001hello Mike check one two one two one two mic check hello mic check hello mic check your public participation pretty T roll call please Dr Lopez here Mr HT president Mr Carlson here M mcris here Mr Willard here can I have a motion to adopt the agenda I move we adopt the agenda as presented I second all those in favor I I can you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance in a moment of [Music] silence IED alce to the flag of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God indivisible andice thank you next item is item D this is recognitions we do have two this evening you guys want to join me yeah out front thank you tonight we get to recognize uh two of our outstanding teachers
002and I'm before I I jump in I'm GNA ask Aon mcmanis to join me up front please from Morana High School Mirana High School teacher for being econ hero Aon is an experienced social studies educator that began in The District in 2008 but this is his first year teaching economics and he has jumped in with enthusiasm he teaches economics government and AP macroeconomics econ heroes are new or experienced teachers who Empower their students to think like economists and demonstrate a passion for economic education by developing and implementing Innovative instruction instructional materials supporting relevant extracurricular activities and share strategies resources and classroom successes with fellow economic educator aon's dedication and Leadership to take risks in the classroom and learn more for their students Aaron is an excellent educator that deserves to be recognized for the incredible
003work that he is doing for his students and for his team please join us tonight in congratulating [Applause] Mary and then Al [Applause] Sarah Dennis and from Mirana High School who is honored teacher day was Thursday September 28th this day of tribute to teachers was established back in 2014 by Dr Nicholas Clement a longtime School administrator in the area Dr Clement developed and promoted the concept of a legendary teacher over the years based on these three tenants building relationships engaging deeply with students and creating high expectations coach and curriculum developer usually all at the same time her love of teaching has brought her back into the classroom this year and makes algebra a fun class that students really want to be in been in an algebra class you know the task that that would be
004students develop a love for Math and colleagues are inspired by the different activities that she uses to bring Concepts to life she does fun things like speed dating to teach difficult math concepts and is constantly growing in her skill and practice Sarah is described as one of the most positive and exuberant individuals that you will meet and her enthusiasm and warmth radiate in her classroom she excels at making meaningful connections with every single one of her students instilling Within them the confidence they need to learn in advance said Mr Ben RoR and school in order to make an impact on all of our tiger students I will say that Mrs Dennison has routinely stepped up to help the district in any time of need at any location and we are very grateful for that so
005[Applause] I just have to add I was loving that that's a mirand high school tiger KN good job you guys hey board members Dr Lopez Dr streer Vice President hold um I do have one hold on one second um I want to uh I want to let everybody know it was my pleasure to attend the 40th anniversary of deg graia Elementary celebration I was there with um many people from Administration and Dr and Mr Willard was there with me as well it was a wonderful celebration and I encourage anyone who's interested in open enrollment to please consider this school I also had the honor of visiting deg grazi Elementary and Rattlesnake Ridge for superintendent uh School Board member visits with Mr Willard and Dr streer both visits were an amazing opportunity to visit the campuses
006and see how amazing our students staff and communities are I encourage everyone to come out and support our schools our students and our staff thank you and as we learned in uh rattlesnake yester ditto right I everything was amazing I went to all three of those events as well and it really made me want to go back to elementary school I was thinking that it was so much better than when I went great wonderful staff wonderful Administration thank you Dr streer for arranging that we can always use teachers no was a student I wanted to go back as a student next item this item F remarks from the public first one we have is rer York before I start with my prepared remarks both of the teachers that were recognized here tonight but impacted them
007and I grateful you a conratulations good evening president Lopez members of the governing board Dr streer senior staff and community members on behalf of the Mirana Education Association in recognition of Veterans Day we would like to express our profound gratitude to the brave men and women who have served our nation ensuring the freedoms we hold dear their sacrifices are a testament to the enduring Spirit of our democracy and thank you to Mr Carlson our board member for here with us as we honor our veterans we should all be reminded of our own commitment to safeguarding Liberties for all in our diverse Community let's cherish and uphold the rights and freedoms that bind us together recognizing that a strong and inclusive Society is the true Testament to their Noble service our students deserve safe and supportive
008schools that honor our differences while finding commonalities that build connections let's use it day to honor those that have served to reaffirm our District's commitments to strong relationships equity and collaboration so that we can all Thrive and provide a model our students will be proud of thank you thank [Applause] you next one is Kimberly is it mster okay come on good evening my name is Kimberly mallister and I'm here today to ask you to vote no on adopting uh the history books that are for vote America and narrative history brief Edition 12 volumes one and two after learning that the public would be given an opportunity opportunity to review these textbooks I put together a group of people who would be willing to come down to the district office and spend their free time reading
009through these textbooks to provide a review it was a hassle and very time consuming even though everyone at the office was very friendly and so nice and made us feel very welcome but we did it it was just very time consuming um but we did it because we truly care about the Next Generation and we care what they're learning in our public schools here in R it matters to us that the children are learning true American history uh just the facts of American History children are impressionable and what they learn in school impacts their thinking as they grow up so we took the time and we reviewed the books I submitted my review to all of you um on time over a month ago and what I found in my review was that this textbook
010is not just teaching students recorded history and facts and then allowing the students to form their own opinions about American history the author adds his own opinions and his bias against Republican politicians Republican policies Republican accomplishments and even against Americans who are Republican it felt like I was listening to a liberal commentator more than I was reading a history book we all have the right to our political beliefs and opinions but they just don't belong in the history book and they don't belong um in the classroom and I'm quite certain that if the author was interjecting any kind of conservative bias in the book it would not be adopted and that is also fa this book is fairly titled though it's called a narrative on History not simply history is blatant indoctrination we owe it
011to our children to provide textbooks that are factual and honest and free from anyone else's bias and it's your responsibility uh as a board to make sure that happens it's my understanding that Puma does not require the students to use any specific textbooks since they will all cover all textbooks will cover the same events for this reason I'm asking you to vote no on America a narrative history GRE Edition 12 volumes 1 and two to protect the kids from the author's bias and to continue and I'm asking you if you you've thank you lesie Taylor good evening board members and Dr streer thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you um my name is Leslie Taylor and I've been an educator my entire career uh teaching middle school high school and finally
01225 years at P Community College as well as at the University of Arizona our goal as Educators is to teach students critical thinking skills we are to teach them how to think not what to think anything else is clearly indoctrination into a certain mindset and is a dangerous precedent for high school to take parents care they are watching and asking their kids about what they're being taught I had the opportunity to look at this history textbook a narrative history by shei and I found that the book is riddled with leftist ideologies and has a clear and intended goal of skewing historical context so that it aligns with that ideology A Book Like This has no place in a high school classroom the newest edition includes the past three years of history but you can imagine
013what that entails so it's imbued with critical race Theory lots of indoctrination and L lgbtq plus uh theories as well as pandemic misinformation I would also argue that these students actually experienced the past three years have an idea about what happened and do not need to be told what they should think about it and how to view it as it is to be used in a dual enrollment course at PCC it's important to understand that it is not a requirement by PCC that this text be adopted the history Department Pima has made it clear in an email that there would be no problem at all using a different text and that the dual enrollment course would indeed be offered in the district the argument that mus musd can only offer this dual enrollment course if
014the textbook is used is false please do the right thing by putting our students and their Education First and not political agendas please vote no on the adoption of this text thank you thank you [Applause] the next item on the board is G superintendent comments Dr Lopez governing board members members of the audience it's been a it's been a long time since her last meeting I think I say that every month actually um but there's there was a break in this one so I I think this time I really mean it um but I do want to share there's there's been several events uh that have occurred over the month that that uh are are worth uh noteworthy um and I'm going to start with today uh today we had the opportunity to hold our
015first uh musd student Forum of the school year and I had the privilege of meeting uh with representatives from each of our three high schools uh we were able to share some of the successes and highlights uh from our high schools Through The Eyes of our students as well as Identify some opportunities for enhancing the experience that our students are looking for as a m R triculate through musd we have our marching orders uh coming out of this meeting and we're looking forward to reconvening in the spring to check our progress and identify our next steps uh with regards to including student voice in the direction of musd uh what was referenced earlier was our superintendent board campus visit to Rattlesnake Ridge uh and I want to thank the Rattlesnake Ridge uh Community for opening
016their doors uh to Mrs maconis uh Mr Willard and myself uh this was uh this past Tuesday uh we had an incredibly busy day but it was a day that was filled with great conversations and enjoyable classroom visits we were able to visit almost every classroom on campus as well as meet with employees students and parents during our classroom visits we were able to see a variety of activities that were taking place including our including walkthroughs that were focused on our Scholastic and Foundations work small group strategies math strategies and several writing AC activities as we met with the employee groups there was a common theme that emerged and I I know that M mcris and Mr Willard knows what this next word is uh it's Community uh and this was something that was reiterated
017over and over again as we met with employee groups but we heard specific comments that included the staff here is unbelievable and it's easy to come to work every day this is the best staff this community is so supportive what was really neat was during our visit with the PTO we heard a similar theme from our parents uh comments from parents that included we have a great community and my kids have loved every teacher they've had here the Rattlesnake Ridge team should be incredibly proud of the work that they have put in and I think that I can speak for all of us when I say that we walked away very impressed with the level of professionalism and sense of community that this campus holds uh or that this campus has in place with that
018we also had the opportunity to do super uh intendent and board campus visit at degi and I see principal Caldwell uh in the audience uh and this was right uh right around the same time as the 40th birthday for uh Dusty the uh the mascot for degia um and I will say uh we that that visit was was just as enjoyable and again I had Miss uh marronis Mr Willard Willer joining me for a great day filled with classroom visits and the meetings with employees students and parents we met with employee groups there was a common theme that emerged at degia around the family oriented environment that's in place and this is where we heard specific comments from employees that included there are a lot of great people around here this is a family there's
019a very supportive and uplifting atmosphere here what was fun about this visit was when we met with the student council members we got the similar comments we got the same comments from them um actually from the students and the parents uh the student groups one of their comments was my favorite thing about degia is our teachers we have a lot of cool teachers and uh one of the parents mentioned I can't believe my kid has such an awesome team supporting him again I would say that the degia team should be incredibly proud of the work that they've put in as is typically the case with our campus visits we had great conversations and we walked away very impressed with the level of camaraderie that dezi has in place so thank you Prin cell for opening
020your doors uh I do want to note uh that we have had uh several meetings over the last month with regards to the Silverbell property in Continental Ranch and the new K8 that will be going in the gladen Farms Community uh we had a couple of planning workshops for for that specific silver bail project which is being funded through the school facilities oversight board and I want to thank a few of the participants who have participated in these workshops uh we have some of those folks in this room tonight uh I am looking forward to just what this project is going to offer our students and really it's offering our students a unique and engaging personalized pathway uh to graduation with the focus on their own interests and needs in which they can engage in
021decisions about the what when and how through the Mastery of content and skills via a Project based learning environment we also held two separate Community meetings for the new Ka in gladen farms which is slated to open in the fall of 2025 we've received some incredible uh input from the community around this project and we're really getting close to where we can finalize the site plan and the programming needs of this new campus the next community meeting will take place next Tuesday at 5:00 pm at Miranda middle school and we're looking forward to uh Gathering more input and moving from the pre-design phase of this project into the actual design phase of the new ka8 school and finally perhaps the biggest news from the past couple of weeks has been the release of the official
022letter grades for schools and districts from the Arizona Department of Education and I think we all know that letter grades are not the endall Beall for schools we are incredibly proud of the commitment that musd has made to our high reliability schools framework to our focus on positive behavioral intervention systems uh to our additions to our preschool programming and the many different extracurricular and co-curricular opportunities that we offer our students but we also do believe that letter grades do matter and we are proud of the focus that we do have on student achievement most of you have probably seen the news surrounding Torita Middle School which in 2019 was labeled an F School a failing school by the Arizona Department of Education back on October 27th Torita received the official word that they are now
023a b school and I think that's worthy of a round of applause I want to give a huge shout out to the Torita Middle School principal Shelley Vu and her outstanding teachers and staff who have worked tirelessly to get to the point that they are today and in fact when we look back at the 2019 school year mus had not only an F school but we did have two D schools and four C schools and last year we were able to improve upon this by moving all of our schools out of the D and F ratings and this year we are proud that we have continued to move our schools as we have still eliminated our D and F ratings and while we do have one C school today we also have 16 A and
024B schools and this is is a testament to the incredibly incredible hard work of our teachers and staff as well as our students and parents over the past couple of years and I think they deserve a nice round of applause for their hard work and I can't think of a better way to conclude my report than that next item is item H consent agenda see I have a motion I'm Mo we approve the consent agenda as presented all those in favor no we're supposed to ask if you want to pull something off sorry goes yes any comments yes thank you Tom like to pull h16 off okay got your motion yeah you want to make your motion then I moot I move that we approve the consent agenda as amended all those in favor I
025okay do you have any comments no we already we need to move on just where do you want to put it's going to be an unfinished business now I one so move it to I one do what it's moved to i1 now AG 16 mve to i1 okay okay so we'll go ahead and move into I unfinished business what we you want to introduce it I think it's Christen Ria actually item h16 that is now in the I section is a recommendation to approve three High School textbooks for use in Moran Unified School District Two are related to a United States history Pima Community College course and one is related to our AP music theory course we did follow our textbook adoption procedures and these books have been on display for the 60 required days
026and the public was notified I make ation approve the high school textbooks America The Narrative 12 volume one and volume guide Anis second any comments yes so so I'm I'm not in favor of the history books and um I'm just going to read some of the comments that came in from the from some of the people who who reviewed these things and um from the reviews that I myself did so in general o overall um the author has has um used historical facts and then interlaced his his own opinion all throughout both volumes um there there's no way that I could identify you know with any reasonable amount of time all of the personal opinion from the author um so I'm just going to just talk about a few um so in volume one on
027page 15 the author questions why the kokia Indians uh that's a Native American tribe from the from what is now the Midwest of our country um vanished in in the year 1400 so he says it's a mystery but then he says he automatically this miraculously comes up with facts the overcutting of trees to make Fortress walls may have been or may have set in motion ecological changes that doomed the community uh when a massive earthquake struck pure opinion nothing to do with his original statement that he doesn't know why or nobody seems to understand why they vanished and then all of a sudden he comes up with with some kind of environmental catastrophe Theory um page 1354 um he's talking about the uh 2016 election and he says that uh Trump narrow narrowly beats Hillary
028Clinton in the national election well that's not true because Donald Trump got 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 227 that by by all accounts um is a is a huge win and is not a narrow victory again personal opinion um page 1372 he's talking about President Obama and he says that that the Obama stimulus save the nation and the world economy that's interesting because he's apparently the only one who thinks that because Obama was the first president to not achieve a 2% increase in GDP during any of his of eight years in office so if you don't have a growing economy you can you can't very well save a nation in the in the world um then the last one I'm going to talk about um the author states that the US is the highest
029emitter of greenhouse gases that is a that's not a public that that's not opinion that's a flat out lie because China and India are by far bigger uh larger emitters of greenhouse gases so this is the kind of stuff you know so you've got thousands of pages of personal opinion and outright lies um that are going to be taught to um high school students um the two of the speakers talked about uh that there's no requirement to use these books and that's that's 100% true I reached out to um Dr mson he's the chair of the history Department over at Puma college and I asked him say hey what would happen if if these books are not approved you know would would the um would our students be disenrolled or would there be any kind
030of negative consequences and he he said absolutely not he said if they don't approve these things not a big deal because there's plenty of other uh texts that are available um they would they would work with the district to provide alternate materials um to to fill in any kind of gaps that um let's just say we we picked a book and there were some some there were some gaps in it they would provide the the uh augmenting material to cover those gaps so there's really no risk to um to not approving these things um other than probably right now I me I think the the administration's position is that we've got some kids enrolled in these classes and we don't have enough of the 11th Edition uh books well I that's that's not a concern
031to be a community college so I don't think we should be uh spending our money on these things I don't think we should be uh putting this uh you know these these lies and personal opinions into uh children's Minds thank you okay is there any other comments yeah I reviewed the book I have a few comments and uh I got a lot of emails about this book as a new board member um so I thought well I better go read it and so I spent many hours over at the office reading the textbook and and the author I think it goes back to early American history all the way through and I I checked the big ones the Protestant Reformation I checked the Age of Enlightenment I checked the col the colonial age the colonization
032and he's pretty straightforward um I I dislike the last chapter immensely the last chapter of current history um I think he just took his talking points off the news the rest of the books in my opinion is pretty solid I mean overall he he's got a few opinions but everything has bias right every every writer every textbook um I would hope you know a dual enrollment in an elective class that our students are wise enough to determine the modern American history that that guy definitely has a little bias the rest of the book is pretty stract straightforward I mean he's daating facts but I think um some of the history in the last chapters just really not even been proven it's so recent um so I I I struggled with this one so that is
033my comment yeah I'm gonna um Echo a few things that you said um I just want to make something clear about this book specifically uh the book has being used as an optional elective dual enrollment class it's not a core book that's not what we're voting on um the book we are voting on has been selected by that class by Community College and if we choose to vote no what would then happen is we would need to work with like Tom said P Community College leadership to select a new textbook that meets the criteria for a college level text once approved by P Community College we would then have to restart the textbook adoption process put the book on display for the required 60 days period unfortunately what that would mean is that during this
034new textbook adoption process 34 students would continue to not have access to the textbook for this CL class this would then set our students behind which which they've already gone above and beyond to be in the class and we are in the business of educating not slowing kids down now despite all of all this I want to say the obvious I'm clearly the only one here um that's been in the district within the last five years as a student and I want to Enlighten everybody about what I learned in my classes over the courses of my four years I learned how to write calculated der derivatives and the mitochondria is the PowerHouse of the cell what I think everyone is missing in what Miranda does for our students is this we learned clearly how to
035critically think I always put five documents on my desk and I had to write what bias were in each and which ones I would choose to support my thesis the same applies to this book in life in every story there are two sides the truth lies somewhere in between this book has May has a lot of opinions from community members but at the end of the day I rely on my mirand experience that our teachers do the best for our kids that includes teaching teing them how to look at documents books news articles speeches and life in general and after that you take everything that's presented to you and form your own opinion as we all do there's no grooming in our district there's no secret plan to make the students liberal there's no ideology
036in the district for anything but to educate students and for that we have the best teachers doing it so therefore thank you teachers thank you for teaching our kids how to critically think and honestly thank you to our partner Pim Community College for even allowing our district this opportunity for Mirana students thank you um I did go through them last night too and I spent hours on them and for if you have not seen them they're about this thick and there's two of them and we all know going through college that you're not going to go page to page so I'm sure there's going to be certain chapters that will be selected and discussed and I agree it's a great opportunity for the kids to have discussions and to think have those conversation what's the
037pros what's the cons you don't have to believe everything you read believe me after how many years of schooling I've had I even had a class during my dissertation on reading and writing and not being biased so um hopefully kids will continue to take our dual enrollment classes and I just want to P back on that I have two kids that graduated from the district they have saved me $26,000 by taking du and old classes with their college education and I do not want to take that opportunity away from other children nobody is saying that we shouldn't have dual enrollment classes I'm just talking about the appropriateness of of a textbook that well what we're talking about though is is setting kids behind that is a that is a a a mole hill that is
038easily surround surmountable according to my conversation with the guy in charge are are you forgetting about the laws that we put the book on 60 days for display no I'm not forgetting about any laws oh well clearly you are because not okay Tom so explain to me your process then because you don't necessarily have to have a book okay because because I'm glad that's your approach of Education yeah all of your like EXP I move I move to call the vote to order please all those in fav no we need a second second all those in favor I I thank you we'll move on to item J verify you need to verify I do need a verification we we need to vote on the approval of the textbooks that's why we just did on moving
039to the V all right ahead do we have to have another motion NOP there no you have a motion all those in favor I I I oppose I Mr will did you it's an I I I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to our students um all right now we can move on to J One new business Mr contorno um the district is approached by new Singler Wireless um about the need to place a cell tower in the Twin Peaks area um they looked at the ideal location being K the K8 um I walked Walked the gentleman um that represented their company and looked for an appropriate spot with their with um their Administration and we found a spot in the very back of the campus along I don't if you're familiar with
040Twin Peaks where it lays the back is there's there's that wash and then there's a dirt lot behind some of the modular there and they would put a building there and a tower right there um then the um they would not be they're it's currently used it for some overflow parking lot uh parking in a dirt it's just dirt um the payments to the district which was a little slightly higher than what we'd get for a normal normal um um monthly amount is 1750 with a 3% annual inflator after year um five um that will be deposited in the district's um Civic Center which we currently use those revenues to fund our budget so this would be a great little um increase of $21,000 annually we actually talked the guy the the gentleman was was
041friendly there's a gate back TW PE people know this there's a gate there that's manual now and he was like tell them what as part of this tell them to make that automatic like you know one of those automatic Gates and then they were like yeah we'll throw that in also so the the um the reason it's before the governing board is they would they actually have to enter into what they call I always call them a ground lease agreement but this is they're calling it a land lease agreement so because they have to have that little piece of property for the Tower and the the building um that they put there it's a little you know server room type thing so I um our district legal council did review this and was it was
042in um they were approved of of it in form um I ask that you approve it so I can sign the documents and get them started can I have a motion I moveed with the governing board approve the land leas agreement between the new Singular Wireless PCS LLC and the brand Unified School District and assigned Dan canoro Chief Financial Officer authority to assign documents on behalf of the Rand Unified School District RCT I second it's not blocking any views or anything right so okay all those in favor I have some questions sorry questions um so is it gonna have the uh the uh you know palm tree kind of things on it but he did not believe so um the the um the actual um structure which was another nice kind of benefit to us
043was he was GNA they were going to build it in the with the ability for another carrier um to be able to Coexist on that poll which is nice um because he was like the minute we put the we allow or if um this to be put up then other carriers would come and use that utilize that so we can get more Revenue okay so why are we getting more revenue on this one you mentioned that the the rate must have they went they came in at 1750 I think most of ours are, 1400 1500 that's what we have about 10 in our school district right um so I didn't hear any in the past when when these issues have come up you know people have kind of come out of the woodwork and talked
044about health issues and and stuff like that right I've not heard anything this time on this and I I still haven't seen any kind of you know verifiable data that that says that these things cause any issues right um so that's that's still the case to the best of your knowledge yeah yeah I do have one question when Tom's finished I'm finished so is there an an option to have a buyout because I've dealt with those in the past in the previous uh we will I mean um as they progress yeah well not a buyout because I mean somebody some will buy the lease yeah somebody will try to come to the school district and try to purchase the lease in like this month so and we've Maybe My Philosophy but um we've always counted
045on the revenue and then so I kind of put it off and obviously I've always years ago they always scare you with the notion that you know 5G is coming out and they're going to be on every traffic light and you're and you're no need there's GNA be no need for cell towers you're GNA lose out in the long run and I remind The Bird in Hand is better than I thank you any other questions all those in favor I I next item is J2 Mr contorno thank you um this one's a right away easement for Te power company um This was um Dean Winger from Crown west approach the district with this utility easement that needs to be granted to in order to obtain power to the new gladin Farms K8 um land it's
046the map is in there as one of the as part of of the attachments it's in the very corner it's been planned for but that'll bring utilities to the to the um to the um property and I also believe it has something to do with the there will be a light there um so this is a um something that um normally happens with with um utility easements we'll still be we'll still have the ability to use the land it's just that little section I have a motion I moveed that the governing board approv the RightWay easement between t uh Tucson Electric Power Company and the morand Unified School District second any questions all those in favor I next item is j3 Mr contor thank you um this one um as um Dr strer was um
047said that we were getting started with the um Silverbell location um where we were you've approved the procurement for the um the CM at risk which is construction manager at risk the architect award um and then it's critical that we get a contractor um on that team really quick to kind of that's the benefit of CM at risk is for them to push and pull at each other to keep cost minimized throughout the design process um our um procurement Department see there um put out a solicitation to the to the um to um I guess it was 27 vendors two vendors responded with no bid and four responded um with proposals we did take them on a tour of the Silverbell building of which those four um did come for like a pre- construction pre
048bid type meeting um we had a five member selection committee review the submitt um and um there was different criteria for for scoring those one was method of approach qualifications and experience experience of the firm organizational strength and then responsiveness um and upon that the the committee decided to award and we have to award these in like an order because by you approving you're approving tonight the order of of whom I'm now to go negotiate a contract with and the first place was Chase Building team and if I'm unable to reach a an agreement with them I would um Concord came in second Concord General um Contracting and then lloy um construction was our third um vendor um this to remind you is 100% paid for by the school facilities board um they were aware
049of uh they did not choose to sit on this selection committee um they did sit on the architect one but they let us choose this one um but they're aware of our our our um progress and excited that we are getting a Contractor on board I have a motion I move that the governing board approved the the award of request for qualifications 24-13 d25 construction manager at risk renovation of silver Val building to Chase Building team and approved danino Chief Financial Officer to begin negotiations with the fir order of the Chase building team Concord General Contracting and Lloyd Construction company I second any questions I have a quick one Dan I think you've answered me in the past because of course we've heard of Chase and I've heard of Lloyd but once again Concord Concord
050they they're um they've done small projects for our school district um I think they're more present in in um Phoenix but they have a Tucson office now um and and um they're they're very nice people they I believe you Dan yeah they did not rise to the top in this station but they were it's just because you hear who's building what schools and I'm like I I have not they've done some major projects they're pretty okay thank you Dan all those in favor I next item is j4 Miss L Salada GC and substitute professional staff employment revisions were made to remove outdated language and add responsibilities for long-term substitute teachers and policy jlh missing students this policy is being revised based on the recommendation of the Arizona school boards Association her house bill 2060 and
051ARS 15828 which increases the window to request records from a transferring pupils prior school from five days to 10 days I'm happy to answer any questions you might have can I have a motion I moved that the governing board approve Provisions to policy gcg part-time substitute professional staff employee and policy GH missing students I second any questions I'm guessing it's been looked up by legal as well okay all those in favor I thank you next item is uh J5 Miss re good evening president Lopez vice president Hol members of the board Dr Jer members of senior staff and our inperson and virtual audience tonight I bring for you two policies for revision both based on the last uh legislative session both are directly linked to policy advisories from the Arizona school boards Association and have
052been approved by our legal council one of the policies is policy Iha our basic instru which is about the basic instructional program each of our schools has a dyslexia design our current policy definition has a very narrow definition of who can be the dyslexia design and this particular policy change expands that to include a literacy coach or a literacy specialist which we are very excited about um as being the individuals who can serve in that very critical role at each of our school sites that have grades K through three and then the other policy that I'm bringing you for a vision is policy JK it's our student discipline policy this is not a major overhaul this is an addition of some language related to to the last legislative session that specifically gives schools and school
053leaders the opport the the ability to uh suspend students in grades K through four for up to two days no more than 10 days over the course of a school year in the event that their behav their behavior warrants suspension as as you all know the past few years there have been significant restrictions on the ability of administrator to suspend Andor expel students in grades K through four we have shifted our practices we have shifted our work at the elementary level we don't anticipate there being much of a difference in the work that we're engaged in however this does provide us with an with the ability when the situation warrants it to suspend a student in grades K through four uh if we need to uh for student safety reasons thank you can I have
054a motion I moved with the governing board approved the revisions to policy J or just kidding Iha basic instructional program and policy JK student discipline hi second any questions on for a JK this changed is that something that I mean and I realized the legislature did I so but in terms of musd is is this something that we have needed I think this ability to suspend a student in in yeah in so when the statute took when the statute changed a few years ago and we had we got very tight and ver we had very limited ability to suspend students uh and again we didn't suspend very many students at the K through four grade level ever however there have been times where students in those grade levels did act out but the prev but
055the the current policy language says you can only suspend a student if they bring a firearm to school or a dangerous weapon if they have drugs or if they are conduct or if there's an immediate safety issue Andor if there's chronic disruption over time and so there have been times where there maybe needs to be a day where the student is out where we have an ability to reset restart the classroom reorganize so that that way we can best support not only the student who had the misbehavior but all of the other students in the class in order to make sure that we are minimizing the disruption and uh making sure that all students feel safe valued and respected so it has it has impeded our ability to to uh engage in some of the
056choices we would have wanted to make while the statute definition was so narrow okay right so attack on the Tom's question so before this policy so would be the max you could have suspended like today if we needed to K4 could you go to the eight days the 10 days as a new policy or or was it you had a day or two and that's it you just have to make it work it's a great question so in order to sus in order to be able to suspend a student in grades K through four for even one day and if a student was under age seven you're not allowed to suspend at all um you would have to either have a firearm a weapon all of those criteria would have to be met or or
057Doc it's like a six-step process of documented intervention and support to be able to say a student cannot come to school and so uh prior to that you could suspend a student up to uh the 178 days okay I just have a quick question ex says expulsion is required pursuant to ARS 15-8 blah blah blah if as um due to a student's possession of a firearm at schools does that mean that they're not going through the expulsion process now or is that mean they're expelled the day that they were found with a firearm we would always have the students go through the expulsion process okay I have a quick question hun on the literacy Specialist or coach so they take the training do they have to take the state exam or is it just the
058training it's just the training okay thank you all those in favor I I item j6 Dr streer president Lopez governing board members members of the audience the following policies are being revised based on recommendations of the Arizona School boards Association these changes are result are a result of laws passed by the 56 legislature first session from 20023 in your packet you have a copy of policy BCB which is board member conflict of interest you can see there's a minor change but this has to do with Arizona Revis statute 15- 421 um and this is uh what allow basically has to do with a a board member's ability to gain employment in a district if it's outside of a teaching position the board member would have to wait two years and that was one of the
059laws passed during the last legislative session policy BDA is the board organizational meeting this is a minor change to this policy uh basically this just says that the board has to have their organizational meeting in the month of January previously it was more strict said January 15 so it just gives you a little bit more flexibility and then policy be B and BB have to do with the posting of the agenda I'm checking ours right now um this was a new law that passed that basically the board must provide sufficient seating to accommodate uh the reasonably anticipated number of desired attendees that's not an issue for us we have a nice facility for that probably the biggest change on this is you have to note on your agenda what time the doors will open for
060the meeting and that is on tonight's agenda it it just says that our doors open 30 minutes prior to the meeting so pretty minor changes I move that the governing board um approve resurance to policy BCB board member conflict of interest policy BDA board board organizational meeting policy be school boards meeting policy be BEDA notification of board meetings and policy bedb agenda I questions favor I item j7 I'm going to read on um what this is about and the subject is oops Pima County Schools District's joint resolution regarding the Arizona school board's Association hiring of an executive director I'll read it I'll call for a motion and then I'll ask you to um to read on yes okay so the background on it the Miranda Unified School District has been a member district of the
061Arizona school boards Association known as asba for many years historically asba has been a leader in providing professional development and advancing boardmy for Arizona School District governing boards through a variety of training and conferences a foundation of trust integrity and credibility are Central to delivering these Services recently there has been a series of concerning actions taken by asba board of directors related to the hiring and appointment of an executive director position that undermined the trust and call into action question the Integrity credibility of the association a draft of the joint resolution has been created is being considered by governing boards across Pima County expressing concern and disapproval of the recent activities the intent of the joint resolution is to send a unified message from Member districts that the recent actions by the executive board are
062out of line with the values historically led by asba and are crucial to the mission of the association and demands that asba promptly address the controversy restore public trust and ensure that asba leadership upholds the highest standards of Integrity credibility and professionalism and services to public education and students can I have a motion I move that the governing board approve the joint resolution expressing concerns and disapproval regarding the recent executive director appointment process conducted by the Executive Board of Arizona School boards Association I'll second and I'm gonna read the joint resolution um the joint resolution expressing concern and disapproval regarding the recent executive director appointment process conducted by the Executive Board of the a Arizona School Board Association whereas the undersigned school district governing Boards of Puma County Arizona strive to uphold the highest standards
063of Integrity credibility and professionalism in their operations decision making and Leadership and whereas the Arizona School Board Association asba is a vital organization dedicated to supporting and advocating for public education throughout our state providing valuable resources fostering collaborations and promoting ethical conduct among its members and whereas asb's Mission as stated in its bylaws is to enhance the ability of locally elected School boards to govern effectively in service to students and communities by providing leadership assistance and a unified voice on behalf of public education and students and whereas it was recently reported that the newly appointed executive director of asba engaged in the falsification of his educational credentials which represents a serious breach of trust and violation of ethical standards inherent to his position and whereas such dishonesty brings into question The credibility and effectiveness of
064asb's leadership as trust is a fundamental pillar upon which any organization success and impact are built and whereas the appointment of an executive director who has falsified his educational credential undermines the Integrity of asba and compromises its ability to fulfill its Mission and objectives and whereas the undersigned governing board have a responsibility to Foster an environment of transparency account accountability and ethical Behavior within the education Community whereas the response of asb's executive board leadership to criticism from constituent members regarding the executive director appointment thus far has been to wholly has been to wholly stifle and dismiss the members legitimate and understandable concerns even going so far as to suggest to such members they should resign from from their rightfully held positions in the organization therefore be it resolved that the undersigned governing boards jointly Express
065their deep concern and disapproval regarding the appointment of an individual with falsified educational credentials as the executive director of asba and be it further a resolve that the undersigned governing board call upon the asba board of directors to fulfill their fiduciary obligations by conducting a thorough and independent investigation into the appointment process and to take immediate corrective actions to rectify the situation and be it further resolved that the undersigned governing board urges usba to reaffirm its commitment to ethical conduct transparency and accountability by implementing more rigorous background checks and verification procedures for all future executive appointments and be it further resolved that the undersigned governing boards Express their support for the members of asba who have raised concerns and demand that their voices be heard and respected throughout the process of addressing this issue and
066be it further resolved that the undersigned governing boards stand in solidarity with other education stakeholders in demanding that asba promptly address this controversy restore public trust and ensure that its leadership upholds the highest standards of Integrity credibility and professionalism in service to public education and standards and if this is approved it's going to be passed and adopted and signed by all the board members okay we've already done a motion is there any questions so um I got something else that I want to say here so um I'm going to vote for this um but with some reservations um I wasn't going to vote for it because I didn't think it goes that that it went far enough um I'll get to that in a minute here but I was talking with somebody who whose opinion
067I value very much and and so I kind of you know recalibrated my thinking on this but um so I'm not a fan of asba there's no no secret there um apart from their policy service I found their service offerings to be of little value so we've used them several times over the last 13 years to do training and board cohesion exercises and we've always been frustrated with the outputs we didn't use their superintendent search service so whether that's offered or not is immaterial to to us asba is made up of people who largely think exactly alike as we've seen in these allegations when a few people dared to think differently the asba power that be shut down those voices in a nutshell school boards exist to exercise oversight of the school district and to
068represent the voters if we're doing our jobs properly the natural outcome of our efforts will be a school district that functions well thus far asba has not helped us to function better and I'm not optimistic that continuing to spend in excess of $10,000 a year will help us to climb that Improvement curve my obervation that is that asba is overly political I believe an organization can advocate for public education without adopting every left-wing talking point and pushing those suspect policies to the legislative branch I realize My Views are in the minority here but in order for asba to convince me that they're worthy of my constituents tax dollars po wholesale wholesale change would need to be made at a minimum the executive board would need to be to be replaced as well as the current
069executive director a complete reorg would be necessary to rid the organization of the rot that has accumulated over the past decades based on asb's recent actions I don't see any willingness to make the necessary changes um despite that I'm I'm still in favor of this resolution because it hopefully will be you know kind of kick in the pants they need do do you are you going to make a remotion of adding that you want the model resign as well no no just ask way too complic you'll have to write it down nobody would be able to handle that like Tom said it's a start so yeah because I don't just all those in favor I okay next item is item j8 and this is regard to superintendent's performance pay little background is at the June
0708 2023 governing board meeting the governing board reviewed the superintendent's performance goals as part of his annual performance goal review one of the goals listed for Dr streuer for the 2022 2023 school year was to maintain or improve the district level GPA as determined by the Arizona Department of Education for the school year 2223 the aizon the Department of Education relas released letter grades for the schools and districts on Friday October 27th as a result of improvements made across the district the district GPA has improved making Dr streer eligible for his remaining performance pay so can I have a motion I move at the governing board approved the 33.33% to be paid to Dr Daniel streer superintendent based on the 2022 2023 performance pay second questions all those in favor I next item is item
071K is there a board member requests for future agenda items can I have a GoBack on that on the last one real quick which one the um uh Dr streer superintendent or his performance pay so I just wanted to um thank Dr streer um he he I think he's an awesome superintendent um and you know he his obviously when when grade you know School Improvement um school performance scores increase there's a you know there's a gazillion people who are involved in that and who actually make it happen but as my own experience has shown over the last many years that if you don't have the right um emphasis from the top it's not really going to matter uh what what everybody below that is doing um yeah there there there will be you know improvements
072but it won't be the wholesale shift that that we've seen this year and um so I just want to thank you for for your commitment to to helping our kids and in the community I appreciate that I it it's helpful when I have this group out here to work with so it's I appreciate these guys yeah I'm gonna dovetail on on that a little bit I've only been here this is my third meeting two months and I get emails and I don't know if this is good or bad Dan um Dr sh but at 1:00 am 5 am about the schools about the kids and I just appreciate that I mean I've I've spent a lot of different aspects of my life all the way to Corporate America and um it shows so thank you
073keep it upk you guys too yes everybody don't email at 1 am absolutely 5 am all right future meetings is item L and the next one is December 14th um can I have a motion to adjourn I move the governing board adjourn I second all those in favor I