Littleton Elementary School District - Board Meeting 08FEB22

001thank you yeah we'll call the meeting to order at uh 603 and that i'll have a roll call please yes mrs reyes here mr nielsen mr nancy i've seen him on earlier but i don't know if he's on now you may have dropped off let's come back to him yeah he's off offline i can see hi guys mrs contreras here mr raider here mrs sashanak here thank you all right with that and did you get the mr nelson joined us we have him okay thank you with that we'll have a pledge of allegiance please i pledge allegiance for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all we'll have a moment of silence thank you at this point um i'll ask if there's any member uh board member statements madam

002president i gotta do little things here this evening thank you mr nelson so i just want to recognize uh or the city of avondale recognized one of their abbey stars from quentin josiah sumare if that's how i pronounced his rhyme right uh two weeks ago in city council and gave him a nice little plaque and whatever else i thought that was very nice and we have opportunities to do that and the other thing is just i had an opportunity to watch some of the virtual science fair projects and activities man some of these kids have got some really good things that they were investigating and looking at i just say compliments to them the teachers and the schools for getting it all thank you mr nelson is there any other board member statement i have

003something this is amy okay i as well was able to watch some of those science fair presentations and i every year think oh my gosh i wish my students would have done that exact same project so i was very impressed and happy to see all the great work that's being done in littleton thank you is there any other statement i have a brief statement um mrs riaz i just wanted to take this time to send a thank you and appreciation to our school counselors at school counselor week and our our counselors go above and beyond for our students and i just wanted to take this time to thank them for all that they do thank you and that's probably very mimicked uh their counselors are probably busier than ever due to all the things we

004got going on um in our districts and in the world so thank you very much any other board member statements hearing none uh dr freeman will turn it over to you for the superintendent's report can't hear you dr freeman thanks i have the little ribbon at the bottom popping up so i can't click on the microphone till it goes away i know you guys know what i'm talking about absolutely oh so um good evening everyone buenas tardis satos we've been concerned um about the losses we've been suffering as a district this year drops in enrollment student achievement teach them around all across the country teachers are expressing frustration with the impacts of cove and the way educators are being treated so when we did our mid-year survey this year we were a bit surprised by

005some results that came out higher than we expected to see 92 percent or 90 percent of our teachers agree that they have the things they need to do the job and 89 of them agreed that admin supports them in their efforts to hold high expectations 87 percent of the teachers agree the district supports their pursuit of opportunities for development nearly as many still look forward to coming to work nearly 80 percent agreed littleton is a highly regarded district where staff want to work and where people and programs are appreciated the final quarter of this year will probably be the most challenging component yet people are exhausted we're still looking for ways to layer in support but having to deal with the hard conversations about making fourth quarter fourth quarter cuts to the public school system

006really is adding insult to injury and i feel awful that we've been put in this position we'll have that conversation tonight i just want to say we appreciate the selfless courage and tenacity of our staff and we're convinced that we'll come through this time a much stronger profession it's only been a month since we returned to school from winter break but our students have been busy with important lessons about civics in our nation's history it's important these activities take place as they support the development of well-rounded citizens who keep our country strong and in january our school is celebrated the life and achievements of dr martin luther king and engaged in ways to learn about equal opportunity for all members of our society at the collier business academy they brought to life the words and

007the dream through creating books and reflecting how they can contribute to the dream today um country place leadership academy celebrated civil rights and black history month all through february they're hosting a variety of african-american leaders who are going to visit classes virtually and discuss leadership and these leaders include city of avondale council member brian kilgore tolleson union board president devon del palacio our own social worker john meacham uh step dance team and african inspired storytellers also be visiting and sharing their performances with our staff and students it's very exciting at australia vista tolerance and respect for diversity during character development and hss blocks are discussed and art class students watched videos and read books and i just heard am i still going okay um uh uh read books about african-american artists and their contributions to

008the art world fine arts academy kindergarteners reflected on the attributes of dr king's legacy being dependable friendly caring kind cooperative calm honest mature faithful peaceful fair brave and confident in fifth grade the students listened to dr king's speech and created letters sharing the dreams they have for the world that we will live in littleton stem academy firebirds shared a theme of what can help unite us as a class campus community and country and at clinton stem academy middle school classes engaged in conversations around jim crow class civil rights act and the 14th amendment at tres rios service learning academy students engaged in activities that taught them to appreciate the significance of dr king's work for civil rights and understanding the work that still lies ahead this month littleton schools are participating in president's day themed

009activities to support their learning in history for some of our most notable presidents students are conducting research comparing and contrasting current past leaders envisioning how students themselves would run our country should they be president of our great nation uh sometime in the future they're probably not ready quite yet in the spotlight um country place leadership academy students are making connections between presidential leadership and the seven habits of highly effective people astray vista eighth graders are learning about the election process and the importance of being informed voters we want to thank state representative sierra for sharing his time to talk about leadership with our students fifth graders at littleton stem academy are using their research to create a living museum for participants to learn about history students and staff from all over the district attended the

010stand up speak up save a life sixth annual virtual conference it's not always been virtual but it was this year guest speakers discussed various topics on coveted bullying cyber bullying abuse self-harm suicide and how to deal with traumatic experiences the focus was on putting friends before friendship to prevent anyone from harming themselves at the end of the conference all the attendees collaborated in brainstorming ideas how to share the important messages from the conference with their whole school community littleton district hosted our district spelling bee last month and the spelling bee lasted eight rounds the winning word was avenue uh the district's first place winner was muriel raskhan seventh grader from australia stem academy the runner-up was agamer singh a sixth grader from fine arts academy both students will represent littleton at the regional b this

011saturday at yonkers high school that is way out west from here and anybody on the staff can help get you directions to that school pretty much all the way to buckeye i'd like to thank our bus drivers and southwest food services staff for ensuring our students in quarantine had access to nutrition and meals every thursday box lunches were prepared and then our bus drivers picked them up and delivered them to students who were temporarily learning at home our transportation department held its first ever bus rodeo that's r-o-a-d-e-o to sharpen their driving skills by being tested on their general knowledge and their driving drivers scored in different categories and the total score was used to determine the winner this event was a great success in boosting employee morale and team building our driver team is one

012of the best in the state we're super proud of them and glad that they've stayed with the school district and the winner of the 2022 bus rodeo was jonette garabe before i end i'd like to remind parents anybody listening who's a parent anybody who's going to pick up the recording as a parent if you haven't signed into parent view please get in there enter um your uh first and second choice for your schools for your children for the next year remember littleton's a pioneer in school choice and it's important that families make use of this opportunity to select one of our eight school programs to best fit the needs of their students strengths and interests in closing we want to express our appreciation to marquita porter and elliott friedrich for their generous thousand dollar donation

013to our schools and that's all i have this evening madam president thank you dr um friedman for all of the information and we also congratulate our bus drivers that's not an easy job so we definitely appreciate them it's it's a tough job and sometimes not always given its glory so definitely uh appreciate all that they do they've been fantastic um the whole last couple years in coba they've done everything and anything and and certainly uh you know kept the great attitudes while doing it we just can't say enough yeah they kept the wheels on the bus which definitely was not easy right i can't imagine so please give them our uh thank you as well we do appreciate it um next is like what's miss vandewater doing a program showcase are we ready for that

014yes president reyes members of the governing board dr freeman i am excited to present to you our program showcase for this evening tonight dr michael cagle principal of country place leadership academy will showcase their signature school focus through highlighting their leadership instruction mission vision community partners and program enhancements dr cagle will share the impact of their vision inspiring leaders to exceed achieve and dream additionally country place leadership academy will showcase their kids at hope student of the month sixth grader alexis de leon and recognize a dedicated volunteer mr craig sandy sanford we are pleased to welcome dr michael cable good evening madam president uh members of the board dr freeman e.t members and members of the public we're really ex we're really excited to share some of the great things going on at country place

015leadership academy um i wanted to start out by sharing a little bit about our vision and our mission um you know our mission is really to inspire our students to find their voice we want to empower kids to lead their own learning we want them to see their genius to find their leadership and we do that all through our leadership paradigms and also our um our the seven habits of highly affected people um so as uh ms vanderwater stated our our vision is to uh inspire uh leaders to uh exceed achieve and dream and that a little acronym was created by our one of our fifth grade team um including mr chairland who's now our dean of students um [Music] in terms of purposeful instruction um we like we said we um instruct with the

016seven habits of of happy kids or the seven habits of highly effective teens or the seven habits of um highly effective people it's a modified uh for different age groups um we teach our kids the seven habits and again those uh in addition to the five uh paradigms of leadership which include um everyone is a leader uh it is also that change starts with me everyone has genius we want to empower people to lead their own learning and also we want to we want to educate the whole child so another large part of the uh instruction that we do around uh leadership is um the the four disciplines of execution process which is a goal-setting process which helps students set goals uh monitor their goals and and achieve their goals um some of our community

017partners we have a lot of community partners that we that we work with various levels of government including our congress the state legislature many representatives and senators from the state legislature um our officials from maricopa county also our city officials in phoenix avondale and tolleson we have a great connection with many of our local uh leaders through many of our staff members and also connections from many people within the district which is really great for our students to be able to meet a variety of leaders at all levels of government we also have a strong affiliation with the arizona bar association and they help us with many of our leadership projects we have a growing partnership with west mack obviously franklin covey is a huge partner for us with the seven habits of highly effective

018people and the leader in me panda express is a big partner for us they helped sponsor the uh i am a leader grant which helped get leader me going at our school um we partner with our local target also uh hickman family farms and the list can go on and on especially with those that come to our leadership day and support our students so we're really really excited about the community partners that we have and we definitely couldn't do it do the work that we do without them um one of the large things that we want to do at our leadership school is to capitalize on authentic real world leadership opportunities so um learning the seven habits and the leadership paradigms that's the start and then teaching them to others um teaching them the others

019uh and helping uh deepen our understanding through teaching to others and then our leadership projects one of the kind of upcoming exciting projects that we're working on with our seventh grade uh help help with the help of social studies uh teacher mr larry lopes is a teen court so we're working on uh bringing a teen court into our um into our school where students will be able to participate in mock trials and also support um students in in learning about how courts work and also supporting them and being positive in our leadership culture and future leaders we have some great pictures of some of our future leaders a big part of leader of me is empowered instruction uh and also having students find their voice whether it's in the community in the classroom and really

020taking charge of their learning we have a short video that we want to share with you was created by um our leadership teacher mrs anitra morin that highlights some of our students on the lighthouse team and their favorite habit and also their favorite leadership paradigm so i hope you enjoy habit too because you always have to have a plan and what you do and i am a very organized person with the things that i do and that help i have it really helps me out have it three because it helps me stay put my important things first and then do my most important things after just habit six because you can always synergize and play with others it's how before because everybody is good for everybody and everybody gets an equal part in everything i

021was sick synergized because when when you work together as a team it like it's really important to grow to um strengthen your your relationships with your friends is habit a because it is the a habit when communicate their purpose and it also helps um combine them all together to help make the community better and easier to understand and communicate with other each with each other i think would win because i like when everyone gets their way and my favorite habit is habit six the reason why is because i think that everybody should have a chance to share their voice and to share what they're good at in their groups and to come up with something new it's habit six because it shows that we can all like work together as a team and accomplish like

022big things if we really put in the work my favorite habit is think win win i love this habit because everybody wins together awesome [Music] everyone is a leader because uh you could choose your own path as a leader everyone has genius because no matter how many times you fail you always have the power of being smart and everything i lead my own learning because like you can't let anybody stop your learning and you get to choose what you're gonna learn is i lead my own learning because when i learn i do it by myself and i help others change starts with you i chose this one because it's important to put yourself first and i'm in service learning team my favorite paradigm is change starts with me because i want to make a difference

023in the school [Music] student learning group and the stuff that we have done uh make videos about the habits and to teach people about the habits and to teach them that anyone can accomplish stuff it doesn't matter how i'm in an events and environment we help the school by planning events and we improve the environment of the school the group i'm in is physical environments and we help the school by making it more creative unique and inspiring we also plan events like leadership day where the community can come in and see how we use the seven habits so and i help the school by filming and editing morning announcements and i help the school by filming and editing morning announcements and i help the school by filming and editing morning announcements and in njhs we

024tutored students who need tutoring and we held a food drive to help the homeless [Music] so thank you for a time uh giving us a little bit of time to uh kind of share some things that are going on at the country place leadership academy and i wanted to open it up for any questions or comments from any of the board members no i'll just start off by saying thank you very much and thank you to the the the students that stepped up to do it it's not easy being in front of a camera so we congratulate you on on the progress and the students as well is there any other board members that wish to make a statement hearing none thank you very much we appreciate your time thank you so at this point

025it's my understanding there is no uh call to the public um so with that i will not read the call to the public announcement but we will move on to the consent agenda and this is an action item so with that um we will uh ask the board members if there is anything they want pulled from the consent agenda president reyes yes ma'am i'm sorry to interrupt we also have from country place um an opportunity to recognize a kid at hope student of the month and a volunteer we missed the recognition part i am so sorry my apologies that's the most important part we just won't do any of the rest agenda sorry for the interruption no i appreciate you telling me thank you you're welcome my name is alexis de leon i'm makita hope

026thank you for nominating me as the country place leadership academy kid at hope for 2022. i am caring and kind i try to inspire people to do the right thing by my example i try to help others make friends and i am honest one of my aces is kindergarten teacher mrs hans even though i am now in sixth grade she is still my teacher she is always there for my family i also want to thank my leadership teacher mrs morin she is very kind and is always there for me she is funny and i try to help her make our school community better thank you to dr cagle for being so happy and positive you make my family and i feel so comfortable at school thank you to all my fellow leaders at country place

027[Music] i'm the principal at country place leadership academy and i'm here to proudly recognize our volunteer of the month craig sandy sanford sandy has worked at our school for over five years donating countless hours to our fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade students he supported them not only in building geared cars and gravity cruisers and gliders but he's also built relationships with them students look forward to him and the guys coming every year and supporting a variety of projects at our school the guys they're super positive they're always there for the students and we're just really thankful for their time sandy thank you for your years of time expertise positivity and most of all just being you thanks for everything sandy that does that does conclude our volunteer and our kids at hope so thank

028you very much sandy and thank you very much alexis we appreciate both of you is there anything else miss vandewater no thank you president reyes thank you ma'am am i right uh we'll move on to agenda item eight which is a call to the public my understanding is there is no call to the public so at this point i will not be reading um the statement and we will move on to agenda item number nine which is the consent agenda at this point i'll give the board members opportunity to ask if they want anything pulled from the consent agenda so please let me know if you want something pulled at this time i hear no items to be pulled so i will have someone make a motion please this is mr raider i'll move the

029governing board approve the items submitted for consent this is amy in a second thank you mr raider and amy uh all in favor aye aye aye hearing no nays the emotional pass all right we'll move on to agenda item 10 and i believe this turns over to mr french thank you president reyes governing board members dr freeman and littleton community uh this evening we're privileged to be joined by adm group uh who is our architects as well as chase building team our general contractor um the presentation this evening will provide a brief overview of the um the school site nine project uh up to right now as well as the guaranteed maximum price um of the project after the presentation we'll be asking the board to approve the guaranteed maximum price for the new school

030so at this point i'm going to turn it over to adm group and chase building team to introduce themselves and to go through the presentation before you do that can i just ask mr french to just jog my memory give me a definition of what a guaranteed price maximum price exactly is please sure of course uh president reyes i guarantee maximum price is a good choice is a form of procurement um that the uh district elected to go through it is an um partnership with the uh district the general contractor as well as the architect to basically um bring the best price forward for the district the guaranteed maximum price means based on everything that we've put into the project um there is no way that we go over that amount and all the savings

031goes back towards the to the district thank you that's what i thought but it had been a while of course so i'm going to go ahead and pass it over to anybody from adm group if you guys want to introduce yourselves and then we can start the presentation absolutely uh good evening this is ben barcone uh madam president it's been a few months or years since we've seen each other live so i hope everything is well yes thank you and we'll just go with months rather than years so as a reminder the previous school that you uh completed which was the uh fine arts academy was also a cm at risk project uh at least 90 percent or 98 of all projects completed in the k-12 industry are all following the same at risk process

032so it's fairly common with that said i have with me in our conference room nina sheriff our principal and brian atkinson our project manager and i'm going to turn the powerpoint over to them next slide please so i believe you've seen this um in the past and we just kind of wanted to refresh your memory and uh go over what's included in the scope of the project so before you you can see the site plan of the new lmr school as you know broadway is our frontage to the school and as you look down kind of the center of the area you see a pedestrian entry flanked by trees on each side to the left of that we have our parent drop off and visitor parking spaces and on the right side of that we

033have our bus drop off and staff parking so we have a total of 148 parking spaces located on the site in the front here and then starting uh from the right of your slide we have building 100 which is our multi-purpose building which has the kitchen the stage and the band classroom with the amenities that go with it such as restrooms and kind of the typical of what you've seen in the other schools that have been designed previously building 200 is a classroom building and that is comprised of classrooms from kindergarten to grade five with restrooms associated in two resource classrooms moving over to the center of the promenade there is building 300 which is the administration building and located behind that is building what we call 300b which is made up of our media

034center and our art room and then to the left of that is building 400 which is classrooms for grades six through eight special education science and to see two resource classrooms as well you will also know to the left of building 400 should the campus need to expand that you have a future expansion area to the left of building 400 so we've designed that building so it's got the capability that in the future you could easily add typical classrooms to that building looking to the north of that behind all the classroom buildings we have three basketball courts a softball field a grass area for the kids to play in as well as you can see some covered canopies there with playground equipment below that we have a track that is comprised of decomposed granite and

035then moving to the right you'll notice that we have a fence line there going along the service area and there's a little building out there a little outbuilding that are a set of restrooms that will support the fields uh to the right of that which is a large soccer field as well as a baseball field and then in the shaded kind of uh i don't know i would call it uh terra cotta area you can see there's a future parking there as part of the development it will be a decomposed granite so in the future or should you know monies become available throughout the project we may be able to pave that to be asphalt parking and then the area below the field area is you can see a very large landscape retention area which

036is where all the drainage for the property will flow into any questions on the uh site plan before i move on to the next slide does the board members have any questions madam president may ask a quick question please of course i think thank you madam president maybe this is more of a comment regarding how operationally this ultimately um you know it is utilized but uh quick the um the intersections are so our ingress and egress is both at intersection points are those signalized do we know or is there other stop signs or other signals at that that location there are not signals at that location so is there any do you know again if there's any plans for that in the future and or how that might impact ingress or egress not that we're

037aware of now okay and then just and i apologize that uh my my questions are primarily about uh traffic flow i actually have children at two different campuses so i spend a lot of time and pick up and drop off lines um i'm curious and again this may be more operational than actual design but the roundabouts within the parking lot is that the thought process behind that is so parents might also use the parking area as drop off because i believe that's probably what it'll encourage and a little bit differently on this site opposed to your other sites is because uh the cities have become very sensitive to cueing on the outside streets you probably can't see it in the detail on your slide but if you just try to kind of take a look

038at the drop up with the bus drop off on the right hand side you will see actually that we have two lanes coming in and going as you make that round so so as the bus pulls in let's say you see 119th avenue on broadway you have the bus entering in and then as it turns to go in front of building 100 and 200 you can see that the buses have the ability to stop and drop off at the sidewalk there but there is also another lane on the left hand side of those yellow buses that allows traffic to to flow through there so as the buses pull out there are actually two lanes making that curve as they go around then there's also the um the parking that is within this the staff parking

039area that has that little roundabout area so we're definitely separating the bus traffic from the parking area again that same principle applies to the visitor parking and the parent drop-off on the left-hand side so as the people come in the parents come in you have the ability for cueing of two lanes of traffic going in and making that curve as you go around again dropping off next to the curb there and then pulling out and going and keeping that flow coming back out onto broadway and the el mirage road area so from that standpoint it's a little bit different and allows more queuing to happen on site no thank you for that explanation i think um again what i'm getting at a little bit is i i i don't think our preferred practice right now

040and i could be wrong dr freeman is for parents to drop off within parking areas i think we prefer them to go through our queuing lines as a safety but if you put a roundabout in your parking area i think it naturally lends itself to parents wanting to skip your your queuing lines and go into the parking lot and then use that roundabout to drop off their kids and i can tell you some as a parent who has to park because i have a disabled child that's really annoying because then you can't get to the parking spots and or get out of your parking spots and then i'll also note again this is just operationally that we tend to block one of our queuing lines at many of our schools so um hopefully um i'm

041actually encouraged by the thought that we might actually use both queuing lines um and again that's more commentary and less questions so i appreciate your indulgence yeah there's i mean there's uh different ways we could use that space i mean it could also be used for greenery i don't know that uh we considered that it encouraged dropping off we you know we thought there'd be less people [Music] you know pulling in and out backing out but we also were trying to discourage actually what we thought mr raider was the opposite that if we had a pass through there back into the loading and the unloading lane that that would encourage people to try to drop off in the parking lot and then head out through the um the queuing lane so um i'm not sure

042which of those is the right answer as far as traffic on broadway uh what we're working with the city is brookfield's traffic study deals with everything you know broadway road and into the subdivision and our traffic study is everything from broadway road into our site so i do think in conversations with the city um you know they've got a pretty comprehensive traffic study for the development itself we're using uh we're using those locations for um ingress and egress into the site based on their recommendation and it wouldn't surprise me that as alamar builds out there'll be another traffic study to address those questions those traffic questions but for right now we're using the established study material and and i i don't know how any other board members feel about that space i mean it could

043be turned into parking but right now we've elected not to shoot parents back out into the queuing and i don't know which one of those mr raider you might be in the best position if you're in those parent queue lines the rest of us tend to avoid them yeah well my point being was that um you just dead end it as opposed to making a nice like turning area for folks to you know drive down that parking lane and then turn around their car and drop off at that at that circle point so i mean if you actually had to pull into the spot so kiddo could get out of the vehicle and then you had to back out of the spot i think it would um not encourage parents to to utilize that practice

044as frequently uh again maybe though we need that as a as a reliever and that's that's part of the thought process there but i mean it looks nice but my general thought is it kind of looks like something that might encourage people to use that as a as a reliever to our cueing line if it gets backed up we'll talk to the architect about how we might you know be able to either enhance that or discourage that but thank you for the feedback so this is kathy um i have along those same lines those were exactly what my thoughts one coming off on broadway right now there's a what a four-way stop and uh so i'm not gonna belabor that but i also had that exact same concern of backup and all that stuff that

045goes along there as it continues to build out and you're not too far i can't tell distance wise because i'm not that good at a visual layout but i don't know how far you are away from the stop sign um and that right off the bat sends all kinds of signals up the second thing is on the traffic flow in and out i am a parent who pulls in parks gets my grandkids out helps them cross in front of the people waiting in line uh to drop off their kids and for me it works great then i back out and i'm using tres rios as the reference point if you know that parking lot and for me that works great that line backs all the way out and into the main street in that case

046it's not a big deal because it's not a main street this will be broadway if people don't keep moving that they're backing up into and if it's any indication of our other schools that that could be a lengthy line and so um i do a little bit opposite than than others maybe but the the problem with that is for myself i don't mind i sit and i tell my grandkids when to cross but i've seen parents pull in let their kids get out and they run across in front of traffic when people are dropping off at a far away distance and shooting around the car waiting in progressive lines in other words they let their children off at different sites and then they they whip around and come past other people and that it is

047dangerous if you're not paying attention and children are just crossing so no need to belabor it those are just more my comments and things uh parking and dropping off is never an easy way to lay it out there's always ways to get around doing different things the second thing is on the on the restrooms on the what i'm looking at the far right um i don't know about how that will be addressed how we keep them safe and secure and how will they be vandalized are are those locked on after hours or address that part of it i can't really see where the fence goes and who's whose property that is so that is technically on your property however we have a fence line that has the ability if you have uh events on the

048weekend and you want to be able to lock off the rest of the campus that restroom is on the outside wall of the service yard and it will have locks on those restroom doors so that's an administration thing on how you guys give access to that building but it's definitely something that can be secure okay thank you i think i have a heightened awareness because of some episodes in a restroom area that's uh public if you will and pretty far away from um the facility where you know perhaps people play and stuff and and i've seen incidents where you know things happen in there and we just want to make sure we're taking that into consideration but if they can be locked up that's that's good to know and we'll have to work out those

049details so is there any other board member that wants to make a comment on this site plan this is amy and i just have a very easy question i hope um so i we've had a lot of discussion about parents dropping off and picking up but for our students that may walk to school are we envisioning they are going to walk past one of these parking lots depending on which direction they're coming and they're coming in that center area towards the 300th building or have we discussed alternative ways they could get on campus that doesn't involve walking through a parking lot or walking along broadway so there is actually sidewalk uh that students can walk and follow a path so if you if we just take for instance on the right hand side of the

050slide in front of the landscape retention area that's a sidewalk that runs along broadway and then if they can turn right up next to the bus and they can continue that sidewalk all the way up and then take a left there and go down that sidewalk where they can enter in at multiple points on the campus either between building 100 and 200 200 300 or 300 and 400 so they can stay on sidewalk all the way okay great thanks nelson any questions not not any questions but just kind of as a reminder off to the right hand side there there's already the established park i think it's called moon hey moon or something like that the park on that side to the right where that red area is there there's already a park in existence

051for alamar there and then over on the left-hand side over there where the el mirage and that point right there there's a uh community city park that's being built up at that other side so we'll kind of fit in a nice little area down there thank you any ms contreras mr contreras do you have anything no not at this time thank you so with that um uh i don't know if that's the end of the site plan um demonstration or conversation so we can move on to the uh the pretty pictures if everybody's ready sounds good okay so uh this view here is uh looking at the front of the administration building with the canopies that are kind of the main points of interest into the campus as well as on the left hand side

052you're still seeing classroom building 400 and again on the left would be the visitor parking view so you can see that main pedestrian entrance onto the campus as a reminder our building is constructed all of uh masonry and we are painting it with the color scheme that goes with the alamar brookfield development so we have affectionately turned it the alomar blue that you see that's on the columns and the signage for the uh school whatever name that ends up to be and so we've carried those colors that you see throughout the development which are basically neutrals various browns and then the blue kind of as our accent pop so next slide this is a another viewpoint that kind of shows you the whole front of the campus there so starting on your left hand side

053you'll see the classroom building 400 then you're moving over to buildings 300 and the multi-purpose building 100 on the very end with a close-up shot of the parking the visitor parking and the parent drop off there with the fields located behind the buildings next slide is a close-up of the main entrance into the school campus so as you can see we've designed some benches along the front for students to wait for pickup and a main entrance point where they can come into the administration building which would be on the right hand side of the picture there and then you know create benches and the flags and so on at the front to to make it a very welcoming feel any questions on the design no i don't hear any all right so with that i'm

054going to turn it over to patrick shepherd from chase building team and he will be presenting to you the guaranteed maximum price patrick yeah thank you nina and uh thank you members of the governing board uh on behalf of chase building team just want to thank everyone for the opportunity to be here tonight super excited about the project i just really wanted to touch on you know really how much hard work has gone into this over the past several months adm has done a great job as this design has evolved on making sure that we were completely up to date and we were designing towards this budget along with the littleton team we're happy to be here after all the work that's gone into this a couple things that we do want to point out

055this gmp here as we talked about is that guaranteed maximum price this covers every square foot of this project so that's approximately 90 000 square feet um which is which is awesome considering where we started with the initial phase one and potential phase two so this will all now be built concurrently you will have a complete campus at the end of construction so just really exciting times for littleton and also the community of alamar as we work through this gmp development you know it's always our intent to start with the budget and and work towards you know some positive progress as far as what that final number you know really ends up being so uh awesome for us to be able to say that this this gmp actually came down about twenty five dollars a

056square foot uh from where we started you know probably five or six months back so again just a lot of hard work by by the entire team to get us where we are today the other great news about that is we were able to do it with really minimal be ve standing for value engineering to the project uh which is temporarily reducing scope or introducing you know alternates alternate type materials so really the only thing that we did here was really adm really just really provided a super efficient design uh when it came to some of the hardscape elements so some of the concrete around the job and also some of the landscape elements so just making sure that those were truly dialed in and just as efficient as can be and the really all

057the only other area that we saw any change to were the the canopies and the associated structure so you know where there were some some items that uh you know came out of that number to really improve this uh you didn't end up losing you know the ultimate intent of the project so you know with that being said again just super appreciative of being able to be here tonight and just can't give enough compliments to the team to where we came from and to where we are tonight so i will turn it back over to to ryan and open it up to any questions thanks patrick let me just remind um the board this is an attachment in your um zoom links in your board agenda i'm sorry so if you open that up i

058i know the type is really small but you can zoom in on your own screen um to help see the details on that better but brian can give you an overview of what's in the columns and what the sums are in each of those what those mean yeah um thank you dr freeman so the way that this is laid out um is by description of um almost project type we have under 1a we have project requirements and one b is survey layout so it's going to be break broken out by adjacent waste funding which is our ingress egress funding the site in general and then each of the buildings itself to give you a total cost off the right hand side um so like patrick was saying that they they really went back to all

059their subcontractors and sharpened their pencils on this and got um a best price um for each one of these um i areas if we take a look down at the bottom of the page it gives you a per site square footage cost as well as a per building square footage cost i believe down at the bottom right hand corner um the total all-in for the project is 325 dollars a square foot um it is just shy of 29 million which is 28 million hundred ninety thousand three hundred and eighty dollars um so we'd be happy to answer any questions uh from the board at this point just more um helping me understand that um so when you when you have the project and design by the city that two percent is paid to who um

060okay so you're you're looking at the project design city two percent um line yes uh patrick correct me if i'm wrong but those are fees that we actually paid to the city of avondale for pro for design review no those are actually that is a contingency built into the project so that really captures you know unforeseen's um jurisdictional comments um for example um if avondale fire were to come to the project and and provide some additional requirements um that needed to be incorporated into the project that weren't initially uh provided in that design those funds would be used to capture those types of unforeseens those dollars are actually um we tend to protect those uh as best as we can because ultimately what ends up happening is those are returned to littleton at the end

061of the project if they are unused so it's simply kind of an umbrella and a safety net if you'd say for anything that comes up into this project that is outside of the original scope of work mrs reyes i i don't know if you remember but when we built estrella vista avidale had a different fire marshal he was fairly well known for his rapport and they they would come out to the job site and ask to see the plans and move where the fire hydrants were they did that three times on that job so the contractor had to move the underground uh pipes and he charges fifty dollars every time he came out oh no i remember that very clearly thank you that was one of my issues with the city but those things that

062come up that do legitimately require attention you know if we got a red tag on anything during construction where we needed to go back and address something it's a contingency so that what we don't want to do is have anything that comes up that goes above that amount so there are some contingencies built into this and when the contingencies aren't used they go back to the district no that that answer said it was just the way it was worded that confused me i get it yeah and then the other thing i have and just to make sure the contractor fee is that ben barcone's um the operation uh president reyes no that was that is um the contractor fee for chase building group or a team oh okay okay and is that i don't know

063what a typical percentage is that a typical percentage i don't know what the pricing market is for that um i think that's a competitive percentage we um we we talked with when chase won the the cmar um we you know we we really made sure that we were competitive in the market um i think we had a pre-construction fee which we typically that um was typically less than market um and the four and a half percent patrick remind me i think typically it's closer to five yes that is correct and uh as you mentioned that that pre-construction fee was was very competitive um you know again a lot of that is testament to uh the work that adm does on the front end of design you know allowing us to work through this uh this

064pre-construction and ultimately getting to gmp um as easily as possible we had a miss race we had chase lower that to help us meet our budget typically it would be higher okay well thank you and and thank you chase if i don't know how much you lowered it but whatever you lowered it to we appreciate it thank you and i don't have any more questions does other board members have more questions mr president i don't i don't have a question per se i just wanted to uh express my gratitude to our staff as well as the chase and adm group for bringing this plan forward i think our last last time we discussed the school site we were talking about reduced plans or partial campuses due to some of the escalating costs that were confronting

065the the district really this the entire state and so to be able to approve this beautiful campus that's going to be an asset for our community for years and decades to come excuse me it's just a really positive thing and uh again thank you so much for everybody who put so much time into this thank you what's the completion date of this so right now what we have scheduled um we're looking at uh probably a may commencement give or take um it actually really times out perfectly we're able to really put a lot of work into this this front end as far as you know procurement getting ready to actually start construction so this being early february you know this really just lines up great and we are also targeting a summer of 2023 completion

066uh so ready for that uh fall school year of 2023. okay and and are you confident about building supplies and getting them here and all that all that drama yeah we are very confident right now we've been working as mentioned behind the scenes since as early as april starting our procurement process to ensure that a lot of those long lead items are captured and that we have those you know delivered and confirmed coming to the job site on time to meet our schedule so you know again just a lot of work there behind the scenes anticipating what was coming just to make sure that ultimately we delivered this project on time and under budget miss reyes uh madam president we figure we have about a four-month cushion from what would be typical like fine arts

067with 10 months this is 14. and we were hoping to be able to schedule the ground breaking at the board's april 26 study session thank you and again thank everyone who worked so hard to get this pulled together i'm sure in this day and age nothing is easy so thank you is there any more uh board member statements or conversation regarding the um school site number nine hearing none we'll take uh this is an action item uh so the board uh could if they could make a um a com cut roll call for it or approve the guaranteed maximum price if that's what they want to do this is amy and i move that the governing board approved the guaranteed maximum price for school site night this is sarah and i'll second that thank you

068all in favor aye aye during no nays motion passes thank you everyone for being on the call and explaining to us we we appreciate it with that we'll move on to mr french to talk about the wide area network thank you president reyes governing board dr freeman littleton community back at our december meeting december 14th the governing board um granted the administration permission to release a request for proposal for our leased wide area network that would service the new school site responses were due back to the district january 18th at which point a committee was formed to evaluate the district received one response which is the same vendor currently servicing our other schools the district is recommending awarding the request for proposal to wan rack llc to cover the installation of the fiber network and

069the annual lease of the network for the 22-23 school year with options for annual renewal options just a side note that this project is e-rate eligible which means e-rate which is a federal program would cover 95 of this cost and the district would be responsible for five percent at this point i'd like to answer any questions you have or recommend the governing board approve the rfp is there questions hearing none and i'll ask for an action on this item this is mr raider i'll move the governing board approve a multi-term contract to wan rack llc to cover the installation of fire of lit fiber network and the annual release of wide area network for the fy 2223 school year with the option of four annual renewals mr mr nilton i'll second that thank you very

070much all in favor aye aye hearing no names motion passes and thank you very much mr french mr french we're going to stay on you with a benefit discussion uh for 2223. thank you president reyes this evening we're bringing before your discussion of employee benefits for the 22-23 school year jim if you want to go ahead and open up the rate sheet we can take a look at that okay thank you uh this document is in a slightly different format than what you're accustomed to because the district is still in negotiations with the provider for all of our ancillary benefits such as dental and vision um in review the high deductible plan if we take a look at that top plan the high deductible base plan uh the individual and family deductibles max out of

071pocket expense and district paid hsa contributions would stay the same for the new fiscal year this fiscal year the district provided employees a 300 district paid hsa contribution for the coming and also they provided a 500 match if the if the employee um contributed to 500 to their hsa account for the coming year the district is looking into the possibility of adopting a menu of items an employee can choose from to become eligible for that hsna match i think the concept here would would really be to help them these menu items would be wellness items to help them stay up on on their health we do know of at least one other surrounding district that has adopted a similar approach if we take a look at the traditional plan the traditional medical plans individual and

072family deductibles would remain the same from the from this school year and the district plans on moving the max out of pocket to match the high deductible high premium plan um we do plan on bringing this item back to the board once we finalize rates of our ancillary benefits because this is a discussion item i'm open to any uh comments or questions that the board has at this time this is kathy um what's your anticipated rate increase and who's absorbing that employees is it being pushed to employees and employers or what's your thought president reyes we did have that uh conversation with uh valley schools who's our insurance provider um we are covering the employee only cost of that and then there was um a rate increase for spouse children and family the recommended rate

073increase was 16 percent um and on pharmacy and 7 on medical i believe and so then is the city picking up the employee rate increase that yes madam president the district would be covering the employee rate increase and there would be employee rate increases for spouse children and family that the employee would be responsible for what percentage of payroll is that um that increases it's just a little over 300 000 for all of the employee belly buttons not including uh spouses and children and family members all in thank you is there other questions from the board uh hearing none this is just a discussion item so no action is needed and we will move on to number 13 which is dr freeman thank you thank you madam president members of the board so the um

074uh um we did have you know a pretty significant increase in some of our medical due to covet and we're dealing a lot in the legislature with ramifications of the pandemic and covid i'll talk to you a little bit about some of the bills you can see in your backup material so far in the legislature over 1500 bills have been introduced um there is a big group of bills three um expanding vouchers those are a large concern for public schools because you know they tend to deplete state resources in an ongoing fashion uh pretty much the way 1657 is designed almost everybody is voucher eligible a lot of parent groups and other groups are organizing to try to stop these bills but the climate in the legislature is i think pretty responsive to alternative models

075to public schools and so we're not sure where this is going we're definitely watching it and extraordinarily concerned about these basically alternatives to public schools and if you scroll down a little bit jim um you'll see some other bills that um we're paying attention to house bill 2112. really is um restricting what teachers can say and the the concern we have about a number of these bills there's at least one legislator who wants civil penalties on a lot of these school things i i'm not sure if the one on the flag is up there there was a bill to have a civil penalty up to five thousand dollars if the teacher didn't have the large enough made in america flag posted in their classroom and that legislature thought five thousand was too low um one

076of the big controversial uh bills moving right now is the requirement of all learning materials to be posted online there's also one you can see senate bill 2439 that all the library books the catalog of library books is online accessible to families people are very concerned about that and what the ramifications would be obviously we're not really concerned about the titles that we have in our libraries and i don't think we're really concerned about making our catalog accessible what we would be concerned about is the time and effort we might need to go to to respond to every concern anybody else had um as opposed to just using existing board policy to object to curriculum materials so um a lot of these things um are a big concern it's not as much a concern to

077us as it is to our high school partners uh house bill 2414 again making it uh legal for students seniors to have guns loaded guns in their cars on school in school parking lots that's a big concern to our high school partners you can see uh the list of the detail um in that review there's also um uh the organization greater phoenix education management council in azmaq which i chair this year again for a second year their executive our executive director puts out a legislative report and so we've attached some of that it's a lot of detail i don't know that members want to go through it but you can see a lot of things happening in the legislature especially related to schools one of the things that's not happening in the legislature is movement

078on the aggregate expenditure limit and there are a lot of ideas uh being bantered around in the education community about how schools might deal with that what we asked the legislature to do was to deal with this right away in session to alleviate a lot of the stress and concern and anxiety around budget cuts because the aggregate expenditure limit is going to be a problem for at least the next five budgets having gone over this year even with just minimal two percent inflation which the legislature has approved last year and is and the governor is proposing this year we're falling five percent behind inflation this year and next year with those proposals even with that we'd continue to be the lowest funded state in the united states and over our aggregate expenditure limit so it's

079an ongoing problem uh the what we were hoping is all of these things they're fighting about uh masks and vaccines and um critical race theory they could fight about in the 20 fiscal 23 budget which they'll be working on this session to settle some of those things with the aggregate limit but to go ahead to vote to set that aside i think the board knows i'm not sure if everybody in the community understands that that takes a two-thirds vote because it's constitutional um the [Music] thinking about the resistance of the legislature to address that was because there's litigation underway on prop 208 which the voters passed an additional attacks on high-income earners the legislature then tried to well did vote to restructure the tax and there was a question about whether the aggregate expenditure limit

080was related to prop 208 so so far prop 208 hasn't gone into effect and that was the argument why it shouldn't impact the current year aggregate limit vote but it would impact the future year aggregate limit vote anyway the legislature's been reluctant to take action on it they say because of that lawsuit we heard from the judge yesterday that he does not really plan to rule before the march first deadline um so uh the legislature had petitioned him to make a ruling and he elected not to it's highly likely that that judge will not rule before the march first deadline on the um on whether or not prop 2 weight and the aggregate limit have any bearing on one another or the outcome of the case which puts the ball back in the legislature's court

081they're not going to be able to refer to a court ruling prior to the deadline to make this decision two-thirds vote to set that aside that has increased everybody's urgency around planning for this and what we have done is put together um a graphic representation and i think jim it's called fourth quarter expenditures and so um this is this is what we think would be um the best way to explain uh what we're going to have to put forward what we're thinking is that um uh we would add more detail in february 22nd for the board to discuss and then if we have to move forward in the march 8th meeting we would have options pretty well pinned down we are thinking we'll need a second meeting in march because we will need to get

082forms and guidance from the department of ed and we're not sure that they would be available for us to work on in time to have them ready for a march 8th meeting so we're thinking that we're going to have special meetings in february march and april to address these if the legislature doesn't act to set the limit aside on this graphic what you see on the bottom this is a fourth quarter expenditure so it's a little hard to see on your left but you can see in black 11 million 295 000 954. this would be typically the last quarter expenditures for the school district uh how much we would have money going out now below that is a layer in the pile of uh dollar bills that you see here that is excluded so the

083aggregate expenditure limit excludes certain things from the limit and we went over that with you last time what the total amount was and excluded amounts those are things that are otherwise voter approved and other cash funds so they're going to be some federal funds medicare funds indirect cost funds other funds that have been set aside for specific reasons so for instance there are some federal funds for special ed and other things that can't be spent other ways so those are those are on the bottom of the pile and they're really off the table for us to do anything with the other is essential costs and we've put 2.2 million of the budget the 11 million three into this category these are things like maintaining our insurance and power and anything along those lines that are

084essential to the life of the buildings and risk and liability that the district has then what you have is remaining uh you would have um if you look at the next two numbers uh two two thousand two million three hundred fifteen thousand and seven million seven hundred and eighty thousand if you take those three numbers the essential costs the reduction in the remaining funds that's gonna add up to the eleven million two hundred and ninety five so um what we would have remaining is uh 2.3 million we would have to do a reduction of 6.78 or 6.8 million what we did is looked at how much of the fourth quarter 2.315 million covers and that's about 25 percent so with the cash on hand with the budget reduction of six million seven hundred and eighty

085thousand we could uh pay for uh 25 of the remainder of the quarter that would be 25 of the people for 25 of salaries and benefits so just as we talked before when we were doing raises or we're doing cuts the discretion of the board is always do you want to pay more people or pay people more if you're adding money and if you're subtracting money do you want to pay less people or pay people less you can see that this impact is pretty dramatic what we did is looked at uh other cash funds that would be excluded that could go toward continuing operations and we don't have enough cash funds to get to 100 of the reduction if we did we would have no cash going into fiscal 23 and fiscal 23 is also

086subject to another expenditure limit so let's just say this year the expenditure limit cuts 17 16.5 next year the expenditure limit cuts 16.5 percent again if you moved all of your cash into this year and had none for next year you would have to cut 33 percent of your budget in fiscal 23. because you have a 16 percent cut and you're 16 percent short for all the money well it wouldn't be 16 it would be in this case um [Music] minus and a half well you're going to be 7 million short plus 16 actually it's about the same because 66.78 is 16 of the excluded funds you see the problem is that if you try to borrow from fiscal 23 to pay for fiscal 22 and you get cut again in fiscal 23 it'd be

087like two cuts next year to save this year essentially if that 2.3 million is if you add another 2.3 and another 2.3 and another 2.3 uh you would get all the way to restoring that money if we did for instance took all of the carry forward cash we have this year which is a larger number because we had s or money last year it would get you to 50 50 would mean paying half of the people or paying people half if we completely exhausted the cash we could get to 80 percent 80 percent but would be a 20 pay reduction in the fourth quarter for people that would equate to a 5 salary reduction over the course of the whole year you're putting the whole five percent from all four quarters into one quarter feels

088like 20 but we'd be completely out of cash so um this is this is a little bit of the you know laying out in numbers in proportion the scope of the problem uh the early discussion you know we need to have before we start to develop scenarios is um uh for instance if we wanted to do um or 50 or 60 percent of what would be typical spending uh basically every 20 is uh one day of the week right monday is 20 tuesday you're at 40 wednesday you're at 60 thursday you're at 80 and by friday you've done five weeks it's 100 of a week so if you did forty percent you'd be doing two days a week if you did sixty percent you'd be doing six days a week if you wanted to um

089reduce the number of people working you wouldn't have enough people to cover twice as many kids you could have half the people working with the kids coming every other day essentially half the time uh you could work 25 of the fourth quarter maybe a little more depending on the calendar and end the school year early you can see that as we toss these ideas out there's none that strike you as a good idea so so we have reducing the number of school days either by alternating attendance or um uh limiting the number of days a week uh to try to continue through memorial day or uh just shorten the school year by that number of days the other thing would be to ask people to continue to work their regular work schedule but for only

090a portion of their pay essentially having their salaries and contracts renegotiated at a lower amount because of the loss of funding which is a contract clause that we have for everybody i i don't i can't recommend any of these i don't have i don't have any that i think are uh better than another um uh we're you know other than explaining it to members uh we're at a little bit of a loss of how to go forward you know one approach would be you know choose a number of days in the week and try to maintain maintain a school year and have the kids doing digital asynchronous learning on the other days give them some activities to extend their learning and they'd be pretty much on their own with their parents [Music] it's not as

091good as being in school i think everybody you know has come to understand that from the things that we've been dealing with in the last couple years uh it wouldn't be ideal it wouldn't be it wouldn't be doing nothing because we have those resources for families so i don't know if anybody wants to weigh in on paying less people or paying people less or if you want to try to extend cash on hand to uh 40 of the fourth quarter 50 or 60 we can work up what those numbers would look like so at this point i'm going to open it up for the board to have discussion about it it's a lot to absorb i mean i heard everything you say i'm not sure i can absorb it all without looking and seeing and

092hearing it again but um any board member have questions comments conversations i don't know that there's anything one like dr freeman was saying you know there's four or five or six seven different options and none of them are good right you know we gotta look and see which one might be the best of the worst or something or parents that they need to get a hold of the legislators and tell them to get this thing taken care of so the other thing i thought of that is not equated to is if this comes to pass i absolutely am convinced and i could be wrong but parents will just pull their children they will take them to charter schools they will take them to you know the schools of choice that may not have for whatever

093reason may not have the same funding issues or others that would exclude public education for the most part i would assume but i don't think any you're right no scenarios good scenarios but when you start telling people we're cutting school years or we're cutting time or basically asking people to work those none of those are good and i i think people will look to pull their children and figure out where do they get an education and that'll just create more havoc on public schools so that's a little different but i am concerned about that uh president reyes um i mean that's exactly what we perceive the intent to be is if you wait till the last minute to override this or maybe you don't um uh people here continue to get paid but faith in

094the system has already been lost oh great and so um people are looking for alternatives and uh you know in the bills i reviewed before this presentation what the legislature is setting up first of all uh they're giving inflation to charter schools and not cutting them they want to have more esa so everyone is eligible um but you know more sto support so the direction they've been going in the bills they're putting down are to provide more ample alternatives for people to their public schools and so first you uh leave everybody in this situation uh where you have to discuss these uh disastrous draconian cuts um scaring the teachers and everybody who works here nearly to death and and the salaries aren't uh aren't great to begin with you know given the inflation and cost

095of living our appropriations from the legislature haven't kept up with the increase in our employees living costs at all then you add this and so and then you add more money for esa's and give inflation to charters it's not even uh it's not even failed at all that their intent is to switch the system from being you know a public school system intended to serve everybody in the community to a community served through other choice options that we think yes if we cut days if we cut service uh they would go to other places i don't know that there's that many spaces in other places but you could take um those uh vouchers and uh and join other kinds of school networks micro schools um uh some of the other ones that have been in

096the news that people are promoting now so this is this is creating a lot of you know free market education alternative uh momentum and and i think uh those of us who believe in schools being the heart of the community think that's bad and other people who believe in making education into a free pocket market so they can make a lot of money off of it think it's good and those are the the two forces at work like i said in my opening remarks i'm sorry uh that we're even having to have this discussion it's painful i i guess i would add as far as you know people responding to the legislature the representatives of legislative district 19 where littleton is um senator contreras representatives espinosa and sierra have all been working to help get

097this passed um it is the republican leadership from some of the conservative enclaves of the state that are resistant to this so um i i don't know that it helps to call senators and representatives from districts where you don't live but calling the senate president and the speaker's house offices president of the senate karen fan and house speaker rusty rusty bowers may be the right people to share concerns with even yourself dr friedman just said maybe the right people i mean that's the challenge right most people don't know the avenue to find a way to make their voice so if we're asking that we're gonna have to be clear on what people can do in a very general sense um and i don't know the answer to that so going back what's the drop date

098you need from the board madam president members of the board we were hoping just to get a little bit of feedback on guidance on uh number of days or um you know how much uh like i said we can't move 100 of the cash um getting us to 40 or 50 of the cash would eliminate most of our rollover you know it gets you from a quarter of a week to um to two days a week to two and a half days a week um or uh reductions in pay uh that might be palatable if you tried to stay open so we're looking at you know staying open with pay reductions or in which case we'd most certainly lose staff or reducing the number of days we're open which in most case we'd certainly probably

099lose enrollment um uh but that we would try to narrow this down for the board a little bit more at the february 22nd meeting at the march 8th meeting um try to fine tune and finalize what the new budget revision would look like and then approve um the the fy22 budget revision at the march 22nd meeting in advance of the april 1st deadline to have your budget revised okay that helps for me i'm just going to say i'm not ready to give you any feedback i'm sorry i need data i need numbers i need to look at cash crunch i i heard all of what you said but i'm not sure right now i can comprehend it all and then in a rational mind and i'm okay if we need you know an extra session

100or something and i'll let the rest of the board weigh in on if they have thoughts today mr nelson do you have a thought uh kathy i'm kind of like you i mean we've got some numbers here we've got some possibilities i think we just need to see a little bit more what's going on and like a little bit more time to digest and think about what we got to do okay mr raider yeah no thank you very much uh dr freeman for bringing this forward i know i had mentioned at the last meeting i thought it was important for people to understand the scope of the the cuts we were talking about so that they could begin advocating on behalf of them of the district and their their students on just based on what

101we're speaking about um i guess what i i would like to know a little bit and i'm sure you're working with our surrounding districts is i definitely wouldn't want um littleton to be out you know certainly we have to make decisions on our own but certainly would want to be in concert with what the high school district and maybe some of our um you know surrounding school districts we're also thinking regarding reductions in the school year so that you know again it's uniform so it doesn't look like we're we're doing something um that others are not and then i guess as far as just the reduction of our reserves i think it would be a matter of taking a look at what made the most sense we certainly can't go down to zero um you

102know you can't risk running into the negative that's just poor policy even though all of this amounts to uh poor public policy and then so i guess i would be looking at you know how long could we go and where would that logical cutoff point be um i mean to me like one or two days a week doesn't make a whole lot of sense for for parents because you can't plan like great my kid goes to school on monday and wednesday like that doesn't do me any good because now so to me i i again keeping all options open still in the very preliminary stages of these discussions to me it makes sense as far as continuing normalcy as long as we can until essentially we run out of money and then concluding a school

103year considerably early um again just preliminarily it sounds like what would be most feasible um or a four-day four-day school week where wednesdays are completely off but you know one or two days i don't think is a real good option for families [Music] yeah i i mean i think if you could make it work the uh having the kids do asynchronous remote work on wednesday wouldn't be uh the worst thing in the world uh we might you know be able to get through the fourth quarter that way but i mean there's no cash left one of the one of the issues we're having in in comparing um districts is um people's cash reserves varies dramatically so tolleson union has a tax base that's way larger than ours it is in student enrollment completely disproportionate where

104their enrollment might be twice as big their tax base is nine times as big because it it covers all the way up to the football stadium so uh when they have an election they're able to generate a lot of cash they probably have enough cash to get through three years of this and uh and we you know would barely have enough cash to get through one other districts are going to have some cash because of the esser infusion in prior years allowed them to have rollover but there's a lot of districts that would have no cash and so that cash reserves and economic stability varies how people have spent money in the past and how much uh accessible cash they have through their tax base and other things like that so cash isn't a thing

105that necessarily equates equally to enrollment it it has um all kinds of other factors unlying and so some districts some districts would have no cash reserves they they wouldn't be able to do anything we would have some talisman union because of their budget configuration nester and the way they spent money has three years worth you're not going to find well high schools are funded at a higher level to begin with so that's going to be tough to compare but believe me we're all talking mrs sosnick did you have feedback um my first feeling right now is i want us to go as long as possible in keeping things status quo but i also don't want to completely empty out all of our reserves so that we cannot start up the year we start you know

106the next fiscal year so i would love to see some more detailed scenarios or examples if possible so that i could really get a visual for what exactly our options are if we need to do this okay thank you mrs contreras i'm gonna agree with miss sasha neck and the rest of the board i'm it's a lot of information to process and a lot to take in um it's a scary situation to be in i mean the options that that dr freeman went over i mean they're not ideal they're not something that we want to have to consider but i mean at the end of the day we may have to um i fear the effect it's going to have on on all of our stakeholders our students our staff our community i mean i'm

107a parent myself and then i'm also an educator so i you know both sides of it um i'd like to see some some visuals some data it's just a lot to take in and process right now so um i wouldn't mind you know reviewing this you know later with some some hard data and numbers thank you so dr freeman it sounds like the board would require or request um to put together some scenarios maybe giving scenarios of everything that you've kind of just went through going as long as we can using whatever cash reserve we have and i don't know what is recommended based on the percentage of cash reserve you should have um that we will rely on others with that expertise um what would it look like going to maybe one day of

108you know learning on online does it really save enough is it worth it all of those data points if you could touch on and then um we will have a better idea and have a better conversation of what it would look like and maybe know more about what legislation will do um as we inch closer to to the time so i think that's what i'm hearing is the directive yeah i i mean it makes sense to me and we'll continue to work in that direction as as best we can pin these things down our best hope is in the next two weeks the legislature takes action to resolve this and then our discussions turn to fiscal 23 things that we might do to prepare for you know similar challenges in the future year actually be

109able to manage expenditures and reserves in a way that's forsightful not reactive but proactive and that they take action before the february 22nd meeting uh i there's a lot of people who think they're going to wait right till the 11th hour on the 28th to reach any kind of agreement to move forward but we can hold out hope that um uh you know they'll do something else i i think you know it most of the local media have picked up on this i saw one story uh where the tv station you know showed a picture of an atomic bomb mushroom going off uh so i think people generally uh get the seriousness of this i i think the majority of families in arizona support their public schools i think in the majority of families in

110america support their public schools i think the legislature who's trying to push these alternatives is out of step with most arizonans and so hopefully we can get our bearings back and get back on track and be able to you know once again be able to plan to serve our community in ways that make sense and like i said it's it's um it's just about heartbreaking to even have this discussion i'm hoping we don't have to do it again but we will continue to work on it and try to give [Music] you know more detailed numbers options and those kind of things as we progress to having to adopt a budget in march no action is required tonight we just wanted feedback from the board so with that we'll move on to instructional calendars for 23-24

111and this does look like it's an action item madam president members of the board um i'm bringing to you this evening two years of instructional calendars for fiscal year 23 and 24 as is customary each year also as customary we typically have to make some tweaks and changes to the one that we adopted the previous year to align with some districts and give families an opportunity to keep their schedules um as close together as possible depending on the district they're in so um we have some changes to the originally adopted fy 23 calendar and jim if you could put up the 23 22 23 draft um we are proposing that we move fall break from the first week in october to the second week in october which aligns with the high school district in addition

112we also um are asking to move uh winter break previously we had that from the 19th of december through the 30th and then the new year's day which is observed on january 2nd off the calendar that you see is aligned with tolston union we put the calendars out there was another suggestion for us to split the weeks from the leap committee we sent this out to all staff for a vote in an option one option two format out of 282 staff members who chose to vote 216 staff members selected the calendar that you see in front of you so that is the one that we're recommending this evening the fiscal 2324 calendar would mirror this and is typical for the start and end of the school year and the breaks are currently aligned with the

113adopted tolleson union calendar so we are asking for action tonight to approve the two fiscal years of instructional calendars and of course i will be happy to answer any questions that you might have this evening thank you does the board have any questions on the potential changes of the instructional calendar kathy i just have a question or clarification uh okay the the week in november of thanksgiving is that a full week off as well uh mr nielsen members of the board yes it is the purple days are non-school days um recesses holidays things like that and we have had that for the last maybe three four five years and tolleson union actually aligned their calendar with us a few years ago to take the full week zoom in a couple clicks jim thank you i

114appreciate that i just either had forgotten that or blinked when i shouldn't have blinked or something that just caught my attention any any other board questions are regarding the calendar hearing then i will need a uh action on this or a motion i can go ahead and do that thank you i recommend the governing report approve the instructional calendars for fiscal year 2023 and 2024. this is john all second thank you very much all in favor aye aye aye hearing no names the emotional past to accept instructional calendar next i'll let you continue talking about the staff work calendars for 2223 and it's a discussion item only thank you president reyes so there's quite a bit of information i'm going to give you and then i'm going to ask jim to open calendars as i

115get to them because there's four to look at so the work calendars come before the board for information only this evening as we work to align instructional calendars with other districts we also looked at how our work calendars compared with them there are some proposed changes that we're seeking feedback from the board on that would make our district more competitive in the local labor market without having an impact to the budget we have four calendars that employees work from which include a 12 11 and two 10 month calendars when we began comparing them we found the only calendar that could really be compared apples to apples within all the districts uh in our region was the 12-month one the other calendars despite the names being the same were quite different when comparing the number of

116work days within them so i'm going to break apart each calendar um tell you the changes that we're recommending and how that looks compared to some other districts we've color-coded these and hope that this um makes sense but certainly stop me at any time if you have questions so i'm going to go from the easiest to see to the one that just has the the most changes that we're recommending so jim if you'd open the certified 10 month employee so the certified employees that work on the 10-month calendar have no proposed changes for next year and are relatively close on the number of days worked as well as holidays awarded four of which are mandated by the state so districts have somewhere between 200 and 185 workdays for these employees depending on their years of

117service and training requirements so the lower number of days on this calendar is an advantage for us when we recruit adding holidays would not change compensation but simply lower the daily rate of the certified employee and actually the holidays that we're suggesting for other employee groups are when our certified employees are are off anyway so this is the easiest draft and this would start school about the same time our breaks would align as you saw the instructional calendar and our certified staff would be out before the memorial day holiday do you have any questions on this particular calendar so on this calendar were they given more holidays or it's the same i i thought i heard you say president reyes thank you for the question yes it's exactly the same as it has been for

118about three years okay thank you so this is curtis again let me go back to that crazy thing in november i i see that the 24th is a holiday for those certified instructors but they get the whole week off do they get paid double time for that holiday how does that affect payment for that 24th of november so member nielsen uh thank you for the question it actually does not affect their payment because we divide their salary across x number of pay periods based on what they choose it's usually 22 or 24 pay periods um or 24 and 26 pay periods and we give them a balance of contract so the holiday is actually one that's mandated for us to award the staff if it's during the school year so that just means school is

119not in session but it does not change their compensation when you see the yellow days those are just sort of like their what we would consider vacation days because they don't earn vacation okay i think that's uh i guess that's just what i wanted here so the kids will be off the teachers will be off but that 24th is recognized but is in the the whatever you said the 22 or the 24 or 22 or 24 papers yes sir thank you those breaks curtis when you and i were in grade school those breaks used to be summer yeah the summer the summer's shorter now because we put breaks into the middle of the year if you add them all up you bet you'd be back to a three-month summer probably okay okay we asked a

120quick question uh yes member raider yeah i apologize so uh and again is the light blue color for example i'm just staring at january um 13th that's an an in-service day for our teachers but the students are off on those days that is correct mr raider those are professional development days just um on days that are identified as professional development days does the district and or school site have flexibility to say hey we've got a lot we've got a lot going on or we've had a rough year or we're just going to go ahead and provide that as a day off or a flex day is there flexibility or if we've identified it as a as a in-service day we have to provide some sort of in-service district-led in service that day member raider and

121i believe dr freeman will correct me if i'm wrong but the board can choose to make any of those days a quote-unquote holiday and pay them for that um but there were it would have to take action by the board to change that since they wouldn't it would not be a work day if you gave them off well um i mean some districts do put work days into their calendar where teachers report and do just work you if you didn't have instruction happening you'd have to either add days to the back of the year to do that but i think to the point of how flexible are professional development days built into the calendar the way that works is there's committees meeting right now that are talking about uh what needs to be included in

122professional development for the coming year so the way this happens is we don't wait till the 14th to decide if we're having the 14th if we're expending resources inviting presenters and those kind of things that planning happens way in advance so starting now but committees are getting together to discuss what kind of professional film that would be meaningful and useful and at what point of the year it would be best delivered so i i think you know if i'm imagining the discussion the way you described it member raider that would need to be taking place now in those committees which would be to say it needs to be all-day district plan or half-day district planned or all-day building plans that would be the kind of discussion that people would need to get in to do

123that work to recommend you could do separate professional days and work days or i think the board could say it's half work day half professional development day those benefits and working conditions are determined by all of you we're planning right now on what's been past practice but it doesn't have to be so just following up on my question thank you so much uh for that explanation uh so i know at the school board level we talked to a lot about um performance and and how we get the most out of our teachers and our students which drives a lot of the professional development that we dictate i've also heard um quite passionately from a few teachers regarding some of the pressures that's have been on them as a result of the of the pandemic which

124i think has just multiplied you know the stressors that are already and then you pile that on top of the discussion that we just had regarding you know even the future and some of the the policy decisions at the state level so i i guess i don't have a recommendation this is only for um for discussion just i i would i hope as part of the committee's discussion they're also thinking about whether they're in service time i mean i wouldn't be opposed to that being an additional day off if needed or and or additional open time for teachers i'm just given some of the conditions that they've been experiencing and i do understand kind of like i i'm talking out of both sides of my mouth a little bit right the next one we'll talk

125to you about how much we need to up performance and now i'm i'm also telling you how much i hope we can provide flexibility to our teachers if if they need additional time to be working in their classroom so again not real specific direction but maybe it's just something that committee um could be discussing and maybe maybe that just becomes more open time or the possibility of more open time for teachers i'm just gonna weigh in here i'm not open to that suggestion um i understand why it sounds good but it's hard enough now to to tell parents that their kids are getting off on such and such a day for in-service and when they're asked what do they do and you say well teachers get professional development they understand that but to say it's

126a day off that i don't know how to explain when we're talking about cutting school hours and doing all that so i don't have a problem if they wanted to do in-service work to catch up to take some of the stress off maybe lesson planning i i'm not opposed to that but we do have to do some professional development i don't know when or how so i i i'm not sure that i would be in favor of saying this this could be a day off i'm certainly in favor of saying if you need time let's let's structure that and give you a little time so you got a little break and less stress i'm okay with that so i'll open it up if there's any other board discussion or quick comments around that since it

127is a a discussion item uh is there anyone else wants to add something to that um hearing then well um we'll we'll conclude with the comments and i i don't know if you had more discussion i think you had more slides on on our staff work calendar so i'll let you proceed yes ma'am thank you so much um the next calendar i'd like to look at is the 10 month classified employee calendar um again varied quite differently um we're not asking for changes to this uh 10-month calendar either the number of work days on this calendar across districts range from 200 to 193 the littleton calendar has the lowest number of workdays and we pay similar holidays with the exception of paying for a portion of the winter break that some districts consider holidays so

128they might pay three to five days of the break as just a paid day we have never done that in this district as long as i have been here um i went back and looked at calendars today for uh the one i could the oldest one i could find without searching too much was um 2009 2010 which would have been my second year here but um so we looked at the number of holidays for this employee group and we do match the federal holidays within the calendar that we award other littleton employees so that's one of the things is uh there are a certain number of workdays for some employee groups they start at one time end in another and we look at the holidays within that start and end time rather than outside of

129that if there are any other questions to to this calendar this particular classified group has their work driven by the instructional calendar so they're breaks and time off the line with the 10 month certified group um and both of the 10 month people have seven holidays on their calendar this is amy and i have kind of a question that goes along with this do we divide out the pay for our hourly employees kind of like what we do with teachers so that if they have two weeks off in december january that they're still getting that regular page check or is it just they get that one holiday for that two weeks um member social nick it is actually the second thing that you said we pay within the time of the pay period uh which

130that calendar has come before the board um and and we will bring forward it's just we need to look at work calendars before we determine pay calendars and things like that so um that we give the calendar ahead of time so they know which weeks they have a shortened pay um amount due to the non-work days they are considered by the state seasonal employees and so um we we try to le to spread that out as much as possible and let them work uh through the time to minimize the number of days uh that are off during a month we do look at that and take that into consideration okay i just feel like it's asked at the wrong time but thank you yes okay hearing no more questions um we'll ask to move to

131the next one okay the 11 month calendar jim please uh again the number of work days associated with this calendar varies greatly across districts with a high of 243 workdays to a low of 224 workdays and a variety of holidays awarded to these employees so we looked at the number of holidays for this employee group and we do match all the federal holidays within the calendar that we award other employees between the start and end of their work year now the chart at the bottom of the calendar highlights the changes we're asking for this which is the addition of the fourth of july holiday we added this holiday since their work calendar generally starts around the 4th of july and would then align with our efforts to award federal holidays to employees during a time

132that they're working again this employee group in other districts they do pay them a portion of the winter break somewhere between three and five days in addition and declare them holidays again we haven't done that since i have been here but i just wanted to put that on the table we also did compressed work weeks also known as 410s in alignment with the 12-month group before and we will now have the same number of working days without the need to have that stipulation on the calendar that for the one week as they did this week they worked for 10 hour days to earn the same amount of pay across the work time and uh as you can see there are a few this is the smallest number of employees that we have on any calendar

133it includes assistant principals day custodians and office support specialists seniors so basically 21 people this is kevin just so i'm clear so you're you're you're asking uh to approve july 4th as a paid holiday correct yes ma'am and and if we did not prove it is it a day they normally work um it depends on the start of the year but like for this year we um and this is one of the things that we would look at every year as we look at calendars and it's allowable by policy so this particular year july 4th is on a monday and that would have been the start of their work week um so we always start them right around the first part of july but we have never awarded them the fourth of july holiday we

134try to manipulate the calendar in the past to work around that day and this would just give them an additional holiday and we could be more consistent when their calendar would start each year i get giving him the holiday but does that cost additional compensation for a day's pay uh no ma'am it's the same number of days uh because uh it's 224 days which which is the same calendar they had in this fiscal year they're just not working the one week of the 4 10 so we took one day and gave them a holiday but did not include increase the work calendar so it's budget neutral okay it's budget neutral that's my question yes okay thank you any other questions all right hearing then we'll ask you to move to what you said is the

135most confusing one well hopefully not confusing madam president but um let's see if i can make this as as simple as possible you'll see there are quite a few colors in the key so the green is work days blue is in service just like you've seen before purple or holidays where we've had no school now that little gold color box is a floating holiday then there's one that's just to the right that says existing floating holiday which i'll explain in my narrative as i go through so the 12 month calendar is the easiest to compare to other districts as we all have a 261 day work calendar so this is the calendar we're asking for more changes on uh when researching this work group we found that holidays which is a very loose term ranged

136from a high of 26 in some districts to a low of 12. littleton previously had 13 holidays which included nine federal holidays two littleton holidays aligned to the thanksgiving and winter breaks and one floating holiday which we place depending on where other other holidays landed in the week for example the fourth of july landed on a tuesday we would make july the 3rd the floating holiday that's just as an example littleton was also the only district that we could identify as requiring the use of mandatory vacation days so in the past years we had anywhere from four to seven days that we required employees to use their leave so that different breaks could be extended such as thanksgiving or winter break for the fiscal year 23 we compared where other districts awarded their holidays for

13712-month employees where we could honor cultural groups that may or may not be identified as federal holidays and where we could offer some other breaks that aligned with the instructional calendar with this being said the chart at the bottom of the 12-month calendar if i could get jim to scroll down reflects the proposed changes to not only the holidays but also the changes to the compressed work weeks as we refer to them as 410s and mandatory vacation days so in this chart we added two new federal holidays indigenous people day which is also columbus day ironically and the recently adopted juneteenth day for the federal breaks the addition of five floating holidays allows us to celebrate cesar chavez day as well as award the spring holiday and three days at the winter break which is

138similar to other districts in our area this would bring the total number of holidays for this calendar group from 13 to 20 and places us right in the middle of the pack when compared to other districts in our region again this is budget neutral same number of work days it's just simply rearranging the work to get it done when we're in session but in summary these changes were considered embedded by the lead committee and they supported the recommended changes we believe that these work calendars are a crucial part of the recruitment and retention process and aid to the culture and climate of the district and of course i welcome any questions on this calendar as well is there questions relating to this particular calendar i don't hear any questions so uh with that i just

139have one clarification yes i don't i know you said it's budget neutral and i understand why because you've you've you've worked a 10-hour day and you've put them somewhere right you put that but but i think when you present this i don't disagree it's budget neutral but it's still a day that they didn't have to work before where you condense it into 10 days i think when you talk about this and especially after we just had a conversation about taking salary away i would like to see this presented as a positive thing right we understand you're still working the same number of days but if you offered me an extra holiday and i only had to work two hours a day extra to me it would still be a holiday does that make sense i

140get it but yeah so i would just ask this this could be viewed as a you know we can't give much anymore but this is a very positive thing that it is budget neutral but i i think employees will appreciate it and if you're at work and you work eight to ten it's not that big the rest two more hours and you get maybe a friday off or whatever it is so i i think it's a good way to you know let people know we're trying to do what we can to get more time with their families and and whatever so i like it i i i understand it's a budget neutral but really in some ways employees may not they may see it as a really great extra day off with their family absolutely

141miss uh president reyes i will convey that i also think uh it's a huge win for them to be able to use their vacation days in the way that they want rather than us mandating them to use some which we had received feedback in the past that some employees really didn't like that so i agree it's a win-win and we will certainly market that um as a larger benefit as for the work calendars perfect thank you so that was a discussion item so if there's no more questions it doesn't sound like we need any action and uh with that we'll move on to mr garrison regarding open enrollment thank you madam president governing board mrs garrison i apologize it's getting late it's okay um each year non-resident pupils may apply to a role enroll in

142littleton schools through open enrollment a non-resident pupil is defined as a pupil who resides in the state but outside of our boundaries so as outlined in governing board policy jfb applications for open enrollment are to to be approved are based on available space as determined by the governing board which is what i'm asking for tonight each february the board sets excess capacity open enrollment applications are then accepted uh starting the at the time of approval through march 31st of each year to be considered for enrollment for next school year the table attached this item outlines the proposed determinations of excess capacity for each school by grade level for the board's consideration these recommendations sorry as madam president said it's late these recommendations were made by first rolling the students up a grade and comparing projected

143enrollment to projected staffing levels the calculations were made without considerations for eld classrooms and without completing the school choice placement process and i'd like to say that as real enrollment numbers are are known the district can accept non-resident students through variances as space permits throughout the entire year so this is an action item so please let me know if there are additional questions thank you with that is there questions mrs garrison regarding open enrollment hearing none i'll ask for a motion this is amy and i move that the governing board approve open enrollment capacity for fiscal year 2023. thank you sarah this is sarah second thought thank you all in favor aye hearing no nays emotional pass and we will move to mrs van der water item 17. thank you president reyes members of the

144governing board dr freeman council and community this evening i will be providing you with a mid-year update for all seven of our school's integrated action plans before i share mid-year data for each school's goals i want to share a few common practices across our school system that we engage to impact student achievement and the continuous improvement process toward meeting the intended goals jim if you wouldn't mind opening up the powerpoint slide thank you over the past several months across all schools our leaders and educators have been working hard toward achieving the goals that they created for student achievement by engaging in the professional learning community plc process the plc process is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and problem solving to achieve better results for the students

145that they serve the very essence of a plc is a focus on and a commitment to the learning of each student each plc across our district has come together as a team to unpack essential learning standards to clarify exactly what each student must learn monitor each student's learning on a timely basis using the data that is available to them provide systematic interventions that ensure students receive additional time and support for learning when they struggle and extend and enrich learning when students have already mastered the attended outcomes the plc process as part of the continuous improvement process has engaged teachers and leaders to look at a similar challenge and work together to try and try again to ensure progress to address a problem it asks each of us to be reflective humble inquisitive and tenacious in

146tackling the challenges that might have been identified for each child and perhaps most importantly as a littleton system we can model for our students how we work together to help one another by ensuring that every school and every educator has the support that they need to be successful as i share mid-year data reflections and continued action steps for each school you will hear that our educators and leaders are focusing on the six principles of continuous improvement through effective leadership effective teachers and instruction effective organization of time effective curriculum conditions of climate and culture and family and community engagement distinguishing features of their continuous improvement and approach include taking a systematic perspective being process orientated using a discipline methodology to solve problems and engaging the frontline in experimentation you will hear how our strong school cultures

147work together when engaged in their continuous improvement efforts by accepting collective responsibility for outcomes learning from failure and successes being transparent and using humility curiosity and discipline we will begin with goals from principal miss regan headings from collier business academy thank you jim what you're seeing on the chart for each school as i go through their goals is the two goals that they highlighted each principle during their um governing board presentation and i am going to give you a mid-year update on the data for those goals and some reflections and next steps collier business academy is on track to reach their first goal of effective curriculum with at least 70 percent of students in grades one through eight increasing a performance level on the district's english language arts summative pre to post assessment progress measured

148mid-year on formative and interim assessments shows their scores range from 21 to 58 of students within first or eighth grade levels making growth on their ela skills for their second effective curriculum goal around math to reach at least 50 percent of students in first or eighth grade showing growth on the district math summative pre to post assessment they are on track with seven of the eight grade levels with 33 to 73 percent of their students showing progress on math skills collier has reflected and will continue to utilize core ela and math resources to plan for instruction along with achieve 3000 and dream box as supplemental tools teachers will focus on the lesson planning process to ensure they are using formative and interim assessment data to include targeted interventions for each student in these two areas

149professional development will continue to be provided to teachers in the areas of assessment design and whole group reteaching of these targeted skills an emphasis on the grade level that is not on track will provide teachers and students an opportunity to intervene on math gaps that they have identified prior to the next assessment i will move on to country place as the country um as the leader in me schools excuse me country place leadership academy under the leadership of dr cagle focuses on developing and intentionally building relationships with students each year they administer an assessment called the measurable results assessment the mra which measures leadership culture and academics this year the staff identified a key behavioral change required for improvement on the mra and that was to focus on student sense of belonging they set a

150goal to increase 10 points on this assessment from the previous year going from 58 to 68. throughout the first semester and into second semester students are building skills during their character development time using the leader in me things and all things eq resources along with their identified kids at hope aces students will continue to set goals and engage in leadership opportunities as they get more and more connected to their school environment students are on track to reach this growth goal as identified by this by their student agency goals country place has also set an audaciously bold math goal for effective curriculum to have students in grades three through eight increase in proficiency levels on the state summative double a s a assessment by obtaining students earning proficient and highly proficient to 50 percent using our

151mid-year data from our district math interim assessments third grade is currently on track and fourth or eighth grades are shown as making great progress scores are ranging from 10 percent to 54 proficiency collaborative teams will continue to analyze data and problem solve each essential standard to provide interventions to those students who need additional time on each skill in addition teachers are creating success plans for each student who is not on track and communicating that success plan to families so students can be encouraged to practice math at home using our core resources and dream box supplemental resource we will now move on to review goals from australia vista stem academy through the leadership of principal dr dorazzo the first goal for effective curriculum in both english language arts and math mid-year shows that fourth through eighth

152grade are on track and kindergarten through third grade making progress toward reducing the number of students falling far below on the district's pre to post assessment mid-year data range shows proficiency from 34 to 56 in english language arts and 3 percent to 74 in math the number of students in the falls far below category is decreasing from beginning to middle of the year on an average from 2019 to 2021 data evidence of growth and grade levels and content areas are being celebrated those grade levels or individual students not making growth will have a stronger focus on professional development to support progress monitoring with targeted and specific interventions after school tutoring is also being offered to students needing additional support the second goal of increasing family engagement at school events by 20 is below track since

153the staff has seen a slight decrease with families attending meet the teacher night and parent-teacher conferences there has been an increase in the parent-teacher student association and title one night representation estrella vista will continue to plan events and engage families virtually and in person when mitigation allows topics will include character development and parent view to support our families and community the fine arts academy staff under the direction of principal mr charlie blanton has been working very hard on both their ela and math growth goals and are showing in their current data growth trends as measured by the interim and common formative assessments the goal in english language arts and math is to have at least 60 percent of first or eighth grade students showing an increase in their performance level on the district pre-to post

154assessment first through seventh grade is on track and 8th grade is making progress there have been challenges with consistent staffing in the 8th grade proficiency scores on interim assessments for ela range from 15 percent to 53 percent and for math 16 to 57 there has been an increased commitment to collaborating as grade level teams are unpacking essential standards building common formative assessments aligned to those skills analyzing data on a weekly basis and providing interventions to each child who has identified learning gaps additionally coaching and professional development are being provided to eighth grade as an emphasis on lexile levels within achieve 3000 as well as five lessons a week using our dream box supplemental tool this rigorous work will continue second semester for continuous improvement at fine arts littleton stem academy staff under the leadership of

155principal mr eric attahini have been working in their professional learning communities to design and execute common formative assessments on a daily and a weekly basis around targeted skills in both english language arts and math the goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by educators to improve their teaching and for students to improve their learning teachers have been using a data protocol process called six hats to reflect and discuss results to help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that might need work proficiency major data for ela ranges from 34 to 56 and 24 to 51 percent for math grade levels are on track to meet the 10 increase and first grade will continue to provide targeted interventions to each student in specific ela

156and math skills as you can see for the second goal of differentiated professional development staff are reporting in our frontline survey system that they are satisfied and able to apply new learnings directly to their classroom practice which will also assist in the targeted ela and math growth there is currently an approval rating in the 90th percentile reporting satisfaction of staff staff excuse me with their professional development opportunities being offered quinton stem academy under the leadership of principal dr lonnie fife has placed a heavy emphasis on effective teachers and instruction and effective curriculum through their academic goals in the areas of math and ela the goal of achieving an average mastery score for kindergarten through 8th grades of 60 or greater on our district interim assessments show grade levels on track and below track using the

157mid-year data scores range from 23 to 68 in english language arts with every grade level making growth from the first to the second quarter interim assessment and few percentage points away from the sixty percent goal line in math scores range from eight percent to eighty one percent teachers will continue to identify the needs of each student provide interventions and extensions reflect on their instructional practices and dive and identify strategies to support greater levels of student achievement the second goal of 70 of our kinder of excuse me quentin's kindergarten through eighth grade students achieving benchmark on the fast bridge reading assessment is below track for each grade level at the mid-year point there are individual students showing growth in early literacy skills an action step to achieve this goal has been determined to have all grade

158levels engage with the fast bridge progress monitoring assessments more consistently for the students in the high risk and some risk categories staff will continue to collaborate around progress monitoring data and provide target early literacy interventions lastly trace rio service learning academy staff under the leadership of principal mr steve ricker is on track with her effective leadership goal with 90 or greater of students in second through eighth grades falling into the low risk or some risk categories as measured by by the my sabers character development assessment at this mid-year point with the assessment being administered twice there were 94 and 96 of students and the low risk and some risk categories the staff will continue to review the data to determine not only which students need support but identify their areas of specific need the social

159worker will continue to touch base with these students on a regular basis and form groups as appropriate when a macro level need is identified the staff is also showing on-track performance in math with their daily efforts around utilizing the dream box resource students take an initial placement assessment when starting the program and then it adapts to their optimal learning zone the assessment directs the child's learning path and is constantly assessing and progressing them through that zone to reach grade level or surpass grade level content teachers utilize the dream box predictive insight report and the information available which provides teachers tangible information that they can use to help students make gains from july to december trace rios has achieved an average student growth of over 50 percent over 98 of the students at tres rios are

160logging into the dream box program monthly and only 7 percent have reported no usage in closing research on continuous improvement has shown that leaders play a crucial role in successful continuous improvement efforts it is evident that through tonight's presentation and data our building principles are those leaders successfully incorporating continuous improvement into their work further stakeholder investment and continuous improvement fostered by the inclusion of student teacher community and governing input governing board input increases the likelihood that interventions will succeed the littleton school leadership community team appreciates the partnership with these stakeholder groups in our collective efforts to impacting teaching and learning and student achievement i'm happy to hear any comments the governing board might have or questions that i can answer at this time is there comments or questions uh regarding the updated information no i

161just like to tell liz underwater thank you so much i know there's a lot of work and effort that she and her staff and everybody's gone through to get that to the point and summarize and you know at least in a matter of manner and method that i could easily understand the night so they appreciate it there's some good things going on there and we've still got areas we need to work on so thank you very much appreciate it thank you we appreciate that our teachers and leaders are working very hard other comments or questions i just have one comment and i i just uh to see trace rio's above track is amazing so especially when they state uh second through eight that is commendable so please let them know we appreciate all their hard

162work that is it's been a long time since i've seen everything above track and it deserves special recognition and i am giving that recognition so again thank all the schools for their hard work but that is exceptional as stated in your presentation so thank you very much for that thank you president reyes definitely a celebration definitely um hearing no other questions we'll move on to dr freeman and thank you again for the presentation thank you very much thank you madam president members of the board um this is gotten to be somewhat of a routine item so i'm going to [Music] um [Music] uh have uh just a quick overview of the graphics uh i guess the short uh short summary would be all the metrics for our district and everybody around us are still in

163the red category but what's interesting is um the spike that we have seen one of the people on the county health department webinar said it's not really a spike it looks more like a pick and you'll see that as we look at the next graph which is more longitudinal these graphs are from the start of the school year um the one with the red circles and diamonds are the actual seven week average metrics and you can see them shooting up with the uh spread of omicron and then dropping down the graph next to it is a mathematically equalized trend line using multiple parameters [Music] i'm not that talented the computer does that for us but it smooths out some of those high and low points to kind of show you what the activity has been

164over time if we scroll down a little bit you can see the graph of the data that we've collected since we started doing district level data i think one of the things that's important to point out here is you see where the blue line that's way up high is our district illnesses when it's spiked at 3241 the other blue line that's below that is is kind of hidden by the green lines which are the county and you can see both of those in the last two reports dropping off which is the data just following the martin luther king break so it doesn't quite yet have time to capture anybody who may have been infected over the long weekend but the thing i think that's important is even though it's dropping dramatically is when you look

165at the level of those dots that are on the far right side of the graph they have dropped down to the top of the last spike last january if you look across the left you see uh the high points have been noted on the graph so in bold 1202.8 was last january spike you see in bold about halfway across 46.76 that's when things took off again at the beginning of the school year and then the most recent spike 3241 is almost triple what the high point was now those have dropped a lot but what they've dropped down to is the spike last january we'd like to see those drops more if you scroll down a little further you'll see what the county illness rate is and you see a pattern that's very similar to littleton's

166data um the the first spike we didn't have all of the district zip code level data but you can see uh the spike from last january the bump when school started and the spike in illnesses that pretty much matches our local data ours was just a lot higher than the county and that's been true through most of the pandemic one of the things that we've noted here is omicron now has what's called three sub lineages and b2 is taking over uh uh i guess b is taking over a um so one two and three uh b ba2 is increasing it doesn't seem to be more severe right now uh so we may be on track to um uh get through most of the population with omicron i think people are still concerned about that based

167on the data in denmark it may be more transmissible so if there's people who have any kind of other kind of immune issues or other comorbidities that have avoided the virus so far it may be harder to avoid the county department of public health still strongly recommends mass requirements to get through this surge one of the things they're concerned about is because of the high level of infection there's been a lot of strain on the system i'm sure people have heard about hospitalizations those seem to be lightening up a little bit but at a real high volume it makes it hard for authorities to keep up with contact tracing and keep all of their data timely so they're playing catch up quite a bit and i think as people are aware too there was a

168shortage of some testing resources both lab and over-the-counter maybe even a little price gouging going on there so that's a concern for county health if we look down a little further i oh okay that's the end of our data i don't have the mitigation plan really to walk through but what i wanted to talk to the governing board about is giving this trend we want to kick off our 80 20 campaign again and that is a campaign to get 80 percent of our people vaccinated we've been running vaccination clinics they've been really successful in fact the providers of i think the last team run out of material vaccine material so we're going to try to schedule two a month going forward at least through february and march and then kind of reevaluate to see what

169attendance and demand is but we want to get that campaign uh push back on we've been working with our employee advisory for incentives and they've come up with some really creative ideas that wouldn't ostracize anybody who's in the 20 group and not in the 80 group and we really appreciate that feedback some of the things that we we would ask the board to consider in two weeks when we reconvene is if they want to open up their board meetings again um uh we're really looking seriously if we can get one sports season in uh fourth quarter sports season in if the trend continues um there are some things with cohorting happening in the school where uh groups of students have been restricted from having interactions uh those are some things that we'd want to look

170at right away at the next meeting internal meetings and having consultants back on campus probably in march we might want to look at staff travel and cafeteria seating and things like that these are these are kind of optimistic suggestions and my recommendation really is in keeping with county health let's just stay where we're at and see if this uh trend continues um you know i don't think two weeks is gonna make a lot of difference except that um you know it might keep kids safer at school for a little longer our experience really has been that a lot of the uh exposure and con and coving contraction we're seeing isn't really happening at school but kids who are getting it outside of school are are bringing it in because we have all these mitigation procedures

171in place uh it's not being spread at school i i wish um uh you know just to appeal to the community that when you're in um indoor areas where there's a lot of people some large shopping areas and things like that just try to stay masked and use hand sanitizers and wipes and those kind of things so you're not bringing flu or covet into the schools we're open of course to any suggestions [Music] that the board may have [Music] unless we're going to change the mitigation plan we don't need action but if there's a sense from the board that any of those things i listed we might want to start sooner instead of two weeks from now we're certainly open to us you know suggestions from you as as you have uh uh kind of

172the heartbeat on what your constituents are doing and thinking uh potentially um uh in things that we may not have heard or those kind of things so this is an opportunity for you to discuss that and then that's that's all we have for the rest of the evening so is there discussion comments suggestions on the mitigation uh plan that we currently have in place the income i would have is maybe what dr freeman's already said let's let it ride for two more weeks we seem to have things fairly well knowing what we're doing rather than changing something in the mid stream so my thoughts let's go another two weeks thank you uh any other board member have a comment i would like yes go ahead yeah thank you uh mr president um my only comment

173i'll be super brief is that i i would like to see the school board maybe after our second february meeting go back to in-person meetings i just think it's an important um that you know for our teachers and administrators and students can be in person that the school board can be in person as well so that those that wish to participate in person have that option thank you anyone else um this is amy and i would like to say ditto to mr raider i think that if we're going to ask our teachers and staff to be in person speaking then we should be in person as well um but i don't want to jump too far ahead too quickly um so i think after two weeks if numbers are staying about the same then i

174would like to see that happen and i of course would love to see sports and things like that happen if number nursing kind of i would love for them to be better but at least coming down thank you mrs contreras did you have any feedback i'm just gonna agree as well i think we wait the two weeks and see how things go i'm optimistic that um you know things will you know continue to improve hopefully um but i agree and i wait for two weeks and see how it goes thank you and i'll let go that as well um i think two weeks isn't gonna make or break and so far we're on a great trend and in two weeks we'll see and if we continue absolutely i'm all for opening back up and whatever

175safe manner that means and i do agree it's if we make that we need to be present ourself and uh walking the same walk that we expect so with that dr freeman it sounds like it's it's just basic conversation that it uh was unanimous that we stay on course for two more weeks and then analyze where we need to go with it sounds like everyone's suggesting maybe we open back up a little in in the safest manner one madam president one of the things we can do and i i don't you know i don't know people uh remember all of the staging we did but part of opening up last time was uh we did open the meeting with distancing you remember we didn't have a lot of chairs in there and we required masks

176to attend uh we haven't had a standing room only uh board meeting so you could have a meeting with uh distancing in the audience capping the capacity of the room and requiring masks and i don't think it would create a problem for the board or the community to start kind of that phased opening if that's an interest members have in uh you know trying to be more open accessible to the community i think you can still do that and have a responsible transition we would just need to know that of course to plan um for the seating and having you at the dias or we can wait and do that in march um does the board have a feeling one way or the other or do you want to wait no after the two weeks

177i don't have a problem coming back in two weeks to would you be open to masking and uh you know chair spread apart or do you want to just open back up when we come back in that's i think what he was asking oh no i still i still doing masking i've got other things that i'm concerned with and i'll do that until i feel like i don't need to and they're fine as well thank you anyone else has strong feelings one way or the other this is amy and i feel pretty strongly that if we're asking our teachers and staff to come into work um that we should be there too and i do wholeheartedly agree that we should have masking in as much distancing as we can but i would love to be

178okay thank you any other comments so having said that i also agree i have no problem and i would wear my mask mandated or not i just think for me and other activities i'm involved it's the right thing for me and i do like the distancing it's not like we've had you know standing room only and would have an issue i think we have plenty of room and to spread the chairs out and that just makes good sense so um it sounds like there was no objections everyone kind of had a viewpoint and if they want to wear a mask i mean it's really honestly at that point people can decide you know what's best but i like the distancing if that makes sense and there's room so dr freeman will let that ride at

179that and i i think that was kind of a clear conversation from the board yeah but we'll do that and have that set up appropriately and just to remind anybody who's you know still listening we will still broadcast the meeting like we're doing today so it'll be in a sense a hybrid meaning it'll be board members at the ds mast but we'll still have the same information going out on our youtube channel as we do now thank you very much thank you yeah at this point i will call for a motion for adjournment at 8 53. this is amy and i move that we adjourn okay is there a second this is curtis all seconded thank you so at this point meeting is adjourned at 8 53 and thank you so much all in favor

180you oh yeah i dare you to say nay i heard no names so we are dismissed thank you thank you everybody have a good night everybody