J.O. Combs Regular Board Meeting 02/08/2023

001foreign very similar types of things we had excess success with choir and Orchestra at the mountain Point High School solo and Ensemble Festival they're getting ready for their state it's in the report I'm not going to read through every individual but we did receive very positive uh comments from the judges about how kids and how well they did they are getting ready to audition for the region choir and the region Orchestra in the upcoming weeks that we'll also move on to States drama same kind of uh situation performing at the Eastern Arizona Festival theater again a significant number of rankings 18 rankings of superior I'm again getting ready for some additional competitions in the spring FBLA had students Emma Ricks and Quentin Kendall play second third in photography photographic knowledge uh man Quentin also got

002first in journalistic knowledge again it's another CT program I know John Scroggins going to have a little bit of presentation on our CT e programs and our Student Government I don't think this is all that Miss Lofts is talking about but they did also receive the aascs Platinum award for community service and charitable contributions there are lots of different ways that our kids are are doing outstanding things uh in our district so um just want to make you aware of that uh you can see on the upcoming um calendar uh the 20th we do have no school on that Monday because of President's Day and then we are moving our March 1st board meeting has moved to March 1st from what will be March 8th that's a Wednesday still I think I had a typo

003but I fixed it but that is because of spring break so we don't have a we don't have a a board meeting during spring break so just note that it'll be March 1st and then we want to take a little bit of time for just a quick special recognition so if Laura could Ridge could come up for a second [Applause] we just want to take a moment to recognize Mr Dave Willoughby if you don't know who Dave is I'll let Laura talk in a second but I'll let me I'll do a little one and Dave's a security guard at CMS and we had a recent security incident CMS and we just want to recognize uh what Dave did to go above and beyond I'm going to let Laura explain it all but again when we

004talk about kids we also talk about staff and we are a people business and we have amazing kids and we have amazing staff and we just want to make sure that we always recognize them solar I'll turn it over to you from Colorado Springs and then we're here tonight um but I wouldn't miss this moment for anything to recognize one of my staff members Dave Willoughby he is our new security guard at Combs Middle School this year um he replaced a security guard that we had for quite um some time so when he came in it was quite a transition um but he won the kids over very quickly with his kindness and it doesn't hurt that he carries candy in his pocket and he'll work with children and reward them for like being on

005class to time being to class on time um funny how this little piece of candy can get somebody to get to class on time um Dave said he came to us um just when he needed us the most and I told him the same thing um his just kind spirit and how much he genuinely cares for the kids you can't buy that type of thing you just get lucky and we got lucky with Dave um just a a few a little bit ago we had an Uninvited Guest on our campus and Dave was doing what he was supposed to be doing and he was where he was supposed to be at the time that we had an Uninvited Guest on our campus and Dave um came into an interaction with the um uninvited guests and

006just um I don't go in too many details but um just through himself to try to Aid the officers that were in pursuit of uh of a person who wasn't invited on our campus and so um he didn't think twice we were able to see it on video and um the kids were able to see part of it too and when I tell you that he has been a hero on our campus um I can't even tell you the amount of kids that have come up to him during lunch or they made them posters and cards and gifts and candy and just some kind of things you don't really expect from middle school kids they have done all of that and so I just want to say thank you to Dave because you didn't think

007twice to make sure that our kids were safe and again um you can't buy that type of loyalty or you hope that people are at school that care for your kids that much and Dave is at our school and he cares for our kids that much so Dave will you please come up and let me present you with this blue Apple [Applause] you want to say anything oh that got me off guard um into Gomes middle school because I retired in July it lasted two weeks being around the house drove me crazy and I do love kids I did 20 years in the jail in Pinal County and uh it's kind of like a little mini prison but I I can interact with them on a positive note and I've had a lot of success

008working with the kids and I've enjoyed it when our little intrigger came in I actually knew him from the jail um although I don't think he recognized me in civilian clothes so I tried to do what I could for the kids he said some naughty words to me and I think I said a naughty word to him bad and I said not my kids and not my staff so there we go thank you thank you we also take this time to recognize other employees a lot of times when we do this employee recognition uh we have I'm sorry oh sorry I'm sure could I just go back to one thing from your report before we get to the next part of the agenda um the hashtag forward uh evening presentation it was at Ranch yes

009do you know how many parents attended because I'm curious to see because I'd like to get more and more parents involved yeah I don't think the numbers were as high as they wanted I haven't had a chance to check with Sue on the specifics I know uh Miss Pascal did one over at um uh Simonton I think in December and the numbers are a little bit bigger and so we're continuing to work on ways to to get our parents involved I was part of uh and we sent a team over to a program called School connect over at GCU a couple of weeks ago that that it's built upon School connections with Community Partners be it parents and or business people and so it's just a way that we're looking to maybe do something different

010to increase the number of interactions we have in a positive way with our community so not as great as they wanted to but I think the one they had I wanted to say last year was was very well attended so County Ebbs and flows depending on what's going on in people's lives thank you so we do do employee recognitions and it's based on uh there's any time where it's a month that recognizes as an employee group or a day or a week and we are not always able to bring every single one of the individuals forward because we have a number of them in our district so we try to get representatives from around the district from each of the schools if it's a school-based thing to recognize and well this week is national school

011counselors week across this country and so we've gotten some representative counselors from around the district but they do represent all counselors in the district I would call the names and have them come up and then we'll just read a little short statement of appreciation so at Ranch Elementary Latoya Bernard [Applause] Combs Center for Success Julia Godin CTA Latasha hagert [Applause] jorian joints from Ellsworth [Applause] Natasha Miller at Harmon [Applause] Jolene Peterson from the high school [Applause] Madison rankson I may have mispronounced it so I apologize from CMS [Applause] and Christina Ramsey from Simington and and I just want to take a moment to to when we talk about school counselors those are another one of the unsung heroes that work with your children on a daily basis on lots of different things it could be

012a career planning situation it could be some conversations about things that are not going well on campus or their interactions with other students that are not going well with the pandemic there's any number of different issues that children are facing on a daily basis coming out of the pandemic and in many cases where they're going to go for some initial help is going to be with a school counselor they have worked with our teachers in order to make sure that we are helping kids in every way possible and it's that quiet job that's done every single day that maybe people don't recognize and see but truly they are those individuals that have heart of gold that make sure that they go the extra mile for our kids and so during National Counselor week we did

013want to take them I want to thank them so very much for everything to do for all of our kids in our district so thank you very much way to represent ladies [Applause] he is it's February is also CT month but I know Mr Scrabble Scroggins going to do a presentation as part of the high school here in just a second so I'll just let him do that and go from there so it's it's now the School portion cool volunteer uh yeah school and staff recognition hello uh Madam president and governing board members and Dr Wyman I'm Tony Loftus I'm the principal over at Combs High School and I am super excited to be here to recognize some distinguished leaders that we have on our campus that have worked dedicatedly for about two years to

014achieve this honor that has been bestowed upon them by the national student council and I would like to invite them up to please come join me in the front as I speak a little bit of all you guys have done so come on up you're going to see a whole bunch of them okay rise well that's like our whole audience [Applause] as I did some research to find out what it means to become a distinguished leader from the national student council I was in awe as to what all of these young people have done over the past two years to earn this achievement it comprises of 10 categories and within those 10 categories there's anywhere from eight to four subsets in each category of skills and artifacts that they have to show and produce and

015or write to learn about in regards to leadership specifically anywhere from leadership styles goal setting goal setting time management problem solving inclusiveness how to build an inclusive culture within their own student council and then delineate that into our own campus slide and I'm very excited about the students that have achieved this honor and I'm going to start by recognizing our seniors the seniors have built a culture that is going to perpetuate for many years and I want to thank you for doing that over this past two years our seniors are Brooklyn Bernal she's our treasurer [Applause] Julie Marr our historian [Applause] Kayla Bowen our vice president [Applause] Catherine Nevarez I I was you looked so like very reclusive cat you were like oh just honor me you're the president other seniors who have earned this

016Accolade are Hunter Claire Glenn Jones Macy Boyle we were uh Sadie Udall have I gotten all the seniors did I miss sunny you missed a couple I'll be honest we keep getting notification after notification day after day of another student in our student council who has earned this achievement up until what time did you get your last notifications this week or this morning 10 30 today we were still getting notifications from the national student council of our students who have earned this achievement and when I talk about two years worth of work that two years worth of work has been done within the student council class and worked collaboratively amongst themselves and led by Dr Nelson so we have to be sure and honor Dr Nelson and all of that he's achieved in getting students

017to to accomplish this achievement and if you ever have the time and you're just bored and you want to look at the national student council and what it means to be as distinguished leader it really is it's like three pages on a website of all the things that they have to do I was my job reading experience into to what I saw that they've had to be doing over the last two years um and I'm super excited about our now I'm not gonna say underclassmen because it's almost it's also 11th graders but our 11 tens and nines that have achieved this honor because they're going to continue to perpetuate this in our student council in our campus as well this is a huge accomplishment Dr weinman mentioned service leaders this is completely service leadership which

018is the type of leaders that we want and role models we want on our campus to show how you can lead and guide people to give more to their Community more to their campus and build greater capacity and these young people are doing that for us in regards to our 11th grader Savannah apostle 11th grader Ashlyn Tucker 11th grader Charlotte O'Brien [Applause] 10th grader Jade Rodriguez [Applause] 10th grader Ty Howard ninth grader Merrick Boyle [Applause] 9th grader Judith Onaway [Applause] 9th grader Riley Peak [Applause] did she come in like very last that was the 10 30 point Janie Conley if we don't have a certificate for you we'll get it for you but I I really I am so enamored by what you have accomplished and I Combs High Schools thanks you for the capacity

019that you're building thank you so much good job congratulations so bad I want to do that so bad can I photo bomber [Applause] thank you Dr Nelson tonight I also wanted to recognize the classified staff who without debt a doubt is serving the Combs High School I would like to invite Miss Kim top to the podium or the stand Miss tobb has worked this year in the science Town Department as a parapro and in her service to the department as a parapro not only is she serving special education students she's also serving general education students she doesn't care who she's assisting or she who she's helping and in that capacity she also doesn't care if she's helping a student or a teacher in this past year she has had to support a new teacher onto

020our campus she's had to support a first-year teacher into the the realm of Education as well as support a long-term sub she's done this in the realm of biology she's done this the in the realm of Earth space science as well as Integrated Science I always want to call it physical science Integrated Science so she's wearing a lot of hats and anytime that I talk to Miss top it always revolves around the student how can I best assist the student she even went to the point of going and getting her long-term sub certificate so if we had to utilize her as a long-term sub we could do that but her first question was in regards to how am I going to serve my students how am I going to serve my students who are in

021special education I have to be able to serve my students in special education always being her Focus point that I want to make sure that I'm able to serve my students so I want to honor you in the service that you give to Combs High School because without a doubt you are a model employee on our campus and it's all about kids and we thank you so much for that [Applause] thank you just as we want to honor a classified person we need to honor a certified staff member and I have invited Miss Bowen to come up and speak in regards to Dr Nelson and the service that he has service and Leadership that he provides to student council okay hi I'm Kayla Bowen and to start this off Nelly is our advisor for student

022council I'm the vice president and um student council holds a lot of responsibility and stress even though it's very fun and without Dr Nelson we definitely wouldn't be where we are um Nelly has dedicated 22 years of service towards student council here at Combs and he recently won an award at our ASE State conference and it was towards that and not only that our whole entire student council also won three of the highest level Awards we won an outstanding Council of Distinction two Platinum levels one for the service project award and one for the charitable contribution award and with that saying um I can undoubtedly say that Dr Nelson or as we call him D Nelly he has always made one thing a parent he loves student council and he loves his drive he loves

023to drive towards leadership and being the best for his students so they can bring out the best personalities with them themselves student council and myself would love to thank Dr Nelson for all of his commitment wisdom and inspiration that Roars through his character and it prevails through each easy and hard day your belief in US truly makes school life and ourselves better and you deserve this and thank you [Applause] thank you Dr Nelson [Applause] say I would want to thank Dr Nelson in regards to his service to me as a first time first time principal first year principal and then also new to the Combs Unified School District as well as new to Combs High School he has been a great resource for me personally and I thank him greatly for what he has done

024to help guide me as well thank you Dr Nelson and I appreciate your time and being able to honor Combs High School and thank you so much [Applause] okay Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman and members of our audience tonight thank you for the opportunity to address you all um February is a special month in our world at the high school and even at the middle school um it is CTE month across the country and if you're not familiar with CTE it stands for Career and Technical education it's an opportunity for students to get involved in their future at the high school level and so I'm going to share with you just a few things and then I'm going to turn it over to a couple of our our programs because really they

025can tell you that the story that's going on um you know how I am with this I'm just clicking away every time I come up here just keep pushing buttons just keep pushing nope is now okay I apologize I really okay so um a little bit about what we do in uh Career and Technical education uh first and foremost we do teach technical skills so we have 13 programs at the high school ranging from digital photography to agric science to some medical profession uh programs and so in those programs our students are taught skills that will help them enter into the workforce immediately following high school and for some of them even before they finish High School uh in addition to that we offer Hands-On instructions so our our students are experiencing what a person

026in the industry would experience they're using industry level equipment there's industry level standards that they're required to follow so it's really an experience that students get that again is is more than just your typical elective and I don't even like to call them an elective class it's a program of study but our students get that opportunity to to really see what it's like to be in the professional workplace we help them develop professional skills that's one of the largest concerns that employers have today is that we have employee employees that don't come to work with skills just the simple skills of how to communicate how to work with others and so forth and so part of Career and Technical education allows us to work with our students in developing those important skills they're able to

027take some micro credentials and I'll talk about those here in just a little bit and one of the things we have coming up here at the the beginning of March is mock interviews so they'll sit down with an industry leader in our community and they'll actually sit through an interview and have that practice we practice leadership skills so we have what's called student organizations it is not a club it is a student organization that is run by our students they attend leadership camps and Leadership conferences and they develop those skills that are necessary to be a leader when they leave high school and enter the workforce we as part of their program of work they are supposed to do community service and that looks differently for each of our 13 programs but it could be

028anything from offering a health fair for our community to volunteering to do some work at a local hospital and so forth and so on we also support academic standards as part of our requirement so our CT teachers are required to integrate math Ela and science standards into their curriculum and make it relatable to their CTE content and then of course we do a lot of career exploration and development so they have a chance to look and see what the industry is all about to see if it's really something you want to do see what the job market is like what the Outlook is like over the next 10 years and so forth so a lot is going on in our CTE programs uh we've kind of adapt adopted the model that if it's important to

029or for our students it's important to us so sometimes we know that as teachers we we think we know it all and hats off to my teachers because I think they know a lot um but what we don't always know is what what students need and so we have to pay very close attention to that and so if we know that students want or need leadership skills then we need to make sure that we're doing that in the classroom if they want or need an industry certification we need to make sure that we're offering that in our programs so we're we're trying to pay attention to what the students really do want and need just something about Career and Technical education and this is some national stats and it's something for us to realize is

030that current technical education is not the vocational Ed of old vocational Ed of old of 20 years ago oftentimes it was for those students and and you know what I'm talking about oftentimes counselors would put them in a vocational Ed program because they just weren't College Bound and that's not what CTE is today CTE is for anybody and everybody in fact we've had our valedictorian from a couple years ago take a CTE class or senior year and he wished that he'd take it taken it sooner and got more involved so it really is for everybody but here's some statistics that are interesting 95 percent of CT students graduate high school that's 10 percent higher than the national average um lifetime earnings so oftentimes we think well if you go to college you're going to make

031more money in a lot of cases that's true but there's another side to that that oftentimes our students can go straight to work right out of high school with a certification start earning an income not have student debt and over a lifetime oftentimes their earnings are more than those who might have a post-secondary degree when they do go to post-secondary you'll see 78 of CTE graduates enroll in post-secondary education full-time so again it's not those students that aren't College Bound many of our students are in fact going to college and then what's really huge is the Dropout prevention and this has to do with um in in my opinion students have a purpose to go to school so if they're involved in a program one they like one that they can see that's going to

032benefit them after graduation they're more likely to go to school they're more likely to take School more seriously so some very interesting statistics about out CTE programming so at Combs High School I wanted to highlight two specific programs and I I threw our our two of our newest teachers um in the fire we have two fantastic teachers one is Krista Claypool Krista is our nursing assistant program instructor great story about her she was a district nurse we didn't have a teacher with some cooperation collaboration with Dr Dukes in her Department we were able to NAB her for half a day and she does a fantastic job and I'm going to let her share a little bit about that what she does and then following Mrs Claypool then we're going to turn the time over to

033some of our agri-science program students who are also members of FFA their instructor also wonderful teacher she's this is their second year with us she is taking a test right now and that would be Mrs Robinson so she couldn't be here today so I'll turn the time over now to Ms Claypool [Applause] foreign I'm vertically challenged so Madam president Dr Wyman board Community I am very excited and feel very honored that I was asked to come and speak um I am very new at this whole teaching ordeal I am a nurse by trade is passion of mine and a CTE is also a passion of mine um because I am a product of CTE so many moons ago what did you call it the Vocational School of old something like that yeah so um I

034was part of that 20 plus years ago thanks John and um I actually started out as I went through a CTE program at a district um here in Arizona and I was a cosmetologist I did cosmetology for 19 years I ran my own business a successful business all the while putting myself through school to be a nurse so it funded me for both my degrees actually and I actually made more as a 19 year cosmetologist as I than I did as a brand new nurse coming out of school so that was that was interesting but um I've always had a passion for nursing in the healthcare field so I knew I wanted to go that direction and that's what got me there so not only do I stand here as a product of that so

035I can speak of how it can transform your life um I'm just very passionate about um what I do and the fact that I get to now teach future Healthcare Providers is just it's awesome so this is what I get to do every day look at this place it's amazing so I was at another Facility Who will not be named and I will say that our facility is like wow compared to what I saw we have one of the best facilities that I have seen we have nine medical beds and this was a big facility that paid that students pay a lot of money to go to um and we have like high-tech equipment a lot of our equipment and things come from Grants um which John plays a big part in getting us a

036lot of different grants so that we can get the equipment get the high-tech software that we use um we get donations from different community members we have a regional advisor committee that helps us out in telling us like what are the new things that are out in the industry they're actually coming and visiting us on the 22nd to see our facility and they can give us feedback so they're very helpful but um yes we have amazing equipment we have I mean literally we could probably take care of patients in there if we had oxygen and air set up okay pretty awesome all right here's some interesting facts about our program so as a new nursing assistant coming out of the program they actually end up they're CPR certified and they get six college credits because

037it's dual enrollment and they can make anywhere from 29 and this is Arizona stats okay so anywhere from 29 the average is 32 but anywhere from like 29 to 36. um that's that's a an 18 year old coming out you know of um of high school that gets licensed um and it's rising because our need we have a very very strong need for um Healthcare professionals uh in the field right now there's a severe shortage so sometimes they can even negotiate for a lot more than this um so they're getting the six college credits they're getting you know that much money and it's also requirement of most of the schools around here now to have a CNA licensure as a prerequisite to get into some of the nursing programs so these students that are coming

038to do this program costs less than three hundred dollars um outside of the program so I say 83 percent but I actually found out today from a not to be named institution that they are paying about 4 000 for their adult students to come um and uh that's what they would have to pay if they did this outside of this high school so this is like amazing opportunity for these kids um where can they get jobs Hospital long-term care facilities Home Health Federal Agencies public school health we have CNAs that work in our health Offices here in this District being a district nurse I cover four of the schools that are here sorry we're skipping ahead and um and some of them are CNAs some of them are Mas we also have an m a

039program um so a lot of good opportunities come out of this this is not just an elective like he said this is a career um some of the things we do here's our technical skills lab they do everything about 51 or more has to be Hands-On that's required by the state so they are getting in there they're getting their hands dirty they go to clinicals they actually go into facility take care of patients and we prepare them for that um by everything that they do in our awesome lab um they get to go around and do like blood pressures Vital Signs we're recruiting people for shaving anybody need their face shaved okay Thursday the 16th um see me but um so we actually get to do these uh skills and they they love it we

040have fun doing it we try to think of creative ways um for them to learn they learn a lot of leadership skills so HOSA is our Professional Organization and that's where some of our other students are coming in from HOSA is also integrated into our program it is it is not something extra it's not a club we are required to do it and it's so valuable um they have got to go to competitions which we actually just got back from one today and um we had two competing teams from my program and they both got third place so they did qualify to go to state um they never done this before and they jumped right in and I think we all just winged it together because I hadn't either honestly and they did amazing I'm

041very proud of them we also had our Sports Med team that went as well and they got second so very proud of them as well along with what FFA will share they have a lot of awards and accomplishments as well but they learn things so right down at the bottom you see we went to a Leadership Camp so we had our officers go they got to learn how to network how to run meetings how to formulate fundraising committees how to do um community service and brainstorming and how to formulate subcommittees and things like that they do public speaking like you talked about they do mock interviews um so they learn a lot of different skills that are going to be helpful in the real world and that's what we hear from our regional advisory committee

042is that when these kids come out like my goal is I want them to say I want those I want those Combs kids you know I want those J.O Combs kids like that's the reputation I want because right now they said what they're getting is it's kids that don't show up don't have the communication skills don't you know just don't have any of those leadership skills and so that's what they're looking for you can teach a lot of people how to do things right but to teach them how to actually function in a working environment is also very very important and we also leverage a lot of technology and employability skills by using some of the highest Tech platforms actually three of these the Pearson mylab EHR go and the top middle which is called

043body interact are three new ones that we were able to advocate for to get just this year eh our go being our documentation they didn't have anything before where they got to learn documentation with everything going into technology they needed to learn how to do that and be able to chart not everything is paper anymore as far as body interact that's all simulation they have software they can go in they can do real-time simulations on the patients collaboratively and do their interventions and it shows them what could we have done better what could we have done different how was our time things like that the Pearson my lab that should be a course in itself okay my students can vouch for that it is their medical terminology portion and they learn all their medical terminology

044from there that was one of the things that we had scored low on before on our TSA and so utilizing that I feel like is really going to increase their medical terminology so they can understand the questions and the things that they have to um attest to and then major Clarity major Clarity has been amazing for us as far as a lot of them got into my program because they did major Clarity assessments and it told them you would be a great nurse okay so um that they may have got to me that way but it also offers like scholarships we get different opportunities for Scholarships in there they write their resumes all kinds of things so we really use a lot of um modern technology for them um so I'm sure the person you

045really want to hear from is an actual student that is going through the fire and I'm very very very proud of her and she is one of the ones that got third place today and she was a solo entry and she doesn't know it yet so I'm going to embarrass her in public but she also qualified for state in our state online testing and I waited until tonight to tell her because I'm so proud so now she's qualified in two areas for state so I'll let her come and share her experience hi thank you guys so much I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to be able to be up here and talk first off I want to start by like my own experience never when I came to Combs it was

046my junior year and I right in the middle of high school moving to a different school was really hard I didn't talk to anyone I kept my head down I didn't really know where my place was and when Miss Claypool came halfway through my junior year I was like okay we're gonna we're gonna actually get to do this like we're gonna have so many opportunities because we got to Adventure out and do things that we didn't get to do at the beginning of the year like HOSA like we nominated at the end of our junior year for HOSA which has brought me so many opportunities like she mentioned we went to Regionals today and I did job seeking skills and I got third place along with our mental health promotion from our other students and

047we've done many camps and stuff just never in a million years did I think I'd be able to like set up here and talk to you guys the soft skills that I've learned all throughout these programs she has pushed me to go into other programs for instance our link leader crew that Combs has right now we are able to like help the eighth graders and upcoming freshmen give them advice help them tour just help them out with the information that we might not have had coming into high school and she gave me that little nudge and I'm so glad that I did it because it gave me so many skills that I didn't think that I would have before being an officer in HOSA I definitely leadership skills speaking in front of people I didn't

048have that before and now I I take charge of opportunities and I never thought that I would be able to do that um After High School I've decided that I want to go to Pima Medical Institute and pursue a career in respiratory therapist and that has been an amazing opportunity that I've been given before me I never thought that I would go into that but once you get like you're in here and you're working with the patients and that's all you want to do you just want to help people and change things and you want to do what's best for the people and for you another thing that I've done is the change project um it came a lot a lady came in and she spoke with us from uh for the CTE program and

049I wasn't sure what it was at first and I thought to myself why not take the opportunity see what it is inside there we got to learn interviewing skills we got to learn about our strengths which I think my strengths were achiever deliberative restorative learner I'm not sure what the other one is but which is good to know like I got to utilize my strengths to my own advantage and I got to learn what I could do with those strengths and all of this I couldn't have done it without Miss Claypool here helping me giving me that little nudge that I need we've learned so much in our program and it's just open opportunities she's always there handing us another thing and she's like here take this opportunity do this like she's doing it all

050for us and I couldn't be more happy to have someone in my life that'll be able to advocate for us and do these things for us so I want to say thank you and thank you for the moment to speak congratulations [Applause] and Kaylee I heard that you landed a job or an internship recently nice fantastic yeah good job [Applause] you can see why I love my job right right um so our second group is from our agroscience program and we have our FFA president Kaden and vice president Connor correct I get those right and they're just going to share a little bit about what they're doing in FFA all right so I'm Connor Morgan I am our vice president for our Combs FFA chapter I am a second year member and I'm here today

051to talk about of some of the things that we go and do and compete in one of the main things that all most of our students like to compete in are things called cdes cdes are anywhere from uh floor culture to livestock evaluation we have a huge variety of different things students can compete in which lead into careers um so we just had District our second round of district for floor culture and our students um won I believe third place for floor culture there I'm not sure about the other Awards oh my bad Florida culture got first and we had an individual Place third and another one placed first this is our first round of District where we had um food science aquaculture AG mechanics and livestock evaluation we had three teams Place top three

052in that District competition um the slide before this was State last year um so these students will be moving on to State this year um we just took all of our tests to see if we go into State this year um and we will find that out the 13th and we will be competing the 24th and 25th in our agriculture science program we have a land lab on the property the land lab is an outside classroom where students can utilize tools show livestock as I am in one of the pictures we make decorations we Garden we have chickens greenhouses all kinds of things out there we do a little bit of welding a little bit of a demo class if you want to get more into that you can move into the evit program um

053we also so the AG science program is attached to FFA like I said and I would like to share one of my favorite memories out of FFA it just happened recently at our Peoria mini camp leadership program um we went up and stayed at Peoria High School overnight in their gym very uncomfortable but it was a fun experience you get to mingle with other chapters across the state uh and there's little workshops that everybody can go into and I was assigned a workshop and our leader was the Arizona State FFA president Kaden Zimmerman and we were walking into our last leadership Workshop and he pulls me aside I know Kaden a little well and he normally doesn't pull kids aside I was like what did I do like I know the dance was a little

054wild but let's see what I did so he pulled me aside and he said Connor I have nominated you to get in front of 500 people and say Opening Ceremonies wow so I would at first told him you're crazy no never and he's like are you sure this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I said you know what Kayden let's do it and he said all right I'll have you ready at 2 30. so I went and practiced and practiced and we're getting ready to run through a second practice and I went out on stage to get ready and the advisor said psych they're all here I peeked around the corner and I was like holy cow there are 500 people and I have to stand in front of all of them talk

055so I was like you know what it's going to be fine I'm gonna do great I went out there and rocked it and that is one of my favorite memories through the FFA because it took me from a shy kid freshman year to where I am now and now I'm competing in livestock evaluation and public speaking um public speaking is coming up fast we have to have our speeches ready by March 2nd so they're five pages five minutes long I believe and we have to have it all memorized but I would like to introduce oh Connor I want to ask you something oh yeah yeah I do let's go um so how many um how many projects animal projects are at the land lab right now right now in the landlab on the premises is

056just my pig and my chickens we have other students that have property that can keep their animals there Haley's not keeping it there anymore she moved hers okay um so I believe we have three pigs that are competing in the Pinal County Fair we have a few Lambs some goats and I don't believe oh we have some Holstein caps um so those will all be competing at Fair March 12th through the 18th um but those students get to deal with livestock and even though they can be a pain sometimes we get through it and you create a bond with those animals and even though it's sad to let them go you still get the monies you get the money yes you get the money and you help that animal accomplish its goal and you just

057get to represent your chapter at different fares so one more thing to tell you I graduated from Peoria High oh you did yeah it was fun campus huh yeah very big campus all right I would like to introduce the future of agriculture oh great it's me all right let's get this over with so I have to talk more so I'm probably just going to forget about this and just set it here um hello my name is Kaden Vandergrift I am a senior here at Combs High School I've been in the AG class for four years now and active in FFA for the past two since the our great teacher Miss Robinson showed up and kicked Hill out you know oh no we only got to do a lot of fun things with him anyways um

058[Music] um let's see all right I guess I do need this um when I first signed up for this class freshman year I had no idea that I would be here stand in front of all of you doing everything that I have going down the path that I am but now that I'm here I couldn't see myself anywhere else when I signed up all I read was one word in the description of that CTE course welding and I was like oh my gosh this is awesome I'm in so I saw that word signed up got what I asked for for about two years and when I was going on take my third they said hey we're switching up teachers on you and this one's actually going to teach instead of just taking you out to

059land lab you didn't hear that Miss Loftus Mr Hill's amazing he did this oh yeah he didn't do it before either um not for using hell um so back to the actual topic when I joined and actually got involved with FFA I had no idea where it would take me in life I just thought that's something I signed up for and I can't get out of it now might as well ride it out see where it takes me and I remember first time we ever did something was our very first chapter meeting which is where we will form an event for all of our members to come to once a month after school and it was so much fun and I was like okay this is awesome we need to do more I need to

060do more and I've continued going on last year I was vice president this year Well actually first I wasn't even on the team this year I'm be honest I wasn't on the team because I thought that I wanted to focus on other things other than just FFA but then we had some changes and they took me on as the lowest rank then a few more things happened we redid interviews and now I'm president and I'm so glad that it worked out the way it did because if I wasn't I wouldn't have been able to attend the August chapter leadership training which sent me on the career path that I'm going on as a future agricultural teacher and at that leadership yeah trip that's not nice um leadership trip I was sitting down with a room

061of about 500 to 700 people and there was a panel of three people one of them was the current state FFA advisor one of them was a past State officer one of them was a current High School AG teacher and the high school AG teacher said just a few words and it really stuck with me last year we have had such a shortage of AG teachers that three chapters have had to close down and I started thinking wait last year that's why my new teacher came in that easily could have been me that easily could have just sent me off to who knows where doing whatever and not down this path I want I want to be on the path that is made me who I am and so then there I realized hey I

062want to be an AG teacher so I told my teacher that she freaked out she was like are you sure it's really crappy it's horrible I'm sure a lot of the teachers out there understand she's like you're going to be poor you got to like beg for money on the side of the road I'm like yes this is what I want to do I want to teach kids I started coaching on the Trap Team bit and I realized this is what I like to do and so from there I started doing what anyone would start looking at colleges and where I wanted to go what I wanted to do and I looked at one college and it's the University of Arizona and I found out that they have the best agricultural program in the state

063and they actually have a whole separate College dedicated to it the Cals college or College of Agriculture and life science and when I saw that looked into it and saw that they had a dual degree for agricultural education and technology management and I was like oh hey that's a great idea if teaching doesn't work out I can go do Tech Management on a farm perfect so I applied there and waited one week goes by checking my emails every day trying to see if I get in I hadn't applied to any other colleges at this point because it is expensive to apply and so I'm checking my emails checking the website checking checking checking I go up to my teacher I'm like hey they haven't responded yet it's been like two weeks they said it was

064only going to take like a week I don't know what's going on she's like well I don't know just wait a little bit longer three minutes later I get an email it's from U of A horrified I open it big poster you're in I had never been more happy in my entire life I'd gotten into the college that I wanted to and on top of that they've given me the Wildcat recognition award for three thousand dollars towards my tuition when I saw that I freaked out even more actually I freaked out at home because I got it in a letter had to reread it about like 10 times make sure that it was my name my address everything they weren't like oh we're supposed to send that to a better guy no they didn't and

065from then I decided to get an internship with my teacher and I went from only having four classes in a day to a full schedule and even sing after school most days so now I have an internship helping teach and usually actually going up there and teaching the Freshman AG 1 class and let me tell you it is as bad as she told me it would be some of those kids man I just you guys know what I'm talking about but I would not want to change it for the world and that internship has made me realize this is my passion this is what I want to do this is where I want to go and that's just how FFA and AG has impacted me it set me on the life path I know I

066want it's made me do what I want to do and on top of that let's see told you I'd go back to this see oh yeah um I found out just a few days ago my teacher was going through the slideshow on here saying okay this is your part one over my part I looked at it read it and not really read more looked over said I read it but then she was like did you actually read that I was like no so I go back I read it and I read that last bullet point the J.R Coulson prospective teaching Award nominee I had no clue what that was so I'm like hey what's that she's like well I nominated you for one of the biggest awards that U of A offers to incoming College

067freshmen that want to become teachers and at the state leadership conference this June me and her have to go sit down with the nominating committee for a lunch and talk to them and get all that done and I am so honored to even be nominated for it's crazy I never thought in any amount of time that I'd be here where I am and I have that all to thank to my teachers AG FFA and kind of most importantly my freshman self who read that word welding thank you [Applause] so sometimes my soapbox comes in the form of students right so I again I appreciate all those who came tonight to to share with the public a little bit about what we do in our in our CTE programs thank you thank you [Applause] so now

068we have student of the month thank you not touching it there we go not touching it Madam president board members Dr Wyman thank you again for this opportunity as I always say it's the best part of my day Kaden by the way when you're looking for that job look me up somewhere and I'll help you find that job okay so look forward to that could I have Sierra DePaul come up from Combs Center for success could I have Ethan Ty Trebek from Combs High School [Applause] how's it going to see it right here okay hey Ethan known as Ty all Thai yeah Ty's been an exemplary student all school year long he stood out even more this semester and Ty is respectful hard-working and positive we think that Thai fits fairness very well but would

069be comfortable nominating him for any character trait Tai is one of the few students who we truly feel that he exemplifies the best of Combs High School congratulations Ty [Applause] could I have Jamarion Watson come up from Combs Middle School could I have Trinity hawks come up from Combs Traditional Academy [Applause] this is Trinity and Trinity is a great role model for all students in regards to fairness she makes sure to play by the rules and follows expectations both in and out of the classroom she does a great job working to make sure that everyone gets a fair and equal chance at things she always waits her turns listen and listens with others and helps them with anything that they need she is a great classmate as well congratulations Trinity [Applause] could I have Justice

070Lujan come up from Harman could I have Jamal Dawson from Ellsworth come up [Applause] Jamal shows integrity on a daily basis he's a hard worker and never fails to help anyone who has questions or needs he's always willing to help and puts a smile on everyone's face Jamal shows integrity by doing the right thing when no one else is watching which is a great sign of leadership at the moment Any teacher would be lucky to have Jamal in their class congratulations Jamal [Applause] could I have Jacob Combs come up from Ranch Elementary [Applause] Jacob was an easy choice for fairness good job an easy choice for fairness there you go Jacob keep that smile going Jacob joined the ranch family just about a year ago and came to our school with a lot of worldly

071experience as he's traveled and he's seen a quite a few places Jacob spit he fit in very well and students took a liking to his sweet and caring personality good job hey come back here I'll just give it here I was giving you a pat on the bag buddy okay keep turning around look at everybody no no come back here we chose Jacob for his fairness recognition and we believe that Jacob exuberates fairness in every way congratulations Jacob good job [Applause] telling you it's the best part of my day and can I get Antonio Guzman come up from Simonton there you are [Applause] this is Antonio in and out of the classroom Antonio treats everyone equally with kindness and respect his decisions regarding other students are made without playing favorites but shows a lot of

072heart in the way he cares for his classmates he takes advantage of no one but takes opportunities to help others and to be their friend congratulations Antonio [Applause] that concludes our student of the month presentation we'll now allow parents to take pictures and we'll also take a moment of a break thank you if you want to duck out here's your time out here thank you always be honest that's always rolling okay we're gonna go ahead and uh continue on with our little uh program here so do we have any public comments no we don't um okay so then we have uh any questions on the consent agenda if not I'll take a motion I moved to approve the consent agenda as presented second all in favor aye motion carries five to zero okay so we

073have 8.1 uh discussion and consideration of approval of changes to policy recommendations of the asba policy advisor 741 second reading so we had the first reading last time um that was our chance to ask questions so this is our second reading and so we actually have to make a motion on this so does anybody have any questions that they um would like to bring up just a question I know this has to do with with foster children does it affect any way that we have to do business with regards to that just procedurally I mean nothing nothing no no I didn't think so because I looked her through and all the strikeouts and stuff okay okay any other questions I will take a motion uh I moved to approve the recommended changes to the district

074policies as presented in asba policy advisory 741 as presented all in favor aye aye aye motion carries five to zero ready go Jen get up there all right um a point to discussion and consideration approval of the sfob preventative maintenance plan for the district schools this is very simple and Mr Anderson's here for any com uh questions you may have but you can see it's just a checklist that verifies with the uh sfob that we have maintained our facilities and done the things we need to do within our facilities uh you have to submit this annually and so it's just a check off it you'll see blank spots and those just because those are not systems we use and he might have stepped out for a second but the the roofing system so you see

075a flat roof system checked off not a tile wood shingle because all the roofs are flat roofs and so it's pretty straightforward in terms of each of the different sites and you guys approve it then we just put it into the state board so uh or the SFO so they can have it on hand as they move forward with any decisions for us when we go to them for for money to fix systems was it was that different from the end no it's sfb they they've made some changes and they put it under a different governmental agency so now it's the SFO B and I'm Donna blank on on the whole portion of it but but it's it's the same organization but there is some restructuring on what they're doing where they it's under the

076department of operations I think so okay they just like to add stuff does anybody have any questions on what on your checklist no come on he's got to have one question he has to answer right come on all right if no questions then I'll take a motion I moved to approve the sfob preventative maintenance plans for the jail Combs Unified School District as presented a second good job all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero eight point three discussion consideration of approval of this of the Simonton Elementary School and the school school Improvement plan that's cool um just so the boards understands that any school that we have a letter grade system in this state any school that gets a d letter grade has to go through a school improvement process uh the

077the uh individuals within the School boundaries are notified of of the designation and then of the plan uh meeting was held with open to the school Community I don't think we had very many people show up but this was a report that was given to him so now we're going to give the board the report you have to approve it per state statute which would then move on to the 80 and to the school County school superintendent so miss Pasco present uh the Improvement plan good evening happy Wednesday night and um I am sharing part of what we shared on January 25th um at symington in a forum we had we had I think two families and a few children their children and several staff members District leadership and members of our governing board that

078were also there Bob and Shelly were there and I wanted to share our parts of that I don't know or do you click for me where did John go do you take the clicker with him Josh what what it was we gave a little background on our grades so our current letter grade is a d and each year the state issues a scoring system to label the schools a through F our current letter grade is based on the students from the previous school year from 2021 and 2022 and from our students in grades three through six aasa State tests we earned on that you can see the letter grade bands and we earned a 54.99 total points from the Arizona Department of Education the bulk of the points which is about 80 of them actually

079are assigned based on student achievement growth and proficiency areas so those two key areas other areas would include the azelo performance absenteeism and subgroup performance other subgroup performance also play a role so they look at student growth and when we look at that we're looking at by moving proficiency levels so when a student moves from proficient to highly proficient we would receive um positive growth and points that way growth points a student who maybe was highly proficient and then went to proficient would be negative growth and we would not receive any points on that even though they're testing proficient um there's actually a combination of many and I'm I'm pretty sure most of you are familiar with that but there's a combination of several measures that we look at So based on this receiving this

080deed grade um we have developed an action plan and I say based on that but I'll be honest with you we started looking every year we look at data to determine what we're going to do and last spring as a staff we had already started a commitment to a reading focus on our campus so we really started um developing our next steps with a focus in Reading when we did our comprehensive needs assessment and our action plans that we do each spring and we're in the midst of doing that right now for the following year um in this action plan you can see that we are aligned to our district vision and goals and we continue with our movement and focus with student-centered learning our professional learning and work with students is intentional and purposeful

081in planning instruction to best meet individual student needs we focused on elements of a hashtag forward and such as Vision codes Sops more importantly I would say looking at our roadmaps looking at standards that are broken down and um being very transparent with students about what they're learning and having them see where they're at and what their next steps will be we're using data from our formative assessments that teachers create um and we are also continuing to use our fast Bridge um screeners in k6 to give us foundational skills data as well as illuminate DNA benchmarks for grades three through six so we're looking at specific standards and their performance on those standards with their learning our intentional data Dives have also allowed us to find some additional opportunities to help our students with test

082taking strategies so working in more testing vocabulary and skill with manipulating and understanding how to answer more complex and rigorous questions another area we've been very purposeful in as I said was looking at are not only our tier one which is all students tier two the students that need a little bit more and tier three for those that need even that extra intervention our 40 minutes of reading intervention and 40 minutes of math intervention time has been intentional with the use of Lexia and ST Math which is all supported through the district and also small group lessons that focus on foundational skills or for grades three through six the um focused on particular standards our Title One Reading specialist also pushes in this year instead of pulling students out so that we can allow her

083to work with a few more students in that manner and we've also created our master's schedule so that our reading specialist is in the plc's each week so that those intentional data talks happen weekly instead of maybe monthly thank you the three goals that um that we have developed all aligned to a common goal which is to increase our student proficiency based on our state assessment for special education students as well as our general ed students and that is by this spring test which is in a few months our strategies for increasing that are part of our action plan that I just shared but it also includes the creation of those formative assessments so that we can gain understanding of students knowledge prior learning during their learning and after learning as well as using that

084information to differentiate the instruction and create standards-based lessons that focus on what students need and we're also focused on increasing parent involvement um and trying to get parents back on campus since covid they're just you know not as many people have been on campus so really being intentional with what we're doing to have families um get involved this is some of the information that we shared that night too which talked about ways for them to get involved as well as some of the resources that we have these have been shared by teachers but we have the opportunity coming up we're having student-led conferences um the 15th 16th and 17th and then we'll be sharing opportunities there where parents can volunteer another push for that as well as if they're not using Lexi or ST Math

085at home or paper making sure they have the information to be able to have that at home for students to use um I am very proud of my staff and the work they've put forth to just dive even further this year into our data and what steps we're taking to increase student achievement um we will be returning to share celebrations I'm sure next year we'll be having a lot to celebrate for the hard work that we're putting forth that our stallions will show the achievement that we're working hard to achieve and questions I do want to also say a special thank you to um Denise and Tim they have been very helpful in coming out and working with our staff and working with me so I appreciate the extra support from District Coulson so I

086didn't see on the planet all anything I probably is part of what you do but there is there are practice tests out there right yes that you can practice two three times before you even get to the test itself which helps the kids feel possibly more confident in navigating because you hate for a kid to not do well on a test because they don't have to navigate navigate the test right so certainly with a through that with with our um teachers it's test.naav or something like that may have test or something I and if you just go to the State website you can see it and they already have students spending some time on questions from that we also use our bank of questions with illuminate to be able to create because they also have

087practice where they have to go between different articles and answer and manipulate that so they're doing those also but getting them on the practice tests and I guess our practice is not just go take the test and let's see how you did on the practice test but using it for modeling and guiding and taking questions from students about why they thought about why would you select that why would you not when we are doing our data Dives we've also really looked at the types of questions that the students struggled the most with and and what why is that and then asking kids when you looked at this what were you thinking so really approaching it as to what do they see they need there's no other districts and schools that are taking quite a bit

088of time instructing what's scary or bad or whatever teach you the test whatever it is I mean the difference between a grade on your on your school and where you sit in a meeting like this right right so just the this year we're using those resources that yeah I mean even your parents can see it I mean if you only have two parents there to see a meeting but like they're not likely to get online to look at that test anyway but kids just need to have that it's a double-edged sword that gets so bored taking the test but they need to know the skills to take the test even if they have the knowledge if they don't know how to navigate the test they can't do well on it right is that is navigating

089through that because it's a little bit tricky the way you look at it it's a little tricky even how you put in answers can be tricky so you have to have an understanding of that and especially third graders who have never yep so did you were were you expecting your grade to be low or like did you know that it was this year was going to be a struggle or I didn't expect that the previous year we had an astonishing amount of growth and I would say after talking with Denise though maintaining that amount of growth is is hard at times I think but we had a lot of growth that year when they didn't um count it I think give us a grade right but that I want to say it was yeah so

090we did not show that and I think that was the biggest that's the biggest discrepancy between our previous data and this data but we've spoken to this before and and it's a reality too uh we did anticipate I know soon I talked a little bit about it a couple grade levels and and the turnover and staff and the the lack of a teacher in there and and the rolling of uh of uh people in sub-zan uh we have looked at any number of one of our schools that that raises a concern for us when we see a pattern at certain schools where we have not been able to fill and I know last year when we talked to can't remember it was fifth or sixth grade but one of the fifth last year was was

091a concern that we talked about because just by the nature of the Beast uh we just did not have we could not find a teacher and I don't think it's Unique to us I think there's lots of places that are struggling for that so meanwhile while you're doing all this other stuff you are at the mercy based on who does or doesn't come and whether you can or can't find someone and and again this Sue's not the only one that's had that we saw that same kind of pattern happen at some other grade levels their overall score may have been higher but at some grade levels we we saw some issues because of some of the issues with Staffing and so I tell you that only so you're aware that that is a factor it's

092not factored into how we get the letter grade but it is a factor and a reality that we eat in the principle to deal with on a daily basis and it continues I mean that's reality it continues this year do you have anything I think you did I I know Bob and I were there that evening I think you did a tremendous job I'm glad your staff was there they they had a lot to say I wish more of the families would have showed up it would have been um very enlightening but thank you for doing that thank you good job thank you okay so we have to vote on this so I will take a motion I moved to approve the Simonton Elementary School Improvement plan as presented all in favor aye aye motion

093carries five to zero 8.4 discussion and consideration of approval of changes to the 2023-24 district calendar this is just the minor change you remember back in February of 2020 we did a five-year calendar uh but we noted at that time we'd come back with minor changes so in this particular situation each year uh we have added the three extra days to the calendar uh with board approval for before the start of the school year for our teachers but it's all contingent upon Esther funds so we take a look to see there's there are some unique things that are happening to be quite Frank relative to some of the dollars that are available to us uh our change in administration at Ade is making some changes so that's why we wait to see what takes place

094as it stands right now for the essers dollars we will have the money available to pay the teachers and certified staff it's actually all certified staff to come in for the three days so the recommendation is to add those three days we'll add them to the calendar More for our staff so they can do their summer planning it has no impact to kids it has no impact to the community has no impact instructional minutes it's just so that our our staff is aware that we're planning on having those three days so I'd recommend approval as presented do you have any questions take a motion I'll move to approve the changes to the 2023-2024 district calendar as presented a second in favor I motion carries five to zero uh 8.5 discussion consideration approval of a change

095of order to the school camera upgrades so and Mr rutco will be available if you have questions that I can answer but basically back in may we talked about upgrading our cameras throughout the district as we all face supply chain issues not everything is coming as quick as we want what we found now that they've come in is that we're moving to digital cameras not analog cameras and so therefore one they did an analysis of some of our cabling at some of our elementary schools we need to do an upgrade for that this becomes critical when we start to talk we know we've had an issue at one of our schools here recently what we would hope with this upgrade of the cameras and the upgraded of the system is that we would be able

096to utilize software out there that would allow us to link with the law enforcement that may provide some security and some safety additional layer of security and safety for our schools so we believe this upgrade is critical so that we can take that Next Step obviously that next step will be brought forth before you and we're not going to do anything until we meet with bcso and have that conversation but the next the step before that step's taken is to upgrade this cabling so that we can interface with that software because we need to have digital throughout the entire District they're currently in the district right now doing work I believe the middle school was cameras were put in last week beginning of this week high school's being as we as we speak and then

097we'll uh if there's approved tonight we'll go ahead and make some of those adjustments with the cabling and then add the rest of the cameras here or hope to have it done no later than spring break just a point of clarification in the supporting information it talks about uh upgrading camera system for our schools at the May 2002 board meeting I think we went through yeah it's a typo okay I just want to be sure because I'm saying if we're going back 20 years something something's wrong so the total cost is what around 50 000. I remember 51 825 18 cents and that's coming from what budget Bond money okay um so if I remember right I don't know if I do or not um we had cabling put in a while back and it

098was with Pinal County the Pinal County did a bunch of stuff now I don't remember if that was before you came and it was with Dr um Blanchard but we I know we had cabling put in to upgrade so that we could be consistent with all of Pinal County so I don't know if that was internet is that different from internet and this the stuff we've done since I've been here has really been Internet it's been an extension of uh basically we had a degree of redundancy by having a second system for our our white area network that was countywide as well as the network that we currently use so the stuff that I'm aware of was more network based than not related to this this is truly the cabling for the cameras within on

099their property and then the the upgraded cameras will be able to interface with software which would obviously go through our wide area networks yeah I think accurate it was probably network based okay thank you all right take a motion I moved to approve the cabling upgrades for the new camera system as presented a second all in favor hi hi I'm motion carries five to zero all right um 8.6 discussion and consideration of a new course approval CMS music theory and appreciation and career Explorations correct you got it good evening Madam president members of the board Dr William and Mr Costa we've got a couple of CIA agenda items on here this evening uh the first one being the Middle School additions should have a couple of slides for those I can't click them yet Euler

100so there's two new courses proposed for the Middle School course guide we're bringing to you tonight and get caught up here you tell jokes like I did at the spelling bee they weren't very good but but I tried are they dad jokes well they were absolutely I mean 100 percent all right there we go so as part of our desire to continue to have a curriculum that is modern and supporting our students needs it should be rigorous and aligned to standards we have a couple of new courses we're proposing for the Middle School the first one is the career exploration course this course is being designed and brought in to support students trajectory and Pathways towards the high school so we've been doing a lot of work with our CTE team in terms of where

101we want our students to be at the high school level we know that one of the big things for CTE is having students get those completer courses and part of what we see happening is that students go into those High School CTE courses and it sort of becomes that trial for them because they haven't been exposed to it they go maybe that one's not for them they switch to another course and they don't get that second year in so part of this is really trying to align that from the Middle School level and give them an opportunity to get exposure to a variety of different college or career Pathways so they can get a sense of what they might want to pursue down the road so how would that look in the classroom like they

102just go through different right so part determined by the curriculum and we're going to kind of double whammy that here okay so part of that would be based on the curriculum but think of it like um a lot of times you hear about like the wheel mentality so it's sort of like that and they would go through a variety of different opportunities and get it get to learn about a different sets of skills and so on um that'll be one of our next pieces of the slide and part of this is that we would seek a curriculum for this um John has already done the work with CTE funding to secure a grant for that curriculum so if you approve the course we would also ask permission to begin the process for the curriculum adoption

103and we would begin moving forward with that so in term in terms of the curriculum will there be any um testing going on to assess personal skills to see where you may fit into it right so this this aligns with that major Clarity piece in terms of being kind of that Avenue for students to get that aptitude test and those those experiences and then they would get to be exposed to a variety of different contents and skills and careers to learn what might be of interest to them I think we had a great illustration tonight of some kids who maybe didn't know they were going to be an FFA or nursing and they spiked an interest in a way you go so and then a little bit more of that the intention would be that

104this would be a course that we would put all of our seventh graders through so this would become a standard course in the seventh grade year for so if you approve the course then we would also ask you to approve the option to go out and do the RFP so that we can get working on the curriculum piece following the same procedures as we normally would in terms of adopting that curriculum obviously it's a little bit easier because the quantity of options out there is a little smaller than math and Ela and all of that and then the second course is the music theory and appreciation and a similar vein just trying to our Music Teacher wanted to bring something new to the table just trying to change with the times a little bit and

105really look at student interests so getting into some things about you know music recording and some of those elements of what might be different and and that might engage students in music appreciation so kind of getting into some of those elements and so with approval of that we would put that on the books as a possible course for students as is always the case the course guide and the course approvals are always dependent upon student interest so we may or may not have students who are interested in that but if they did it would they would at least have that option so those are the two new courses um would that be would that be offered to 7th or eighth grade just like would vote seventh and 8th or just eighth trying to remember what

106we talked about I thought it was both but okay I mean you can see that we kind of have some purpose pieces in here it's aligned to the standards there we've got the basic course set up and what that looks like in there I don't mean to go too quickly no I know you I know you want to keep moving so questions on those two I'm good with it I don't have any do anybody have any questions and just so you know once we get the curriculum we'd bring that curriculum back to you for approval so you'll see you'll know what the quick and Liz we'll bring it in for approval perfect all right no questions I'll take a motion um I moved to approve the Combs Middle School New course offerings of Music Theory

107and appreciation and career Explorations for the 2023-2024 school year as presented a second all in favor bye aye motion carries five to zero okay so then we have um oh holy moly um well every time I click on it it like makes it down discussion 8.7 um discussion and consideration of approval of fee schedules for the 23-24. so just a couple of minor changes to the fee schedule you'll see them listed here so one of them is a format change to split the fees out for yearbook and The English Department dual enrollment fee no change in the actual cost is just different in how they're processed and the second one a proposed change is to increase the parking fee by ten dollars um like a lot of things some costs have gone up associated with

108that though so it's 50 right now so it goes to 16 to 60. still still cheaper than many of our neighboring districts oh yeah um like anything with all of our course fees if there's any hardship we always have the ability to support those families so yeah okay any questions just quick reminder the motion has to be read the way it's written so that we're in compliance with the state law got that Bob got it all right I've got it right here I moved to approve the 2023-24 fee schedules and authorize the principles to waive the assessments of all or part of the fee assessed If it creates an economic hardship a second okay Jen is the second all in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero eight point eight discussion and consideration of

109approval for the extension of science textbooks what and ancillary material adoption or is it auxiliary I don't know I think it's it's ancillary yeah associated with I've never okay wow there you go all right 8.8 let's do it we're getting there I'll make it quick um so this was mentioned at a previous board meeting that we were looking at some options as it relates to our curriculum adoptions um this one specifically speaks to our science adoption and the desire to keep a modern curriculum in place um that science adoption was new to us this year so this is the year one of the adoption it does align to our standards and sets our relevant learning experiences this is where the existing adoptions are at as of today so the science adoption took place in 2022

110that means it started in the 23s starting in 23 and then you can see that in most of our other areas we're kind of all over the place so we're working on cleaning that up a little bit in terms of how old some of our adoptions are as I shared with you at a previous meeting my goal is to put us on a little bit longer of a cycle an eight year cycle so that we can hit our core areas every other year so this would help to support that in part um this would be the proposed schedule as we move forward but I'll explain that more on actually the next one so here's where we're at with the science adoption our initial cost was 456 572 and 87 cents um that was what was

111initially approved we were able to make some adjustments to that we negotiated with the vendor because as you know our enrollment was down a little bit and our initial estimate included the the overall student body at the high school not all of our high school students take four years of science so we had overestimated the number of licenses that we needed so we were able to negotiate with them and get a 65 000 return based on the excess licenses so that brought then our total down to 390 000 we worked with them on an extension of two years um truly it's a whale of a deal you can see that it the average price I think is about 65 000 a year for the adoption um we've been able to negotiate a two-year extension for

11239 000 for both of those two years um so in terms of the overall cost that's pretty substantial to us in terms of savings and it would give us this adoption for a full eight years so this is kind of the breakdown for that it comes out of the 100-day Grant and you can see the the 390 000 initial adoption price the proposed to your extension we would use some of the existing money or leftover money for some additional leveled readers um those leveled readers support our students in the Elementary classrooms um we found out we needed some additional ones because the Arizona alignment's a little bit different so we need to purchase some additional ones to move those readers around to all grade levels we already purchased out of that at the tune of

113about fifteen thousand dollars some additional materials the high school requested to supplement the curriculum some of those materials that they would use on their daily practice and then the balance of those funds we would Target towards some of our science kits for our K-8 classes to get some of those Hands-On pieces as part of the curriculum and Dr Fountain doesn't even know this because I just got we just got the information this afternoon that where Our intention is taking a hundred day Grant the 100 day Grant was grant that Governor Ducey put in place that not necessarily everybody at every level who may be of a different party believed was the appropriate use of the money and so there was two grants that he administered we only received money out of the 100-day grant we

114are getting notification that we will get a letter um that indicates that that money cannot be used anymore after whatever has been spent as of January 1st so there's been somebody that's already been spent on this and it's not in jeopardy but it's the remaining money um and so the governor Hobbs is looking to see how districts can be held harmless on this situation we have the funding for this but I just want to tell you that in the case of some of these Grant monies as we've changed Administration on several different levels we got a lot of weird and funky stuff going on and so all of a sudden things get pulled back um Julie and I met quickly this afternoon like I said you haven't even had a chance to talk to Dr

115Fountain about it and we're okay with the money and we have the funding sources available uh even if it comes out of the essers and so you're talking about different pots and money this hundred day Grant and the other program was out of money allocated to the governor through the federal funding not the esser's money which is allocated to us through Ade so it's a different bucket but it's creating some issues because of the way he destroyed he decided to distribute it and the Biden Administration doesn't believe that the distribution was correct and accurate and so there's some there's some pullback of dollars so just in terms of full transparency know that we have the money and we're working on it but some of these I didn't want you to think that this was definitely

116coming out of Hyundai Grant because based on the email this afternoon that may get changed and we'll work our way through it we're not concerned about be able to get the money but we just know that it may have to come out of a different funding source all right questions um in terms of funding does this put in Jeopardy our plan to try to have a million dollar carryover in uh our mno from year to year Well if you can hold on to that we will talk about what we want to do subs and then I'll just broaden the conversation quite a bit okay I will take a motion gotta get there um I moved to approve the extension of the McGraw-Hill District K-12 science curriculum adoption for two additional years at a cost of

11739 257.77 as presented a second favor aye aye motion carries five to zero um okay so now that was so our 8.9 discussion and consideration or approval of the extension of ela textbook and ancillary material adoption all right so I'm going to skip through these first handful of slides because they're the same as the previous one um but here's where we're at with Ela so if you take a look at our existing adoptions Ela was adopted in 2017 at the time we were using a six-year adoption cycle that means 2023 which is where we are at now becomes the expiration of the ELA curriculum and given that we've shifted into more modern uses it's wonderful that we don't cut down so many trees but it also means when we get to the end they push

118a little button and it turns off and a lot of those resources go away so we're in a situation where we need to address that to make sure that we can maintain the curriculum that's associated with our Ela adoption our proposal is to extend that by a period of two years so that we can get that further down the road and go through a full adoption process to really go through that so our initial cost of the six year adoption back in 2017 was 617 000. and and 677 that's a yearly cost of 102 946 we have worked with them to get a bid for those two additional years they are giving us a discounted rate because we are already working with them of 74 722.85 a year so it's an additional 149 445 so

119in terms of a yearly cost it does decrease for us a little bit and gives us a little more time to get to that formal adoption process that curveballs that I think is coming out of answer dollars which is why we did it as a separate presentation um and that's what it would break down to in the overall cost that would then put our updated proposed schedule something like you see on the slide there where we would do math in 2023 that's what we're working on now Ela would then come back up to 2025 social studies in 2027 and science now would be in 2030 and we would start that every other year so you can see that we've built that we built a flex here in there so we've got some movement it doesn't

120have to be fine arts World languages and CTE necessarily in the order that it's in but that's at least a general thought that we do those big adoptions every other year and then we fill in those other materials in between as funds are available so that's good questions on that one no questions and I'll take a motion okay I moved to approve the extension of the ELA adoption for two years at a cost of 149 445 and 70 cents as presented in favor aye aye motion carries five to zero all right so we have some informational discussion items uh 9.1 discussion information on student achievement the February report you guys are like on fire on fire okay um a few months ago we gave you an overview of our college and crew Readiness platform called

121major Clarity you've heard that come up several times uh throughout the last several months and so we just wanted to report back and let you know how things are going to date um we hear some statistics that major Clarity pulled for us at the end of the first semester and you can see there that our students are doing well in the sense that they are activating accounts and they are returning to the platform to do several activities on a on an average with these types of platforms typically you see about a 25 activation rate and you can see we're well in the 90s and then more importantly is that second or that third to last column there where it says per percent of students returned so not only are they logging in and creating their

122accounts but now they're going back and they're actually doing some activities within the platform so by these statistics alone we've been awarded uh major Clarity power user for the second year in a row um what's behind those numbers is even more important in the fourth and fifth grade classrooms students are doing the career assessment through some engaging interest inventories they're discovering careers in a variety of job Industries focusing on the 16 career clusters and they meet residents these are fictional characters that reside in these regions and they explain a little bit about what that particular industry or job is about in the sixth and eighth grade sixth through eighth grade students they're doing diving in a little bit more to the career exploration pieces they do identify their personal goals create what's called a fit

123score based on their personality assessment and then they're able to discover careers aligned with interests and goals through career related activities video interviews and localized labor data so that's that piece uh Bob that you had asked about with the new them that we would like to adopt so this would still be a part of that and then we would just expound on that and then the high school students were still doing some career exploration there obviously but we really want to now start focusing on their academic plans so that they can plan out a four-year High School classes in advance based on the the experience that they had in the middle school so they have a better plan rather than a new experience every year when it comes to registration um they we are our

124students are earning micro credentials so major Clarity offers a variety of micro credentials and to date we have uh 482 micro credentials uh earned by our students many of those are in employability skills which is one of those important areas that we know our students all need to develop and then even more so for our seniors and even our Juniors major Clarity offers them an opportunity to compare schools they can go directly from major Clarity into a school website to get the demographics of that school they can also apply for scholarships and so forth so really a comprehensive program that is helping our students pretty much plan out their future so just briefly I just wanted to share with you some comments that were shared depending on on how the elementary school principal decided to

125uh roll out the program or I should say through who or who they decide to their counselor Library aide at CTA Cheryl top yes she's our library there she takes on the responsibility of working with all the students and she made this comment she says I've had a few tell me that they already had their heart set on a specific job in their future they then listened or or to or watched a few videos and it has changed their mind it's fun to hear their thoughts on a lot of the Snippets a lot of times we know that our students only know what their parents do right and so now they're getting exposed to more um jorianne joint she's a school counselor at Ellsworth this is just a picture that Mrs dunker sent us about

126them actually having those conversations in the classroom with students about the possibilities that are out there waiting for them and then Jolene Peterson our counselor she said when we went to the to CMS to do registration we asked students what kinds of careers have been suggested in major Clarity and many of them raise their hands to share we were very excited that the students not only had their post-secondary careers on their mind but that we were able to link many of those careers with classes offered at CHS it was amazing to see the light bulb come on as we talked about how their High School classes could help them in their future employment so really the point here is that the conversations are happening with adults and students now there's more confidence from the the

127adult side because now they have a resource that they can refer to and obviously the platform offers a variety of opportunities for our students to to explore really what's out there and start making those those important plans uh one final thing paper has acquired major Clarity so to our convenience um but there is definitely a partnership there with major Clarity uh paper uh common app which is an app that students can use to apply for for uh to colleges and then parchment which we currently also have uh is students are able to grab their transcripts so it all kind of works together it's a kind of a One-Stop shop for our students to be able to access all these or anything that they really want to any questions and just so you know we do

128have a scheduled meeting on March 1st between paper and major Clarity and and what we're trying to do with hashtag Ford uh they reached out to us because we happened to one of the few districts that purchased both of those two programs paper and major Clarity and because of what they're trying to do they would like to sit down and talk to us about how they can help us on lots of different levels as they make this acquisition so not sure what the meeting is going to look like but it's scheduled for March 1st we'll meet with our basically our steering committee on hashtag forward and start to talk about not only this stuff but also potential what they could help us with some learner profiles that would take a little bit more work off

129off the teacher's plate if if it works out the way we think it might be able to okay okay so if there's no no other questions Tim did you just want me to mention this so coming up uh we'll report back on uh modern teacher and obviously some student assessment it's thank you thank you thank you okay so we have 9.2 discussion and information regarding possible pay increase for substitutes everybody um I'm going to go ahead and just kind of go through this once I get it up this will tie directly into your question Mr Delana about budget so so at the end of the day when we take a look at at this particular these particular numbers which I'm sure they'll call up but I'll start talking in the interest of time again based

130on the the last board meeting a request for information on discussion on um uh substitute pay so we want to end this particular meeting go ahead and talk about details on pay of surrounding districts that on absences this year Financial impacts for substitute pay and then receive some direction on from the board on the next steps the the financial impacts is where that conversation is going to take place and so when we look at currently our situation we have 50 Subs at the time last week when I was talking about this we have one more that's being onboarded but before everybody gets too excited we have nine that have not really worked per se with us at all this semester we've had to pull 12 out for long-term sub positions that number could grow based

131on some comments that are being made as we speak so we also have 15 Subs that work in multiple districts so they may or may not be available to us on a daily basis to be depending on what takes place so in essence we have about 14 Subs that are available district-wide on a daily basis okay those nine who have not worked substantial days is that because we don't like what they do or they don't want to work here what's the reason no I think it becomes I I won't go into names but what we know two of them very well and I think as they moved into retirement what they thought they would be doing which would be helping us out in subbing and the reality of grandkids and travel is such that that

132kind of took a priority and therefore they're much more happy traveling and it would Grant kids and other things and so what they thought was going to be and why they signed up with us just hasn't hasn't worked out in other cases there may be someone might not like us or something but but I think it's a it's there's not a one-size-fits-all for why someone decides not to do it this just gives you the numbers we can go into much more details besides these numbers but it gives you an idea not only of the neighboring school districts but also a couple of the charter schools the BF is Benjamin Franklin and so it kind of gives you a ballpark where in the ballpark with some a little bit lower than others um uh depending on

133the the district you're at we'll use this number just just for comparative uh situation you will see some uniqueness uh ala Gilbert and Higley where they pay more on a Friday a Monday and a Friday than they do on a Tuesday and a Thursday I'm not sure whether that's how effective that is but it is something creative they're trying this is the data to show you what's been happening throughout the year you will see in January that we had a little bit higher of a of a fill rate so we would hope that we would continue to have a little bit higher of a fill rate it may be dependent on any number of factors as to why the high the fill rate was a little bit higher but you can see that we're running

134in the mid 40s on a on an average fill rate and the number of sub days we have is is significant we've tried to go ahead and give you a breakout for why we have that many subs and what what they're doing you can see that sick Leaf makes up the second largest group the other piece that you need to understand when we look at our data the vacancy positions means in many cases those are the long-term Subs that we already have in place so it's not that those 1900 days are not filled they are filled but that means the 50 Subs that we had we had to take those 12 12 people out of those subs to cover that so that's a covered day but it impacts who's available for us to sub and

135then you can see some of the other reasons that people are are out yeah the the important news and I know for some people will just use this latest trip for ncdc business you know School business why why would you let people go at six percent of the days because the school business we're not pulling people out of school constantly I'm sure most people would think that number is a significantly higher and it's not it's the the sick leave personal days that end up uh chewing up as much as anything else so here's we'll start to talk money and then I'll go into a little more long longer conversation the reason I just give this to show you the numbers is because uh if you want fifteen dollars a day increase both on your daily

136rate and your long-term rate you would be in the ballpark of some of the neighboring districts so that's how we chose 15. when you look at it um uh in terms of dollars it's not a ton of money on a monthly basis you can probably get through because Marx is two weeks out of school if we I can't bring anything to you guys until the March board meeting for approval you've got two weeks of spring break so you're going to talk probably in the neighborhood of thirty thousand dollars okay but hey it's thirty thousand here it's 30 000 there you just asked the question of is it going to be a million dollar um carryover and the answer is I don't know because what we're getting at without getting too deep into it the pounding

137you know the the the the beatings will continue until morale improves the pounding on public education with the passage of AEL was significant um some of our legislative ladies slammed us the hardest and so when you get into a situation um that says what is going to be the increase on the budget we'll have to sit down and figure out are we going to go off of this year's numbers are we going to go off of last year's numbers so what's your your growth rate uh QC has growth rate in the neighborhood of 10 12 13 depending on Year we're set in plus or minus one so we're gonna go flat growth so if you go flat growth we're looking at potentially a two percent increase only so a two percent increase on our budget

138starts to have a heck of a an impact because oh by the way although we're having this discussion about substitutes we also lost another bus driver because they can go to QC and they made 24 bucks an hour so are we going to go ahead and give them 30 or 40 000 more to oh yeah that's right so far it seems like the going rate right now across the districts in the East Valley is somewhere between two and four percent pay increase so we're going to give our staff teachers a two to four percent pay increase not a problem if we do that if we're building a budget on zero growth that means we're not getting as much money in if we build it on some growth and that growth doesn't come now we've got

139a cut issue and so some of those districts are using some additional classroom site fund money we can do that the bottom line is we have been creative and worked hard to be competitive but we are still 15 percent less than any District to the west west of us because we don't have an override and so we can talk about whether you want to get in the sub pay you want to get into bus drivers you want to get into food service I wanted teachers you want to get administrators we're still fighting a 15 percent less money available in our pockets and so when we look at our options we could keep the pay situation the same as for up until 23 24 and make it as part of a budget proposal to you guys

140we could increase daily and half date rate we could do what Gilbert and and Higley are doing where we keep it where it's at on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday but we increase some Monday Friday we even looked out of state and we have a couple States Idaho and Utah that actually the longer you work for us we will give you a rate increase now we don't know what that looks like because it becomes complicated but in a couple districts that we looked in and this is Mark and and the and the HR staff not me um they went ahead and said if you work 40 days I'm making up numbers all sudden your rate's not 120 a day it becomes 140 a day right or you could just say we're going to give you a stipend

141so because it gets a little hard to try to track so we could do that or we could do any combination of those uh that we would like my recommendation but I'm asking for direction from the board but my recommendation is to put it into a holistic decision on what we're going to do with the budget the budget at a two percent increase is approximately Julie get me if I'm wrong is that the 600 000 or the 1.2 million if we get about a 22 increase I think it's six hundred thousand six hundred six hundred thousand and so so you go to two or three percent increase and and you keep the same number of Staff as you have this year you're going to wipe that out pretty doggone fast now having said that there

142is a lot of talk down in the legislature um that they want to throw a chunk of money at teachers Statewide we're going to give a ten thousand dollar raise we're gonna give a twelve thousand dollar raise there's been a couple drip bills that have been dropped but they don't have the the actual dollar amount in the bill they just say we want to give a raise that that'll be part of the negotiations if you say I'm going to give two percent plus 10 percent for or ten thousand dollars for every teacher then you got one problem if you say I'm only going to get two percent we're not going to do anything with teachers then you got another problem depending on where we go with our options it starts to eat in what's your

143carry forward it's nice to have a million dollar carry for it I am not going to suggest that we'll have a million dollar carry for next year because depending on what happens with some of these situations uh it may not be practical we may come back to you and say here are your five options one of them has a million dollar carryover but this is what it means we will get with leadership and with CCC to start talking about these options uh there's a very good chance we will be having a discussion about the state budget and it will be pushing the limit just like at the feds as to whether they can get this thing done by June 30th if they do not get it done by June 30th it will be as big

144a cluster as the AAL situation but there's a number of people that are going to play hardball and so we have to kind of see how some of those things play out now if you tell me that bring me some scenarios for March 1st that say increase the subs and we'll bring it to you because it's thirty thousand but I'd be remiss in my job if I didn't tell you that 30 000 here and thirty thousand there and it all starts that up and as soon as we start playing one now we got another group of people that are saying well why aren't we getting a raise and it's getting much more complicated because we're squeezing blood out of turnip and there's only so much to give so regarding the million carryover I wasn't suggesting

145that I want that or that I meet what I was just asking is how it would be affected uh personally I feel it's okay to not have a million dollar carryover I would rather use it for critical needs and if trying to get a substitute in the classroom is proving to be difficult and that's a critical need I would say I would like to spend the money now as opposed to waiting for a new budget and if getting a bus driver because we don't have enough bus drivers is a critical need I would say let's raise the bus driver right I'm looking to see not because it's not every we don't have the money to pay everything for everyone right but where are the critical needs that we need to keep the district running and

146running smoothly and effectively and not impacting the education so I'm okay go involve the million million right and uh personally I would like to see some proposal to address it at the next board meeting so a couple things though just as a reminder um uh we can make adjustments wherever we just gave all our classified employees a seven percent raise in January so that's on top of that remember we've had to cut a million dollars out of the budget relative to the number of kids that are lost so we'll have to look at the numbers I don't know that we we necessarily have to start taking care of everybody's issue if you ask me what's the most important positions I would say every position we took three months before we could fill a lead mechanic

147we had to go to SSC for custodians because we can't feel custodians we've had to go to situations where our office ladies and Food Service are working in the kitchens because we don't have people in the kitchens we have unfilled positions in every one of our teaching spots we have uh you know so so when I sit here and talk about what's a high need position but I can look out at this crowd and every one of them raise their hand that this is a high need how long did it take you Craig to go ahead and hire your your tax I mean it's it's across the board I don't I'll bring you options but you need to know that when you ask me what's the high need everything and so I don't have a

148system that says this is a higher need than that obviously with custodians it got so bad that it was a high enough need that we said we have to go to SS here coming to a company it ended up being SSC but we had to go to a company because we could not find the people to do the job and so I just just urge caution as we talk about that because once we commit those dollars and I and again it's only 30 000 for Subs that's not a problem but your commitment to Dollars this year means the lack of dollars next year because there's a commitment already to those dollars and and we have to be prepared unless this the legislature gives a specific dollar amount to teachers I'll just go on record right

149now that there's no way in Godfrey and Earth we're giving teachers seven percent like we gave classified the average across the state across the East valleys is like I say two to four percent depending on uh what you do now again if teachers are watching online if they turn around and give ten thousand dollars to every teacher then it's a different conversation my whole component of seven percent is irrelevant irrelevant because those dollars will be tagged specifically to certified staff so um not a problem bringing it but I just again I don't have a way to say who's the most important because right now we're having problems everywhere right um two additional questions one what we're doing with the custodial staff and kind of Outsourcing that is there any company that provides bus drivers in

150that way that the custodial companies do we there there may be I know when I was in Snowflake way back when yes we we outsourced to laid law I don't know if those busing companies still still out there it used to be b line was another one and I haven't seen them as much we haven't looked into it but we are looking at maintenance uh techs with an Outsourcing right now trying to get a pricing to see because of the same reason because we can't reply or find somewhere for there food service does it also we right now are are doing it internally but if we lose some more people quite frankly we may have to look at that but I wouldn't look at that one if at all possible until a split in the

151year you know I do it over the summer but we're going to be forced to because if we can't find the people okay and then one other question I don't remember the name of the program but there was a program where we were in a partnership about getting teachers from other countries and I don't recall what the name of it is but I'm wondering how is that going are we getting any teachers are they full-time teachers substitute so it's yes so um I heard we got these new microphones yeah so we did move forward with that company and uh we have a beta test going on of an employee that's in the system uh she came to the board on HR consent agenda I believe three months ago um it took us a while to

152get her onboarded simply because of her situation but but it's been successful from my point of view I would have to wait until evaluations are out to no a little bit more about that but we are looking forward to moving forward with that in that company and is that just for full-time employees or can it also be for substitutes uh only for teachers only for full-time teachers okay there becomes a certification issue relative to them being able to work with us okay all right thank you you can give me clarification what um do we have do we pay different for somebody that has their bachelor's no they're all the same whether you have your bachelor's or not you get the same pay right we pay we pay um for um long term versus short term

153and that could be part of an option if you're if the direction of the board is to come back with options we can look at though I mean I gave you a couple options but we've looked at I say we hr's looked at lots of different districts around lots of different areas and so you can get into all those scenarios are you going to do the stipend are you going to do for for bachelor's are you going to do Monday and and Friday are you so there's multiple different scenarios the overall dollar amount in the short term for the remaining time that we have left since I would bring this to you on March 1st is going to probably be give or take thirty thousand dollars so it's not as big an issue within the

154remaining time if we just focus on substitutes not anybody else over the Long Haul might be a little bit more depending on a number of issues if we have positions we can't fill next year and so our vacancy rates are higher and we now instead of having 12 long-term Subs we have 16 long-term subs and it's a different issue if we hire and you pop back down and so now you only got to fill five positions so all of that will move and so that number changes when you take a look at the rest of the year if you do 30 000 on basically two and a half months you can assume that you're probably in a hundred thousand over the course of a year now those are real rough numbers but just to give

155you perspective thirty thousand played out over the remainder of the year when you factor in holidays and stuff is probably going to put you in the 100 to 120 range so it's not chump change in the bigger picture if you're only getting six hundred thousand dollars that you're supposed to give everybody a raise with and you just went ahead and took a hundred thousand of that out that significantly impacts the rest of the people getting any money and so that becomes the real tough part on this is we're looking in the short term but we also have to look forward to the long term and what it means next year within our total budget and again if we get 400 kids more next year we got a whole different story if we stay flat or

156lose another 200 kids then we got a big different story too I personally think that the the Loyalty thing is a great option but that's just me I like that too okay so you so what I'm hearing since Bob said I haven't heard anybody say no I will go ahead and bring back some uh possible so a couple things I'll bring back some possible options of what we could do at the March board meeting just understand that because I bring back options the vote of the board is still you all may vote for one to not do them you may vote 5-0 to do them so the options are just giving you a chance and then we decide what we're going to do okay so I'll have those on the March board meeting um okay

157so any future agenda items anything needs burning the hole in your pocket no okay all right well I'll make a motion to adjourn at 8 21. second all in favor aye I motion carries five to zero what if somebody says no foreign