001Welcome everyone. We're glad to see you here. It is Thursday, July 17th, 2025 and we are meeting in the boardroom on Legacy Campus. And we will begin with roll call beginning with Randall Randall Baggley, board member. Brian Chambers, board member. Todd McKe, superintendent. Roger Pulse for board member. Terry Rhodess, board member. Kathy Christensen, board member. Alan Grunig, board member. Jared Black, business administrator. Thank you. And Jeff Nielson, board member, is excused this evening. Uh Jared will lead us in the pledge and the mission statement. Would please rise. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Our mission is to educate students for success in a changing world. Thank you, Jared. Uh, as
002part of our public input section in the agenda this evening, we have uh an opportunity for public input on the school fee schedule. um it's uh been revised and um John will explain those revisions at this time. There we go. Um, I don't know if you've got to look at the documents that uh were shared, maybe in advance, but a couple years ago at the uh legislative session, uh there was a decrease in funding towards the driver's ed um at the state level of about $5 million and that trickled out to districts. Um, in a conversation with with Jared, uh, I went and visited with him cuz I was under the assumption that we had some money. This is new to me, driver's ed, that we had some carryover money. He says, "Oh, no. We've
003had to we've had to uh um supplement the driver's ed budget every year to to make ends meet. So to be fiscally responsible, I think we need to do something about it, especially since legislation did not uh approve additional funds or reinstate those funds back toward the legislature did not reinstate those funds back towards the driver ed program. Um I took a comparison of random districts. I just ones that I thought of and and shared those with you. The average of those ends up being around um 265 I remember off the top of my head. Some of them much higher. Uh one or two of them significantly lower. I don't know what they're doing to be able to make ends meet lower, but uh we have some needs. For example, this year we're looking at
004a driver's ed range at Sky View that needs restriping. We don't have budget for it. um those cars, those new cars, we own the equity in those cars, but they're like bumper cars and every time one gets bumped up, it's our responsibility to do what we can to maintain those. We don't have budget for that. Um and I and I could go on. For example, North Cache or I mean sorry, uh South what is it? Mountain just had their fuel tank pulled out of the ground EPA something or other, right? So now they to to fuel the range cars, they have to somehow shuttle 15 cars over to the gas station and back. Not very convenient. So a new gas tank is around $12,000. Again, we don't have budget for those types of things. Um
005we're looking at about a $30 to $40,000 deficit for this year uh just paying salaries. That said, I would propose that we increase according to what's uh on here a significant increase for driver's ed. You know, when we look at comparisons, if students want to go to private, the closest private is over the mountain, and I believe it's between $5 and $600. So, it's still a great deal. We're still providing an opportunity for our our patrons to be able to get that much needed training, but not at our expense. Any questions? Does this will this help us make up the difference? I mean, yes. Yes. Will it make it so we we can accomplish the things that need to be done? Yes. Yes. It would give us enough extra to be able to handle those
006things like restriping the and putting in fuel tank and whatever else. Yes. Okay. So, what's the amount you're thinking of? So, we've we've been at the base for the uh driver's ed fee is $155. So, we would increase that to $255. Those other two, the uh the evening is $185. And that extra amount there, that $30 extra is to pay essentially overtime for the drivers. Okay. And then the 210 the online again it's a base fee of 155 but then we have additional fees that we are charged for the online software and so we just pass that on. So the base fee of 155 would go up and so that would raise all of them by 100. Okay. Any other questions? Thanks John. Okay. Thanks. And uh Jared informs me that we have no public
007input on this uh fee schedule revision. So uh we will not vote on this tonight, but we will vote on it in August. So this is the first time that you're seeing this. So you can answer questions for the public should you have any come to you. Uh, next up on our agenda is the consent agenda and I will take a motion to amend or approve the consent agenda as printed. I move that we accept the consent agenda. I second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda as printed. Any discussion to that? I've got one question. Okay. Uh, I was looking at the new employees list and there's a position for a light and sound person for Green Canyon and I was just kind of curious about that. There was three
008positions for it. Wondering really what what does a light and sound person do and why they need three? John, be happy to answer. They're typically Oh, John has personal experience with this, so he can give you some in his in a couple of jobs ago. A couple jobs ago. Light and sound people are typically the technicians or students typically that are hired part-time and they are working with the light and sound for the auditorium and they have kids that are hired to run those mixer boards and the light mixers and all those types of things. So, so it why I'm just curious why they need three at Green Canyon. I don't know. I I'm not a part of that decision. But I know uh so when they rent out the facility, they often say, "We're
009happy to rent that out, but you got to use our light and sound guys because the equipment is too much." And so likely to be able to cover the the rentals and their own productions, things like that. Split it up. Yeah, we we can check and verify, but typically it's a matter of just balancing schedules. Okay. Yeah, students might be involved in other things. So, thanks, John. Yep. Good thing you're here. All right. Any further discussion on this? Okay. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the consent agenda as printed. Uh we will vote electronically. Voting is closed and the motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously. Thank you, Jared. Uh, moving on to our action agenda. The first item there is a request for the approval of amended school fees policy and
010procedures. And this is uh presented by Jared. He presented this already once and so this is a return for approval. Do you want to speak to this Jared? This is uh we we revised all of these policies and procedures earlier this year and then following the legislative session there's a need to further revise primarily four definitions. A lot of definitions were changed. So um that is primarily the wording that's updated in in this policy and procedure draft. Yeah, I noticed in the policy that there's only one or two words changed and it's um uh co-curricular fees, right? Yes. So co-curricular is no longer a category of of fees. So uh those are taken out. Um the word class was changed to course I believe. That's one of the big changes. A few others. Okay. All
011right. Um, I'll take a motion to approve this uh the amended school fees policy and procedures. I make a motion to approve the amended school fees policy and procedures. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve these uh amended policy and procedures. Any discussion to this motion? All right, we will vote electronically. Voting is closed and the motion to approve the revised school fees policy and procedures passes unanimously. Thanks Jared. Uh the next and last item on our action agenda is um the board approval of the uh TSSA framework. So TSSA is the teacher and student success account um funding that uh schools receive directly from the state uh similar to the uh school land trust funds. So hopefully uh we you've all read through this framework. Um so I will take a motion
012to approve this framework. This is the first time you're seeing this this year, but um we will be asked to approve the plans next month in our meetings. So Jared and I felt that we should approve the framework first. So, I'll take a motion to approve this framework. I move that we approve the TSSA framework. Second. It's been moved and seconded that we approve this TSSA framework. Any discussion to this motion? I have a question on the Oh, where did I read it? Um, in the ELELLL section, um, it states that we have seven schools in TSI. Is that still true? Uh, yes, I believe so. I need to verify the the specific schools, but that's about the number we've been reported. Okay. Any other discussion on this framework? All right. Seeing none, we will
013vote electronically. And President RHS, this in the um board docs, this isn't set up as a voting item. Okay. So, if you could ask for a y a roll call. Um, so all in favor of approving the TSSA framework as you see printed on your agenda, uh, say I. I. Any opposed? All right. The vote, the motion passes unanimously. Thanks, Jared. Thank you. Uh moving on, we are to our reports agenda and uh Jeremy is here to uh give us a report on the district dashboard which is the first annual report of the district dashboard. And while Jeremy's coming up, if I might uh just give a preface to this for the board. Um it's our intent to bring bring this to you every year as an annual check on the progress of the district
014towards our strategic plan. Uh what we have devised are some higher analytics trying to to sort through all the data that we receive in the district to determine those data points that we feel are the most important to to track in terms of our progress. uh this is the first um view of these of these data points. Um and so we're open to um input and and dialogue with the board around whether or not these are the the specific ones we need to watch. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Jeremy. Okay. Essentially what we've done um is taken um all of the the KPI the key performance indicators from the strategic plan and as a a teaching and learning team and and really with each of the departments we went through and
015tried to identify what would indicate towards growth or success or achievement or proficiency along the lines of those priorities. Um and so taking that information uh from each of the departments, I I built a uh a dashboard here that this is just a public dashboard that we can update uh each year or as we receive data. But the intention I believe is to link this with our our school website so that we have um the information displayed to the public in a somewhere that they can access it as well. Um and so really we've got three areas for learning and growth. Um our our goal areas were third grade reading, eighth grade math, and graduation rate. Um and then as um as you hover over each one of those, it'll give you a little more
016information uh around specifically what that percentage represents uh what the data it's tied to and when the data comes. And so if you would hover over the reading one to begin. And so this reading um this number constitutes the the percentage of students in our district during 2025 at the end of year acadians. So this is our third grade reading that were at or above benchmark. Uh we debated on mirroring this with the state goal. So the state has a reading on grade level goal. um that um that they have and that they're tracking. And we avoided that language because we um we wanted to separate um their goal and and what we are trying to measure specifically. We're measuring reading uh their consideration of reading on grade level uh connects to proficiency on rise.
017And so it really um is a measure of of the above grade level or if you're familiar with Acadians, it's the blue. Uh so well above uh we we thought we we went back and forth as a teaching and learning team on what's the best indicator and ultimately felt that uh both the the green and blue. So that at above uh is a is a good measure of reading at that grade level and success in future grade levels. And ultimately that's what a cadence is. Uh it's a screener uh designed to identify if a student their likelihood of being successful the following year on that same assessment. Um and so we we're at 78.3 um at the end of this past year. um eighth grade math. Um we we don't have a I wouldn't say
018we have a great measure for eighth grade math. Um we ultimately opted to to use rise uh scores for eighth grade math. um but are not really rise has its own issues I guess you could say. Um and so if you understand what it is the and and some of the um stipulations around the administration of RISE um you can understand I don't know that the 62% accurately reflects the percentage of eighth grade students that are going to be successful later on in math. Um you know we see um if you compare the eighth grade math which is is pretty typical for us. I mean, that varies a little bit over the years, but right next to it is a graduation rate of 95%. Uh, you know, to say that we're failing 40% of our
019students in math, but we're graduating almost 95, there's a disconnect there, right? And so, and so it's just an understanding of what it represents, but with the rise math being a standardized assessment tied to Utah standards, we felt that currently it's our best measure. So, so Jeremy, on that note, um what would a better measure look like knowing that there's maybe not one right now that exists, but in your mind, what would it look like? Um, I I think if I think the ability to develop an assessment tied to standards that um that are measured um in a in a standardized way is is within our our power and our ability to do. Um I I think that it it's something that would take some some development and some some work. Um in boxer we
020tried to do that um just with the teachers on our schools to mixed success, you know. Um but I think that that's something that that we likely would want to pursue. Um uh and I and I think would be a better a better representation of of success towards that goal of students in 8th grade being ready for the next um their next course in math, being proficient in in math standards, those sorts of things. I um it would not surprise me if uh the teaching and learning to team is coming to the board in the notsodistant future with a suggestion to change that indicator to something other than rice. Um so if I understand you correctly um an ideal measure measurement tool does not exist. Correct. Okay. Well, maybe it does. We currently don't have
021access to it. Okay. Um, there may be something available that we could purchase a subscription to and use. Current of all of our current data, RISE, this RISE data is our best reporting tool. Okay. Um, graduation rate is self-explanatory. It's the end of 2024. Um and that is delayed a year because technically um the state calculates graduation at the end of the summer. So September I think it's the 30th. So they have through September to complete coursework to be considered graduating on time with this cohort. And so all of everything in accountability runs a year behind for graduation. And so that's 2024 graduation data. even though we're we've had our graduation, we still have some folks who are completing during the summer that will count towards that. And so we can update this in September
022with that new data. So percentages are are great, but how many students does that 4% 4.5% represent? Um what's our senior class? Anybody know? John, do you know how big is our senior was our senior class last year or generally 4,500 per school? So through the district we're looking at plus cash. Yeah. We we can get you a specific number and we'll share that with the board. So that's 81 kids at 1,800. It it's less certainly less than 100, but we'll get you a firm number. So, what happens to those 81 kids? Ideally, we would get them into post um post high. So, the adult the adult program that we have a graduation in the middle of June. Mhm. Um the intent is to capture the kids there so that they're even though they haven't
023met the official deadline of September 30th following their graduation year, um we want to continue to hang on to them and and help them cross the finish line even if it takes them an extra year or two. Okay, thanks. Um our next section is relationships. Um and so with the focus on relationships, we decided our two measures for that would be our chronic ab absenteeism measure. Um which is the percent of students absent um more than 10% of the days they're enrolled. Uh and so this is 2025 data from our last school year. So 16.8% of our students u were absent more than 10% of the days that they were enrolled. Um, so in if they're enrolled for an entire school year, that would mean that they missed 18 or more school days. Um 16
024is um trending down since co um but also um superintendent's been doing some work on that and has some um some interesting thoughts around that and discoveries getting into that data. I don't know if you want to speak to that now or at a different time, but yes. Yeah, certainly there's a concern statewide around chronic absenteeism because the data is pretty clear that the more kids that fall into this category, the less likely they graduate on time. Um there's conversation at the state level, there's conversation at the legislature about how do we address this. The interesting thing, and this is where we're trying to move u as a district, is to be more data informed to understand the data better. Um and there's a lot of nuance in this number. Um as Jeremy mentioned um
025we hit a peak in um right during CO that exceeded 20% and since that time it's been steadily coming down to this year where it was 16 just a little over 16 and a half%. Um but if we were to start to tease out what does that number really represent um what we'd find is that about 6% of the six percentage points in this number um represent students that are chronically absent but are receiving A's and B's in all their classes. that is very different than the other 10% that are absent and also failing and to address that and you know both of them are a concern for us particularly as a measure of relationship but how we address that um would be very different and so again we're we're working to become more sophisticated
026with the data and how we look at it um what are the how do we unpack it and what are the nuances within it because that will inform our interventions better. Um, and so that, you know, that 16.8 it's coming down. That's a great number. Um, but it represents two really very different groups of kids. Yeah. Um the I would say the most difficult thing around um a district dashboard like this is the inability to have those conversations regarding these numbers, right? And so I I included the the tool tip hover over data and information to kind of help with a little bit to to know what those numbers mean, but even then there's I mean there's a conversation around every one of these data points really which is a little tricky to do. Jeremy,
027is that chronic absenteeism uh percentage? Um could you off the top of your head, can you tell us how how I assume that's an average across the district? Yeah. So that's a percent of our district students, a percentage of the students. Are there more in secondary or more in elementary? Do you know? I'm not sure. Do you know? I don't know if I can speak to Frank by grade. I I I could speak to it generally. Um what we've seen as we look at elementary, middle, and high, the highest rate is in middle school. Um and then elementary and high school are much lower, and they're pretty close to each other. It's hard to differentiate between elementary and high school in terms of the rate itself, but the highest rate is clearly in middle school.
028Okay. Because I know a couple of years ago, elementary was the highest rate in our district. So, I just wondered if it had shifted. It is. It's lower. Um I we can again can get you really specific numbers. Okay. Um the next section in relationships is parent satisfaction. There's not a number in there. Um we are um planning to survey parents this coming year um with as far as one of with multiple things but one of the things being um an expression of satisfaction with their child's school experience uh that will be included in one of our surveys and so that's currently a placeholder until we have that data. Will we be working with a USU um statistics? Uh actually we've been working with them on developing a methodology. Okay. That we'll bring to you
029as a policy and procedure uh that will guide this this kind of survey work so that it's more statistically um valid. All right. Right. Thanks. Yeah. and that and that's we've we've essentially put that in place this past year and then with the new budget year have have the funding to to do it in a way that ensures um the parents participate and so we get the right sample size that we need and the right representation and all those sorts of things. So that's set up and ready to go for the coming year. Thank you. The next one is employee investment and so educator retention. Uh so we do um uh we collect data on teachers and staff that stay with the district. Uh so this is 89% is the percent of educators that um
030continue with the school district for the coming year. I um teachers specifically, this is just teachers, not staff, right? Um I when I looked at that uh legislative audit on per on district performance, I saw that um cash is near the top on teach on teacher retention. Yeah. With that um percentage, it's this is a very high number for the state. Okay. Does that include teachers that are retiring at the end of their career as well? Yes, it's all teachers. All teachers. Yep. So, it' look even better than this if you didn't include teachers that are retiring. Yeah. I think the state numbers around 92%. So, it's a difference about three points. Okay. Um, our next system or section at the bottom, systems of support. So, this is really a place for us to um
031display or or notify the public of of our efforts to engage the community. Um so, policy work. Uh this is just the numbers of policies created, reviewed, and revised during the course of the school year. So, we have 20 new policies. We reviewed seven and revised 16. So with the um the hover over will that uh eventually list that right now that has a link to a page that has all the policies. You can actually click the It doesn't work. Does yours work? Yeah, it's not working. Oh, I'll have to fix that. Mine works cuz I thought, wow, that's really great. I like the policy work and the stakeholder committees and if they were listed I mean if they came up that would be really good information. Sherry has a a page um list that
032has all of those policies listed on it. Oh, no. We have the committee one is what we have, right? Well, we've been working on taking all of the policies and there will be nice and then it would be easy to link here in this dashboard Yeah, I think that would be a great link on this dashboard. Um because the more um the more information that we can link to this, the more transparency that we have. Perfect. To go off that too, I love the data. If we can drill down more, for example, the third grade reading or eighth grade math, if we can drill down into the schools, I know when you go look at the state audit and some of those, you can actually look at Sky View or Mountain Crest and because I
033think if we can showcase to our community that we're really doing well, you might look at 62% and say that's not great, but compared to other schools in in the state or districts, we're we're performing well. But as a parent, if I can drill into Mountain Crest for example or South and that could be some embedded links that help us to see parents see how their schools are performing and then having that data drilling down can help you know the district know or identify where we might need to spend a little more time or attention. Yeah. And and I can I can include all of those links uh once the the data is published by the state. So this current year's data um we have the numbers because we have the raw data and can
034calculate those but in a public facing platform on the data gateway is not available probably until September. Um but once those are are published with 25 data we can put those links that will take them right to be able to look at schools and grades and all those things that are currently in the data gateway. you know, gi given that this is our first attempt and it's somewhat organic. Perhaps when that once that data is released and it's live and we've made those adjustments, we can bring it back to the board for their view review. Great. Great. So, I I have a question on this. Um the superintendent, I think you gave Terry and me only at a board leadership the district dashboard with the goals. Do you remember? Yep. some indicator for those indicators.
035Yes. Yeah. I don't know if everybody else got it, but um according to this, 100% of our students in in third grade math and eighth grade or third grade reading and eighth grade math will exceed the district learning standards. Yeah. So, that was an initial draft attempt to try to set some markers. So, this is current data where we're at. Yeah. What we want to be able to bet to align that to is um goals or priorities going forward. Our strategic priority in the plan specifically says that every child um will be ready and um prepared for the next level of a grade level. And so that means they have to be be meeting or exceeding on the current grade level. How we capture that into the data is something we're still working on. And
036as we continue to revise this, we want to start to reflect that for the board. Okay. Would it be a good idea once you've got that all figured out to put that on dashboard? So Oh, absolutely. We'll want to make it public. What our goal is that exactly. Okay. All right. Thanks. And then our last section for systems support is our stakeholder committees. This is the one that we have linked. Um, so there's we had 39 committees last year. If you click on the the 39, so it's the number of district level committees that include parents and staff as stakeholders. Um, then it's got the asterisk. If you click it, it should hopefully Yes, that one works well. Perfect. So, that one goes to our our committees. Um and that has the list of of
037the different committees that we've that we used. So what we can we can create something like this um for the for policies and procedures. Below. Oh, okay. Okay. So, it's not Yeah, it's not. Okay. Do Do you want to see the policy page that she's created? I think Sure. Okay. blinking the screen because I'm type my password. We'll all see it. Can I just say I'm super excited about this um dashboard um that it will be on our web page and people can I mean parents or community members who are interested can look at these um key performance indicators and uh having having live links for these to give more information to the explaining the percentages. Um that's this is really exciting. Thanks for this work. Um I appreciate all of it that you have
038done as well cuz I know it took a lot of time to put all of it together and Sherry for creating that uh the pages to go on the website. It's awesome. Really awesome. You're welcome. Thank you. So this is our our district policies page. are not. That's great. Is there one that's built out that we could We have several. All right, that's that's a nice uh page to look at to find policy. Right. Any other questions or recommendations or feedback on the dashboard? um while it it's technically live and public because it's all public data that will be out there anyway, there's um we haven't linked it to our website yet, but I just really like the idea of putting our goal on there, too. Okay. Well, the um I assume that the employee
039satisfaction survey will be similar to the parent satisfaction. Yeah, if you hover over that one, it's it's similar. Mhm. And again, we're talking about similar methodology to make sure that it's methodology to make sure statistically significant. Yeah. Um the only other thing I would share is um if we can drill down in the data so parents can see how the schools specifically are doing that their kids are in. I know this is just a beginning and I applaud the work that you've done um with the um Acadians and RISE. That's once a year. So it's only giving us an opportunity really to see that and gauge it once a year which isn't a lot but I mean that's all we have I guess right now at this point the chronic absenteeism we have an opportunity
040to update on a more regular basis I would say monthly or quarterly and the more often we can look at that data the easier it is to identify trends or problems with schools or parts of the valley and address them. But I think just using this to show our performance. The district does a great job in teaching our kids and helping them succeed. So this serves a couple purposes. To show the good work we're doing, but then also to identify quickly where our trouble spots are and to really get after them. If we're if we can only take this data once a year, it's 11 months we're waiting to finally figure out, you know, where do we need to where's the fire that we need to put out. So if there's any way to pull
041data more frequently, which might not be be easy, but in some of these maybe we can, I think that would be useful, too. It may be useful because we do have another system that's that's live and um frequently it's updated every night. So we have real data in real time to act upon. It may be useful for us at some point down the road uh in the near future here um for maybe Alden to share with us Panorama and how the potential it has to help us because it's very similar setup. It's it's it's tracking very similar things and its intention is to speak to exactly what you're describing to intervene before failure actually occurs. it it's in intended to be proactive rather than reactive. This is really intended to be just more of a
042public facing dashboard. Here's our overall performance, but behind the scenes, we do have systems in place that allow us to act very quickly. And al um Alden can correct me if I'm wrong because he's been an elementary principal, but I'm pretty certain that a cadence is a is an ongoing um assessment throughout the year. It's not just a one time in the year. A cadence is beginning of year, middle of year, and end of year. Correct. and gives gives them well then they have between then they have assessments between those um more formative assessments between those but um for their summitative assessments they have those three main ones and and that's one of the reasons that our district goes to a cadience data for um for third grade reading and and actually K through three
043reading um rather than RISE because it's more accurate. Yeah. And this is really getting into the weeds of assessment literacy and the nuance of the data where we really look at data in two forms. It's either summitative such as end of the year rise these kind of large global how are we doing or formative which is ongoing daily and that data is actually intended to help change instruction inform instruction so that we can intervene with kids that are strug struggling before failure actually occurs. So we it there is really a a complexity to it, a nuance to it and we certainly want you to see behind the scenes that formative system as this is more of a summit of a system. Thanks Jeremy. You're welcome. That was excellent presentation. We appreciate your work. onto another
044excellent presentation, the financial report. Then why did everyone chuckle? Yeah. Uh normally in in July we we don't have a a standard financial report because with the end of the financial year until we're finished with the audit. Uh the normal month end reporting that we have is is kind of on hold until we finish the audit and then we we publish those interim months. Uh but there are a couple of things that I wanted to share with the school board. One is in relation to our land trust plans. And just as a uhformational piece uh for the school board, uh our district staff do review the uh year-end land trust expenditures by school and we've uh ensured that the spending is in line with the carryover requirement of 10% for each school. and we sample
045some expenditures in in each of those plans to make sure they're in line and everything looks good in that respect. So, just wanted to let school board members know that. The second thing I wanted to mention and I added some attachments just today in board docs uh that you could pull up, but we um as you know the the board is preparing in the August 28th meeting for a truth and taxation hearing and tax notices went out I think last week and so we've started to get a few questions about that and so we're working on putting together uh just kind of an formational document that we'll post on our website and that you could also share if questions come your way. So I've um I've attached that document to board docs um so that
046you can look through that. We've also been working with uh Sherry's staff to have on our website a a section for the truth and taxation hearing where there will be information and that uh is actually on I just looked and it's online right now on the front page of the website. So, uh, patrons of the district or citizens could go there and look for information as well and we'll post that document that I was mentioning on our website. Any questions about that from board members? No, that's great. Um, just so the board knows, I asked Jared to uh give a report on the state of the school and trust uh funds because apparently at the state level they're concerned um in that department uh because there are many schools who are not spending their money
047as their plan states they will and they make no amendments during the year. So, I just asked Jared to um check that out and and make a report so that we can verify that our district is our schools are doing what they say they will and if they don't then they um make an amendment to their plans. So, our our schools are doing well with that money. Um I have one question on the financial report. Will you remind me what title three is? Title three? Yeah. Oh, you would ask. Um, do any of you know ESL? ESL. Okay. ESL or ELLL? ELLL. Sorry. Thank you. It rotates every year. No. Changing acronyms are one of the hardest things for me to keep up with in uh education. All right. Anybody have any questions about the
048financial report? All right. Moving on to board member reports. I have one. Okay. So, um, last month I attended, uh, the Bridgerland, um, trustee meeting and they have acquired some property which they've been working on for about three years and finally everything came together and they now own the property from um, are they on, 1200, sixth west, 10th west. Okay. Well, they got that from 6 west to 10th, but then from 12th west to 14th or 14th to 12th north they have. So that whole block now um is theirs and that will be their campus. Wow, that's a lot. Okay, I have one. Terry asked me to report on that teacher fellows meeting that uh Brian and I attended and it was really kind of an interesting meeting. I didn't get what they did at
049first when they didn't they didn't have us come in, but they met in groups and and talked about schools. And then when we met, I can report on the group that I was in. We had one secondary teacher, two elementary teachers. Jeremy was with us and uh I was there and we just talked about some of the issues that schools are facing and most of the most of the work most of the word from our district was very very positive. The one negative came from that group of kids that the teachers just don't have time. They're not they're not in special ed and they're they're not in the in the higher groups. They're just not quite there and they just don't have time to to work with them. That's where the biggest issue was in
050the group that I was at. In the group that I was in. Was that in elementary or secondary? That was elementary. There wasn't much discussion in secondary. Okay. It was elementary. Were these teachers all from Cash or from different areas? They were they were the ones in my group were all from Cash. Brian, did you have anything? Yeah, I thought it was great. The teacher fellows um you know, it's a group of teachers. It's an organization throughout the state, I believe. And there's a group of teachers in our district. And so there were maybe oh 20 or so teachers from our district there. There weren't teachers from any other districts. And I was impressed with the quality of these teachers. I was impressed with the questions that they asked district leaders. There were a number
051of district administrators there at each of the tables to have a good conversation with the teachers. They had questions, concerns. They're very open. I thought that the district leaders were very open. I thought it was a really great opportunity for teachers and administrators to to discuss um in an honest, transparent way. Um there was a nice lunch. It was just it was a really nice meeting about two hours. I think it was about two hours. Was there were there any surprises in the concerns that were discussed or the things that were discussed? No, there things I don't think so, but we didn't get to hear what each group discussed. So, how many groups from our group? I mean, they made an overall judgment, but those are pretty hard to remember. So, I just remember what
052my group was really good. There were four or five groups. And I would say the questions that the teachers had were very similar to questions we would get here, concerns we're trying to deal with. So nothing that was a surprise. Great. But it was good experience to be there and listen. Thanks for going and thanks for reporting. We appreciate that. Anyone else have reports? Okay. Um, my board president report. I express my gratitude to all of you for approving our superintendent and business administrator contracts. We like keeping them here. Um, and so we're glad to have those contracts in place. Um and Jeff is following up with uh um after our retreat uh when it was expressed that maybe we should have district leadership evaluate us rather than us evaluate ourselves as a board. Jeff
053is following up on that currently, just so you know. And thanks to Kathy for writing up all of the notes. Should I send them to all of you? Yeah, send the goals. Uh, she took all of the she took notes during our um discussion ideas for goals as a board and so she's made a list of those and so she will send those to you. And thanks again to Brian and Ellen for attending the teacher fellows um meeting that I'm glad that we had someone from the board there. Um I have a c a couple of other things. a question. Um, the new state cell phone law just um went into effect July 1st and that is uh a default if we don't have our own cell phone policy. um if a if a district
054doesn't have their own cell phone policy or a charter school doesn't have their own then the default is to the state which is very um um I don't know what how to describe it rigid um it's a bell-to-bell ban of cell phones in all schools um I after having Spencer Nelson here I went home and read our cell phone policy or I think it's digital devices or something is the title of the policy. And I wondered if he has a good point and maybe we should um I'm just interested in how much interest there is from you as board members to take our bell-to-bell ban on cell phones from elementary to um up through middle school. So that um because currently our elementary uh what we expect from elementary kids versus secondary kids is different.
055Um and we allow um cell phones during passing times and before and after school at um in our policy in second in all secondary schools. And I'm wondering what um kind of interest there is in the board to um increase the the bellto bell age to go through middle school rather than and then have only high school be they can use them in passing times or before and after school or if teachers allow them in their classes. Um anyway, just interested on your in your thoughts. Well, after reading that book, I think we ought to just do everybody. Well, you know, that was that was pretty impressive. And and this is a real this is a key moment that we can leverage with the state uh the new law passed by the state, we could
056leverage this moment to make a change, a more strict change to our policy. I'm just wondering if you're interested in doing that. I like the idea. When I was teaching, it was kind of before uh the iPhone came in and so there was sometimes maybe one kid who would have a phone in class and just that one phone caused distraction and noise and giggling and other things that are disruptive. So, I'm looking at it from our teachers point of view of that would make it one less thing that they would have to deal with if the phones were not in the classroom and um if the administrators would stand by that and um hold the kids accountable if they did bring them to class. Well, that's the thing. I mean, there's no point in us
057changing the the policy if administrators aren't going to enforce it um or teachers aren't going to enforce it. But um just wondering what your interested is in changing that and then we can ask middle school administrators if they would be willing to enforce that. What is your feeling there Todd? Um there's certainly a concern, right? Anytime anything that's a distraction to the learning environment, we certainly are concerned about that. And there are a lot of things that come into play and become a distraction. Um, and we certainly want to hold the line and hold kids accountable for that. Um, because um, that potentially can impact the learning of others for every kid that that we kind of let you know move the line. The challenge I think is um, thinking through the practical stance of
058this. It would require parent cooperation with this. Um because I think through particularly the middle school with two administrators and a thousand kids trying to hold that line by themselves without parent support. Um how challenging that would be. They would tech they would in essence would likely be spending all their time every day all day chasing kids with phones. right? And they could have all the intent in the world to hold that line, but it would consume everything they do in that day. And so we I think we have to be really um thoughtful and build um a partnership with the home. Parents have to help us with this if that's the direction the board wants to go. If the parents don't help us, um you know, it's it's going to be a real it's
059going to put a heavy burden on the school administrator. I totally agree that somehow we would have to educate parents as to the purpose of why we are doing it and what benefit it would have to their child because right now what I have seen with parents is that phone is their link with their kid for safety. That's right. Is my child okay? That's right. And if that child doesn't have a phone then the parent is frantic. And and we also have to acknowledge that there there are other really meaningful exceptions that we'd have to make that kids, you know, those devices now are linked to continuous uh glucose monitors and some other things. And every time you make an exception for one student, not all the other students understand why. They just see that
060this student is bringing their device and wonder why one can and one can't. That that just becomes really a management. you you have to really sort through that and again it would require a deep commitment on parents to help us in in that regard. Um so yeah we just we just want to be uh realistic about what this would mean. I would kind of like to know what teachers think about it. Certainly. Um maybe it's fine. Maybe they're fine with having them. Well, that's the that's the other thing is, you know, you get into secondary schools and and students have multiple teachers. The other challenge is, you know, it comes in as contraband with one student. And if a teacher is permissive about that, well, that undermines all the other teachers on staff. And again,
061it just adds to that that challenge for um kind of holding the line at the school. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. I just want to make sure we're really realistic about the what we're going to ask schools to do. Yeah. Well, um I think I spoke about this before in a board meeting a few months ago, but Kathy and I were at uh Northcash Middle School school community council meeting where the parents were the ones who brought up the idea of um of having of not allowing cell phones in um middle schools that high school is early enough for them to have and and it's not that they would that that they could they could leave them in their backpacks. They just can't use them during classes. Um anyway, that's what I'm thinking.
062But John is a in a unique position cuz he has been an administrator at every level of school that we have. Do you want to weigh in on this or do you not? If you don't, that's fine. No, that's fine. Um, but that's what you get for being unique. I guess backing up just a little bit on the state law it says uh bellto bell during instructional time. It actually and so when we're talking bellto bell our school policy actually fits bell to bell our current policy because they're supposed to be off and put away out of sight, turned off, etc. during that instructional time. So, our policy really is quite in line with the new state law. Um, there are some wording and some things like that, some definitions, some exceptional times like during
063to be able to use it for safe UT or something like that. So, so there are some exceptions there. Um that that aside, speaking from a middle school perspective, I think superintendent was right on when he said if we charged our middle school principles to say bell-to-bell absolute from beginning of the day to the end of the day, uh there would be a non-stop uh policing of cell phones during every passing time during lunch. In fact, I they could not walk down to the lunchroom back or down to the end of the hall and back and carry all the phones they would collect. It couldn't be done, right? And kids would just get more sneaky. They're just going to use them. So, again, that reality piece that the superintendent mentioned, I think, is is a
064real deal. Um, students in the elementary, our policy now, I love it. it it works great because they just aren't old enough in my opinion to be able to on and off in the different times and they don't have that opportunity as well. uh the middle school policy. I've reached out to the middle school principles in fact on on this topic and they support our policy as is written as far as having it similar to the high school policy. Meaning that if the kids turn them on in the hallway, we don't have to police it because it's one thing that we don't need to spend our time with. So, so anyways, as a middle school principal, it works. And the other thing I think that we're doing really good as a district and I and
065I would say just on a as a general for our secondary schools, we have the the cell phone caddies. You know, when you walk in, you see the calendar or the uh calculator caddy, pocket sleeves, whatever to be able to put those phones in. So, it gives the kids an opportunity, you know, to put it there or put it away, one or the other. And so, we have teachers that have that agree with that. everybody. No. And kids are a little bit sneaky. They'll bring two phones to school and they'll stick one in there and then they'll go to the restroom and they're texting their friends on the other phone. It happens. So, we can't police everything. We can do our best and I think we're doing a great job. So, thank you. Yep, Terry.
066I think it's a great question and I know we've spent a lot of time talking about it recently as a district and going through the policy. Um, as I think about it more, when kids graduate and they're in the workforce, employers aren't okay with people messing around on their phones, there's work that needs to be done and focused on, right? So, you know, my experience mostly is recently has been with high school kids and teacher. It's based on the teacher. Some teachers enforce it, some don't. And it's not everybody's, it's hard for the principles to figure out how to enforce it dependent on what teachers going to be okay with it or not. I think we need to be more consistent. If middle school principals are having a hard time enforcing it, I don't know
067if we can have teachers have more influence or say to help kids be accountable rather than just having two administrators. But I I'm supportive of helping our community know how to use their devices. And if we can allow them to focus more on the classroom instruction, they're going to be better off. so we can work better as a district to know how to do that and to enforce it. I think we have a lot of great policies in place. It's maybe just still navigating that and helping people get on board. Okay. Um so, so what I'm hearing from all of you is that what we have is enough and we'll stick with what we have. I agree. Okay. Yeah. Great. Thanks for that discussion. Um, the last thing I'm going to tell you is something
068that I learned a couple days ago, and that is Utah Parents United is um writing a current bill and finding a sponsor that would um remove uh or that would allow no internet access in any school for any student. And K through three would be required to do all work on with paper and pencil. no devices at all. So, just so you know, that's that's right. It's in the works right now. And whether it goes anywhere, I don't know. But that's the f that's the sole bill that Utah Parents United is focused on for the next legislative session. And they do have a little bit of power. So, we'll see how much power they have, but and what and and it'll change lots of times before it gets through the legislative session, I'm guessing. But
069that's what um those parents are are going to lobby for. I thought you'd appreciate that one. Um, anyone else have something you want to share? Comments, questions, concerns? Thank you all for being here. We appreciate our audience and that you're all here helping us and answering our questions and uh seeing we have arrived at the superintendent. Oh, superintendence report. I almost That's okay. Uh I was just sitting here thinking about shutting down the internet and you know it's taking away devices is one thing but taking away the internet I wonder how are we preparing students for a change for success in a changing world right yeah when I heard that I thought of Brian and all the things that he talks about in the current workforce that the current workforce needs to know coming out
070of school you know our commitments to kids uh first and foremost and we want to make sure that they're successful and we'll we'll navigate all these different things that come at us um at the state level the best we can. But our commitment first and foremost is to kids. I just wanted to share a couple of things. I know um timewise we're this may be a little longer than we anticipated. Um but I wanted to first and foremost thank Jeremy who's since departed uh for all of his efforts uh for on behalf of the district. He's done a remarkable job coming into the position. his first year as director of assessment and data. And um particularly around this work with the dashboard, uh we feel it's really really important for us um to highlight our
071our um our assessment in terms of our data of what we're doing really well. Uh we talk a lot about our summit of it that we're a great district, but we don't always share our summit of data like we should. And so that's the intent is just to really inform the board and our community of the areas that we're excelling at as well as identifying those areas that we need to continue to work on and improve and summit of data like that like that dashboard I think can be really helpful to us. I also want to thank u both um Allan and Brian for their attendance at the teacher fellowship meeting or fellows meeting. You know, as I looked around the room, the room had some of our very best teachers in the district. And
072there the conversations I was a part of and what I overheard and some of the conversations even since that meeting with some of them is all about how do we make our district better and focus in on student success. And so I appreciate the board support of that. I thought it was a really really great meeting. Um, two things just to close out with. One is around the data and and the a little bit about the dashboard I believe the board received from the legislative auditor's office this report on public education governance and metrics. It's their first attempt I believe at trying to develop a dashboard of sorts as well. Um, as I looked through it, I found it interesting that they they identified seven performance indicators, and we certainly could debate and argue and
073and discuss whether they're the right indicators or not. They're primarily state assessments, and I think we ought to be careful about reading too much in some of those data points. Um but there were seven of them and as I look through um our performance compared to to others uh we do extremely well. Um there was only one other district that was meeting more of those performance indicators than cash. So you know we're second in the state in terms of meeting those indicators. The other thing that I found that was really interesting is they they added an eighth area which was around expenditure per student uh primarily expenditure for around instruction. And as I looked at that uh we ranked you you know it's kind of um a reverse you don't want to be at the
074top of that list in terms of expending more for students. We are actually towards the bottom. We were 33rd out of 41 districts, meaning that we spend less per student than the other 32 districts in the state and where performance exceeds all of them. I thought that spoke really well for the district and where we're at. Um, so it's interesting. I think I hope to see this continue to develop and get fleshed out. I don't know that again that the indicators um fully reflect, but it certainly is is an indication of some of the things that we're doing well here in the district. The last thing I want to share with the board is um I received this week a um a certificate of recognition from um the Southerntherland Institute. I'm not sure if you're
075familiar with the Southernland Institute. Um they're a a think tank of sorts in the in the state. um and they have a keen interest in public education and they reached out to us and said, "Hey, we're we're developing this metric about transparency particularly around curriculum." Um you know where what is where's your site? Do you post your curriculum materials? And so we shared what information we had thanks to Sher Anderson and uh previously Jenda and I had worked so much on our our website. um where we're at right now, particularly with Sherry's help, uh I I thought was it's it's really moving in the right direction in terms of transparency. Nevertheless, the Southerntherland on their own went through and evaluated our site in terms of transparency for parents around curriculum um and found that we
076had met their standards and wanted to recognize us as being a partner in learning. And I I believe that speaks well to what we're trying to do in terms of transparency with our community. Um, so I appreciate I know that Britney's not here, uh, but I appreciate Sher and Britney and all their work to help make sure that our curriculum and the things that we're doing the to the at the district are are transparent to our community and parents are well informed of the experiences their children are having with our and within our schools. And that's my report. Thank you very much. That's an excellent report. And now seeing that we have arrived at the end of our agenda, we