5 uh discussion and consideration of approval of the 25 26 school year fee schedule Dr Fountain have you come up and talk about that one thing after Dr Fountain discusses this please make sure that the recommendation or excuse me yeah the recommendation is read specifically from here this is in statute so you must read this recommendation the way it's written so that we're in compliance with the state statute so we can't say as presented no you can't say as presented just make it sure all right this one's pretty straightforward and simple um you should have the course fees in front of you very very minimal differences from last year we're
088keeping relatively consistent probably going to have to look at some increases next year but we were trying to avoid that as much as possible um couple of additions because of new courses being added keeping those consistent with um previous course alignment um the big thing that you will note uh that that is different on there is it's been the last couple of years um previously we were able to use some Esra dollars to support summer school programming uh given that that money is no longer in place we're in a position where we will um need to charge for summer school in order to be able to provide those offerings um we have kept that consistent with what it was in years past I will tell you that's pretty significantly below what some of our neighboring
089districts are are charging um and again probably something we're going to have to increase as we move forward um but those are the big notable pieces on there for the course fees everything else is staying staying pretty consistent in status quo any questions on this um I have more of a comment as opposed to a question um between my two children and I don't know if this was already existing with the $400 cap per family regarding the athletic fee um just with my two I paid over that which I'm happy to do and I don't want my money back I I love buying gear at the at the book store sweatshirts and things like that um I don't know how well known that is so for families that it might be a hardship for them
090and that they would benefit from having that knowledge especially if they have multiple children that are in multiple sports for them to be able to um receive that $400 limit I think that that would be great to to get that word out whether it's posted in the bookstore that's where you usually go to pay your fee um so that they're aware of it sure and I would say that that's not a piece I'm overly familiar with either on my end I would abely uh defer to the high school on that to know what their processes and procedures are but we will check into that because if the board is approving a $400 cap and the reason for the $400 cap is because it's aligned to uh tax credits and families that put in tax credits
091that's a very consistent uh cap that's put in place by most districts so if we're not doing that uh then we need to be doing it because you're approving a 400 cap and although we appreciate the fact that you would not like the money back the reality is we have to give the money back uh because there is a cap there that's been approved by the board so I will look into it starting tomorrow to see what what's taking place and if there's been some errors we're going to have to correct those errors uh but that $400 cap has been done consistently across the state in every District I've been in and it's aligned with the tax credit that a family uh could use parents could use as part of their tax credit so we
092would need to make sure it's capped at $400 that's good to know um is it I know a lot of people pay online is there a way that when they pay their fees online that it's something that it's said there on as well also something we could look into I don't and it should be that we should set up the software program that should automatically right come up and say you're Capp and so if you have four kids that pay the $100 in the fall season then you shouldn't be paying anything for the rest of the year okay any other questions comments concerns all right if not I'll take a motion I will motion to approve the 2025 2026 fee schedules and authorize the principles to wave the assessment of all or part of the
093fee assessed if created economic hardship I second hold on does she have to read it verbatim what it says was she okay okay the major part that comes in is the law auth the authorization of principles to W the assessent fee all in part uh If it creates a hardship that's the portion of the law that must be read all right okay so um I'll need a second on that I second okay and all in favor I I motion carries by Z all right there we have itoo okay we have um discussion and consideration of approval of the district's 2324 audit Madame President members of the board Dr Wyman and community members I'm happy to announce that Clifton Larsson Allen has finally completed our June 30 2024 Financial audits electronic copy was attached um the
094annual comprehensive financial report was attached to the general uh agenda item the bound copies that I normally present to you are still being bound by Clift and Larson as soon as those arrive I'll make sure that you get your copy the annual comprehensive financial report or acfr is the 120 page narratives overview and Analysis of our financial activities in The District in Conformity with our General accepted accounting principles or what we like to call Gap the single audit reporting package is a review of our internal controls over financial reporting and compliance in accordance with gap standards the FY 24 single audit reporting package noted only one item this year so we're very happy about that the one item is in regards to the internal controls over the preparation of our Capital assets listings and reconciling
095the capital asset listings to the prior period audit this item has been on our single audits since I've been with coms however Karen Finn and I have been working with Clifton Larsson Allen over the last several years and this finding has been reduced from a material weakness to a significant weakness to me that sounds really backwards and I told Clifton Larson that but it is a reduced weakness of our internal controls and we do feel confident that this will go away like the other two items this one will go away next year the final item is the uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire unfortunately Clifton Larson has not finalized this document so I was not able to attach it however if there's any areas of note I will make sure that I come back
096at the next meeting and give you those items in the discussion forum it's not really something to approve but it is an informative item on compliance throughout the district's uh various areas these it items are all being brought to you for your review and acceptance but as a reminder in February 2021 Arizona revised Statute 1594 914 se8 H amended that school district governing boards shall publicly accept all Audits and compliance questionnaires by a roll call vote so I do need Acceptance in that fashion tonight are there any questions I'm really sad that Bob's not here yes so these books that you're sending to us they're public record right yes sir they are for anybody yes sir we will load you you can send mine to Bob they're on the board report tonight they will also
097be loaded on our website they are loaded to the ad they are loaded to Emma for financial pliant so they are everywhere for I'm sure that if I know Bob he's already looked at them but I would like him to have a nice bound copy right I I can give him my bound copy okay any um any questions on this Con comments considerations um okay if not um so I'm going to take a motion I move to approve the 2023 2024 annual comprehensive financial report and supporting documents as presented a second okay now I will do a roll call Mr Beach I yes Dr Valena I Mr Ray I Shelley haras I Lisa horn I all right thank you motion carries 5 to zero all right are we good okay all right discussion and information
098on estimate of excess capacity for open enrollment acceptance for 2526 this is an annual item that we have to bring to you uh it just tells uh the public what our open enrollment capacity is the numbers have not changed from previous years a couple things just especially for the new board members that I'll I'll remind people of um this is done at the the the district or excuse me the school level which is figured out by looking at the school facilities board it's now the schools facility division of adoa um but they have a number of what each of our schools are uh it's done at the grade level and it's also done at the programmatic level I say that only because number one um you may have a situation where you have capacity at
099a school you may have a situation where you have capacity at a grade level you may have a situation where you do not have capacity in a program so you could have a family wanting to come from outside to our district and they may accept the third grade student who's in third grade because we have capacity they have a fourth grade student that's a special needs student and we do not have capacity in special needs therefore that would be denied if they're denied they're placed on a waiting list and if um we uh uh have room then there's a process that we would select people on the waiting list uh the other piece that's there is just because we have um uh a ratio so 1 to 27 in second grade um any student that
100lives in our boundaries we have to take so it doesn't matter if our ratio is 1 to 27 if we have two grades or excuse me two classes in a gr in a at second grade in the school and they're both at 27 if the person moves into our boundaries and they're going to that school and that ra raises it to 28 then it means we have 28 we don't automatically hire somebody because we exceeded our capacity right if we got up to 35 or 36 kids in that class then we would we would start to look at and it might be even 33 or 34 quite frankly we'd start looking at replacement but if you take two classes that means you're going to be bringing in about 10 or 12 kids before you start
101looking at at increasing sometimes people confuse that um now if we at the 1 to 27 and outside our boundaries someone from Florence wanted to come then we could say no there so I would recommend approval as presented because it's what we've been using for the last number of years all right any questions comments concerns okay if not I'll take a motion a motion to approve the estim of excess capacity for open enrollment acceptance for the 2025 2026 as presented I second that motion all in favor I I I motion carries 5 to zero okay 8.8 discussion and approval of air quality monitoring site agreement with panal County this is another one of those agreements we've had in this case we've had it since uh 2000 the site is down at CTA and been there
102since 2000 so it's just a renewal of agreement that we've always had with them that they do air quality and so I'd recommend approval as presented anything all right I'll take a motion I move to approve the the I move to renew the air quality monitoring site agreement with pel County as presented second all in favor I I motion carries five to zero so um 9.1 is just discussion and it's discussion information on the srl role and responsibility at CHS and I'm sorry that you had to sit for so long but we do appreciate you we've been waiting for you for years and so now come to our Podium please that was a that apology was to you Deputy monso not us [Laughter] yes good evening uh president harus school board members Dr Wyman Mrs
103Winger colleagues Community um we were very blessed at the beginning of the second semester to have allocated to us a deputy from pan County Sheriff's Office to join us through the school safety program Grant and he is now our seventh SSP Grant funded position within this District the other six are counselors or social workers next slide I have so here um just to capture briefly the school safety guiding principle so I'll let your eyes um land on that screen of the intent behind having an SRO on a campus principal lus and Deputy munsa will speak more to those but I highlight on there the law for kids symbol because that's the training platform that uh principal Loftus Deputy munso have already completed the mandatory annual training they have to do all of our SSP Grant
104funded positions and the administrators that house those positions have to do the um law for kids um framework to do their training I do want to note that when it comes to student handbook policy violations campus administrators take the lead on that when the conduct though violates a law that's when they would invite in Deputy mslo into that conversation and with that I'm going to pass the podium over over here is that better thank you so much for letting us come and share the exciting news about having Deputy M mslo on our campus I would say in just the first six weeks that he has been on Jes it has definitely his visibility and student interactions is very much noted um our students welcome him to our campus and want to engage in conversations with
105him I would say the most popular conversations oftentimes led by him and sometimes led by them is how was the game last night how's your lunch and then the number one topic of conversation is either does tasing get hurt or does it hurt and and or if I get pulled over how can I get a warning instead of a ticket um and listening to him share that information I think we might start an elective class on that topic so don't be surprised if there's not addition to the course catalog next year that is led by Deputy mslo so that's I'm sure he'll be excited you might be surprised he'll be asking for a pay raise he gives some insightful um uh information um one of the other positive interactions is have his availability um just
106like Miss Thompson said his available to availability to Administration when unfortunately unlawful happenings might happen on our campus he is readily available prior we would have to give a call to pcso and it could be 15 minutes or it might be two hours now it's five minutes because he's just across the way or he's down in the cafeteria or he's walking campus so he can come and respond to to that um and give some insight and respond and and make a report if needed on that incident um and then beyond those positive interactions we're very excited um as we get towards the end of the year one of the things that we hope to do is look at our own incident data and look at what we might want to achieve on our campus um
107one of the things that he's also already done in inviting one of his um deputies to campus along with him has done an assessment of safety of our campus and making sure that what we have going on there is the safest possible campus that we can have of course there's areas that could be improved but those things cost money and that's something that we don't have right now so but I'll let him speak to what he's experienced so far on our campus good evening um I don't want to talk myself out of a job but one thing I have noticed compared to the other high schools you have very few problems the issues that you have are the same issues that every High School is experiencing um some drugs and obviously The Vaping and those
108are the two biggest ones nobody has a solution for that there isn't a technological solution it's simply just engaging with the kids so that's what we're doing every day um but on a whole from the size of the campus um where I was was in Elementary in Middle School much more of it there than you have here um that was about 800 900 kids it's about 1300 so if that's been my biggest surprise is honest ly the lack of discipline issues and the things that you have going on um that being said what I really want to start focusing on is the Law related education um right now getting here in the middle of the Year wasn't exactly the best time to come uh teachers already have what they want to teach and obviously walking
109into their educational environment disrupting it isn't what I'm trying to do but trying to get them to where they can get some time in there where if we have something that we're concerned with fentanyl vaping whatever that might be and also the what to know 18 the class that all the students have talked to so they really want to want to get to know but it's trying to find the time in the schedule so we can actually get those classes done so that's what we're kind of working on now and as soon as the teachers start to engage I'm sure my calendar is g f nice I all I know is that I was already approached by um staff and parents and even some students that were like did you hear that we have an
110SRO it's awesome like we we love it like some of the staff is like we can tell already like a little bit of a change and I was like oh that's great so yeah welcome we appreciate you thank you questions any questions um I don't have a question more of a comment um first in gratitude that we have you here at the school um I have mentioned it before that I do have two children that attend comes High School um and I'm ecstatic to have you there I've also heard lots of tons of positivity um my only comment would be that in order to maintain the respect for the position that you have and that um just your presence makes a difference I that's this is that's just my personal opinion I'm not speaking for
111the entire board um in order to maintain that especially with the youth um then I ask for the district to support any decisions that are made um at the site level when it comes to disciplinary actions um so that they don't undo any of the things that are being done does that make sense yeah there's an IGA so there's agreement between Coles the district and pel County Sheriff's Office that does lay out very clearly that uh discipline issues at this at the high school are completely under the purview of the high school anything that comes into a criminal activity is completely under my purview I am very cautious with that because I do understand that arresting people on a on a high school campus is going to have a number of phone calls to the
112school and as there's an image issue with that so I'm very cautious about how I use my law enforcement Powers if I need to obviously I'm going to but I do understand that and my role out there that I can put you guys in a very bad position where you're Fielding phone calls and that's never my intention So within the obviously the Safety and Security of the the students and the staff comes first um and then after that when it's a Law Enforcement issue um M County Sheriff's Office gives me discretion to use my best judgment on how to how to address things um if if somebody needs to be taken out of the campus and removed then that's that's appropriate if it's a a citation and release then that's appropriate but um I'm very
113cautious about making sure that yeah I know I don't get you guys and anybody into some conversations that we don't want to have and also understand how that's going to affect the the sheriff's office I appreciate that and and really what I'm speaking to is if there's a student that they are suspended for I'm just going to for sake of conversation say 10 days or eight days or whatever it is um and a parent is is upset and they don't think that their child should have been suspended that the district needs to support the decisions that are made at at the site level I I I would like those parents to come talk to me because I I I I have dealt with those parents I understand what they're doing I understand that it's about
114their kids um I'm not I'm at the school I'm not necessarily part of the school um so I can sometimes be a neutral third party but also explain to them you know your your child is being held accountable the school is holding your child accountable if your if your child continues to do this at some point law enforcement is going to hold them accountable and you're not gonna you're not going to have the same kind of conversation so as time goes on I'm hoping that the school does leverage me in those roles because it is something that I'm comfortable doing and talking um and I think it it it supports the school and supports what they're doing but also gets education to the community that sometimes just think they can walk in and they you
115know what they say goes and that's that's not the way it is um the the big the big key for me is always bringing it back to Safety and Security and as long as I can bring that back then we don't really have much of a conversation you're you're you're making this environment unsafe sorry your child's gonna be spending eight days with you I I think proximity is like key the fact that you're even there I mean even administrators if they if you're walking around proximity Is key it it just alleviates so much just to begin with couple things for clarification just is for new board members uh legally up to 10day suspension by the board is a decision at the administrative level meaning principal assistant principal I do not have authority nor does anybody
116else at the district office to override that uh Dr Fountain off done talks to the parents just like Deputy lunow would to explain but we do not have uh authority to override a principal decision uh for up to 10 days of suspension so so please note that um again we'll talk to parents but but that's the first thing I tell them there's nothing I can do to override that um uh situation the other thing just so we're all very clear per the igas and the agreements uh Dr Deputy mslo can only be on the high school campus he cannot run over to Ranch if there's an issue and then the last thing is we do have per uh approval from uh the state for another officer that would be part-time at ccs and part-time at
117at CMS at this point in time we continue to uh explore the possibility of getting that if that takes as long as this one uh we will come back to you in four years and we will introduce to you a a new uh officer all right any other comments you guys have anything all right thank you so [Applause] much discussion 9.3 discussion oh no discussion 9.2 um discussion information information on student achievement February report Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman audience members I am here to present to you on some professional learning updates for our department um the first piece has to do with our new educator professional learning and Mentor program that I'm supporting this year in professional learning we have supported those new staff members with navigating classroom power struggles in
118October that was a big Focus that was a virtual session I did do a survey this year and and a lot of the people asked to be virtual for some of the sessions so trying to honor that um they joined virtually we had some strategy discussions we did some scenarios we went into breakout rooms and it seemed very successful based on their feedback we also again did a virtual session in January with Miss Yetta she let LED that one with employee Wellness we talked about physical mental emotional and social wellness and did some discussions in breakout rooms there as well when we talk about Mentor observations um that's when they come in and observe the mentee in their own classroom and the feedback from them was that there's a lot of improvement in classroom management
119and lesson delivery as they are getting in their classrooms if they're a first year person they have a second observation this this semester so we're working on scheduling those when we talk about a mentee observation of a veteran the mentees work with their mentors to go and visit another teacher somewhere on their campus some of the teachers went outside of their grade level or content area and had some positive feedback and some new ideas when we looked at a mentee survey I did that in January as I halfway through the year and their feedback was they really appreciate the support their mentors have given and they've been very supportive and responsive of them we have an endof Year celebration plan for the uh middle of May right before we finish the school year to celebrate
120all the success of that program this year and then moving forward I'm going to meet with student services um to talk about how we can support them because I inherited this program this year and the checklists and things we do are really teacher focused and not always all employee groups focus so I want to make sure we make some adjustments for that are there any questions about this part of the program I really like the fact that you gave them the virtual option i' like that I think you probably will have more people 10 and we had the first one in person just a face tof face meet and then I I did a survey and they were all like that would be helpful yeah for them so trying to meet their needs yeah that's
121great so then moving on um just a review of what we did in January we had a solution tree representative Mark onk he did a keynote in our um CPAC and he talked about connecting those high impact strategies for teachers and learning teaching and learning and the staff this qualitative feedback they gave us was they felt like they know how to create better student connections they were feeling like they were inspired they walked out of that session feeling inspired there were great conversations in the audience um it reinforced how important that relationships between student teacher are and the importance of working as a team to support students it was a very successful experience good um this the next few slides are different groups or different sessions that we held so the questions are the same
122um but this the session was different so this was mapping standards and designing engagement the questions were around the first one was resources that support their understanding of the topic and that the learning was sequenced in an organized Manner and they had high marks for for those two pieces for that session and then the next three questions were was the presenter prepared because that's on my end professional learning or are people prepared to deliver that and then did the session offer methods to help them as a learner as as well as their comfort in implementing so again some positive feedback for that session some qualitative feedback was they felt like they had a chance to really plan ideas around engagement for cognitive and participation engagement in the classroom they were able to look at their
123math units and pacing and discuss strategies they were also able to think about how they can apply their their roles um we had role groups breaking out as counselor social worker and they they liked having it tailored to them um um they wanted to look at more engagement activities that was really a big focus and they really enjoyed that time to plan intentionally the next group was our CTE group um John scram LED that group and they were doing a followup from work based learning that they did um earlier in the year and they were doing more implementation so again the same types of questions they felt the resources supported them that the learning was sequenced in an organized Manner and they were very successful or felt this part was very successful their presenter was
124prepared they felt like they had a lot of um learning on their own and that they could Implement what they learned and their qualitative piece was they felt like they had good strategies our medical assistant who was honored this evening felt like she had some strategies to start an internship program um they were working on a plan for TV and film they have a template to make that plan and then our Middle School was also able to participate and they felt like they could get a start on what that might look like at the middle School piece and then the last breakout session we had this was back to our keynote speaker he did some breakout sessions with some cognitive strategies he gave us six strategies to walk away with um and the feedback again
125was mostly positive there were a few people that were um had some lower ratings but the same questions overall they were very positive in their feedback um new ideas gained uh some had seen the Frayer Model and really enjoyed that and have implemented it right away this person said even about math they were able to use a gist summary and take that away right away ideas on helping their emergent Learners with critical thinking skills they walked away with all those six strategies it was actually in a packet and they felt like they could create better connections and Implement them to see what their students potential was so that was our main focus for January are there any questions about our January professional learning and the last piece is moving forward in March we're going to
126do our very first Spring District showcase we had 25 members on our staff submit a proposal to do their own session so we will have them present their session our content Specialists are working to support them with facilitation tips because it's one thing to teach your students it's another thing to teach adults um we'll have four 50 minute sessions led by those staff members they'll have time to discuss implementation with their teams and then we'll have our campuses actually launch as a campus group and close out the day as a campus group and then moving into may we have Maria neelen who's the author of The 15-day challenge coming to do an intensive with our campus leaders District leaders and then site teacher leaders and that will be an all day event and then next
127year our focus is to move on to continuing our work with proficiency scales to move into some assessment literacy and D datadriven decision Focus um as we continue our progression in our professional learning communities have any other questions I think it looks great thank you for your time okay are you making sure that everybody uh dresses appropriately on March 17th inappropri yes okay Madame President members of the board Dr Wyman and my amazing colleagues thank you for the opportunity to uh be with you here today and share some wonderful things that are going on in Career Technical education as Dr Wyman mentioned uh February is National CTE month and Dr or excuse me and uh Governor Hobbs has also recognized that for the State of Arizona so the timing for me to present today is
128very appropriate um before I get started um uh I really appreciate the middle school and high school CT teachers that were here today um you know one of our teachers medical assisting totally new to the the subject and has just in a phenomenal job but Mr ivanic is not an AG teacher right um he's a city boy in in every way shape and form uh and he jumped in because we could not find an a teacher and he has done a phenomenal job is doing things that he didn't have to do and so Credit Credit should go to him for for doing the best he can and making that program um sustainable and the kids love him they do great guy and he he is he's fantastic and then I had three teachers that didn't
129arrive or weren't here today two did have the flu um and one had a coaching responsibility but one of them that had the flu he was online today he was one of one online today but he wanted to make sure that he was at least present in some way shape reform that was Brian Taylor so in CTE um we have adopted this this motto that if it's important to or for our students then it's important to us and the reason we say that is because there are a lot of requirements a lot of expectations of CTE teachers in CTE programming um many things that um some teachers are are not expected to do um so for example um every program has to have an advisory counsel so they have to go out they have to
130recruit recruit business professionals industry leaders parents students and so forth to be a part of that Council and then hold meetings Twi at least twice a year um they are required to have a student organization so some we have clubs on campus but CTE has student organizations and those are required and so uh these aren't things that they can choose to do they have to do them um so uh sometimes um we have to figure out what the value of those are and as we dive into deep and understand how advisory councils how ctsos benefit the students we realize that that's important to them and when it's important to them then it amps up our efforts because we know that it has an impact um today you will get a shortened version of what I
131do my colleagues will be happy to know that I usually have a very tall soap box and a very loud megaphone when it comes to CT because I love what I do um so you'll get some information if you have questions you're welcome can ask at the end um these are some benefits of uh CTE um across the state across Arizona and they apply to our district as well um statistically uh 95% of students who um uh graduate from they graduate from high school which is a large percentage above the national average of graduates and that that's pretty accurate for Arizona this is a national average but it's pretty accurate with Arizona as well is also accurate with our own students we we see that our CT students who concentrate in a program meaning two
132years um graduate at a higher rate than those who do not um lifetime earnings we hear a lot about um uh going to college and that is a great thing and I will always uh push for that as well but we find out that there are occupations that don't always require four-year degree so students can get a an industry certificate maybe an associates degree um and go to work right away and on average many of them make a very good earning even above that of um those with a bachelor's degree um 78% of CT graduates enroll in postsecondary so you know it's not the voet of 15 or 20 years ago it's not for those kids that are not going to college most of our CT graduates actually do go on to college um and
133then of course the Dropout prevention 81% of high school student dropouts said that if they had a real world experience they probably would not dropped out and CTE offers exactly that for students so what do we do um first of all obviously we teach those technical skills that are applicable to the workforce in our classrooms um you will see Hands-On learning um I I appreciate the comments made by Mrs horn about our facilities we make every effort to give those students a real world experience as they walk in those classrooms some of our teachers uh treat their classroom where their Labs like a workplace uh our nursing assistant teacher has their students clock in when they walk in the classroom uh it is part of their job and so we do the best we can
134uh to give those students that that Real World experience we also teach those professional skills and this is the biggest complaint that we have from employers out there is that we have too many not just high school students but adults who come to work and they do not have the proper skills to keep a job and so we also teach those skills in our curriculum I mentioned ctsos earlier those are those leadership skills where our students get to apply their skills they get to compete against other students uh across the state and even sometimes Across the Nation if they if they qualify to do so um part of their program of work is to to be involved with the community so they have community service projects that they participate in we support the academics of
135math Ela and science that is a requirement um uh with our Perkins grant that we do support those so we integrate content for math English and science into our our own content and then of course we have the career exploration development uh piece we do a lot of career exploration at the middle school level a little bit at the high school but then we really get into students kind of uh refining what it is that they might want to do after they graduate so they start developing some of those uh Career Development skills last year um 93% of our CTE concentrators graduated that's uh above the high school average as I mentioned before it's it's true Across the Nation um 56% of our students were placed in either Workforce military or postsecondary so they uh
136now 56% might not sound like a lot that's only of those who actually returned our surveys which is a big challenge for for us um but over half of our students are going on and doing something right after graduation the period for that is from July 1st to December 31st so they're going right into the workforce postsecondary or into the military and then we had 126 industry certifications earned last year and we are always trying to increase that every single student that concentrates in our program that second year um has an opportunity and when I say opportunity they're required um to take an industry um certification test and so um hopefully they walk out of that program with with that certification in fact our nursing assistant students just finished 30 of their 40 clinical hours
137over Christmas break and that's the dedication that they have when many students are vacation they are uh in a facility getting those hours so very pleased with with our students and the efforts they make um so we have a video I I'm assuming most of you have seen this but we're going to go ahead and play this but this is the one that won the award that was mentioned in Dr Wyman's report I think I have to start it Career and Technical education has always been on the Forefront of providing experiences for students to learn and learn best our programs are Hands-On and so our students are experiencing learning activities that include industry standard equipment the nursing program offers a lot of opportunities for students to get a chance to experience the healthc care world
138before actually entering it the Hands-On experiences we get to do involves a lot of vital science real life equipment that hospitals will use so we get to experience using that you're actually learning things about the career that you might want to go into it's giving you those different options and showing you different aspects from different leaders and everything like that you from home program that I'm involved in is the agroscience program through that program there's so many different aspects to it but with agriculture we are completely all Hands-On each little kind of like every CTE class that we have here they kind of work towards you and what you can accomplish through CTE so it really starts with that Foundation of students understanding really what is out there what's available to them so that they
139can start preparing now rather than waiting till after graduation do that so I'm in digital Comm and mass media in journalism we take photos we do interviews with peers and stuff here around school and then we also do a lot of reporting through newspaper and we also do football programs the hands out experience that I am getting is getting out there with my camera and taking my photos talking to other photographers just going out having fun getting hands on skills through the camera is probably the most effective way to get my photos is just doing itless so sitting there in class looking at the camera I'm in stagecraft it's a great program where we learn a lot of different things in the technical theater area we learn everything from Scenic and lighting to sound and
140even costumes and makeup there's just so many skills you can learn in such a short period of time it's so much fun probably their sign Burger we really look at what we're providing for them to be successful when they do leave us it is a huge opportunity to get scholarships meet people and just have the best time of your life honestly it opens so many doors to Business Leaders and everything that my opinion if you join CTE you will have a better experience in high school join a CTE program whether it is journalism or a different one it brings you a little bit of light into your school day being able to be like yes I want to be here and yes I want to do this and it gives me something to look forward
141to in the week you try something new and you find that spark you're going to go so far in what you love did a great job didn't they wonderful um so that's who we are in a nutshell um our Springtime is oh we get to watch it again um our Springtime is very busy we get into our ctso competitions our state uh test our our um industry certification test and so forth so our teachers and our students are extremely busy but if you'd ever like to visit get a tour I'd love to do that with you okay any any questions I have one question um one of the statistics that I it just really speaks to me I I love it um the 81% Dropout say that real world education would have ch changed their
142world let's say um what are you currently doing and or the counselors or other staff to kind of like intervention so when you see that there's a freshman perhaps and they're not meeting um the goal I think they try to get it is it four credits Mrs Loftus is that what they they yeah four yeah it's actually six credits six times four will get you at the 24 you need so they should be minimum they try to make sure get at least obviously they want to get six but some some of the kids that might be struggling and on the path to dropping out may not have that six and they might have that four how are you currently capturing them and saying hey you know maybe let's not focus on this and this and
143have you have you looked at any of our other courses and and maybe talked to them more about CTE good question I I can't really speak towards what the the counselors do I can tell you that at the middle school we have our career exploration class down there so we try to uh introduce to them to uh things that we offer at the high school so that when they're making those decisions come registration time that they're actually uh choosing classes that interest them from the get-go uh we had the eighth graders come up for a tour of just CTE programs uh which was a a great hit with them uh again trying to get them to understand what's available to them we find out that sometimes students are on our campus and they don't realize
144what we have um our nursing program has been around for forever and we and they walk around in scrubs and we still have students say well I didn't know we had a nursing program so we're trying to do a better job of marketing or promoting those programs so that students can do that um I know that there's some plans in place and I won't speak to it too much that's Mrs loftus's area but um uh the counselors are working on uh doing just that trying to figure out you know how do we identify students and and and and when we say pathway we're not trying to Keyhole them into anything right we don't expect a freshman to know exactly what he's going to do in four years but um they're trying to create some some
145things at the at the high school campus that will gear students towards finding their passion finding those things that they really want to stick to I always say that you know nobody really wakes up to go to algebra one I think that's true for about 98% of the students but they do wake up to go to band and they wake up to go to choir and and CT program and and to be eligible to play sports and things like that so I agree with you 100% we just have to be able to identify those kiddos and if there are some that are falling off you know try to capture them any other questions thank you thank you are we moving on are we done that done with that yep we're done right Dr F just
146the two presentation Just the Two of Y okay okay 9 .3 discussion information on the 2425 District student enrollment numbers I know that you sent us those yeah so if there's any questions or concerns I'll be more than happy to answer okay I sent you the memo okay um 9.4 discussion consideration of changes to policy beb agenda this is the first reading so I don't know if you just want to highlight something for us all I would say is we made a change back in in when I first got here and then when we we made a change that came through asba um my error for not making sure that in the new one the stuff we made in 19 was included uh the change from asba was a minor change it would have impacted
147what it looked like so I'm just cleaning these two up and giving you first read today and next month it'll just be basically what happened in when I first got here as well as what happened in 24 with asba and it'll just make sure the policy has has corrected both of those okay so 9.5 discussion and information regarding the new athletic league for Coles Middle School ask Mrs Ridge to come on down so the name is not official but it's where we landed um I'm partial to changing the name because I feel like copper um signifies like Copper Basin and I'm very territorial so so but I I was willing to concede until I was able to meet with you um again Madame President members of the board Dr Wyman my co-workers um if anybody
148knows me nothing gets me more excited than the possibilities of sports and the importance that it makes to just the experience of kids in the district especially the trajectory to high school so I'm excited to at least propose to you the creation of the copper conference a new Middle School athletic lead designed to bring together Florence Unified School District's three middle schools a pachy junction and comes Middle School the five School league would provide a more cost effective and travel-friendly alternative to our current league while ensuring our students compete against peers with similar skill levels and experience by forming the copper conference we can foster stronger local rivalries greater sportsmanship and a more balanced level of competition all while keeping expenses and travel time to a minimum and we look forward to collaborating to make
149this a reality for our future athletes one thing that I also wanted to um say to you guys is um I've been in this community a really long time and we've never had um a feeder program for for the high school and our most successful programs are like the little league that we we sponsor CU we have built-in teams that automatically feed into us and those are the teams that are are are um making our championships right the softball teams the baseball teams because that is what the kids have exposure to in our communities we don't have a Rec Center we don't have a lot of those amenities and so for the first time um in Middle School people are touching a ball for the first time like as much as I love our basketball
150team and I am the biggest cheerleader on the sideline it's kind of rough to watch 10 girls that have never played basketball before and it's just because there's no opportunity and we're looking to change that um so we would be keeping the same Sports so keep that enthusiasm Miss Horn that you had for sports and games and all of that because we in order to be a part of this league we have to propose um starting our first tackle football Coles Middle School is the only School in our neighboring um districts that does not or never has had a tackle football team so what I've seen um with my own eyes is students come to school with their football uniforms that say Santan youth um thatat league as well as um Florence has a team
151and I think they're called the Broncos so my students are wearing football jerseys to Florence and Queen Creek and so often times when when it's time for them to progress to high school um they've been with these kids since they're eight and they're often choosing to still continue that Journey um with football so that is a big sales pitch is to um connect that to being able to help with student enrollment um to make this Vision a reality um because there's cost Florence Unified School District has genous generously offered to sell or lease tackle football equipment to support our program's launch this partnership provides a cost-effective way to equip our student athletes while ensuring they have proper gear to compete safely by utilizing this opportunity we can Kickstart our program with equipment while fostering a
152stronger relationship between our schools with the right support we are confident that Colmes medal school can build a successful and sustainable tackle football program that benefits our students and community in the year years to come are there any questions just for some clarity because uh Florence is changing their model of of uh Schools they're going from k8s to K sixes I believe and then some seven eights they are reducing down from six programs that would have Middle School sports and playing tackle football to three therefore they have the excess uh equipment uh we've had this conversation both with AJ and and Florence for two years now because of the cost associated with the the current league we're in and so it just kind of came to fruition more in the last two or three months
153than it had the previous year because uh because of a lot of different reasons and and this will be part of the budget process but I wanted Mr Ridge to at least introduce the concepts to you now so that when we come back in in April with some of the budget stuff this would be part of it and it wouldn't be a surprise and so we have a chance to to can continue to move forward with the exploration um it's not quite Revenue neutral relative to the savings from from joining this league versus the other league but it's pretty close to revenue neutral or slight savings because the Transportation uh Associated costs associated not nearly as far as where we go with the other places so we're just looking at all and everything to to
154go ahead and address uh uh what's best for kids but also financially where we're at within the the district and so that's why I asked Mrs Ridge to do that she's been the one that's been at the meetings with the with the other uh ads and uh part of it so open for questions for her but I just want to give you some context and I also um forgot to mention because this is really important um as a former cheerleader we would be bringing back competitive cheer something we haven't had in the last um at least four years so that's important for you to consider as well as a former cheerleader I have a question for you no I I love everything that you do there and I my daughter was a cheerleader at combms
155last year um in eth grade and that's why she wanted to come to the high school was to cheer at the high school um so just to clarify for example when um she was cheering at eighth grade basketball they played against other local Charter Schools um and the high school finds themselves competing against some of these other schools and so to kind of preface my question um I have seen it with my own eyes um and we live out here there are not the resources I myself have my own children that play in Queen Creek and other leagues because we don't have those resources out here um dance gymnastics other things that these children need in order to be cheerleaders when they reach high school and they don't leave to go to these other charter
156schools that might have uh in their eyes better looking programs um to clarify what you're saying is instead of us continuing to play those Charter Schools we would not play them anymore we would play Florence and so um I love that and I'm I've been a huge um Advocate while it was necessary that we did find a league to join because we like Mr strum said people don't necessarily wake up excited to come for algebra but they are excited to come to cheer um it it was important that I was like we need to get out of this Charter School league um it's really it's it's not I've I've talked about I've mentioned this before it's um it's just is heartening it is and it's um it's just not Equitable to to anyone it's so
157difficult especially when you have um whether you have the means to make it happen or not the resources are not out here and you have to travel into Gilbert and other places to get those resources so I always argue that um you know we're fighting for enrollment and we take our children to our competition and so when I'm taking my kids kids over to play ala Ironwood and they have um different resources than we have I am giving my parents access to our competition when they get to see their fields and all those things so um I just want to keep our kids I want to keep it local and hopefully um as we progress this is something we can gain support with so any other questions I think it's a great idea okay all
158right I would just like to see it for high school also hey can can we name it calf conference what what that calf conference coms AJ Florence oh okay I'll already on my notebook because we haven't decided yet I was thinking of a baby calf nope there is potential for um coolage to join um at some point and but if you but wait a minute if you're the the leaders they get to join they don't get to name they don't get to name that's how we roll okay so um um I'll take requests for future agenda items anything any burning questions something you want them to bring forward you want to know more about so just because this is my first year so you know we always kind of go with our passions right and
159my passion is counseling have to put you on the spot yet I sorry counseling and social workers um if I wanted to know more about that could I attend one of their meetings or do we bring it to okay because I would love to do that and I I know they're doing awesome and great and wonderful things um yeah I would love to do that just reach out to Yeta and we can set up whatever we need to set up okay and then also like the mcken evento that was my passion to like mcken vento and resources that we have and I know we have um something set up at Harmon I would love to go see that and okay just a matter of reaching out to to Jen Corey or to yet and we
160can set that up okay awesome awesome any anything else be sure you get pictures right so you can put them on the website and spread them out and Yeah and okay so um I'm going to make a motion to adjourn at 7:47 all in favor I I we still have to vote boys and girls yeah said no you have to you have to yes you do my V I don't know he did