Littleton Elementary School District Board Meeting 3/9/2021

001everybody's here i'd like to go ahead and call a meeting to order for our meeting tonight march the 9th leader would you take roll call please sure mr president mr nelson here mrs contreras here mrs reyes here mr raider here mrs sessionic here thank you so very much if we could uh take a minute and uh pledge allegiance those of you who have got flags there and would like to stand please do so we'll stand here thank you so much i'd like to go ahead and take a moment of silence here i thought tonight would just be again with those teachers administrators throughout our district as well as other places that are working so diligently to get things put together so that we might be able to have a safe place for our kids and

002our teachers to come and be all right next item board member statement any of the members of the board have statements you'd like to share with us tonight i would this is amy please go ahead um i had the privilege of being able to tour the district science fair because of course it was held virtually um and i just want to thank all of the teachers and especially the students who paint so much work into looking at all those science and to making over science fair projects as a middle school science teacher myself i know all the hard work that goes into it and then this year i had one as parents with my own kids so i got to feel it from both sides and i know that there's a lot of time ever

003put into it i just want to applaud all of our students they did such an amazing job but i also recognized evelyn from littleton elementary who got second place at the west valley impact science fair and so that was all of the west valley entertain the rest and she got set up for her grade level so yay evelyn and littleton l stem and then i also was able to do some google meets for the littleton elementary cultural fair on the 25th and that was really great to get to hear um all the students talking about their cultures and what's important to them that's all i have thank you the others i guess one i'd like to just be appreciative to all of those who participated in the digital learning uh efforts a couple of weeks

004ago i got to participate it of course by digital means it was really good i enjoyed that and the reports that were there presented and then uh for read to read across america reading whatever it was had an opportunity to read books on a video camera and the city took those and put those all into pieces so city council ended up reading a book and it was in segments of who was able to read so i thought that was really kind of fun and all the other things they put it up on youtube so you can go look at it now if there's no other things uh dr freeman would you like to share your report with us you bet thank you mr president sure i mike is on okay well good evening everyone buenas

005tardis of totos it was one year ago i was here sharing with you the news about the impact of the pandemic on our school district and it was then that the governor first conceded the need to suspend coming into schools i shared with everybody that we were working around the clock to address the district logistical challenges and to continue instruction nutritional programs and daily operations of our district including our efforts to protect the health and safety of our students and staff our commitment to expanding the use of technology for instructional and operational purposes and one year later programs and practices are in place so that remote and hybrid learning are no longer new to staff and students and they are adapting to new routines and while we are admittedly far from perfect i am very

006proud of how far we've come as a district today i'm encouraged that now we're planning to reinvite the return of students to our campuses and as you know our plan for the return to in-person instruction after spring break gave us a good head start on the governor's surprise executive order to bring kids back into our schools will be emerging on the other side of the pandemic stronger than before with more resources in place for digital learning with expanded knowledge of technology applications uh with better preparation for a variety of operational scenarios we are not out of the pandemic yet new variants and people letting their guard down over spring breaks threaten increased illnesses so we will continue to prioritize safety this year expanded emotional supports in our curriculum we pivoted on sports to keep healthy

007competition we held the first ever virtual spelling bees and we just finished up our annual science and engineering fair as ms sauce nick mentioned we recently held reading celebrations across our schools as mr nielsen mentioned all of our schools had guest readers joined virtually for read across america i had fun reading the monster at the end of the book to miss iris first graders from country place other activities at that school included read aloud with scavenger hunt drawing doctors characters and doing dr seuss origami at australia vista stem there were reading bingo games for daily prize drawings and a daily bitmoji library with over 30 guest readers over at the littleton stem academy the casa adaptive cross cat and preschool programs experienced an in-person vip reader clinton stem literacy committee ran a month-long reading contest

008students used the flip grid to provide a summary of a book they read and those with the most books read won prizes donated by the pta students at littleton stem academy also had their first ever virtual student culture showcase students created projects that celebrated their diversity and cultures and presented them to the community they had a really positive turnout from staff students and community members and um wanted to express their thanks to ms sousnick for joining the event as she mentioned in her comments on friday but not friday i'm sorry on february 25th the littleton district celebrated the seventh annual digital learning day and we received a lot of positive feedback including from mr nielsen just now on the amazing work of our teachers and students special thanks to the it department mr verrill and

009ms vasquez for all the digital learning leaders ms jimenez mr short the skirvic miss uh krausen mr mccormick miss hudson and miss pitcher i'd also like to thank mr nielsen for joining in the event he's been pretty much i think a loyal digital learning day supporter all seven years and for those of you who missed it i invite you to visit the events website and watch the videos those links can be found on the littleton district google site the winners of this year's west side impact science and engineering fair been announced and i'm excited that littleton had four winners the rubber band car project from country place leadership academy won first place in the k2 category healthy choice lifestyle website from clinton stem academy also placed first in the third to fourth grade category the

010hand sanitizer project also from quinton place second in the seventh and eighth grade category and lastly how far will a balloon car travel from collier elementary placed third in the fifth to sixth grade category so we're proud of all of them congratulations are also in order for miss robinson our instructional specialist for exceptional students in early learning who was awarded the outstanding leadership award at the annual council for exceptional children's conference last month this award is given to a person who's demonstrated outstanding leadership and supporting special education and or inclusive practices miss robinson exemplifies those qualities and we're really proud of her in closing i'd like to thank ken osborne with the straya rotary club for their donation of 12 chromebooks the littleton students to twyla mark crum with stardust building supply for their donation

011of one thousand eight hundred dollars in school supplies and uh ronnie cotter with uh sworkit youth initiative for their donation of a fitness app valued at fifty seven thousand dollars to benefit students staff and families at clinton stem life and health sciences academy and that's all i have this evening thank you so much dr freeman appreciate that uh mrs underwater are you out there somewhere hiding them i am president nielsen members of the governing board dr freeman i am excited to present to you our program showcase for this evening tonight littleton stem academy will showcase the verizon innovative learning grant that they were awarded verizon has been working to help foster digital inclusion through a transformative education program called verizon innovative learning it's a key part of their goal to help move the world forward

012for all through their citizen verizon plan littleton students have access to technology and quality stem education through verizon innovative learning and in partnership with littleton stem they are turning belief into action by helping students achieve learn and create more with internet access technology devices and innovative next generation technology infused lessons principal of littleton stem academy mr eric atohany sends his regards and his regrets that he could not be here with us this evening he had the opportunity this evening to see his senior high school age daughter play in a basketball championship game in mr atahini's absence we welcome assistant principal miss samantha armstrong and stem teacher as well as a student who have created a video to share about the new technology their school has received and also about the immersive media project the 7th

013grade students are creating throughout this project students have been using the design thinking process to create a virtual reality awareness campaign about ocean plastic pollution ms armstrong welcome thank you ms vanderwater good evening mr president members of the board dr freeman and executive team we are pleased to be here to share with you our showcase for littleton stem academy i will go ahead and turn this over to miss mullins our computer science teacher he will go ahead and present our showcase to give you insight as to what our students are doing with the verizon grant thank you miss mullins thank you ms armstrong thank you president nielsen members of the board dr freeman and the executive team as ms armstrong mentioned my name is miss mullins and i'm the computer science teacher at littleton stem

014academy this year has brought many challenges with online learning but it's also brought many opportunities for students to learn and create using digital tools at littleton stem academy we strive to show our students that you can use computer science and creativity to solve issues in our world today please enjoy this video my seventh graders and i created it showcases the work they've been doing with the immersive media grant that we've received this year through verizon and asu [Music] my name is abigail martinez-rojas and i am a 7th grader at littleton stem academy of computer science i will be sharing with you about a project we have been working on with our computer science teacher miss mullins our school has been awarded a grant from verizon and asu called the verizon verizon innovative learning grants there

015are 264 schools participating in this program nationwide the pro the program aims to empower us to change the world by using emerging technology design thinking and social innovation this grant has provided our school with over four thousand dollars worth of new technology such as samsung smartphones vr headsets 360 degree degree cameras sd cards access to websites where we can create immersive media projects and even an entire curriculum to follow here is some background information about how we created this project we are using the design thinking process and started out by empathizing with our audience and defining a problem the project in our curriculum that we chose is centered around the united nations sustainable development goal number 14. conserve and sustainably use the oceans seas and marine resources we want to educate our schooling community about

016plastic in the ocean and why it is such a problem the next step in the design thinking process is to idea and create a prototype we are using a website called thinglink to create a virtual reality presentation using 360 degree photos and interactive information we are not fully finished with the project but i will share with you what i have so far i chose this 360 image because it has lots of fish in the ocean and plastic pollution harms many types of marine life my information is organized using interactive tags for example any tag that is a green question mark has pictures and facts as well as things you can do to help prevent plastic from getting in the ocean and any tag that is a red play button has videos with more information on

017the issue and what you can do to help if you were to open this project on your phone you could turn on vr mode and put on a vr headset to make you feel like you are right there swimming with the fish that is everything i have so far for my prototype the last step in the design thinking process is to test and share we plan to create posters to tell students and the community how they can access our projects we are going to make both digital and paper versions so we can hang them up if we return to campus i'm so thankful to have this opportunity to learn about new technology and how to use it here are a few students who will talk about their experience with this project it was really exciting

018and you know taking up on like this whole project with my peers and since you know it brought like a whole bunch of people together just to collab on one thing that you know can change the way people think about the ocean and on how the perspective like on how there's so much trash and how we can all just you know clean it up you know clean up the ocean and you know it will like grasp the attention of you know the little kids once they're learning about like the ocean and like how like the ocean affect their lives every day and they'll like end up growing up and like oh yeah i'm gonna do this so it will you know affect the younger and the younger generation excited to do it because i watched

019started watching this guy eddie vr and his friends i got into it and i thought maybe i should try trying something new since i haven't been trying much new stuff so i decided to try it it was really fun and i thought it was really good that this brought a lot of students together and they were all collaborating talking and all that and i'm really happy about doing this vr and can't wait to see how it's like when we're officially done with it so that way maybe i could try it out and i'm hoping that in the future i could just do vr as a career [Music] thank you for watching and learning about this cool project we are creating at littleton stem academy president nielsen members of the board dr freeman and the executive

020team as you saw in the video my students are using the design thinking process which is something computer scientists use daily to understand the users want to meet even though this specific set of students are not currently writing code as this project is evolving students have practiced skills like perseverance and problem solving to make their virtual reality presentation work exactly as intended these skills are essential for students when seeking out careers in computer science just like daniel in the video many of my students have expressed interest in careers that use software engineering to create video games and other immersive online content other grade levels in our school have been writing code using block coding and javascript to create graphics and animations that telesport my seventh graders are really looking forward to fourth quarter when we

021will get to test out the cameras phones and the vr headsets to understand how they communicate with each other to create this immersive experience for the user i appreciate this opportunity to showcase the exciting things happening at littleton cemetery do you have any questions any of the members of the board have any questions i'd like to direct ms mullins no but thank you i don't know what question i just have a comment when i first started learning programming last century we had all these cards that you had to put together put them through a card reader and put them out hopefully the program came out well and these kids have got things they can put together and i mean we didn't even dream of having visual effects or anything else like that it's great i'm

022very grateful for all the work that they're doing thank you [Music] thank you miss armstrong and miss mullens we appreciate it thanks especially to your students thank you yep tell the students thank you so much as well i will thank you all right item number eight is call to the public then let me just remind you that according to the arizona open meeting law any matter brought before the board by members of the audience may not be acted upon at this meeting the governing board appreciates constituent participation and ask that attendees either email public participation comments for the board secretary at board secretary littleton az.org right at the beginning of the meeting uh aydah do we have any that we'd like to review tonight yes mr president member superintendent we have a call to the

023public from michaela sirwinsk she is a teacher at collier elementary she's representing herself members of the board while i understand that our returning is no longer a decision for you to make i would like to provide a following statement for you and all district staff members to hear with the availability of a bakes of a vaccine and are returning to campus i have the impression that many staff members think we are back to normalcy that the pandemic is over and we can proceed business as usual i would like to emphasize that this is not the case and that you still have a professional and ethical duty to act responsibly on campus our community still falls under the category of substantial spread with over 200 cases per 100 000 people and 15 positivity these numbers are

024higher than when we first shut down campuses one year ago what we as staff members have been given the opportunity to be vaccinated the cdc still recommends taking part in mitigation behaviors such as properly wearing a mask social distancing and practicing hand hygiene it is also important that we work diligently to enforce these behaviors without students on campus as they and their families may have not had the opportunity to be vaccinated like we have being a school district that serves students who are predominantly from low income and or minority backgrounds these mitigation efforts are even more vital studies have shown that children from low income and minority backgrounds disproportionately experience hospitalization and chronic health effects from covet 19 source i ask that staff members takes take this into consideration when they choose how to conduct

025themselves regarding mitigation behaviors on campus regardless of your beliefs about the virus the choices you make will not only affect you but would also affect others i will hope that experiencing the moderate discomfort of wearing a mask over our noses is something that we all are willing to endure if it means that we do not have students ending their school year on a ventilator while we create normalcy in our classrooms through hugs group activities and close social contact i hope the sacrifice of short-term disappointment is one we are willing to make to avoid long-term grief when a student dies from kobe 19 due to the responsibility of an adult they trusted at school understand that if you are choosing to be negligent when we return you are not only making the decision for yourself but

026those who share campus with you thank you aydah i appreciate that and thank you for the information here provided [Music] next item number nine the consent agenda are there any members of the board that would like to pull any of the items in the consent agenda this evening if not may have a motion to accept this is amy and it is that the governing board approved the item submitted submitted for consent agenda this is kathy all second thank you very much appreciate that mr nelson hi mrs contreras aye mr rader hi mrs reyes hi mrs sasha hi thank you so much item number 10 miss underwater back to you student agency equity and social emotional learning for discussion here tonight president nielsen members of the governing board dr freeman in this evening's presentation information will

027be shared with the governing board and the littleton community about littleton's intentional professional practices on key concepts mindsets and evidence-based processes to force to foster culturally responsive teaching and learning within our school and organizational environments and the work we continue to collaboratively engage in to enhance our systems and practices additionally information will be shared on the student agency committee's yearly work to enhance our multi-tiered system of supports for social emotional learning and our continued approach to developing educators cultural competence and efficacy in achieving equitable outcomes for all of our students at the end of this presentation we welcome the governing board's feedback and comments social and emotional learning sel enhances students capacity to integrate skills attitudes and behaviors to deal effectively and ethically with daily tasks and challenges the littleton elementary school district recognizes the

028value and importance of supporting students academic social and emotional learning as well as the sel of educators and our community the littleton school district believes that social and emotional learning will positively affect all students as empowered problem solvers equipped with the agency to be successful in the cognitive social and emotional aspects of their life next slide please in order to lead happy and productive lives it's critical that people understand themselves and master a variety of other crucial skills attitudes and mindsets these include forming healthy relationships collaborating effectively managing stress and conflict pursuing ethical solutions to problems addressing implicit bias advocating for themselves and others and empathizing with others we know that from collaborating with leaders and educators around current research that these attitudes and skills can be explicitly taught learned and practiced research tells us

029that students are more successful in schools and daily life when they know and can manage themselves understand the perspectives of others and relate effectively with them and make sound choices about personal and social decisions if we want students to cultivate these skills attitudes and mindsets in their lives then sel must be part of every child's educational experience next slide please the littleton student agency committee is made up this year of 34 staff members including an executive director district directors site administrators and educators representing all seven of our schools it is the goal of the student agency committee that we identify ways in which equity and social emotional and academic development can be mutually reinforcing to accomplish this required our committee to examine current practices collaborate around adding additional practices and engage in discussions around issues

030of equity directly the committee has established an alignment with the arizona department of education that the collaborative for academic social and emotional learning otherwise called castle definition of transformative sel should be a common definition in all of our seven soon to become eight schools we we believe that social and emotional learning is a process whereby students and teachers build strong lasting and respectful relationships founded on the application of similarities and differences the examination of the root causes of inequity and the development of collaborative solutions to community and social problems the academic social and emotional learning competencies with equity elaborations for adults and students in preschool through eighth grade focus on a set of social emotional behavioral and character competencies that support success in school relationships and within the community these competencies are interrelated and include

031self-awareness social awareness relationship skills self-management and responsible decision-making the purpose of these competencies is to provide our school districts schools families and communities who partner with us a set of desired knowledge skills and behaviors that are used to implement social emotional learning within our schools and classrooms and intentionally integrate within our preschool through 8th grade content areas littleton recognizes that these competencies benefit all students in an educational system as well as all the students as part of the system this year we provided an overview training to school employees on the castle competencies and are collaborating around a plan to embed professional learning within our new teacher orientation and yearly staff plan for fy2122 and all future school years next slide please systemic implementation of sel both fosters and depends upon an equitable learning environment where

032all students and adults feel respected valued and affirmed in their individual interests talents social identities cultural values and backgrounds while sdl alone will not solve long-standing and deep-seated inequities in an educational system it can help schools promote understanding examine biases reflect on and address the impact of racism build cross-cultural relationships and cultivate adult and student practices that close opportunity gaps and create a more inclusive school community in doing so schools can promote high quality educational opportunities and outcomes for all students irrespective of race social economic status gender sexual orientation and other differences equity in education requires a physically and emotionally safe and positive school climate for all students building strong social and emotional company competencies for both teachers and students can play a key role in ensuring this educational equity littleton school district leaders and

033educators have been collaborating around our equitable practices next slide please early in the school year our littleton governing board adopted a resolution for the district to commit to engage in activities to create greater awareness of bias and elimination of systemic racism and racist behaviors by supporting resources aligned to these practices engaging in trainings implementing sel practices in our classrooms collaborating around data having open conversations and enhancing our practices to have a greater awareness and elimination of bias and to maintain healthy school cultures and student-staff relationships i would like to share a few ways that the littleton school district has fulfilled and will continue to engage in this resolution in this resolution in just a short amount of time next slide please one of the ways that our district has been engaging in these collaborative conversations

034and using data we have available is with our arizona state university partnership with their decision theater the decision theater has helped us to organize our littleton leadership community and asu researchers to better understand and explore solutions to complex issues facing equity in education using data analytics and high-performance computing models the decision theater takes our littleton data and transforms it into interactive data visualize visualizations for our leaders to engage in collaborative conversations around these topics our leaders in partnership with asu researchers have and plan to continue to collaborate between different domains and indicators and the in the pursuit of comprehensive useful data-driven models that will help us build shared understanding and perspectives as you can see on the slide we have already collaborated around equity and school readiness student achievement self-regulation attendance attainment of grade level

035skills and segregation based on ses and racial composition these conversations allow for our leaders to examine practices and adjust implementation according to findings and decisions made next slide please arizona education foundation's new our world our schools program is a groundbreaking initiative that provides training and workshops on anti-racism equity diversity and inclusion for educators the training is designed and facilitated by arizona teachers of the year and higher education partners our world is a response to call for societal justice and reform around anti-racism it was created to assist school districts with fulfilling commitments they made to adopt more equitable practices in response to our governing board's resolution and our continued efforts to collaborate engage and improve practices around these topics this spring our school and district leadership psychologists and social workers will participate in this three-hour introductory

036workshop which will provide a foundational understanding of anti-racism and the historical constructs that sometimes lead to misunderstanding we are committed to engaging professionals in equity diversity and inclusion training anti-racism goes beyond that to delve deeper into bias the meaning of privilege and common misconceptions people often knowingly exhibit our participants will learn ways to immediately begin incorporating classroom and school-wide practices that build connections with students we are excited about this training this spring next slide please our very own katie weisner school psychologist at littleton stem academy recently presented to the staff at littleton and again at the innovations and education conference on how to recognize implicit bias in ourselves and the educational institutions we work her presentation was so powerful that we have asked to present asked her to present this spring to our all administrative

037group and as we plan our pd schedule for next year we plan to work in the training for additional stakeholder teams the training focuses on implicit bias how it is formed how it impacts staff and students and how we can address it data is used to illustrate the crucial conversations and professional organizations call to actions and explained in alignment with our governing board's resolution to continuously learn and examine our own biases systematic inequities and practices to that develop a culture that honors equity inclusion and diversity we are looking forward to this training this spring next slide please some of the most common frameworks for organizing student supports are called a multi-tiered system of supports otherwise known as mtss when schoolwide sel is implemented it impacts the impact is felt on both sides of this multi-tiered

038system of support framework this happens because social and emotional competence is essential for all kinds of learning whether a student is learning behavioral expectations exploring how to how to partner with another student how to solve a math problem mastering how to join a game of kickball on the playground or practicing taking the perspective of a character in a story when all students have opportunities to develop and practice social and emotional skills mindsets and attitudes students are empowered and the demands of school and life become easier to navigate school-wide sdl then is neither solely a behavior support nor solely in academic support but positively influences both sides of the multi-tiered system of support framework with the collaboration of the student agency committee this year teacher feedback survey data and our very own superintendent's advisory council feedback

039we have developed a framework of tiered sel support for both educators and students many of its components are in place already in littleton and highly effective such as our make your day program kids at hope philosophy support of our four social workers student agency goal setting in every classroom and monitoring and social emotional learning time embedded in the school schedule next slide please we did learn that there was a need for a supplemental resource to support this sel work the student agency committee in alignment with the educational services process engaged in reviewing a few supportive resources that our educators could use for this sel time in june when we bring our district's supplemental resource list to the governing board you will see a resource called all things eq as an added support for our educators

040all things eq collaborates with schools forming a genuine partnership with teachers students parents and staff this model creates a sustainable social emotional learning program and engages students and families in a weekly theme with topics that may that range from mindset to grit all things eq integrates effortlessly with what we are already doing and will enhance the systematic approach we take as a district to social emotional learning and the castle competencies next slide please developing social and emotional skills in littleton students is an important part of meeting the needs of the whole child another critical piece to meeting the needs of the whole child is creating trauma-informed social and emotional learning practices implemented with all within all of our classrooms and schools adults need social emotional competencies to be able to foster a safe environment so

041that children feel supported and can thrive to be able to recognize when someone is experiencing an emotion or not feeling safe to have and to use good listening skills and to understand other people's perspectives to see as best they can through the eyes of a child to approach children with empathy and understanding validating feelings and behavior and building authentic relationships with the students we serve in our district we are committed to providing professional development for our educators in the area of castle competencies social emotional learning curriculum equity practices and supporting student sel so that we can help ensure all children will cultivate healthy behaviors and have opportunities to thrive in the face of any difficulty or hardship they might face last slide please we are happy to hear any comments or feedback that the board

042might have in the direction we are heading with social emotional learning student agency and equity around the governing board's resolution that was provided to us thank you thank you so much mr water absolutely yeah any other board members have any questions or comments they'd like to present at this time please don go ahead thank you mr president um i just wanted to know how supportive i am of this effort it is so vitally important that our staff and administrators understand the role of implicit biases we're thinking about things like disciplinary actions and the ability to incorporate that comprehensively with our students and engage them in conversations about equity and implicit bias i think is so so important and so wonderful and the trauma informed component i think is also very important as we think about

043adverse childhood experiences and what some of our students have probably experienced with their home life and making sure that our teachers understand that as their as they're connecting with our students i think is vital so um couldn't be more supportive of this effort and i really applaud the administration for moving the ball forward on this and and i'm miss stander water for all your efforts and just a quick shout out to our social workers i had some interactions with them recently and i can tell you that we've got an amazing team that is just doing just awesome work for our students so again thank you president nielsen member raider thank you so much for those comments of support we appreciate it any other of you have any comments and questions president nelson this is um

044sarah i just want to again echo what mr raider stated i just think this is such a crucial component for our students especially right now when they're going to be you know transitioning back into school i mean this past year has been um such a traumatic year for some of our students and so again i just want to thank you and applaud you and uh and and the district's leadership for putting this into play president nielsen member contreras thank you thank you thank you so much i guess the only comment i can add is what's already been said there i i looked at your last second or third flight right there christian about learning is a social and emotional thing as well i think too many times we go to school and i probably guilty

045other two go to school look at the book and try to learn something and get out and forget that there's other aspects another part of that and i'm grateful that you've addressed those things they know from my background i've always been taught if you teach correct principles they'll learn how to govern themselves so if we work and teach these young people that some of these things that we see and patty and i were talking about this this morning you know there's got to be somewhere in a in this circle or this chain or whatever it is goes round and round where somebody's got to break out of it you just can't keep going round and round and round doing the same thing again and again and i see that this is you know really great

046really good as to what what you're planning on doing here getting it up to the teachers teachers to the students and it will make a difference we might not see it this year or next year but we will see it and be able to reflect back upon the time when you know the kids kids weren't able to come to school i know i've got kids up in reno a sixth grader he said you know mom i like the computer but i want to go back and be with my friends so this is great thank you so much for all your them thank you president nielsen we believe we've designed a plan um moving forward that's proactive not necessarily reactive great thank you so much this is kathy i'm not going to dwell on everything that's

047great's been said i just want to say thank you as well thank you member reyes if there's no other comments on that one again thank you so much for your work uh mr french are you out there somewhere you can review with us annual audit for some information i am here um and i do know that there are multiple items on this or multiple attachments to this item so i'm just going to make sure that we get the right one pulled up so sue yeah march 21 there we go okay fantastic well president nielsen members of the governing board dr freeman and littleton community uh this evening i'd like to highlight the annual financial audit that was recently completed for fiscal year 2019 2020. assuming go ahead and next slide ars 15 914 requires that

048any governing board of a school district that has adopted an expenditure budget of 2 million or more for the maintenance and operations fund shall contract for an annual financial statements audit in addition any entity that expends 750 000 or more federal assistance must be reviewed by a single audit as directed by omb circular a133 both the financial statement audit and the single audit are performed each year by an independent audit firm we use the firm heinfield meeting company the audits we are reviewing tonight are for fiscal year beginning july to july 1st 2019 and ending june 30th we have three parts to review of the audit the comprehensive annual financial report the single audit and the usfr compliance review i'd like to start with the comprehensive annual financial report this is for fiscal year ending

049june 30th 2000 or 2020. kafir is a set of financial statements that comprises the financial report of the district that complies with the accounting requirements published by the governmental accounting standards board the electronic document attached to this item for your review is 159 pages i would like to highlight the major points of this report this evening and then allow you to review the report in its entirety at your own pace the most descriptive portion of the kafir are from pages 17 through 26 and it's called the management's discussion and analysis or the mdna this is a narrative overview of the financial activities of the district for fiscal year 1920. this section reviews the financial highlights for of the year following that on pages 29 through 62 are the actual financial statements and the narrative notes

050to those financial statements the final section i'd like to highlight begins on page 121 and it's the statistical section where financial trends revenue and debt capacity can be evaluated as well as demographic and economic information that that report on the environment of our district to help make comparisons with other school districts the kafir is also the document that the auditors submit on the district's behalf to be considered for financial reporting awards next page too for the past 13 consecutive years littleton elementary school district has received both the certificate of excellence and financial reporting as awarded by international asbo association and the certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting as awarded by government finance officers association as quoted by the letter of notice from gfoa the certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition

051in the area of governmental accounting and financial reporting and its attainment represents the significant accomplishment by a government and its management next slide please turning to the single audit reporting package i recommend reviewing page 8. this is where you would find a summary of the types of report of the type of report issued any non-compliance or weaknesses revealed as well as specific federal funds reviewed for both financial statements and federal awards the district was found to have no significant deficiencies identified and no material weaknesses in regards to compliance in addition there were no instances of material and compliance identified the type of auditor's report is listed as unmodified and an auditor issues an unmodified audit opinion when the financial statements give a true and fair view and the organization has operated in accordance with all

052applicable financial reporting requirements you will also see on this page where littleton elementary school district is identified as a low-risk oddity the specific federal funds that we were reviewed for this fiscal year was a child nutrition cluster next page the last report that we have to review is a usfr compliance questionnaire to assist the office of the auditor general in determining whether a district has attained an acceptable degree of compliance with the requirements of the usfr the audit firm must complete a usfr compliance questionnaire once the once the usfr questionnaire is completed it reveals any areas of deficiency the usfr compliance questionnaire is 31 pages comprising of 18 sections with a number of questions per section ranging from 2 to 45 with a total of 176 questions that are written so that a positive response

053is desired which means if they're all yes no questions any no's need explanations and are considered a deficiency through the completion of the usfr questionnaire the audit firm identified four sections with an overall total of six notes for this fiscal year these items are identified as a no answer on the questionnaire no finding or deficiency is taken lightly and we will continue to use them as a learning opportunity to work towards full compliance next slide please usfr deficiencies as noted on the last slide littleton elementary was given six notes or deficiencies of the 176 specific areas that were reviewed the slide you are looking at now shows the average school district annual deficiencies as recorded for heinfield meech and company clients you can see in comparison to previous year littleton continues to be well below

054the average findings of districts statewide whose past two-year average was 19 per year next slide please sue copies of each of the audit reports discussed tonight are available electronically in your packet or and hard copies are available upon request through the superintendent's office with that i'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have this is kathy i just want to thank you uh coming out as clean as this isn't an audit is not easy so congratulations remember reyes i appreciate that thank you and i appreciate you speaking up there kathy i can never find my mute button so please just go ahead any of those i have any comments i i thought i too appreciative i mean 13 years with both these awards is amazing and then the number of the notes if

055there are that many just hardly even you know a percentage of it so again thank you and all those others have put so much effort with this over the years to make sure that we are above board with all the financials we have in the littleton school district thank you if there's no other questions on that mr french would you like to go ahead and take care of the next item number 12 which is the request for proposal for auditing services yes thank you president nielsen this item does not have a presentation attached to it um back in on december 8th of 2020 the governing board approved the release of an rfp for auditing services upon release the notice of solicitation was sent to 31 vendors of record out of the 31 vendors four responses

056were received once the responses were received an evaluation committee reviewed the submissions and scored them based on a criteria set forth in the proposal of the four vendors that responded to the uh to the rfp2 were competitive this evaluation the evaluation committee scored heinfield meech and company the highest of the four with 898 points of a possible 1000. this evening we are recommending awarding rfp number 21-001-26 to heinfield meech and company this contract when approved will be for the current fiscal year with the option of four annual renewals through fiscal year 25. i would be happy to answer any questions that you have any questions on the information mr prince has presented to us tonight yeah mr president please john thank you very much mr president uh mr french how long have we been with

057heinfield meech as our auditor uh member raider i don't have that information in front of me i'd be happy to gather it for you um i do know that heimfield and meech works with many of the school districts here in the state um i can grab i can gather that information for you no i was just um maybe this turns into more of just a general statement is actually following up on that is there any value i know that there's a limited number of these types of firms that do this work and to your point it sounds like heinfeld does a lot of the different districts but do you think there's any value in occasionally switching up the auditing firm so you have let's say a fresh set of eyes taking a look at your

058your books if you will yeah member raider i appreciate the question we do look at that as wit in part of the criteria part of the criteria that we look at is familiarity with arizona school districts we look at reviews provided by arizona school districts we want to make sure that two of the auditing firms that responded were from out of state and that that brings up some concern that some of the rules and regulations that they may be used to in either california or new mexico aren't the same as arizona we did have two audit firms that were local that and those were the two that were competitive but we looked at a number of different criteria to determine who we would um award to in this situation does that answer your question there

059john and he can look that up and we can get back quick you can get back with this one yeah no thank you mr president thank you mr french um certainly i understand this went through an rfp process so you know we we have to honor that process and they were received the highest bid i'm just kind of curious i think i asked this question actually five years ago um as we were with them just kind of with the general idea that maybe a fresh set of eyes is good but i do understand the limitations and the number of firms and that they they did score the highest so certainly support the proposal just uh more of a general comment um than anything remember raider just to let you know they they do have different

060staff on our audit um each fiscal year to avoid any uh perceptions of uh to to ensure that their their independence no thank you thank you very much mr french if there's no other questions can we have a motion board to approve this contract for auditing services behind the film each this is mr aderoll second thank you all nielsen hi mrs contreras aye mr rader aye mrs reyes aye mrs sasha nick thank you so much next item dr freeman the result of the bond survey that went out you'd like to review that with us thank you mr president members of the board so what you see on the screen scrolling is a text that went out on the survey we had good participation from staff and from parents very limited responses from the community that

061was solicited just through the website and so people were looking for that um what we did is give you a rating of um actually the software the surveymonkey software did a rating where they took um people's first second third fourth fifth and six ratings and assigned a numerical value to that that's a ranking of one through twelve on their scoring and then we've given you the percent of respondents that chose either extremely important or very important so they picked the top two categories versus the lower two categories and for the presentation tonight we've ranked them from the highest rating to the lowest so we'll just uh scroll through here uh slowly student technology and then um a little description of that at mr raider's request from the last meeting to help people uh understand what

062they were responding to then school air sterilization and ventilation those were the two top rated options you can see 90 or greater and then a 9.3 or uh greater than 10 rating uh the next four are grouped together a little bit lower and so uh solar did pretty good at reduced energy costs rating 5.8 and 68 percent renovating maintenance facilities with 68 and 5.8 so that's still two-thirds in modernizing maintaining modern things in school sites was pretty close to that as well at 65. um its rating is uh its percent um in the first two categories is a little lower and its rating is a little lower the lowest rated response was completion of a new school at uh 54 and a rating of 5.3 and then we put the estimated range of cost for

063those on this chart just to inform the community and the board of what we were looking at as we analyzed the results uh the conclusion we drew was that when we asked teachers and parents about what was most important uh they picked the things that were most important right now immediately in front of them and uh providing for new school space a couple of years from now isn't a high priority for the people who are in school and working with technology and concerned about circulation and there and those things right now i think um as the management team of the school district and the governance body uh here of members of the board um need to look further out in the time horizon to plan in advance but it certainly is informative and we thought

064because we have more than 50 percent in all of those areas and um uh we're um we're really not thinking it's in the district's interest to build only uh three-quarters of a school at alamar that all of those have some support from the community what we've done is worked with the bond council and the bond bankers at stifle to put together potential language that encapsulates of these responses and um uh similar to the language you that was used by tolleson union um for the board's information we think tolleson union and pendergast will both have bond questions on the ballot in november um so if the board elects to do that in an upcoming meeting we would be another district um electing to be on the ballot in november i think by the discussion we had

065at the last meeting you know concerns about how things are going economically i'm going to talk a little bit more in the legislative update about revenues in arizona and i think most people are aware that the pandemic has impacted people very differently some very harshly and some not so much but our legislature is contemplating a billion dollar tax cut to arizonans and so i think if the trend continues with the pandemic that we open reopen our doors to the community fourth quarter and next year businesses reopen that there's a potential that things will be looking up in the fall uh what we would suggest if we want to move forward with this and that'll be based on some discussion and direction of members of the board tonight if you want us to bring back the

066financial modeling at the next meeting would be non-administrative purposes that's basically schools and students and administrative purposes is basically central office we would have supplying and upgrading student technology including furniture and equipment which was survey option one at 1.4 million uh that's over the whole life of the bond that's not not in the first year and then improvements such as school ventilation sterilization renovation expansion of facilities building grounds and um uh my screen is blocked a little bit by um by the zoom but you can see that that survey options two three five and six at a total of eight point five five million and then improvements such as school ventilization and sterilization renovation basically it's the same language but it's only 1.45 million for uh administrative purposes for um our guys in maintenance to

067improve that facility uh that historic maintenance facility that's over on the littleton campus and um what we've done is we took the range and we took a pretty conservative middle of the road amount i think that adds up to um uh maybe about 11 and three quarter million if memory serves me right what we were estimating uh from our work with stifle and the bond council was um that if we did 15 million um the tax rate would go from a dollar seven to a dollar fifteen so that would have been an eight cent increase at 12 million a dollar seven to a dollar eleven that would be four census less than a nickel at 9 million would only be a penny and so we were trying to get under 12 million with our projection

068uh to maybe get down to just uh three cents on the tax rate for adding uh another bond and that's i think based on two sales the way they're modeling it now so the question for us tonight and um it is for just some direction for the administration not for action so there doesn't need to be a vote but if the board feels like we should continue to pursue this and have um the bond company come and do a presentation to the board in april about what the financial impact might be or if the feeling of the board is you know these aren't as important at this time or they're important but you'd like us to look for another way to handle it so mr president if you could just kind of i mean aside

069from comments of members whether we should move forward with inviting the stifle finance people to the next meeting thank you dr freeman i appreciate that information any additional comments thoughts you've got this evening on what dr freeman's presented to us here this is amy um ventilation system sterilization things are becoming more and more important especially as it doesn't look like um kovid's going away anytime soon so i would be personally interested in learning more from um the company and their name just left my head um i'm looking into going out for a bond because i think eventually we're gonna have to have that conversation this is kathy i i i'm not so sure uh i'm not saying we should or we shouldn't i think right now it's it's hard to just to yes we we're

070gonna have to build a new school and yes ventilation but you know you if you set a bond the goal is to help have it pass because people tend to remember more when it doesn't than when it does um i think timing is everything no matter what you're presenting and i'm not sure um i i'm okay with learning more about it i'm not going to say i'm comfortable with it i think we have to get back in school and people have to see how that's going how the coven numbers are because if something happens the numbers go south we get back out of school i just don't see this having support so i'm not for it or against it i'm torn and so i don't have a solid answer for you right now miss reyes

071um members of the board just for your information we're um you know we are working up to this the calendar for the board actually calling for election would be may or june so you still have time to assess some of those things you're talking about we would not be voting in april that's good to know thank you mr president this is uh sarah i'd like to um hear more information about this so i would be all for you know having the company come out and do a presentation for us all right done any comment from you yeah thank you mr president i i think i echo um sentiment of the other board members uh completing the school at alamar i don't think is a an option at this point so i do think it's something

072we've got to look very seriously at and i do think as as we're doing that considering some other um really necessary improvements that'll improve the quality of life for our students and our teachers is a valuable exercise so certainly supportive of moving forward at this time thank you so much i guess just one of the questions i have there so if we scroll up there to those first two items three items which was more associated with the with the students all of this would be in a bond election all of these added up we don't have funds available to do any of these at the present time is that correct or is that what they would come out and present to us and show us what the bonds next month mr president members of the

073board so by definition the anything we would purchase with a bond has to be financed and paid for in the lifetime of the loan so that first category student technology and classroom equipment its expected life would be about five years and so it's a relatively small amount of money less than a million and a half but we would need to pay that principle in the first five years following the sale or issuance of those bonds uh all of the other items in here would fall into the 20 years or more category and so they can be spread out longer the reason we put student technology in classroom equipment is to give us a little boost into the everybody's got a laptop era so we really uh had to uh scrounge around the marketplace for enough

074computers for everybody to have digital learning during the pandemic um and what we anticipate is uh some of those items may be lost or may not have worn well uh that there are some um software issues uh i'm you know i'm aware of uh some kids uh having difficulty with headphones and other kinds of components so while we have money in our capital budget to maintain some refreshing of the computers that was in our plan that we did two or three years before the pandemic we did not plan for having a device for every child in all nine grades that was capable of doing some of the things we're asking those devices to do today so um this is a one-time shot in the arm upgrade to get us up to speed and then we

075would have to go through regular our regular capital plan to do uh ongoing refreshing of those items and actually um i said one time but i think actually what we planned to do was to if uh you know if we did approve a million or a million for is do uh half of that in one set of purchases early in the bond life uh wait a year or two and then do the other half so we're not once again five years from that purchase looking to replace you know thousands of computers all in the same fiscal year we'd like to be able to spread that out so that we can maintain a certain investment in student technology each year that keeps them up and running and with enough software capacity to run all of the

076programs the kids are running today so um that is uh that is kind of a short term boost to our long-term student technology capital plan okay thank you and then along with the sterilization and ventilation that would be over a five-year project once it was approved um there's going to be a lot of activity in this area i think and so we would be working with hvac mechanical contractor first to procure what we're calling piggyback systems that we can uh attach to the packages uh packages is a term that we use for air conditioners that are much like you have in your home where it's it's in a box versus a central chilling system where in a big campus like a high school campus you're moving and cooling a lot of air at one time

077so you would add those to the fan or ventilation system ours is in one component and then you have to run that and power it up constantly so we would have additional energy and i don't know how many months it would take us to cover the whole district but i would say we want to move expeditiously the sooner those are attached the sooner we start to benefit from them being that but we might not be in complete control of the work schedule pretty good so i think what i've heard the board to say here tonight is let's do a little bit more research maybe we can get the people out here on the bonds and go into this maybe look a little bit and see what the timing might be on some of it if

078the bonds aren't approved until around election november this year if money's not available till mid-january is that how that works is that um well member president nielsen members of the board that's a good question is actually once we know it's approved we can begin expending it because we currently have bond reserves set aside for the building of alamo so once we have the approval even if we have not sold the bond yet we can use existing bonds in reserve that we will be selling to move on to sterilization because we don't need to pay for the school up front we pay for it as it's completed so we we would have the ability as soon as we knew that was authorized to start taking care of it okay thank you i think that was one

079of the questions i have so we can ask you to do have but we need to come in next next month and give us a little bit more detail on it yeah we just wanted to make sure that's what the board wanted to do before we invited them to do more work and to present we will actually have them uh here to present to you thank you any other comments questions on the survey information here at the evening if not let's move over to item number 14 organizational chart and staffing mr president members of the board this item is for action tonight we discussed this at the last governing board meeting if we can open up the org chart uh what we've done is re-tasked a director's position from uh academic from educational services over

080to human resources and so to help clarify the change we've moved the hr department out of the center of the org chart over to the left the two boxes that are even further left are the specialists and the director that are no longer being proposed to be staffed so that box to the left is the director moving from yellow essentially to salmon so there's no impact on the budget or the percent of administration that's the first thing that we did the second thing that we proposed under hr was to suspend the coordinator position and actually have in our supervisors position [Music] some part-time staff to help the supervisor with contract tracing fmla and those kind of things so the director would be able to pick up some of the responsibilities from the department [Music] dr

081kelly we continue to assist the director as well as the other directors in educational resources the executive director and leadership in the principles and we would have some administrative cost savings by doing this because our budget overall will be smaller next year that will help with our percentage of administrative expenditures and though it's a minor adjustment we did look hard to see if there was anything else we could move off the board we're having to do pretty much the same amount of work or more manage a lot of grant funds because of the pandemic so i think as far as changes for the next fiscal year fiscal year 22 it's a little bit of belt tightening and unless there's some other specific change that people thought of between the last meeting and this meeting we

082recommend approval thank you dr freeman i appreciate that if there's no comments or questions on that can i have a motion for that approval this is amy and i knew that the governing board approved the organization charts for fiscal year 2021 a second this is kathy thank you so much appreciate mr nelson hi mrs contreras hi mr raider hi mrs reyes hi mrs sashadek thank you so very much i appreciate that uh dr freeman you want to try to talk about the legislature and what they're doing down there actually uh mr president i really don't um but i think you know it probably is incumbent on us to do the best we can to follow um things that are happening down there and it's i you know it's probably going to be a pretty impactful

083year so um in the text for the item that's uh pretty much the same report i had in friday's board update you know from a week ago um what i would like to share with the board in the community is um a little bit of an overview and and some things that are happening right now first of all there's been a record-setting number of bills introduced this session um not that many made it across the mall probably about half in k-12 we're tracking over 90 bills related to education and so far only nine have been held or failed um there's so many things happening down there some of them are good like suspending letter grades some help for cteds flexibility in the classroom site from things like that but some of them are bad the

084proposal to pay parents to leave school districts some pretty heavy-handed conservative control over governing boards and uh the options for um choices that you've traditionally made local control um even one to limit your actions and terms which failed expansion of vouchers which is huge and then tax cuts instead of education investment um the house and the senate right now we're in the midst of budget negotiations that could result in more than a billion dollars of tax cuts in arizona and um that would include phasing in a flat income tax over three to four years at a rate of around two and a half percent according to that majority leader um ben toma peoria the idea is a quote their idea is to kind of do a massive economic development bill and part of that is

085a sizable tax cut that was quoted in the capital times so their idea is to include cuts to property taxes but then increases to sales taxes which have been more popular in our state a fraction of a penny and then that their pitches that moves the needle on economic growth and we've heard that for years we're going to grow our way into a prosperity but it hasn't really been shared with the education community now the minority leader reg bolding from levine said it's not time to pose a big tax cut over the next three years when arizona's are still hurting the governor as uh you may remember proposed a 600 million dollar tax cut over three years senate republicans up the ante by proposing 250 million in one-time tax law changes house appropriations chair regina

086cobb said that really is a lynch pin on the budget if you're going to do um a billion dollar tax package it takes a big chunk off the table for other programs which getting back to minority leader bolding's point the pandemic's not under control the vaccine rollout's been slower than expected and leaders argue that cutting taxes this year saying any extra revenue should be used would be better used to support state needs such as schools bolstering the safety net social safety net and helping people who've been hurt economically by covid so that's all happening um kind of in a behind the scenes debate down there but it's hard to imagine um that we work in one of the poorest funded k-12 systems in the nation and they're considering cutting revenue but evidently the sentiment against

087voters passing prop 208 is running pretty hot and so um continuing the start of the education system that's already suffering from a teacher shortage i think maybe as much of a an emotional response as a practical economic development response unless of course the intent really is to get rid of public schools this morning capitol times hosted a morning scoop session on the new normal in education and it didn't include any educators only lobbyists for school choice and privatization with one mom representing minority parents would be convinced that those people would benefit from more school choice stand for children who i'm sure a lot of you have heard about before is inviting everybody to an event tomorrow wednesday at 3 45 so for most teachers it would be after school and they believe that these big

088companies and politicians are trying to undermine the voters on prop 208 and they are asking people to gather friends neighbors families members and children and join them for a drive through protest at the capitol so that's not going to be a sea of red teachers wearing red but they're meeting at the corner 19th avenue in jefferson tomorrow and i don't know how long that parade will be we won't see a lot of teachers in red shirts but it should be interesting to see what the turnout is and you know they want to make a statement to the legislature about supporting public schools so things things are lively and i think getting heated probably will get more heated i think the legislature still wants to try to finish the session in 100 days which is you

089know around the middle of the month next month sometime so we'll keep this on the agenda for future meetings because i think you know there's going to be a lot of things happening and changing as the session progresses thank you sir i appreciate that and then you've got any questions on any of the legislation or bills that you've heard of not at this time oh mr raider did ask about the limit and right now the the budget proposed is under that so they don't have a need actually thank you okay dr freeman number 16 instructional models okay mr president members of the board so tonight what we've done is put together i think um several resources for people to review but uh one of the things i want to do early is make people aware

090of the new scale and so you can see that's come up with the blue yellow orange and red and really what they've done is they've changed um they changed green to blue and then they took yellow and divided it into two categories um and uh part of uh part of one of the challenges we were going to have is getting illnesses under 10 per 100 000 so they've divided that into 10 to 50 and then basically 50 to 100 and 100 and over the the numbers that were quoted in the call to the public tonight uh with 15 and uh over 200 were from february 7th so those are already over a month old and the statistics for the state and for the county have been those metrics are dropping now the challenge we have

091is both the state and the county websites have taken the three metrics that were reported before and taken those down so we no longer have those to report and obviously this was timed along with the governor's order for people to return to school so if we scroll down a little further you'll see now what's on the state's website and that is a county by county report and the thing that's important here for people to see is maricopa's about in the middle and if you look across maricopa for case rate positivity and transmission what you see is orange and then yellow and then orange the thing that you were most interested in in the school setting is the percent positivity because that seems to be what impacts um spreading the virus amongst young children so if

092that was substantial or high we would be feeling more cautious about opening school because the transmission level and case rate are so substantial um the the probably the main mitigation strategy on that is vaccinating your staff and then having staff that aren't vaccinated work in a setting like continuing to do remote teaching where they're not going to have the same exposure to the kids and to colleagues concern for us is that our region of the county has run a little higher in two of those metrics than the county average and now we're being rolled in with the whole county even though maricopa is a huge county both in land mass and in population so um that is a little bit of a concern but what we imagine is the the politics are driving this a

093little as they have from the beginning a year ago the county said they may have some new data for us this is the state data by county the county said they may have some data for us you know broken down by regions that they were working on that they weren't sure when they would be able to have that so i don't have that for board members tonight but you can see that essentially in those three metrics for maricopa we are orange yellow orange so what we've done is put together our own matrix for mitigation and that is going to be [Music] let's see i think it's that expectations for return to in person and so what we have here is um we've kept the green and the idea is uh green is uh what you

094would say uh schools would have looked like before the pandemic uh so for instance if there was influenza outbreak and people wanted to wear masks masks would be optional with pandemic spread still happening the blue model we would want to continue to require masks we think having masks on in settings where you have a lot of people together is probably one of the most important things you can do to minimize spread in the yellow model masks are required the staff and community are still following directions of public health we would have additional ppe as needed sanitization stations around the school then what you see is if you go to orange things get more restrictive a master required and there's an addition is additional ppe employers aren't eligible for telecommuting would have to have underlying medical

095conditions so what we what we've done is um a whole spectrum of model c which is red is everybody is online and everybody that can be remote is remote and green to the left is um everybody is able to come into school that wants to come into school and yellow is the middle so um the uh if we scroll down a little bit so we have mitigation and staff safety that applies to all categories uh what we would expect to see different in the nurse's office on the playground so let's stop right there you can see uh since uh the kids are all virtual there's no playground equipment being used it's all virtual activity that would also be true in the orange in the yellow we would open up the playground and we would sanitize

096that a couple times a day in the blue sanitize it once a day so sanitizing playground equipment isn't highly efficacious but it does create an additional level of prevention and confidence for people when you get to green we're back to having playground equipment out there accessible we would still like kids to like wash their hands before and after lunch and playing and those kind of things but wouldn't necessarily have to have everybody with a squirt of sanitizer in their hands on their way back to the room so we've gone through each one of these i'm not gonna belabor every one of them but just to make sure people know what's been considered if we scroll down special program services for our resource and interventionists iep meetings how special areas would be handled let's stop on

097special areas you can see that if it's red everything's virtual if it's orange we would have modified schedule on wednesday library services would be limited to online but in yellow teachers are going to conduct instruction in homeroom classes where it's possible we think that um if the homeroom stays together pe may be able to take students outside in a designated area we think fresh air is probably going to be good for them but library services would be limited to small groups because it's inside then you can see when we get to the blue level which is below 10 illnesses below 5 positivity kids are actually going to be able to go back to designated classes into the library um remember that if we go up above to the very first row everybody's still wearing masks

098the only time you wouldn't wear a mask is if you're immunized and everybody in the room is immunized so if four teachers are meeting and they've all been immunized they don't have to wear masks but if one of them isn't they have to keep their masks on so um that was new from the cdc this week we have go ahead i'm sorry can i just ask a quick question sure how will you know i mean are you asking teachers if they're immunized how are you going to know that are you yes we are we are doing an inventory of who's immunized and who's not and part of the reason for that miss reyes is that if there is a case in a school and we're doing contact tracing we know um who uh may be

099impacted by contact and who may not be impacted by contact and um who may need to be sent home and who may not need to be sent home so that will be important in our response to if any affection appears on the school campus and if and if there are people who specifically need to be complete excluded for health reasons hr will have that on file as well that's your question yes thanks you're welcome um so internal meetings before and after care on-site support which was open when we weren't open to students and so we won't be providing on-site support once we bring students back the public offices which would be our front office welcome centers and school offices we intend when we come back to keep those open to the public but virtual appointments

100are preferred and in-person services have to follow all mitigation protocols uh i our preference would be if people show up without an appointment would be to make an appointment for them when we get to a blue model we might be able to handle handle a little more of that ad hoc substitutes as you can imagine are a challenge during the pandemic that we have a plan for how to handle those we have some teachers on assignment and one of the unique things about them is they're out working with a whole range of people so there's not a cluster in which uh they participate they you know they they float from room to room to room grade to grade to grade so we are restricting that a little bit when metrics are high and loosening that

101up as they get lower shared materials is a concern of parents and teachers as well and so when the metrics are high we don't want materials shared reproducible tangible but not shared in a group environment that we can have them out if we have cleaning protocols in place but you would see them back on green we're used to having kids share all kinds of things at a table and we'd be able to get back to that and the blue is kind of a halfway in between we spent quite a bit of time on food services if we came back on yellow which is where our metrics indicate we would be students would go they still have breakfast in the classroom but they would go to the cafeteria for lunch their seating would be all facing

102one direction so nobody's breathing on the person across from them as spacing would be as much as tables will allow there's no salad bar and actually food service is looking at a meal plan where they may be able to deliver a i don't want to say pre-packaged but pre-determined meals so kids aren't humming and timing and hawing over uh choices but that the meal is the meal is the meal it's the happy meal and they'll be happy we're serving it but of course as we get less and less restrictions uh we can provide choices again and salad bar and open things up the governing board is the top of the next page and uh what we imagine is today we are in like the model uh where we're in model c or model b is

103that the board is virtual and the audience is remote and so when we go to yellow what we envision is the next level is the board would be in person with cabinet on-site not necessarily in the room the audience would continue to be remote and just like they are now can listen in live on the meeting and view what's on the screen and that would also be recorded in on the youtube channel but because we don't know who's vaccinated or who may have other illnesses we're not going to invite everybody into the board room uh where people would be you know convening in a large group when we go to blue the board would continue to be and the cabinet would be at the diocese we could have limited capacity in the boardroom but which

104hasn't really been a problem except when we had events for parents uh participated and then when you get to green we're back to what people would remember as a traditional board meeting the board and the cabinet or the dias we're inviting people to come into the meeting to give awards to students and those kind of things so what we tried to do in each of these is gradually go from most restrictive to least restrictive assessment make your day volunteers field trips and staff travel you can see all of those have been laid out along a spectrum of five levels of mitigation so what we think what we think the the course of action we need to take based on the governing board and the order from the governor is to start school in the yellow

105column because that is the percent positivity that's in maricopa so it would be a hybrid model and what we plan to do is have the hybrid actually is wednesday so right now we've been testing the zealot test with english language learners and bringing them in we won't be able to bring them in on the same schedule after break as we were before because now we're going to have kids at school so we have a few kids we need to finish up with the zella testing if we can get those parents to cooperate with us that would be the first wednesday the second wednesday we need to do some science testing and april is pretty much easy merit testing now the kids who are in school are going to take those tests in school monday tuesday

106thursday friday but the kids who are still remote those model c kids who are staying home we are being required to bring them into school to test them they want to have a controlled environment i don't know that that necessarily makes sense to everybody but that's what the state's asked us to do so through april we want to use wednesday to bring in small groups of kids who otherwise would not be in school so they're not going to be exposed to the rest of the kids it's only going to be the remote at home kids in small groups completing their state required testing now we should be able to finish that up by the end of april and then if the metrics are good um we could move to the blue model and have everybody

107five days that wants to come in once we've completed all that so um so part of what we're doing is saying if we start yellow we can go from four to five days if there's a spike in metrics and the community is really concerned because of variance or spring break behavior we could go back to the orange which is two days on two days off what we were doing in october with the idea of trying to keep school open to some degree as much as possible to finish out the rest of the year and so that's our recommendation to the board is to adopt the middle column the yellow column of mitigation considering where the metrics for maricopa county are for the start of school on monday now people are ramping up dr kelly is

108putting out a school opening countdown daily newsletter to the staff and transportation's been working on bus routes i already told you that our food service people are working on a plan so um we're we're probably more concerned about communication than logistics at this point and then it'll be like the first day of school we think um i had a chance to talk to the avondale police chief at the state of the city event and told them that we might need some cruisers rolling around because i imagine we'll have traffic issues and all kinds of things like that on the 22nd much we would have you know on the first day of school in july it'll be our third first day of school this year and so i think i think we'll have some of the

109usual stressors uh when we go to do that and uh you know of course um now that you've seen uh the different levels uh of course the staff will do their best to respond to whatever requests or concerns the board has and be taking note of those in your discussion on this item thank you dr freeman let me open it up any of you got any comments or thoughts you'd like to ask dr freeman or review mr nielsen this is mr rader please go ahead john uh dr freeman can you give us a general idea regarding how many students responded to the survey and our remaining virtual uh maybe just a general idea about how many are remaining virtual and how many teachers are remaining virtual to serve those students students okay so what uh

110so we just closed that mr raider thanks for asking um we have about an 80 response rate and it's looking like 60 40 right now 60 returning to school 40 staying home we expected more kids to be returning to school and we are after the parents that we haven't heard from our plan right now is to uh one uh if we haven't heard from them uh not change their placement unless we need to place by placement i mean at school or remote and then we are probably going to have to reshuffle some school rosters a little bit to match remote teachers with remote families and in-person teachers with in-person families that work is going on this week just a follow-up to that so if they don't respond do they default to one modality or the

111other um right i would i i was uh trying to anticipate that question so right now they're in the synergy system either as a b or a c and so what we would try to do is not change them assuming we have staff to service them so if they're a c and we have a c teacher with room in their roster they may not have the same teacher but they would they would keep the same service level remote or in person and then um that that is the fallback is keep the service lever uh but change the teacher now if there's no spaces left they might get their service level changed but um at 60 40 we don't anticipate that being a problem that's more of a problem as that percent of the group gets

112smaller and smaller like you got down to a 90 10 and that 10 is getting pretty small then it then managing that is more challenging but right now um we have just really kind of migrated in the spread really not that far over the course of the year from 50 50 to 60 40 i'd say maybe one third staying home two-thirds coming in and i think there's some people who still want to watch the metrics so um and and then our region has had more concern than say the east valley or other parts of the county so it's i think it's still pretty dynamic mr rader that's that is the business rule though keep them in the same model and change the teacher if you need to before you have to change both thank you

113dr freeman mr president if i could just make a few additional follow-up uh comments as well um i i just want to again thank the flexibility of our our staff and our administrators through all this i think throughout this very difficult year as we've continued to adapt and make changes to try to meet the numerous challenges posed by the pandemic our teachers have really been outstanding and meeting that challenge and our i know our staff even putting together all these mitigation measures is quite remarkable to maybe some of the earlier comments that were made during the call to the public i just do want to point out that the safety of our our staff and students continues to be paramount in all of our decision making and i'm happy to see all of the mitigation

114measures that will continue to be in place through model a and b for those students that are choosing to return to the classroom and i'm excited to support on that model for those students that would like to to rejoin the classroom just my final comments uh i would make is as far as school board meetings i i actually believe that those should be open to the public as well i think that staff might want to think strategically about different presentations and inviting let's say groups of students to those meetings may not be appropriate you know that drives larger crowds typically to our meetings but if we do have um parents or staff that would like to attend our our school board meetings i i think that they should be afforded that option i think if

115you were to look at other models let's say for the city of avondale um well there's certainly social distancing and mass requirements in place um it's the you know the people's business and i i believe that they do have a right to it attend that meeting with social distancing and mitigation measures in place thank you john any of the others have any of you i've got any thoughts or comments additional this is kathy i also want to thank uh everyone for putting this category together it could not have been easy because there's so many variables in it but i do want to mimic what mr reader said and of course safety for our children and our teachers are always always top priority and so with that you know i i support uh opening with uh

116the yellow column as we were calling it uh giving that one day of um virtual learning that gives everyone time to sanitize and maybe restock ppe or whatever it is that you may need to do while that virtual training is uh learning is going on um so i definitely support that and i i do agree also with mr raider that you know any position you hold regardless of where it's at it is the people's business um and i think that i support that as well if people want to come they certainly um should be able to come and uh i have no problem with that so i would support the yellow column or the blue column but i understand you may need a day to clean and sanitize and do all the stuff that uh

117one day virtual learning could give you so i'm fine with that thank you kathy appreciate your time um mr president members mr raider this is uh this is our best idea it's not carved in stone and so i think the uh adding um staff to that what we're really trying to do is to create a continuum of more restricted to least restrictive and where we would land in that but i think especially adding staff to the yellow column is probably okay because we we have a pretty good idea who they are and uh if they've been vaccinated or not versus opening it up to anybody who might walk in i think that does add a nice layer of continuum to staff in the audience people still have access to the meeting as they do now

118remotely and i don't think anybody prefers that but it's but it's not no access right um so you know unless there's an objection i'm happy to modify that and the part of the reason to show not read it to you but show it to you is if you have other ideas about how we might improve it you know please share them with us you know email curtis or myself or um you know and what what we imagine is this is a theoretical document that gets us started on uh next monday the 22nd but once we engage the community we may need to adapt and revise we're you know completely appreciative of that and uh and willing to work with the board and the community to make that make sense so thank you for the comment

119great thank you so if there's no other comments i think we need to there's an action for this one no um the motion that you made before was to open school 22nd consistent with metrics and i think the proposal we have for the yellow column is so unless you want to change that uh if you wanted to change that you would need action but i think what we're doing fits with the board's prior motion very good if that being the case then any other comments or questions tonight i think the only other thing on the agenda here is adjournment thank you so much this is kathy all second that thank you kevin mr nielsen hi mrs contreras hi mr raider aye mrs reyes aye mrs sasha neck i guess the only thing we need to

120remind you then is when we have our next meeting which will be april you're invited to come and be part of us here in the in the district office all right thanks everyone have a good night thank you good night thank you so much thank you everyone you