001foreign okay I'm gonna um call the meeting to order at six o'clock I need a motion to adopt the agenda I moved to adopt the agenda a second all in favor hi hi motion carries four to zero need a pledge Allegiance hmm okay does anybody have any questions on the the meeting minutes from last time if not I'll take a motion I move to approve the meeting minutes from the last meeting second all in favor aye aye motion carries four to zero um so all of you notice that we have a new member we'd like to uh introduce Jennifer Tucker yay [Applause] you want to speak with her afterwards I'm sure she'd be so excited to talk does she do a speech do we have a speech like no I'm just using I'm just teasing
002okay um superintendent report thank you uh Madam president uh just a couple things on the Combs Education Foundation uh back on the 23rd of August we had our first business breakfast uh what a business breakfast is is to bring in many of our businesses for breakfast uh especially those that are associated with the foundation and it gives us a chance to kind of share the positives of what's taking place uh within the The District in this case the first breakfast uh we highlighted our annual report we were able to share the annual report with everybody and they were also able to share a a positive story of a relationship with Banner Health and the middle school where we did a camp scrubs for middle school students this summer where they uh they spent uh time
003understanding and learning all about uh what takes place in in hospitals and so that was our first one we'll do another one in March and highlight again a lot of what our what our kids are doing this past weekend we had a golf tournament that was very successful we had 19 teams overall because it's most people don't get a chance to play encantara which is where we had it they were very impressed by the facility uh we were very appreciative of of everything that then contara did to to make it successful and more than anything else because of the business partners I've said this a couple different times but but we're over eighty thousand dollars raised for the foundation this year that will go to student scholarships our staff excellence awards and we're in the
004process right now of putting together what will be many grants for teachers competitive mini grants we're looking at somewhere between 500 to a thousand dollars which would then probably be somewhere between 20 to 40 grants that we would give out to teachers uh probably come out towards the tail end of the semester and into the beginning of of next uh next semester so we're still working on some of the details and then the other piece that we're working on is starting a an endowment through the foundation so that we can put some money away and continue to grow the the endowment so that we'll always have money to give scholarships and and really the mini grants we do have as a reminder that Pinal County asba meeting will be held on the 19th of October
005from five to eight here in the district boardroom we'll be hosting that um I would also recommend unless um the board has other commitments we're going to have to move the October board meeting to Monday the 10th but because Mr Delaney is going to be out of town on the the 12th but with Miss Tucker on board we can move it back to Wednesday and I would ask that we do move it back to Wednesday the the 12th mainly because the 10th is uh the day after fall break um and so that makes it a little bit complicated if people are out on Friday for us to get an agenda out as it is so if it's possible we'd like to move that meeting back to uh the 12th which is what it was originally
006scheduled for uh prior to Mrs Tucker coming on on board and so if that's not a problem we'd like to do that mama okay Mr Ray Bob are you going to be offended if we do that you just don't want me here so I want to ask a lot of questions it's okay with Bob it's okay with me we're good in terms of enrollment uh it's pretty much the the same pattern we've had before in terms of high spots and low spots the numbers have dropped a little bit uh we're off about uh 210 kids 209 kids from last year at the start of the year that was about 40 higher so so we are bringing it down uh slowly but surely but I would anticipate uh as with pastures that the the pattern will
007hold unless something very unique occurs so we have it broken out by by site by grade level um a comparison of the cohort to see what happened if we lost kids coming from from one year from first as I moved on to Second type thing and again for the most part a couple of different areas that we lost them but in other areas that we gained them so it's just just the nature of the Beast and then we have it by the in uh by the elementary also I want to highlight a partnership with HR with Arizona at work Arizona it's a Statewide Workforce Development Network that helps employees for employers of all sizes and types to recruit develop and retain the best employees for their needs again I think we're highlighting this particular relationship
008because like everybody else right now we continually need to work for employees it's competitive whether it's a teacher level or Administration and quite frankly even at the support level especially given with the raises in the in the minimum wage we find it very very com very very difficult to find employees in all parts of our organization so we're working with the private partnership here private public partnership to go ahead and utilize everything we can to make sure we get uh get our name out and get the positions that we need filled out so just want to highlight that some Student Success we had three students Baylen Bean Hunter Claire and Raquel domerand who were recognized by the PSAT and msqt and or AP exams for excellence through the national Rural and small town award these
009are students that would have scored in top 10 percent of the PSAT test in order to be eligible they have uh score three higher on the AP exams and they have to maintain a 3.5 GPA the PSAT testing leads to um significant scholarship opportunities when they get to be seniors so lots of times people don't understand how important the PSATs in particular the AP exams obviously depending on how the kids do they can get credit at the Collegiate level and have classes waived so we have a lot of our students that take these tests but everybody doesn't always recognize or understand how positive that is uh Middle School baseball is doing great uh they're off four four and one start and they recently beat ala Queen Creek six to three so we always like that
010um superintendent Hoffman uh from the Arizona Department of Education had a second round of mini grants uh to teachers throughout the state there was a concentration on teachers outside of Maricopa and Pima County to kind of spread the wealth uh the grants were up to 600 if you remember the summer program that she had the grants were up to a thousand dollars so it was a little bit less than what she did before but our district received 80 grants for over 41 000. it's listed out I'm not going to read off all of them but you'll we'll note that for the district between those two donor choose campaigns we received 134 grants totaling 88 000 uh dollars and so I think that's uh what the superintendent was intending to do was get things out to
011teachers across the state and she was able to do that we were also highlighted recently in the transportation department back to the the shortages we have a driver shortage so Fox 10 News came out we did a barbecue uh event to highlight uh bus uh Transportation people that were interested in job were able to come out and in the back parking lot drive a bus to get a feel for what it was like but we had a reporter come out early in the morning and kind of go through the uh the routes and uh they uh there was a little uh it was live shots on Fox 10 News and I want to show it to you if you didn't get a chance to see it so we'll go ahead and show that first Dale
012comes Unified School District is looking for bus drivers and they're really looking they're doing a recruitment event oh and Anita is there live this morning with more in that event and how maybe you can take part if this is something you're interested in driving the bus if you showed up at the bus stop Anita it is the best day for those kids you ready it's been a few years it's been a few years since I've driven a bus Andy is here to help me number one we close the door we don't want any of the kids to find out that's right so what we're going to do is start start the vehicle yep we'll start it up right here you go yep put on the brake yep fire up remember the handle now they hit
013a button okay doors closing yep One's Gonna Get in the seat um I'm gonna hit Drive yep just like the car there you go okay here we go right well you do but today we won't do it um why won't it go oh yeah you gotta put your put your foot on the brake and then push that in see Andy I don't know me out okay I'm gonna go left right here and okay how long have you been riding a bus why'd you start uh just about six years now and I uh was looking for something in semi-retirement yeah let's do this and uh we'll just wait for him he's gonna zip out of here okay okay I'm nervous okay oh wait he's coming right at me I was on the road first okay so
014I was tired and you said I need a little something to do yeah and so I was gonna do it for a couple of years here I am going into my sixth year and you love it and I love it you get a pass to the kids yeah you know and and you're like the first person they see in the morning lots of times the last person at night and oh yeah big smile and a good morning you know and I've had great kids sure okay you guys here we go do it right through there um what does it means to be a bus driver can I can I handle it oh absolutely absolutely as long as you're 21 years old got a valid driver's license uh Dale Combs that takes care of all your
015training yeah and a fantastic training program it's fantastic the benefits you mentioned yes great benefits and it it's very hard to trying something different here and then we'll make a circle we'll come back around we'll cut through them cones again okay I love it for the hours and stuff I punch in there's variations in different routes and stuff that we have okay but uh I think it's in like a six o'clock okay you know and then I get done around nine and I usually leave the bus barn about 9 30 about 20 minutes from here so I drive home spend three hours I come back for the afternoon run it's done around five five fifteen I'm usually home by 5 30. you know so it makes for a great a great day you can kind
016of plan around your time off and have a little something to do you know to clean whether you're a hot job or something and yeah the district needs at least nine bus drivers that's the goal yeah right right okay yeah but we've had some retirements and stuff going on right now and so that has caused us to be short right now we've had some drivers over here for a long time okay just like I'm saying I'm I'm here six years and I'm one of the newer ones actually yet a lot of the guys in 7 10 12 15 years you know well you get you get State retirement okay because you're working with the state oh you can stay retirement okay and like I mentioned the benefits are fantastic and their training program is great
017oh I don't cover your home but don't tell anybody okay um and how people can come out what they need to bring yeah just have them come out you know just bring your driver's license be 21 years old and we're going to meet and greet you when you come in and then you're going to be able to sit down and sign up to drive the bus until they take you out you can put you in the bus drive the bus if you want to you don't have to oh yeah we're gonna have a barbecue this afternoon burgers and hot dogs and I would say come on out bring the family there'll be some bean bags going on and it's going to be a fun little afternoon it gives everybody an opportunity to see what it's
018like to get in the Big Bus like this my best advice first because it's very nerve-wracking you don't want to like lose any hot dogs or anything I'm stressed Anita get it sideways how fast does that thing go I lay some rubber yeah I would like yeah release you guys come on should I try parking this bad boy yeah try parking there's that you know a lot of people think they're intimidated but once you get in it's very it's very easy to drive you know if there's some blind spots here and there but you get like during your training you get to know where they are so I mean it just becomes yeah come on drive a bus today all right look at any great Ambassador I'll say he's like excited about it and you
019know you remember the bus drivers when you hopped on at the bus stop sure good job for our kids we'll be right back and that was uh that was a little piece but it is interesting we ended up having we ended up having 10 people come in in the afternoon uh to apply and uh we're working on I think it's six or seven new drivers uh there's some steps that they have to go through but so it was a good way to get some publicity but it also helped out because we had several people even a couple that are getting ready to move into the area that are looking at a job so again trying to be as creative as possible to get uh people in to apply for for positions uh upcoming events here
020in a couple weeks I know some of the students in the audience will be disappointed and the teachers will be disappointed on that but we're going to give you a full week off with no school you know so the set the third through the seventh will have fall break uh and then our next board meeting again will be on the 12th yes there was a tent that goes to the 12th oh because I just typed it I I didn't the 12th is right but the Monday's wrong um employee what we like to do for employee recognition is uh legendary teacher day and so we've done this the last couple years so I'll read a little something and explain uh what we're looking to do uh Educators do not always know about the positive impact they
021they have on the students they teach at the same time there isn't anybody in this room or anywhere that cannot remember the special teacher in your own life and the positive impact that that teacher made on their life this is the idea that's led to the last Thursday in September being selected as National legendary teacher day in the state of Arizona NAU has created a program to recognize legendary teachers it's actually uh part of the job of Nick Clement who's a former uh superintendent down in the Tucson area and what what Nick has asked in any use asked that is that governing boards uh pass a resolution recognizing the positive impact of teachers uh the board resolution uh establishes uh the Dayton in September as the legendary teacher day and the jail Combs Unified School
022District and it's a day that we would hope everybody would be uh able to take some time and remember the legendary teacher in your life and if possible contact and thank that teacher for the impact they they had on uh in in your life uh that resolution will go tonight but in addition to that we'd like to take about 20 teachers give or take from all over uh the district they represent the various grade levels and disciplines uh they could be new to the profession veterans what we try to do is say all of these teachers will have an impact on the life of a child and we just want them to be representatives of all of our teachers in this district and we just want to take a moment to call them up and
023and thank them for the job that they do but when they come up there's a little book that Nick actually wrote which is how to catch a swamp frog and what it really is is just a short little book about those legendary teachers in his life and the impact they had on him when he was growing up in in the community that that he lived in uh I think was back in the midwest there will also be a campaign that's run during September that allows students staff in the community an opportunity to recognize the legendary teacher in their life there's a short form that they can fill out and again it's just a it's just a way for uh someone to say thank you to that that special person that was in in their life
024uh it's just a small way to recognize uh if if you do fill out the form uh it's always nice if the person's still around to to go ahead and share that little uh that little thank you with them so what we'd like to do is I will call up the teacher we will hand them a book Mr Ray will hand them a book and we'll have them wait up here because then we'll take a group picture and those you at the beginning will have to stand for a while but that's okay that's right so representing kindergarten teachers in the district Rebecca Hardy from Simington her legendary teacher is Mrs shipiti a fifth grade teacher from Fremont Older Elementary School in Cupertino California for the first grade area from CTA Shaylin Rosenbaum her legendary teachers
025Linda copitz High School anatomy and physiology teacher and tennis coach at Terry High School in Rosenberg Texas for second grade from Ellsworth Eileen Keller and her legendary teacher is her mother who taught for 30 years Mary Sue Keller she's a she was in fourth grade primarily in Euclid uh Oakland Ohio and Cleveland Ohio for third grade from Harmon Elementary Amy Lauren her legendary teacher in her life was Mr Gerald halfman a 12th grade teacher I believe in photography from Tucson Unified for fourth grade Colton Christensen from Ranch Elementary and his uh legendary teacher was Mrs Smith the sixth grade ELA teacher at akima Middle School C4 fifth grade from CTA Heather certucci [Applause] her legendary teachers Mr Lonnie Stein and 11th grade government teacher in Crossroads Christian Academy Tomah Wisconsin in sixth grade from Ranch
026Crystal milk [Applause] her legendary teacher was Miss Banner from Redmont High School taught choir over in Mesa for our specials at the high school from elementary actually he's at several of our schools Guido laborada and his legendary teacher are his parents Angela and Adolfo laveretta see for math at the middle school Jenna Brophy her legendary teachers Mrs Barbara Lashley a second grade elementary teacher in New Jersey for English at the high school Jana Arredondo [Applause] her legendary teacher was Mrs Pino in ninth grade in English at the for science at the alternative school Michelle guest [Applause] her legendary teacher was her fourth grade teacher Mrs Manning from Flores Florissant Elementary School social studies at the high school Mr Hood [Applause] and I think he's his legendary teacher he will be the legendary teacher for this
027little guy [Laughter] for Fine Arts uh at the high school Matthew Berry his legendary teachers Mr Dave Coons who taught band in Deer Valley over in the Glendale area for PE Mr Steve Larsen from the high school and I'm not sure if he could be here today um his was uh Ron schoenwetter a junior high physical education his mentor teacher at Greenfield Junior High in World Language from the high school Jenna trank her legendary teachers Mrs wallati geometry and calculus at Dakota High School in Dakota Illinois or CT from the Middle School Craig Palm his legendary teacher was Roman Cantley world history Northwestern Regional High School in Connecticut for special education Michelle Esposito from the Simonton Elementary [Applause] and we also have from Harmon Stacy Sheriff her legendary teacher was Mrs Thomas of fifth grade
028at shimway Elementary in Chandler counselor at the high school Jolene Peterson legendary teacher was choir teacher Mr Scott Gentry up at Show Low high school and our social worker Angela Albers from Simington and her legendary teacher was Kelly Gundrum from Cincinnati Ohio again the whole idea of this is is just a way to recognize all of our teachers through these representatives of our teachers they do an unbelievable job every single day as do all of our teachers it is a calling it is a special profession I know at times people hear things about education but for most of you you don't realize what we get to do which every single day we get to work with your kids we get that chance to make a difference in their lives and it truly is uh a
029job that is of love and does create a difference in the lives of our students so to these teachers who represent all of our teachers from the bottom of our hearts thank you for the job you do you are an amazing group of people so thank you very much [Applause] thank you foreign oh staff recognition for CTA oh he did look at Craig good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman and this amazing audience my name is Shanna schoffner and I'm the principal at the Combs Traditional Academy and tonight we are going to be discussing um a program that Mrs Battaglia our technology teacher partnered with one of our parents Mr Friday to you can call it a club but I call it more of an enrichment program that kids get an opportunity
030to come in and really look at the things they like dig into things that are interesting to them versus things that we present and say are interesting so I'm going to ask Mrs Battaglia to come on up and then she will bring Mr Friday with her and they will talk a little bit about the program that they're going to be offering our kids this year foreign I currently teach technology specials at Ellsworth and at CTA and in my classroom we cover keyboarding Internet safety the Google suite and a lot of different apps and things we do some coding and this year I have purchased some robots that will um hopefully the kids will teach me how to use and that's the way I learn a lot is through them which brings me to Dan Friday
031he came to me a couple years ago and he said he wanted to create a club and I said well what would this club look like and he told me whatever the kids were curious about learning and so he wanted to call it the Curiosity club and so I'm going to go ahead and turn this time over to Dan and he'll tell you about our club uh well thank you um Michelle Hagley for asking me up here and um so yeah my name is Dan Friday I'm I have three kids that go to jail Combs I have two in CTA third and sixth grade and I have one at uh Coleman's middle who's in eighth grade so 2019 um my two boys were uh well all three of my kids actually were in CTA but
032I had a um two of them a sixth grader and a and a fourth grader so we just we wanted to put a club together and really I asked them and some of the other kids what'd you guys want to do so we started the club really just starting with Rubik's Cubes learning how to do speed cubing we did chess we did the kids wanted to do origami so we did origami we did balloon sculptures which was really loud but also exciting um so yeah this year um well we did it in 2019 and then of course it's kind of been on Hiatus for the last couple years so we're excited to bring it back and we're looking forward to seeing what the kids want to do um they're whatever they're interested in that we
033can feasibly do in the classroom and Technology I'm happy to do it I also now that I have an eighth grader in in Combs middle started a chess club with him and in that chess club I have three kids that were also in my curiosity Club so um you know Dr Wyman when you're talking about how you get to interact with kids I don't I don't get that in my profession I'm a healthcare administrator I work for my brother who's a psychiatrist and we run for outpatient psychiatric clinics um so I take one day a week on Thursday I work from home and then after that I go and do clubs and that to me it's it's enriching and I I agree it is an enriching program not just for the kids but also for
034me so I'm happy to do it um and hopefully we'll be able to keep doing it so thank you for letting us do it at uh do the club I appreciate it Oh Come Back Susanna yeah I am so it's also my privilege um as the proud principal of CTA um to honor individuals at our campus that are doing amazing things so um forgive me tomorrow um Susanna works at two campuses um at Ellsworth with Santa and at our campus at CTA so when I started thinking about some of the things about her besides the two campuses you always come in you're always excited she's always happy um even when we're stressed out about things um you wouldn't see it on Susanna's face she tries to find the positive in things and make sure that
035she can affect the kids positively and not let the stress kind of get to them she's organized she thinks about creative ways outside of what we can do and try to figure out ways that we can help the kids and do additional things in the classroom and Technology that's both with Gen ed kids and even kids that we have that have disabilities and how can we incorporate them into the classroom and give them the opportunity to be able to do some technology things so for me you were chosen to get a blue Apple award tonight [Applause] very delicate she said they did this to her once before where she was trying to take off and they go no come back come back and I was like um content I got you a little something as
036well so that you continue to grow and catch a little something inside the cards thank you so much they do we appreciate it thank you you're welcome look we even got bill here we even brought bill so he could join you today I might have snuck some husbands in um at this time I'd like to ask Sherry Wells to come on up don't even just just come on up yes ma'am come on up that's a face I see every day I love her she's amazing Sherry is our nurse on our campus she does a CTA and she also oversees the students at CCS which is our Alternative Program next door to us we share a campus so I always say if you don't have the information or the shots or the stuff you need to
037be registered Sherry will help you get that she does not joke about getting us in compliance she's kind with the kids she makes sure that they feel comforted comforted when their parents aren't there because they're scared they're nervous they think they broke their foot and they're addicted to ice packs and you know sharing make sure to take care of that and give them the ice packs you could stop at any point um she's always thinking about the safety on our campus and different ways that we could do things um as a new principal to their campus she came to me to talk to me about this is some things we used to do before she was open to some change um when it comes to lunch she makes sure that if I say no she
038gets me lunch or she gets me a drink at Starbucks she just tries to do everything she can to keep the front office together and happy and make sure the teachers have everything they need and the students have everything they need so um vix here too in case you didn't notice your husband's here you don't see him you don't know who he is you don't know who he is plant people that can keep things alive that I never thought I could um so there's a little something for you um I'll let you know what I want for lunch tomorrow you're very welcome right Sherry who is she here to help and Michaela if you haven't figured it out could you come on up I don't know if I'm the only one but we try to
039do a lot of tricks and jokes and we need you to come here for this and we're talking about frogs so can you come uh Michaela here she works in our kitchen and our food service and she helps out our kitchen manager I have never met somebody that comes to work happy smiling every day loves to see the kids loves to say hello to him like there's just nothing about her that I can't think of that doesn't make her smile she does love gardening she's trying to go to school as well while she's working um she just has this positive attitude that just oozes out of her that like this like you I just I don't even know what else to say except for I appreciate she helps at CCS as well at our other
040campus when we help with some food service so that she can make sure that they're getting breakfast um in the morning and help facilitate putting together the lunches for them so it's just an honor to make sure that you get honored tonight and you can go home and do your homework [Applause] confident you have all the gardening stuff you need but you know thank you for everything you do thank you for letting us talk about our campus a little bit thank you now we have student of the month Madam president board members Dr Wyman as I always say when I'm up here each month this is the best part of my day and I'm glad to present these students of the month could I have Taylor Lindley from Combs Center for Success join me [Applause]
041it's Tyler Tyler stand right here with me buddy you're gonna stand right here and look at everybody and smile because I want them to see you Tyler Lindley is a senior who came to us at CCS uh this school year and he's been both positive and tenacious in his Pursuits of his high school diploma he was the first student at ccs to finish an Ingenuity course in the first week of classes yep his outgoing personality has helped him to make many friends and to help others adjust to being on a new campus he has a gift he is a gift to CCS because of the responsibility shown as an with his excellent attendance and personal ownership of his learning and we know that he will meet all of his graduation goals in the future congratulations
042[Applause] could I have Connor Wiles from the high school come on up [Applause] Connor is a senior who has been a four-year devoted and absolutely underlined committed member of the CHS football team he's kept himself on the academic honor roll for his entire High School career thus far and has every intention of continuing that trend he's prompt kind polite present daily involved aware committed reliable and extremely respected by the faculty and staff as well as his peers he can be counted on and is a key asset to the senior class as well as Combs High School congratulations Connor [Applause] could I have Carly Palmer come up from the Middle School thank you all right yeah Carly's been a kind hard-working student this quarter she stays focused in class and takes the time to help classmates
043sitting next to her when they have questions that was from Mrs Johnson Mr Wooten said that Carly is an amazing student she's extremely self-motivated to do well in all aspects of her life and not just school she's respectful every day to both staff and peers she comes in wearing a smile and gives a hundred percent effort every day in and out that was from Mr Wooten congratulations Carly could I have Kennedy Pingree come up from CTA [Applause] Kennedy is an exceptional role model when it comes to responsibilities she is prepared for class every lesson with every lesson and has her materials out and ready she uses the class schedule on the Whiteboard to see what she's doing next and she knows what to get out she is super helpful in keeping her table mates on
044task and prepared you can literally glance over to her at any time and she will be doing the right thing at the right time always which is the definition of responsibility they are very proud to nominate you Kennedy and congratulations and that's from Mrs Nino could I have Kaden Reese from Ellsworth come up please [Applause] Aiden has been nominated for the student of the month due to her assistant display of responsibility and integrity she takes ownership in her learning by remaining actively engaged during lessons completes assignments in a timely manner and always goes above and beyond when participating in class discussions she also consistently shows integrity in the classroom and everywhere else on campus her Integrity is demonstrated by always being kind to her peers helping other teachers and staff when needed and serving our
045school Community whenever asked congratulations Kayden could I have Logan Moreau from Harman come on up [Applause] harman's student of the month representing the trade of responsibility is Logan Logan shows responsibility by completing his work participating in class and also by pitching in to do extra tasks on the harman campus Logan works hard to make sure that he completes and turns in his assignments on a daily basis he does all of this with a positive attitude and that smile on his face when classmates are in need of help Logan without prompting gladly takes on the responsibility of being there for them and does so in a kind and patient manner it is very clear that Logan cares deeply about his education and becoming the best overall person he can be congratulations Logan could I have Aaron
046Bonilla Aguilar come up from Ranch [Applause] all right turn around smile Aaron shows the character trait of responsibility on a daily basis he's always following classroom rules completing his classwork and being respectful to his peers and teachers when classmates are in need of help Aaron happily takes on the responsibility to help them out in a kind and friendly manner he sets a great example for other students to follow congratulations Erin [Applause] could I have Zane Elliott from Simonton come up thank you that concludes the student of the month parents great opportunity for you to take pictures with your children as we continue with the board meeting after a couple minutes thank you you can take this time to come up take pictures just for a couple minutes and we'll wait for you or you can
047jet out yeah just do it with myself thank you so much [Music] this is somewhere else let me take another one that's what happens I don't know I'm just gonna go like this oh yes okay if you could wrap this up we're gonna get going oh I don't care all right okay thank you see you guys tomorrow congratulations okay do we have any um governing board updates you guys have anything you want to oh Mr Ray does go for it yes I attended the delegate assembly on Saturday I did oh and it was a good experience and had a good time and we did good positive things for education on on that day okay all right anything else anybody any all right we'll move on to do we have any public comments no um all
048right consent agenda any questions and or comments I do have a comment uh last month I asked about the uh mno uh financial report for the 2020 year and uh this month with all the updates it is exactly where we were hoping it would be in terms of over a million dollars of carryover so I want to thank cook for the hard work of you and your group did to make that happen okay any other questions on the consent agenda nothing all right I'll take a motion I moved to accept the consent agenda as presented second all in favor aye aye aye motion carries four to zero we will get on down to 8.1 discussion and consideration of approval of the resolution for a legendary teacher day this is just the resolution I spoke of
049that would make September 22nd 2022 legendary teacher day in the district so I would recommend approval as presented is that is that day off or what no it's just a chance for you to call your favorite teacher and say thank you just checking now do we do we get extra pay for that no no yeah depending on AAL you may have other days off comments all right I'll take them I move to approve the resolution recognizing like legendary teacher day in the J.O Combs Unified School District as Thursday September 22nd 2022. second uh all in favor hi hi motion carries four to zero so now we have some discussion information and discussion items 9.1 discussion information on student achievement Benchmark testing footsteps to Brilliance and paper [Music] right now I don't have to say it
050because you just did that's perfect uh so those are our updates tonight we have a few items to share with you some updates on uh we're going to start with the footsteps to Brilliance um Miss El fetus is going to come up and share with you a little bit of updates with that and then we'll move on to our other items good evening I I'm presenting on footsteps of Brilliance um in case you haven't seen the information that has been presented online for parents it's a It's a Wonderful application for early literacy it um there's three apps that that the um that it it that entails uh the first part is a it's called clever kids it's for your early readers from ages three to five or the pre-readers the second app is um I
051can read up and it's an application where families can or children can log on and it's for your Advanced readers and then the final app is a footsteps to Brilliance app and that one is the engaging part of the the application it has a over a thousand a thousand books and songs and um games that the children can play um I feel like parents our children's first the teachers and this is an excellent app does it helps families that help the children reach their goals and um where where we're at right now is um what we're doing now is we have presented the application to Community Partners um first things first art we have given Flyers with them and I've made a connection with them sharing our program Chicanos for La causa is a presented
052at parent meetings there as well and um they're sharing their program and hopefully in the future we can get in and present the program so they could use in their Head Start program and then also um we are in our preschools of course we had over 200 children log on last school year and moving forward our children will be logged on for our preschool application and then also um we had over almost 300 students of register for the program and hopefully this year we'll move on with Kindergarten Roundup and enroll our our future kindergartners and also I want to make um last year it I don't like to use covet as an excuse but I feel like it hindered us a lot as far as I'm being able to share the share the application the
053way I wanted but this year we'll we're open to more clinics and and parent meetings we were able to share it with um our migrant students and our um our El students at parent meetings as well and just looking forward to getting it out there some more and then just sharing the information with people online and then also on teachers newsletters School newsletters any question um I do what kind of ongoing support is there for a parent who may be having a little trouble with the new program because the parent needs to learn it so they can help the kid with it so what kind of support do they get there's a couple of avenues that you can take I'm always available so you can reach out to me um and then also there's a
054technical support line with the program itself and so they're pretty helpful but I'd be more than willing to help out families or and in terms of our five elementary schools do we know how many students are currently using it in those five schools we had about 280 students register for for this year this summer for the summer yes we don't we don't quite know in terms of how many are continuing to use it during the school year I don't have that information okay right all right we can get you that updated usage report we'll make sure we include that on the next board meeting um also looking at doing a couple of things to push this in more as a supplemental resource in our K1 classroom so there's some things we're looking at there just
055to increase that usage what we found when we pushed it out into the community is that some of our our local preschools and daycare centers and whatnot um shall we say have proprietary programs that they prefer to use because it's more associated with them so looking at some other ways to use this program um in the future I'm gonna go a little bit out of order because we have assessment next but we invited some folks to join us tonight to talk a little bit about paper so if you'll forgive me I'm going to go out of order and we'll do the paper stuff so we can get our our guests Moving on but um if you're not familiar with paper you know we have a new board member tonight so if you're not familiar with
056paper it's an educational support system which provides students with 24 7 Live help essay reviews and teachers with real-time feedback the primary ways that we see it used in our classrooms are a lot of time with math support as well as with essay writing and some of those elements um so where we're at right now with with paper we've seen a significant increase from the initial launch so if you look back at when we launched paper mid-year last year our usage from that till today um about doubled as you would expect with any new initiative after paper launched middle of the year last year we saw a little bit of a of a Wane in that if you will and we're actually about triple the usage from where we were at the end of last
057year so it's getting utilized a lot more in the classroom um and helping to support that just in time peace some elements in terms of where we're headed with paper a couple of our schools have already taken on an opportunity to do what they call a paper pep rally so it's supported by the the program that's kind of a rah-rah if you will um and kind of supports that usage um principal Ridge can share with you some some stuff that they did at the middle school that's pretty fun um and then some targeted use for paper when a teacher is not available to ensure student comprehension and Mastery of Concepts so really trying to build in that opportunity to use it in the classroom setting uh when we know that we have that issue to
058address where we have one teacher and 25 30 students this gives them access right away not not having to wait for the teacher to support them in those moments a little bit of usage data you can see on this slide a couple of items that I think are interesting to note right now we're still still seeing primarily usage during the school day so you can see that the Monday through Friday usage Peaks kind of midweek and happens a lot during the school day heavy usage at our middle school and we're looking to increase that in some other areas but about 3217 tutoring sessions I was at the middle school the other day and it was kind of an interesting example of how it was used middle school math classroom teacher had the students working on
059their independent work time and Miss Ridge reminded the students because we were actually in the room together that hey we got this resource don't forget you can use paper so the kids are like oh I don't have to wait for my teacher and they hopped on and they were getting you know chatting back and forth with a tutor and I was fun because I got to observe over a shoulder as the tutor walked him through like well what are you going to do first and and why would you do that and what would that look like and so it's kind of cool to see them walk through that process so right now just a couple of statistical pieces our top user right now is Combs Middle School they've had about a little over 3 000
060activities awesome tier two usage some other strong usage from Ranch Elementary Ellsworth and Combs High School and the main subjects that's being used in right now are basic arithmetic essay writing and basic geometry all those stats are fun but it's more fun I think to hear the voice of those who are using it so we have a couple of guests tonight to join us I'll start with Combs middle school and we have a teacher Jenna Brophy here tonight as well as one of our students uh Trayvon lip tip lip I knew I was going to mess that up trayvon's here as well I was working so hard to make sure I said Trayvon right that I'm going to mess up the last name so I'm gonna invite them up and just to share a little
061bit about what it looks like in the classroom setting and how they utilize it and then we have a couple teachers from the high school that we'll also share with you how they're using as well perfect Trayvon your wife fast forwarded ahead so we can get you up here and home absolutely laughs so did he get the Apple watch then because he closes nice all right but but miss Ridge just so you know that the CEO of paper contacted me he was one of the first uh to use it in the entire nation to complete it and so he sent me an email when it happened just to let him know well what are they sending him foreign I find paper as an effective and useful app I also enjoy the fact that it's convenient
062that I get to use it when I'm like like last minute studying like a test so I'm like asking them questions real fast and I mainly use it after school and some during school when I'm like afraid to ask a question so when I use paper I feel like I feel like I'm not judged when I use that and like I'm not scared to ask any questions and yeah that yeah I have no cons for it because I enjoy cons all Pros yeah that's what we like to hear yeah questions no but I think we need to follow up on this paper thing that he's the first one in the nation like I'm thinking he needs like you need to be the spokesperson or something yeah right yeah I think so the face of paper
063you want to sign a six-figure contract heck yeah endorsement deals he's working on an endorsement right do you need help we'll help you like we're all over we get the marketing right thank you thank you so much Trayvon [Applause] to turn off the microphone when I move it this time and invite Miss Brophy up to share with the classroom A Little Too Short middle schooler size um okay so so far this year um paper has been a really valuable resource in our math classroom specifically um and campus-wide I teach 7th and 8th grade math so I have the opportunity to see students of both grade levels using it um at the beginning of the year we were more using it um we would have it as like a bellwork question so give the students a
064couple choices and say you know hop onto paper ask them this question just to get them used to um the process of how it works how they're actually interacting with the human and they have to be polite it can't be like they're texting their friends um and just to have them used to paper doesn't just give them the answer so the students can't type in what's two plus two and the tutor's gonna say four have a nice day yeah um what we really like about it at the middle school is that it guides them through it and like makes them use their critical thinking skills um instead of just giving them the answer and moving them along um as the year goes on we've been using it more in our small groups so when we're
065the teachers working in small groups with students that's a way for students on their own to if they're not able to access this right away to answer a question or maybe if they're you know nervous don't want to get up in front of the class they can just hop onto paper it's automatically right on their screen in Google Classroom so it serves as like a reminder for them that they're able to just pop on you'll see a lot of them we'll have half their screens as the paper tutor and half the screen as their assignment um so they are using it um to be more independent and find clarification on their own um I really like it because it kind of helps them feel more confident and like they're doing it on their own without
066having to rely on a teacher for help all the time um I've even actually had a couple of parents reach out to me and saying you know I know there's that online tutoring program how can they use it for their homework um so it's definitely making its way around and I think our favorite part like I said is that it encourages them to Think Through the problems it'll tell them you know do you have any notes on this what do you remember about that vocab word that you just brought up um instead of just spitting out the answer um just like how we would and it has a bunch of cool features so that you know one of my concerns was well we have all these like crazy math problems how are they how are
067the tutors gonna know what they're talking about I mean they can draw on it they can sort of draw anything they need the tutor can send them a little picture back um so it's very interactive and the tutors are really good about explaining things without giving kids the answer straight off the bat um so it just helps them to use more of their critical thinking skills and it helps us as the teachers in our larger class sizes to reach every kid thank you so much [Applause] all right we're also fortunate to have a couple of our high school teachers um solet and this pile here tonight and they'll share with you how they use it in their classroom as well good evening um I think it's pretty um easy to assume that paper.co is going
068to be really really important for English teachers so um it absolutely is for my students it has helped them get a lot of feedback where and this is how it benefits the teachers it saves Us hours of of you know the Deep feedback that um that paper can give them that um you know we would do and it would take time to do to get through that so we had the the first round where that's immediately what they do with their paper it it automatically goes to paper.co before it comes to us then we use that as they sit down with their Corrections or their feedback paper and their paper and then we have that conversation of okay so what does that look like when you have to change those things to make them better
069or what do you think they mean by that um so new things that we're doing also this year is um with the portrait of a graduate we really want them to know how to write scholarships and do things in the career process that um you know they haven't really done in the past but getting them ready they can turn in their portfolio their resume their cover letters so all of that can be turned in and getting feedback for that too so it's good for the English teachers for sure all right I'm up here as a social studies teacher who is helping support Ela and I found that as one of the most beneficial things is especially with my AP students being able to have them turn in one of their dbqs have those easy a
070lot easy obviously have those little specific things that I might not be grading content-wise that they're still getting in our social studies room as well as Ela so they're getting a double dose of this paper and this feedback of hey maybe my grammar is a little wrong my content's fantastic but putting a comma in the sentence is going to mean a whole world of difference of this thesis um it's also been really beneficial especially with those AP students for quick feedback on a thesis I always had oh I had a fantastic coach tell me you needed to be able to tell someone to do something three different ways to make sure it's stuck and with my AP students I find this is pile I don't agree with how you said my thesis is wrong I'm
071like okay totally let's toss it into paper and see what happens paper comes back and they're like oh maybe adjust that or turn it into one sentence I'm like huh imagine that but it's been great to have that instant feedback of another professional guiding these students towards better writing both for ELA and for social study thank you [Applause] all right thanks again to our guests for coming out and if you sneak out the back door we won't we won't notice um so I'm going to go back a little bit now because we want to start with papers so those folks could go about the evening if they needed to and go ahead and bring up Miss Denise Dunwoody who's going to talk to you a little bit about some of our assessment data specifically our
072screener and Benchmark data so far this year good evening Madam president members of the board Dr Wyman um I can't believe I have to follow that so all righty then how can I pep this up what kind of assessment pep rally can I present so I am going to talk a little bit about where we're what we've done and where we want to go with the data that we've collected so far so first thing to talk about is our screeners so we use fast bridge and we did our screeners in reading and math and those are going to tell us the skill set that students have as they begin that Journey Through the curricular resources through what we're doing in class and the content that they're exploring so you can look at risk factors for
073students what do we need to support them in what small groups did we pull right now we've completed the K-12 reading and math screeners and we are working on the K-12 Sabers which is our social emotional work that teachers do and they they look at students and so we're completing those right now and those will be done by the 16th um where we're headed well we're going to take this data and most most schools are already doing this and look at areas of support what do students need to access content and then we prepare for our next screening cycle so that we can compare that data so looking first here at our k6 reading so all of these words up at the top are great you know we have to remember what all of these
074different things mean at different grade levels so I'll just give you the Snippets so our early reading for our Kinder in first grade those are things like phonemic awareness letter sounds can they identify upper and lower case words the a reading is our adaptive it's like the broad reading skills the CBM or the curricular based measurement reading that's looking at your fluency words per minute and then our Auto Reading which is the the heavy duty that's decoding uh words similarities and differences in word meanings and recognizing letter sounds and spelling and things like that so as you look through this and you think about where we're at at the beginning of the year when you look at this what it says is that we have students coming in with a skill set that we can
075work towards and build upon and if you go into the lower right hand corner you see that our fourth fifth and sixth graders are really ready to access content and ready to move forward and ready to progress through the curriculum same thing with our 7th through 12th graders we have as you as as you can predict our a reading is more of that adaptive test what students are doing with those skills and then our Auto Reading is the foundational skills they have so it does make sense that our that our Auto reading scores are a little bit higher and then the next time when we report out we'll hope that the the small group work those uh skills that we're teaching in the classroom the interventions that are put into place will help build that
076a reading score how many times you guys do this a year this is three times a year okay so you've done it once already this is the first one yeah all right so math very similar um the early math is that number recognition uh number quantity relationships the a math is the adaptive math skills and then that curricular based measurement for math is the math facts operations and so again when we're looking at this we see that our students are coming to us with the skill set to begin processing standards at their grade level and here's our 7th through 12th grade there are some areas where we need to work on pulling small groups and that's what we do with this data we make those decisions and the teachers in the classroom work diligently to
077find what what needs to be done to support students so they can access the curriculum at their grade level so the next piece of the puzzle is benchmark assessments and so benchmarks for our third to eighth grade students are in the form of a mimic so we're doing a prediction of how well they were they will perform on the aasa if it were taken today and then when we do it in the middle of the year we say now at the middle of the Year what's the prediction so we have completed the third through eighth grade aasa mimics in ela and math and the high school is doing something a little bit different they're doing benchmarks based on the quarter's worth of work and so they don't have the aasa they have the act and
078so we're looking at just filling in the material that high school students need and they're doing that right now so we don't have that data yet but October's right around the corner so we will have that data to present next so in this we're looking to refine standards-based learning guide PLC conversation find those resources that teachers need and then the next Benchmark for the third to eighth grade will be in November so you can see here this is our proficiency or if prediction if students were to take aasa today this is the percentage of students who would be proficient so it's it's obvious that just like with our our screener that math is our area of focus it is something we need to work on and look at and see what we need to do
079to pull that up so with that in mind come with Solutions right that's what we want to do we want to have a plan moving forward so what's great about the program we use is what you can see on the screen right now this will break down for teachers for building leaders for anyone who wants to see it at the district level what standards are being covered who's mastering that standard and this is just an overall fourth grade district Ela what's great about the program we have is you can take it down to the level of school grade level teachers classroom and teachers can then click within this and pull out those rosters of students so they know who to support now in some cases these standards may not have been discussed or touched on
080yet at this point in the year but again you can see it for math as well so we have a plan in place we have the tools and we know where we need to put that Focus or our benchmark assessments and then utilizing that screener data so any questions for me the only thing I noticed is that there was something in the paper and on the news the last couple of days about test scores in Arizona going up but not being where they need to be and I think this is reflective of that as well absolutely right and we we did receive the updated scores and I can report to you that our scores only either stayed the same or went up our averages across the grade level bans so none of our scores went
081down based on the refined oddly none of the state scores change but that's that's you know I'm not I'm not doing their math work for them so but the state scores did not change per grade level but ours went up so it shows that they took that time to review the data but all right well thank you guys very much thank you I think Tim has a follow-up nothing like being the closer right um so just a one final update here um we did paper already let's get through that sorry um just some updates in terms of the hashtag forward and and those components that we've been working towards ties in really nicely with that data piece that's why I wanted to put this after that um what I really really want you to have
082is your take away from that data that was done Woody shared is that our evidence shows us that our students are actually coming into us uh the beginning of the year with a solid skill set um so those screener diagnostic numbers show us that they have the skills necessary to learn what our Benchmark data is telling us is that we have some work to do in terms of upping the rigor in the classroom um because where our student struggles with those more complex problems and our data shows that out so if you look at the work that we've done with hashtag forward that breaks down into multiple goal cycles and we we started with Goal cycle one and we're really doing a big push to um and I always say close out and then people
083wins because it's really never finished but to move forward with Goal cycle one which is really those foundations of the modern learning environment and really those procedural pieces in the classroom we really want to get ourselves moved more with a more of a focus on goal cycle too because that's the rigor component in what we've worked on with hashtag forward so that's really our big push um this year is to take a look at that and and move ourselves forward um so these are some of the action steps that we have in place right now um the first one is our literacy goal which simply means that everyone within our organization all of our certified staff our goal is to have a hundred percent have that literacy knowledge so they know what we're talking about
084when we talk about a modern learning environment and those elements of transparency um step two then is our fluency goal which means those are those are folks putting it into application getting into usage our system has goals of 10 30 and 60 percent we met with our steering committee back on the 31st and kind of put together a timeline and a plan to move these pieces forward that included some work with instructional rounds that we've been completing over the last week we finished those up next week so our principals have partnered up and gone out to Sister School sites to walk in classrooms and utilize our walk-through form to really evaluate where we're at in that goal cycle one again trying to move us to having fluency in that goal um some step four of
085course is our ongoing professional development a big focus of course comes up on October 10th so I know that our team is very grateful we'll say thank you for moving it back to the 12th for the board meeting because the 10th is a doozy of a day for our team and all of that professional learning and what you'll see then with that professional learning and uh Miss middaugh will share with that on the October 12th meeting but a lot of our focus on the October 10th is finishing up those goal Cycle One pieces and really moving that shift to the focus on rigor in the classroom and what that looks like and then step five of course being our purposeful assessment piece is really guiding our teachers on using that data which Miss Dunn Woody
086shared tonight so those are some of the pieces that we are working on in relation to hashtag forward and and some of those initiatives going on questions I don't have any questions I really do appreciate you guys bringing in the students and the teachers and letting us know like exactly like it's nice to see how they're saying instead of you guys just telling us that they're doing it it's nice to hear it right from them that was exactly the goal you don't need to hear it from me hear it from them so any other questions anything that uh you want to see at the next board meeting that we can prepare for you beautiful thank you thank you okay we'll move on to 9.2 discussion and consideration of approval of changes to policy recommendations from
087the asab asba policy advisory 716 and policy advisory 717-736 the first reading does anybody have any questions on this first reading and Dr Wyman do you have anything that you want to highlight now there's not really anything to highlight again you'll see a bunch between 717 and 736 and that's just because those are all the laws that were passed this past legislative session uh obviously the way asba breaks them out you can you can take a look at the three big areas that they're talking about which is the parental rights and transparency uh Health through covid-19 and then the school business and operations and curricular stuff I would anticipate that that we will continue to see significant numbers of changes in legislative uh stuff so you will end up getting something very similar in future
088years because I think there's going to be lots of changes to the law relative to any number of these issues but just take a look at them and then if there is a specific question about one of them or several of them please feel to reach please feel free to reach out but again for the most part they're just uh what the law states and so they just have that information in them so it's it's not I mean we can have a philosophical debate but at the end of the day it's just what the new laws say and and then we'll bring them back next uh uh meeting and it'll be just in bulk approval it's not going to go through each one of them individually it'll just be a bulk approval okay any questions
089I like the one that was seven pages I didn't like the one that was 99 pages too much to go through and there was no questions that was just like nightly reading yeah put me to sleep I'm sure it did okay so um for the next agenda future agenda items I have a couple um one I'd like an update on campus security and what's going what's happening um at the campuses just because I know it's a Hot Topic right now so um I'd like that to be you will be having the emergency response plan will be brought to you for approval okay plus we'll do some additional information on other stuff but we're changing the emergency response plan that's probably going to be much more detailed just a reminder to you however that emergency response
090plan is an executive content only so the only people that will see it will be you guys not even the administration can see it they have their own copies that they get but but the public doesn't get to see it uh it's because against the law given the nature of the information but that'll be coming forward I do know that that was radios new radios at the high school right how'd that work out okay do we need at other campuses we are working on that as we speak how do we expand them and what's the cost and how do we purchase them and and and and and we'll talk about that but what we're trying to do with that system and repeaters so that that all all radios throughout the entire District can be connected
091together oh that's that's good okay um also um October board meeting um apparently is going to be fairly long so um within that board meeting we are supposed to do superintendent goals so I wanted to know if you guys would be willing to do a special board meeting just for superintendent goals like and kind of break that one up I don't want to be here after eight I cry because I'm tired so that's fine when you want to do it um well I was when are you gonna be out of town the 11th through the but will you be here on September 28th I get back on the 26th yes that's a Friday no I thought she was very talk in October no September oh September September because I want it because the next weekend
092wait a minute so then then it would be two weeks before we do right yeah it would be two weeks and then we do the regular board meeting is that good or no order me it's open so we good everybody on board okay I just don't want to be here for four hours like so what time you want to start it what time's good for you guys six again or can we do 5 30. 5 30 is fine 5 30. can we do 5 30. ah okay tell them that we're busy I'm just choosing okay so the next so we'll do I thought at the last parent superintendent we said the next one was going to be a lunch one yeah no we're working on it okay so our next um we'll do a special
093board meeting on uh Wednesday September 28th at 5 30 and that will be going over superintendent goals Deanna could I ask you to put out a message all of us so we don't forget thank you and for the audience since that is just going to be going into executive session and coming out you guys will not have to be here you're so disappointed no betting on that night so do you guys have anything else that you want to have um on the agenda for next week next month now to now remember it's a long board meeting there's a lot of things to go over just saying no no we don't have any no I'm just we can wait for another name okay let's wait for another time that would be awesome so okay so um
094I will make a motion to adjourn at 7 22. second all in favor aye aye motion carries four to zero