001Good evening everybody. We're going to go ahead and take our seats and uh call the meeting to order. Do I I need a motion for the calling of the order? Okay, call the meeting to order. Will you please stand for the pledge of allegiance? Ready to begin. I pledge algiance 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. Thank you. That brings us to roll call. If each board member would please call their name. Matthew Patinsky, Karen Warner, Amy Carney, Mike Shy, and Donna Lewis. Thank you. All board members are present. Uh we're looking for approval of the agenda. I've had a request to pull under consent 7Q. Are there any other requests for modifications? All
002right. Uh I'd like to make a motion that we approve the agenda with action item excuse me with consent agenda item 7Q pulled uh for for a discussion and action afterwards. All those in favor? How do you second? Second. All those in favor? I I Thank you. Okay. meeting decorum. Uh, citizens attending and/or participating in Scottsdale Unified School District meetings, either in person, virtually, or telephonically, are required to observe the same rules of order and decorum applicable to members of the governing board and staff. Unauthorized remarks or demonstrations from members of our audience, yells, outbursts, andor disruptions are not permitted. Thank you for your respect. We have student and staff recognitions. Dr. Menel. Well, good evening, President Lewis, Vice President Shy, and governing board members, staff, and community who are here this evening. It was
003just two and a half weeks ago that we were privileged to attend one of our five high school commencement ceremonies. To see these 1829 high school seniors in their caps and gowns, finally being able to take uh measure of everything they've put into their education the last 13 years since kindergarten was stirring. As is often the case because of our school year calendar, we're continuing to learn about various accolades and awards our graduates are receiving. Among them, six more members of SUSD's class of 2025 who have been named National Merit Scholarship winners. The scholarships announced last week are college sponsored scholarships. You can see the recipient's name on the screen and where they're headed in the fall, including our outgoing student advisory board president, Victoria. So, congratulations to each one of these deserving students from
004the class of 2025. Our last group of college sponsored scholars will be announced on July 14th. These particular awards provide between 500 and 2,000 a year for up to four years of undergraduate study at the sponsor institution. I also want to share with you, this is uh really interesting. I also want to share with you some 2425 school year achievements of our career and technical education students. some of whom were seniors, others were underassmen. These goals, as seen on the big screen, are established in the SUSD strategic plan. Our CTA program grew this year to 2380 students. 366 students, some of whom are included in that total of 2380 also traveled to the EVIT campus in Mesa to take additional CTE coursework. 459 members of the class of 2025 who completed their programs of study
005in such topics as engineering and design, biotechnology, graphic design, culinary arts, and sports medicine passed the technical skills assessment for their subject area, thereby graduating last month with CTE distinction. While this number always lags by a year, we've learned that after our CTE students leave us, they are going on to pass industry credential testing, thereby setting themselves up for the workplace now or in the future. This particular cohort of students grew by 64 from the 2223 to the 23-24 school year, which represents an increase of nearly 40%. Internships with local businesses more than doubled for a total of 57 across all five high schools. And we also continued to improve and expand the impact of SUSD CTE programs. Just last week, we learned, for example, that the criminal justice courses in law and public safety
006at Chapperel High School are now eligible for dual enrollment credit at Scottsdale Community College by virtue of a new accreditation acquired by teacher Tarnishia Tilson as anCC instructor. It's this kind of forward thinking that continues to drive the SUSD CTE program to greater and greater success. And I want to thank our outgoing college and career readiness director, Amy DS, her staff, and our CTE teachers for this continued success. Well done. We have we have one inerson celebration for you tonight and nutrition services director Patty Bilbury is here to tell us about one of the outstanding members of her team. Awesome. Patty Bing love being the first one to get to move the microphone to make it all loud. I'd like to introduce and invite up Nicole Barnes, our Saworro cafeteria manager, and then our assistant
007principal at Sawro, um, Mr. Dan Milligan. Come on up. So, before we dive into today's agenda, we'd like to take a few moments to celebrate something and someone truly special. We are proud to recognize Nicole Barnes, our beloved cafeteria manager at Sorero High School, who's been named one of just five hunger heroes by Tyson Foods across the entire country. This national honor is awarded to school nutrition professionals who go above and beyond to fight food insecurity and create meaningful change in their schools. And Nicole embodies that mission 100%. Oh, she's going to cry and make me cry. Sorry. What's this? What makes this even more special is that Nicole was nominated eight times by both staff members and students. A true testament to her lasting impact and deep appreciation of the sorted that the Sorero
008community has for her. We're getting overkill up here. Nicole has transformed the cafeteria into more than a place to eat. It's now a vibrant, welcoming space where students feel heard, cared for, and supported. She and her team work hard to prepare over 20 hot and cold entree selections every single day, have introduced a rotating salad bar full of fresh fruits and vegetables, and even added items based on student requests like yogurt, smoothies, and vegetarian friendly options. She's extended breakfast hours to accommodate early morning athletes, added a flavor station for customizing meals, and brings holiday joy with our special treats like chocolatecovered strawberries for Valentine's Day. But where really speaks volumes is what the students themselves have said. And here's a few selections. As a football player, the lunch program helps me refuel after work hours.
009It really makes me a difference in my day. I love the yogurt, fruit, and granola bars. I wish we had more of them. No, no taken. The healthy bars and fruit choices are awesome. I like being able to choose what works for me. My favorite breakfast is the sausage, egg, and cheese croissant. It's the best part of my morning. These aren't just nice comments. They're proof that Nicole's leadership has improved students daily lives in ways that matter through nutrition, kindness, and a sense of belonging. She has also restructured the cafeteria layout to improve flow and efficiency during the busy lunch periods, and they are busy. The results of increased participation, waste has been reduced, and the entire dining experience has become more inclusive, efficient, and joyful. So, here's the fun part. Nicole's image will be
010used by Tyson Foods for the upcoming year to promote school throughout the nation. I think they did a good job. And like, she's going to be famous, y'all. So Nicole, we are truly proud of you. Your creativity, care, and tireless commitment have truly made a difference. And today, we celebrate you not just as a Tyson Hungo hero, but as a hero to our students and community. On behalf of SUSD, I'd like to present you with this challenge coin. And please, let's give a big round of applause to our hunger hero, Nicole Barnes. Congratulations, Nicole. Welld deserved. I remember talking with you on the first day of school. Who would have imagined that at the end of the school year you get this recognition? It's fantastic. And Patty, please don't leave. So, um, we want to
011acknowledge your work and the work of your team last week to accommodate what turned into an unexpectedly massive turnout at our first summer food distribution event at SEC. So, I'm going to talk about it for just a little bit so that everybody else knows what happened. Last year, the USDA introduced the rural non- congregate weekly meal service plan for distributing food to families. In reviewing the latest census data, our everthinking nutrition services director noticed that the Scottsdale Community College campus, even though it is on the outer edge of a municipality, meets the qualifications for a rural food distribution site, which allows for a full week's worth of breakfast and lunches, 14 meals per child to be distributed in a single weekly pickup. The program began last Wednesday with the plan to distribute 5,600 breakfast and
012lunches for 440 children. The effort was overcome within an hour and 20 minutes of its 6:45 a.m. start time with an incredible line of cars that was 40 deep at some points. Some families had driven more than an hour. While some people had to be turned away that day, they were told if they were to go to our Oak campus just south of where we are here at Coronado, the following day more food packs would be available. What had to happen next to make that happen is amazing, but shouldn't really surprise us. Particularly what we saw you did during the co u feeding frenzy. There was a little PTSD with all that. Just a little. Yeah. Patty's nutrition services office, Oak Catering, and SUSD summer food service staff created and packed another 8,400 meals for
013distribution. Josh Freriedman's security staff also stepped up to provide traffic assistance at Oak last Thursday. Tomorrow, the second distribution at SEC will take place with a redesigned traffic flow pattern thanks to our partners at SEC and 21,000 meals, 7 days of breakfast and 7 days of lunches prepared for an estimated 1500 children will be distributed. We'll let you know how that goes, but in the meantime, u please distribute the SUSD challenge coins to your team and thank them on behalf of the governing board and district. That's so kind. Thank you. There were so many people I have to give this was a this was a team effort like none other. It had to be like done on a dime. And our hunger hero right here wasn't working this summer. But all it took was one
014phone call and she's like I can be there today. So this girl's a little sore because I think she packed 1,500 frozen bags and 1500 produce bags in the last two days. So, if she's limping out of here, give her give her some little grace, okay? And we'll see you all tomorrow. Thank you. Well done. A two final notes uh for our celebrations this evening. And while they're not able to join us uh tonight, um they're late in the school year athletic achievements are worth celebrating. So, we want to give our heartiest congratulations to the Desert Mountain High School softball and girls tennis teams, both of whom won state championships. As you may know by now, the Lady Wolves succeeded in winning their third consecutive 5A state championship the night before the first day of
015high school final exams. It was a thrilling matchup down at ASU's Ferington Softball Stadium between number one Desert Mountain and number three Canyon Deloro, which between a stellar defense and timely offense ended in a 40 shutout of the Dorado. I was uh fortunate enough to be able to attend the the game and it was just a joy to watch. Congratulations to this outstanding SUSD team that competes with sportsmanship, respect, and character. And to coach Chris Fredericks for another W. I see principal uh and share here. Uh thank you Desert Mountain well represented. And then congratulations also to Kim Dvour and her girls tennis team which took the AIA Division One state titles in both the doubles and team competitions. It was somewhat an odd doubles final with Hannah Fitzgerald and Julia Zang having to defeat
016teammates Kayla Grall and Alexandria Frasier for the championship, but there aren't many schools in the state that can say they have the two best doubles teams. We also want to wish the best to just graduated seniors Hannah and Tessa Wal who will take their considerable tennis court skills to play for Wagner College and Maris Colleges respectively next school year. So, we're very proud of our successful student athletes. We want to give them a round of applause even though they're not here. And that concludes our celebrations. Thank you, Dr. Menzel. And that brings us to superintendent comments. Uh, thank you. And I want to start with something that's a bit more somber, but as many of you know, a couple of weeks ago, there was a tragedy that took place where two of our rising seniors
017at Arcadia High School, Pandora and Evan, were killed while camping at Mount Ord. Sadly, we don't know much more about what happened. and the police are still investigating, but I I wanted to make sure that uh the people here at our board table know and those uh who are in the audience that uh we've been working to support all of those at Arcadia. Thank you, Dr. Dansky, for the work that you've done to provide support for your students. We've mobilized our teams. It's just a real heartbreaking situation and we want to be there as every step along the way to support the the families and the students who have lost classmates. I also want to just highlight a few other things before turning the agenda back over to President Lewis. Um, Hopey Elementary uh will
018become our sixth blue zones approved school. Uh, we learned this just before summer dismissal, so we'll celebrate in the fall. Uh, we also want to acknowledge the team from teaching and learning that put together a robust offering of professional learning for our staff. The week after school out, we offered our annual summer professional development institute. uh 49 different sessions aimed at honing teaching skills and imparting new ones were offered and more than 400 teachers took part this year. So congratulations to Kim and Stacy and everyone else who helped make that uh learning opportunity available for our students. And and then finally, speaking of summer, I would just like to note a few things. Our elementary schools are closed until July 21st. Uh but we are processing enrollments every day. Uh we've got a plan for
019that. Uh those are being taken at the MDA as well as at middle schools and high schools which are open during the summer. Please call ahead for specific hours to make sure that we're prepared to uh meet your needs. If you're coming into the school buildings, our district offices will be closed on Fridays through July 18th, which is our normal practice and the practice here in in the valley 410s. And then uh the offices will be closed on Thursday, June 19th for the Junth holiday and the week of June 30th, which is also a standard practice. With that, I'll turn it back to you, President Lewis. Thank you, Dr. Menzel. All right, that brings us to public comments. Uh, there's a statement. In compliance with open meeting law, the governing board may not discuss or
020take action tonight on any matters raised during public comments that are not on the agenda. However, the governing board members may respond to direct criticism, ask staff to review a matter, or that matter may be placed on a future agenda. Public comments will be conducted in accordance with policy board policy BEDH. As a reminder, each speaker will have two minutes. The screen will indicate the time. Please be prepared to close your comments and relinquish the floor at your at the conclusion of your time. The board asks that each speaker please introduce yourself by stating your name and whether you live within our school district for clarity on the record. We thank you for your time and attendance here this evening and your cooperation in following the meeting decorum and protocols. I will read the name
021of the speaker. When you hear your name, please come up to the podium. I will then read the name of the next speaker to be ready on deck. Once you start speaking, your time will start. All right. And that's our first speaker tonight is Jonathan Hull. Did I say it properly? Jonathan Holy. Holy. Okay. Thank you. Two syllables. Uh thank you Jonathan. come on up to the podium. And uh Jeff Retay is our next speaker. Thank you. Hello. I'm the proud parent of four SEO students in elementary, middle, and high school. While I was attending my son's eighth grade promotion, I was shocked to see what some students were wearing. Families around me were commenting and snickering. Attendees around my in-laws who were sitting further away were making comments loud enough for others to hear
022about student dress as well. If this was distracting during a formal district event, how much more so is it in the classroom? The three new board members should be aware that this change from October 2022 was made solely at the demand of former board member Dr. Hartwell Wells. The private B memo regarding the change says, quote, the committee felt it was important to acknowledge the request and honor the process of the original committee. The request was discussed with several stakeholder groups and the recommendation is to remove the naval as a body part that must be covered. End quote. What stakeholder groups? The B memo was misleading at best. Council Busan confirmed on September 10th, 2024 that the conduct committee did not meet during September or October of 2022, and no emails exist to suggest that
023this was discussed by anyone but Dr. Mensel, cabinet, and Dr. Hartwells. I've asked for records and communicated with council adnauseium, and the district cannot provide any evidence that this change was supported outside of the cabinet. The committee cannot make a statement of support when they have not met or communicated. In fact, to the contrary, on October 12th, 2022, Melissa Sacko said in response to Dr. Hartwell's request, "We are being very responsive responsive to such requests that are contrary to the committee recommendations after including without limitation a discussion with cabinet and school level administrators." End quote. This completely contradicts the B memo, what the B memo implies. This change was approved in consent agenda with material changes that the public were not aware of in violation of open meeting laws. Arizona law makes disciplinary rules like
024the code of conduct the responsibility of the board in consultation with parents and teachers. None of those groups are on the conduct committee. For these and other reasons, I request the board to reject tonight's code of conduct and properly recognize the conduct committee as a board committee subject to OML. Thank you. Thank you Jeff Retay followed by Dr. Janelle Danski. I would like to address these initial comments to the uh district administrators. This is a copy of a roster. By the way, every substitute teacher receives these official rosters every day. And of course, we use them for attendance purposes because the state requires it and many other purposes. On this particular day, a teacher left me a note saying to discard the rosters and to call girls by boys names. Now, this is not the
025same as some kid saying, "Call me Bugs Bunny." Uh, you know, I did not have the parents written permission to do this. By a show of hands, how many of you feel that I am obligated to call girls by boys names without the parents permission? No hands. Let me ask the public. Any of you feel that I required to call girls by boys names without the parents permission? How about the school board? No hands. It turns out that you're all correct. A federal judge gave Scott Menzel a direct order that school districts cannot force teachers to call girls by boys names. If you do, you are violating the teachers first amendment right to freedom of speech and there cannot be free speech retaliation. What happened was that teacher filed a formal complaint and requested I
026be blocked from the school. Dr. Menzel's office responded by soliciting these letters from the transgender students, indicating how traumatized they were by my actions. Arcadia High School responded by banning me from the campus for three years until those transgender students graduated. I immediately went to the district office and spoke to Amy Goff. She told me to stay away from the school. I did for three years. I then went back to the district office and spoke to Alexis Wilson. I simply asked for a meeting with the Arcadia principal to tell him I have nothing against transgender kids. She stalled for months and lied to me repeatedly. Finally, she sent me an email permanently blocking me from Arcadia. I then got a meeting with Dr. Menzel. He reversed Wilson and promised me a meeting with the principal.
027That turned out to be a lie. I went back to the district office and met with the subcoordinator. Menzel then fired me for concart. Thank you, Dr. uh Dansky, followed by Sean Croer. Good evening. I'm Dr. Janelle Dansky, principal of Arcadia High School, and speaking tonight is the Scottsdale Administrator Association President. Um I'm here to advocate for your approval of the four association agreements on tonight's board agenda. These agreements represent the outcome of a collaborative process between our associations and district leadership. One that has been grounded in trust, transparency, and a shared commitment to the success of our students and staff. Through interest-based negotiations, we focus not on positions, but on mutual interests, allowing us to work through differences productively and arrive at agreements that serve the best interests of the entire school community. These
028agreements address critical areas such as working conditions, compensation, and support for professional growth. They also reflect a deep understanding of what it takes to attract and retain talented educators and staff, individuals who are essential to maintaining a positive learning environment and a strong school culture. On behalf of our association members, I respectfully ask for your vote of support. These agreements are evidence of what is possible when we come together around shared goals. They signal to our staff that they are seen, valued, and supported, and they set a positive tone for continued collaboration in the years ahead. Thank you. Uh Sean Croer, followed by Christa Dematullius. Good evening. My name is Sean Croer and I'm a community member, employee, and president of the Scottsdale District Administrators Association. I'm here tonight representing the Scottsdale District Administrators Association
029to express our strong support for the approval of the general leave buyout plan and the 2025 2026 association agreements that were negotiated through the interestbased negotiation process. The general leave buyout plan represents a significant step forward in creating fairness and equity across all employee groups within our district. This plan simplifies the general leave buyout, replacing the current three vastly different, and in some cases complex plans with a single fair, unified, and simplified plan that applies to all future district employees equally. SDIA also wishes to support the approval of the 2025 2026 association agreements themselves. These agreements represent countless hours of dedicated work through the IBN process, a collaborative approach that has transformed how we address challenges and opportunities in our district. The agreements before you tonight reflect the professionalism, dedication, and collaborative spirit that defines
030Scottsdale UN Unified School District. They demonstrate that when we work together with transparency and mutual respect, we can achieve outcomes that benefit everyone, our students, our employees, and our community. The Scottsdale District Administrators Association respectfully urges your approval of these agreements. They represent a shared vision for moving our district forward together. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Sean. Christa Dematullius and followed by TJ Buckley. Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to provide public comment this evening. I am Christa Deatrus. I am the CTE programs of study coordinator and the Scottsdale support professionals president um for the this year. Um, I would like to start by expressing my gratitude to my colleagues on the classified IBN team. Amy Goff, Dennis Raylor, Dr. Michelle Watt, Joe Arteka, Ale, Alexis Wilson. Together, we have
031dedicated countless hours throughout this school year to advance an agenda aimed at benefiting the majority of classified staff. I am proud of our achievements, particularly in securing the initial approval of the classified employee agreement, and I look forward to our continued efforts to maintain its integrity in the coming years. Our meetings, which included district and site leadership, classified representatives, teachers, district professionals have both been enlightening and rewarding. Collaborating with such a thoughtful, inspiring group has truly been a highlight of my experience. As we move forward, I want to emphasize the importance of elevating excellence in everything we do. Together, our focus can create a better future for our community. It is my honor to express unwavering support for the approval of the 2025 2026 association agreements. Thank you. Thank you, Christa. TJ Buckley. Uh, good
032evening, TJ. Buckley. um Scottsdale Education Association president here on behalf of certified staff uh to urge your support for uh the employment agreements and the uh new general leave hopefully the new SUSD general leave uh buyout policy. Uh as far as I want to first of all echo everything that u my fellow association president said as far as process um and improvements things have been great there. uh looking specifically on improvements that this gives to employees. Uh for our certified uh we are adding limits to our science lab classes for middle school and high school. Um and so that'll uh help ensure uh better safety um and educating um in the sciences for us. Uh codifying the memorandum of understanding um of our general leave policy uh that was created by Dr. Mensel, myself and
033Dr. Cruz. um earlier in the year. This puts it makes it part of just general district policy or sorry district practice. Um then handling sole overages. So, we've this has been a multi-year process to find uh the best way to handle um soul overages and then clarification of PD and horizontal movement to give employees a better access uh to um higher salaries based on education appro um education advancement. Um we were able to get 98% of our group uh to support this. All members were able to vote via Google form. So, anybody who voted, we had 98% approval. Uh, quickly on the general leave, uh, we looked at fair, we did this for fairness, simplicity, incentive, equity, sustainability, student learning, and morale. And I'm happy to say that, um, the agreement that we came to
034on the general e buyouts uh, achieved all of those interests. Thank you. Thank you all for your hard work. That brings us to Oh, are there any responses? All right, I will move on. Uh, information discussion items and our first one is governing board policy BDF and changes to the governing board policy BDE. Miss Carney. Thank you, President Lewis. So uh hopefully we have these to share on the screen but I have asked to bring back policy BDF uh because of the issues with recent curriculum adoption committees formed without involving the board or community and because of the dishonesty and lack of transparency in the removal policy BDF on February 8th, 2022. So some background information for uh the board members and the public. On January 25th, 2022, first read of changes to B policies,
035it was recommended that policy BDF be removed by a board board member Greenberg, saying its contents are superflous and incorporated in policy BDE, which was false, and policy BDF was the only policy not added on the agenda for board members or the public to see. nor was policy BDF attached on the February 8th, 2022 board agenda, of which it was removed from our district policy book. The board removed policy BDF, reverting some of the language to policy BDE, yet leaving out very vital language. Since district administration brought Peoria Unified forward as a reference as a district who adopted the Savis US history recently, I thought it important that we also looked at their committee policies and they indeed have BDF, BDE as well as CE, which is exactly what we need to go back to.
036I also looked at uh Paradise Valley uh school district and all other districts using asthma policies that I looked into also have policy BDF, BDE, and as well as CE. We're not talking about C tonight, but that is the other committee policy that we have. So, I'm recommending uh to the board that we go back to having both policies BDF and BDE with original language so that there are no issues going forward with committee formation and committee work. Thank you, Miss Carney. As a first read, at this juncture, we're being introduced to this idea. Mr. Bazan, did you have some uh thoughts at this point you'd want to share with the board? for President Lewis. Um, no, this is the first I've heard of the rationale for for this um change. I just got up
037to make sure that the policy could be published. Uh, so member Carney, if you if you wanted it published, let me know which one you would like to be uh that's the red line. But um, no, I didn't have anything else. Obviously, we'll work with uh the board to work on the language or uh, you know, would ask ask by email or or phone call. um whatever the specifics are of for the second read that need to be changed. Well, I think I think I would like to read what was left out if if possible while we're all here. Yeah. Go ahead. So you understand. So if you could go to policy BDF, please advisory committees. So in in this uh policy it said the board may by majority vote appoint ad hoc committees when
038deemed advisable. Uh most of that first paragraph did move over to BDE. The whole second paragraph did not. Um and this is where I think we've gone wrong and where we should go back to is the governing board president shall develop guidelines for each committee. These guidelines shall be approved by the board prior to the first meeting of each committee and will include but not necessarily be limited to the following. And then it has a list. Um if you could go to the bottom line there. Thank you, Nick. Um, D, no, sorry, all the way to the bottom. It says, "A representative of the board and the superintendent will serve uh as exeicio members of all advisory committees." That also did not transfer to BDE. So, I have a real problem with the way that
039this was presented um without even showing it publicly was never on any document and to me shows um that there was nefarious reason for doing this. And I think we really need to look at bringing it back so that we do have the the sound policy and procedures that we had kind of talked about during the most recent curriculum adoption because I as you know with the the math uh curriculum adoption committee that's underway right now the board had no idea was even it's even going on. Curriculum adoption committee should absolutely be advisory committees under policy BDF. I would like to speak to that. I I don't know anything about any nefarious intent. Uh there was when I looked at the agenda item from January of 2022, there was a pretty robust description of the
040B policy changes that were were being made. So, are you saying that the intent uh wasn't included in there or or that wasn't clear enough? I mean, I have a screenshot of it right here where all the policies are listed, but that one is not not listed because um my take on it is they didn't want the public to see. They didn't want the board members, other board members to even look at it, right? Let's just not put the language on here um so that no one realizes what we're actually doing. Did you look at February 8th as well because I think that it's not on there as well, the date that it was actually removed. So that's that's why I wanted to bring this back because um I just think this board we're looking
041to do do things, you know, more professionally and bring everything into the light. And I I was actually at that board meeting way back when and have been I know exactly what happened. So and with us just going through what we just went through with the curriculum adoption, um I just think this is really important to bring back so that we don't have issues moving forward with these committees. Any other board comments at this point or questions as we first read? Mr. Shy. Um, thanks board member Carney for bringing this up. Um, can you help me understand what problem this would have solved with the curriculum committee? I don't understand part of it is I don't understand all the different kinds of committees and if that was so can you help me understand how it
042would have been different if BDE was in place? Uh, thank you for the question. Yes, if we still had BDF advisory committees um right here that that paragraph I I read is where the governing board president shall develop guidelines for each committee. So it would have come in front of us. We would have known that this committee was going going to occur and then the guidelines shall be approved by the board prior to the for first meeting of each committee and will include but not necessarily be limited to the following and then it lists it lists some things. I mean I can read it but um you you have that as well and it is attached for the public and then a representative of the board and the superintendent will serve can serve what whatever
043we would decide we wanted to do. Um other districts only have a board member not superintendent. So if we wanted to be on that or so then so my question is are curriculum committees advisory committees? I don't know if there's a difference. So historically speaking uh the curriculum committees operate under OML as required by statute but they have been convened under policy CE not policy BDE or BDF. So it would in this case uh the curriculum committee has been convened under CE not under the B policy which it should not be and that's why I'm bringing back policy BDF. BDF was removed to remove the board um from committee work and I'm asking that the board bring back this policy so that the board okays committees instead of necessarily the super superintendent has a list
044of committees which we're still waiting on that updated list from him on that but there's committees that we should be bringing forward as advisory committees to the board not not the superintendent so this change to meet all committees that are requested before and would go through us no if it's an advis it's a if if it's an advisory committee to the board which the curriculum committee is an advisory committee correct then well he said it wasn't that's why I'm trying to understand well you have to make the decision for yourself there is a legal distinction between advisory committees created by the board and superintendent committees the only reason superintendent committees the ones that you're referring to the curriculum committee is under open meeting law is because of a specific statute because it's curriculum based so
045other superintendent committes do not have to follow open meeting law. So there's that's the distinction between whereas advisory committees of the board would have to follow open meeting law because essentially they are a uh instrumentality of the board. Um the the law looks at it as you're having another board meeting at a separate venue. Um it's just not with the full board. It's it's with an advisory group. So it really requires a lot more uh activity on the board. I I would just ask member Carney um understand your recommendation don't have I advise on the law I don't make the policy that's what the board is is for um but you make statement about uh the transparency of the committees um I I know we had a presentation last week that was very good from
046or month ago it feels like a week um regarding curriculum and there was part of that presentation was how much presentation there was on the on the um on the website. I mean, I know you yourself are very involved in following that. So, is it really that it's a lack of transparency that that is that is that a fair repres? That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the lack of transparency when the committee begins before it's formed. The board had no idea um that this committee was happening until uh Dr. Menzel brought it up at one meeting saying saying something about it. The math curriculum committee has never been mentioned. I just happen to go on the website because I do once in a while to see and oh
047there it was there there it was and I was able to put it out to people to myself but that should should not be happening. So is is more the issue that you want curriculum committees to be board advisory committees not superintendent committees. Well they per board policy it says the superintendent may develop curriculum through the use of committees. At least one half of the members of any curriculum development committee shall be district certified teachers who possess content knowledge of the curriculum to be developed. All curriculum development committees convened will comply with the requirements of the open meeting law. So we have been following governing board policy under IG uh with respect to how those committees have been convened. It's it's appropriate for the board to talk about how they want to proceed in the
048future. Not appropriate to talk about any other policy besides the 2B policies that are being discussed here because it's not agendaized. Miss Warner, I'm sorry. Okay, Dr. Patensky. So, so if we go I don't want to violate what you just said, Dr. Mensel, but I think this is agendaized. If we were to adopt this, it would not in and of itself change the status of the curriculum committees, nor would it affect the curriculum committee at all. um we would need to take an affirmative step on top of that to make any change and that would need to be agendaized. That is correct. For us to talk about the merits of that. I guess my question being new to the board, if we approve this, are we going back verbatim to the state of affairs prior
049to the changes that you were referring to? Is this a pure roll back or is this a revised version of the two? Well, I was just looking to roll back to what they were before before it was removed and then look for input from the rest of you on how you might want to add to that to change that. Um I did look at you it's helpful to look at other districts too and see what they're doing as well. Um and I I do see you know small tweaks to this in other districts. So we can make proposed language here that we're doing first read. Yes. Is an exact replica of what we had prior to any changes. Yes. Because I didn't want to get into into that separate. That makes sense. Changing it because
050it's kind of a you know a big take. So I just wanted to bring this forward and then everyone can review that and bring their thoughts to the table on how we might want to tweak that to make it unique to us. And then thank you. And um is that prior policy I don't know who I'm asking this of maybe Dr. Mensel is that prior policy a um the exact template art policies derived from the Arizona schoolboard Association ASBA creates the template we're permitted to modify modify it. So is this a modified version or is it the pure template? So it was adopted in 2014 maybe. I'm trying to what was Yes, she says. Yes. So, so uh I would have to check and see if that was the original language or if it was
051modified. We need to look into that. Um I don't I don't object to the form of the language that was there. I do believe that there was some attempt at streamlining. Uh but I I don't you know reading what's there and what was in the policy before and I don't have any concerns about that. Yeah. The one that stood out to me and then I'll relinquish the mic. I apologize is the involvement of board members on committees that are then advising the board. Like from a corporate perspective, that would be weird because a board members would bring an undue potential perceived influence in the committee and then also it's you're shaping the thing that you're going to decide on. But if that's the typical language, you know, and if that's typical practice of school boards,
052you know, I would respect that. I just So that's why I'm curious if that's standard language of the policy or something we've amended over time. So in this particular policy, so not the CE policy, but in the B policy, uh it contemplated board members and superintendent serving as exeicio. So for a board-appointed committee that was when a board member could serve as an exeicio along with the superintendent. Uh we have different policy that addresses other committees and it does not have board members on it uh for the very reasons you just articulated. So two separate um committee structures. These ones are specific because they're ad hoc in nature based on a particular issue or opportunity that the board might like to consider but wants feedback from a larger group. So you would identify what's the
053scope of work. It's time delimited. It's not envisioned that this would be a standing committee. Part of the reason why curriculum is probably dealt with separately because that's an ongoing process all the time. These are always and have been from the time the initial policy was there designed to be ad hoc for a particular purpose and then dissolved. Thank you to both of you. Um quickly I'll just reiterate that policy BDE the board committees does um that one does have board members on it up to two board members on it. So yeah. Obviously, we could look at changing the the language on BDF um as well. Um and then I was also going to bring up one thing that we do need to take note of and that was brought up uh back when this
054policy was removed is that the audit committee is a standing committee. So, we would need to um get rid of the audit committee or put that into uh this language. So when you when you look over it, it it talks about um standing com, you know, standing committees and so that would we just would need to address the audit committee because that's the only one that bringing back BDF would affect. Thank you. So, I just want to wrap it up with um in our five and a half months as this board, we've had more conversations related to committees not being at our community not being aware of committees being available. I know that most of our families and community do not watch these meetings and they're not going to catch if Dr. Menzel, you know,
055mentions that there's a committee coming up. um most people are not going on the website to check the page and so this just brings it to the board and um and we should be putting forth the the committees just for even um transparency to the community and even for our own knowledge and I it's just a good practice and this is a first read so if there's any tweaks that any board member would like to have there you know they can absolutely email um Mr. who's on and and you know we can work on it and you know try to work well together on this and put forth something that is good that um is going to be benefit beneficial for our community. Sure. Board member Carney um I want to understand what from BDF
056will solve the problem at hand. The two things I see are one if let's say the curriculum committee were an advisory committee through BDF that means here at one of these meetings we would form the committee. So that's part of the notification. The second thing is there would be a board member on the committee. So are those the two things you're wanting to address? Because like could we address it if we just did better about notifying and had better communications? So, I'm trying to understand what specifically from BDF will help solve the issues you see with the cooking committees. I would say that both things that you mentioned are are not the case with this with this policy. I um those would fall under BDE for board committees. Um what I see happening with BDF
057is if the superintendent knows that he wants to go out for curriculum adoption committee, he tells the board and then do we decide I mean we got to have better conversation. Is this a advisory committee under the board or is this a advisory committee under him? Right now they all fall under superintendent and if I think I'm just saying curriculum committee because that's what we just went through should be an advisory committee of the board then we would follow this policy right I'm trying to say what is it about this policy that would be different than right here I said that I've said it this is the third time the governing board president shall develop guidelines for each committee. Okay. So, you want the board So, what the change you want is that the board
058develops the guidelines for the Well, in this case, I mean, President Lewis would would do the guidelines and then we would vote on those. So, we would know going in what the expectation of that committee is. Then great, then we know what's happening. We know what's going on and now we can sit back and let them do the work until So, is the issue that we you may not know or is it that we don't know the where we want to have input into the guidelines of the formation of the committee? I'm trying to understand what will improve things. I'm sorry. I just want to make sure I really get to Did you read this policy before? Yeah. Okay. Um, so I'm I'm a little confused on what this doesn't say anything about forming the
059committee. It says that we will appoint I mean we will appoint committees when deemed advisable. So if we get word from the superintendent it's advisable that we go out for a committee right to do curriculum adoption then we will follow this policy. Okay. If if otherwise it's a superintendent under CE advisory committee. There's two different there's board advisor I get that there's superintendent advisory committees. I still hear what would we be doing different if it were BDF? Would we be we as a board have input to the formation of the committee? I still not hearing what we would do differently with a committee. We would actually vote on it. Vote on its existence. The guidelines shall be approved by the board prior to the first meeting of each committee. right now we there's nothing we
060we have no no idea a committee is even going on. So with this advisory committee we go back to being more involved more understanding of what's going on with the committee. I mean it's right now we don't have any just so I understand as a first read though correct me if I'm wrong you're not proposing a change in which policy curriculum committees fall under no and so this would not actually do what you're describing because this is a change to BDF not to the policy that the committee curriculum committees are under in other words after this was approved the next curriculum committee would still be formed in the exact same way. This would not have any um control over it. I as I'm understand that's why I was asking is this the same as the
061pre-changed version or does it also incorporate the changes that you're verbalizing here which is I want to make sure that any committee whatever policy it's historically been under comes to the board which I don't think this would do. No, I don't I'm not saying any policy be in any committee because there are tons of committees I mean that the superintendent has. I'm just saying we need to have better policy around our committee formation so that we don't get so far in and the board has no idea. They have no parents on the committee. We we have no idea really what's going on until we're presented with it. We should know on big curriculum committee I mean committees. There's other ones too. I'm just saying that right now because that's what we experience. This will better
062help the superintendent understand that he needs to come to us and say this is a board advisory committee or this is my adi advisory committee. Right now there's none no communication on that because there's no policy. Okay. I mean I just have more to learn. I what I thought I heard is this policy if approved as written would not change the superintendent's burden when it comes to curriculum committees in what what he reports. So that if that's the goal, we would need a read that also includes the changes that accomplishes that. But you have more experience on the board so that we can between first read and second read, I can ask questions. Okay. I can even add more language to this, but um I just wanted to start it off with what we used
063to have and explain how we got to where we are today and um in the hopes that we can get to a better place. Thank you, Miss Carney. My thought is we need a new first read unless we're going to simply bring forward BDF so that we're now ready for a second read and an action next meeting as written and presented. Miss Warner. Um, so historically we do make changes between first read and second read. This is our opportunity for board members like Patinsky and Shy yourself to make edits to this and then it because uh comes before us for a second read and a vote and there's still discussion before that second read but um just because something is on our first read in an exact language does not mean that it has to
064be that exact language for the second read. So we can modify it is what you're suggesting. That is what I'm suggesting. And I would add for all board members edification that when there's a copyright after the letters BDF, it means that it's been fully vetted by Arizona School Board Association and aligns with statutes and um laws and mandates and regulations legally. So that is a benefit of a copywritten policy. Thank you. I think I'll just um say one last hopefully one last thing. Um I just think it's important when um the district is using other school districts as references right back to the Poria Unified um that they also understand well Poria is operating under different policy than we are um you know they have BDF and BDE CE so they have a better system
065going on where their committee is you know transparent it has it had a lot of different people on their committees um so it's you're kind of apples to oranges when when we're using those. So, we need to be very careful if we're going to use them as references. We need to also understand they're operating from different policy than we are. So, we should get on back on board with the policies that these other districts are using um so that we have better outcomes and that local control piece continues to be a value. Okay. Thank you. Uh we'll move to 6B. Uh uh Mr. was on. Board President Lewis, Vice President Shy, members of the board, Dr. Manzel and Miss Wagner. Um, board president Lewis, the next five, um, 6B through E and then also 6F
066all apply to, well, 6B through E apply to one piece of legislation. So, I would ask your, uh, permission to go through those and then hold questions to the end. Yep. If that's okay. Yes sir. Obviously do not want to um push any policy through. This is just a first read. So we'll vote individually. No, we don't vote. Excuse me. No voting. We will hear collectively the statutory shifts you've conducted. So, is there any is there any board member that objects to the approach that was just requested? Okay, Mr. Dr. Paski, did you have a comment? Well, I might be out of order. Um, we do we usually adjust the agenda if there's families for personnel actions to bring it up so they don't have to. We have and this should go relatively quickly. Okay.
067Thank you. Right, doc. I mean, Mr. Bazar, you got to know the policy. Yeah. Well, no, it's going to go. I'm not trying to cut it short. I'm just We can read and you'll be expedient. It's going to go quickly. Um, and a little levity, too. uh you know policy is tough stuff and it's there's just a lot of statutes that apply to in title 15 and they all come across in board policy and so um getting that local control component nowadays is tough but uh with regard to 6B through 6E the first one uh to discuss is GBE staff conduct 6C is GBB staff conduct with students and GBP is 6D rep prohibited personnel practices. Those are all three in the G section which apply to personnel. Um and then E is in the
068student section, JLF. Um and it that's the that's the student section and it's uh reporting child abuse and child protection. So those four policy changes are all statutory compliance. Um Senate Bill 1437, which we are thankful for board member Wernern and Senator Warner uh who uh brought this bill forward at the legislature. Um it is about mandatory reporting uh the reporting requirements of teachers um specifically on reportable offenses which can be very serious crimes and also um sexual offenses and then also the reporting requirements to the the state. Uh did you have a question? Yeah, it was a lot of work to get a a bill through the legislature and to get it signed by the governor. Um, and so I definitely think that the work was so the the I'm not going to get
069into all of the statutory changes here tonight, but um to me as a former prosecutor, somebody who prosecuted um sex crimes and other crimes for for nine years, it's very important that people know about this, that things are reported, that that the children are kept safe. And um and so the next thank you I have is for Dr. Cruz, who has been faster than me on getting this up and running. She was at the the trust trainings right away um and is already getting ready to implement uh the legislation into all of the trainings. That's why we're bringing it right now. This is not going to be uh effective law until 90 days after the legislature um finishes their term this year. So um the next thank you I have is for Dr. Lugo, who
070um has done a great job working with our certified staff and working with complainants. Um through working with her, I've learned that Scottsdale Unified has a great repres uh reputation at the state board of investigations unit. A reputation actually for over reporting. Um as an attorney myself, when something comes in, I I look at the law first. I don't like to over report because I don't like to um make somebody go down a process of being accused. Um but since I've been here, I've learned that we have that reputation and it's a good thing. It keeps kids safe here and and you know, sometimes that might work in a negative way for some people and that's sad. Um but we do follow due process here with our with our staff on any reports and make
071sure that the evidence is there, but reporting is done here um on a very consistent and common basis. So these three policies um BC and D they are essentially GB sorry I have to thank Alexis Sust lobbyist I worked directly with her um when she first showed me what this bill was um with regard to uh the reporting um or that that there's some interview requirements in which when law enforcement interviews a child, we want to make sure that the interview is uh credible that somebody who's not trained doesn't interview a child and then essentially creates a difficult testimony from her child or a bad record. And so that's something that got added. I think Senator Warner, Birdman Warner could speak to that. Um, but that's something that got added and um, Miss Susorf was
072was helpful behind the scenes in in uh, working with the law enforcement to make sure that that was that was added. So, these first three G policies really what they are is I'll just go to staff conduct. I'm just going to go to the black line. So these are um there's a reporting requirement already in GB and this is a general requirement of all staff that if you uh suspect a crime it's reported and in this policy um it had to the superintendent. Well, the law changed that a little bit. And so I added uh if the report pertains to violations of these particular statutes, employees shall follow those reporting requirements and refer to policy JLF. Just as a a matter of um information, this policy was adopted in March 17th of 2020. The next
073one, staff conduct with students, this policy, I'm going to go to the very bottom first, was adopted at date of manual adoption, so it hasn't been um amended. The date of manual adoption was quite a some time ago. Um, and so it had a couple a it currently has a little bit of language that I think um doesn't go far enough. So I added the reporting requirement um of the mandatory reporting statute into this this as well. I also added uh because this comes up from time to time the definition from the state administrative code on unprofessional or immoral conduct. Um, this is a good reminder for administrators to demonstrate to teachers, uh, all employees really what the line is, what's unprofessional conduct versus immoral conduct. Um, and essentially what what is prohibited. It's not
074currently in policy. I think it should be and I think it would be helpful for for uh the human resources department when they're conducting investigations. Finally, GBP This was a very brief change to the statute. Um it is prohibited to retaliate somebody after a report is made. Uh you can't take so if you report there should be no retaliation against you. This was is already the law the governing board but it says governing board or school district employee who has control over personnel decisions. the legislature added or school uh and then just added a couple of changes down here that kind of expand that a little bit. Finally, JLF is the uh policy that really expanded it the most. Um it added substitute teachers. The previously the law said that all school personnel uh must
075report and then it also so it specifically added substitute teachers and any member of the district governing board. Uh there's specific requirements about who you can report to says specifically that if you report to a school resource officer that that's not sufficient. So I know Mr. Freriedman who's trying to walk out of the room right now um has been I mean he was on it like that working with um our partners at Scottsdale Police Department and also Phoenix Police Department to make sure that we follow this reporting requirement and that there's no um you know statutory miss there because this these are statutes that if you don't report you can be held criminally liable for this um which is important and um and so we want to make sure we follow the law. We want
076to make sure every all of our employees are trained up properly. Uh there's the interview interviewing requirement that I mentioned. Um and then I got to give credit to ASBA. This is actually their language that they added. They added this just at the last moment um before this meeting. Um it's all statutory, but it's part of their service is to provide an advisory to us, which I included. Uh they also added these head headers, failure to report header and it just made it a little bit more readable. And then there's a definition section which is from the statute. So the last piece is separate um 6F governing board policy JR student records. This comes from another statute, a house bill that was passed this year. And this is a compliance piece about directory information. There
077uh we talked last meeting about the directory information suggestions that would be added to the code of conduct. This is one of those situations where we added in two places. It'll be in the code of conduct so that parents can see what the the rules are that we're following and and see in a you know rapid way really when they enroll students. It's an easy click-through process. Um and then also in policy uh for those school lawyers that read the policy. That's it. Questions from the board? Mr. Shy. Um, Mr. Bzon, on the last one on JR with the director information, um, did I was looking for exceptions. I couldn't find it. If, um, uh, we're using a tool, uh, an online tool with a third party vendor and it uses an email address as
078a login ID, sometime there's data passing between there. Is that accepted in here or would they need permission that says, "Hey, go log onto this thing." Um, and the student uses an email or a vendor uses the email as an ID. Is that covered in here? Therefore, they would need their parents' permission to use that tool. I believe there is a consent for um well, so for a lot of the vendors that you're referring to, directory information isn't being um transferred to them. So, that's a a furpa analysis really is determining whether they're we have contracts with those vendors that determine that they're a school official and that the data that we will be uh sharing with them is protected. um by our agreement and and so forth. So right so if there's a fura
079agreement where they are an agent of the institution then it is okay to pass information or you're saying it's not because you know and many times it should be and Dr. Watt can uh agree would you like to share Dr. I'm just nodding in agreement. Yes. When they're doing work um that we would otherwise hire people to do uh like you know for curriculum and learning tools that are online then the uh FURPA school official exception applies. So we're not sharing direct it's not directory information. It's um other types of information that are shared. And we do put um we do have data protection agreements in place with those vendors um that reiterate that they are adherent to FURPA. So this policy saying you can't share a student's email address without parents consent won't prevent
080a student from using a tool in class. Okay. Thank you. Other comments or questions? Uh we we look forward as board members also being included in the training or having a distinct training. Uh thank you. Assuming it passes. Uh so we'll look forward to the second read for action. Thank you for your time and preparation. I'll make a motion to uh approve the consent agenda items A through P and R through Z. Pulling item Q for later. Um, I need a second. We'll second the motion. Any comments? All right. I uh I'll call for uh the motion. All those in favor? I I Any opposed? Okay. That that they all pass 50. Uh before we move on to 7Q, I would like to take a moment to congratulate the following people whose positions were just
081approved. Uh would you please stand when your name is read? Carrie Woods is the new assistant principal at Puma Elementary. It may not be here. Jennifer Rogers, our new assistant principal at Tonalia. [Applause] Amy Yates, a new assistant principal at Hohokum, maybe at a conference. All right. Sher Fessmier Meyer, there you are. Did I say Meyer? Congratulations, Sher. uh that and and we're just tickled to see our assistant principles. Uh I would also like to congratulate we would also like to congratulate uh Christina Ambry as interim principal at Desert Canyon Middle School and Robert Villa or Via Via at uh Tonalia Middle School. Congratulations. And Christine Harrington as our chief communications and information officer. Thank you all can and that we know it was a a rigorous uh procedure for you. Well earned. All right,
082we're going to move on to 7 Q that was pulled and I will turn it to uh Miss Carney. Thank you, President Lewis. Um yes, I just wanted to pull seven Q the approval of revised job description for the digital content manager. Uh when I was just going through the uh new job description, I noticed a lot about the podcast development and um and podcasting is is new under the duties and responsibilities. And I was really hoping that the district podcast was just a novelty. Um but I see with this new job description that it's not and it's here to stay. And I do not agree that we should spend time and funds on doing a weekly district podcast. Um, so therefore I'm a no on this new job description. Thank you. Any other comments
083on this uh item for discussion questions? Miss Warner, is this is there a current person in this position with the before the revisions? Uh, this is the position Alio was in doing the video work. We also previously and he did the podcast work in that video role. We also had a a position that did social media, but that was never filled when the person left. And so we were collapsing responsibilities into one job description. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? All right. I'll make a motion to approve the revised job description for digital content manager. Second. We have a sec first and a second. All those in favor? I I. All those opposed? No. All right. Thank you. Uh we're now moving to action items. Uh 8A, approval for the proposed fiscal budget uh year for
0842526. And uh Shannon's joining us. Uh so uh and then we're going to vote on holding a a public hearing later. You're going to get us up to date on the many things we've heard many times, and it's our job to give you our last best thinking on this. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, board president Lewis, uh, Vice President Shy, members of the board, Dr. Melon's on guests. Um, we have talked about the budget a lot, which is a good thing. Um, now we are ready to propose the budget and then later this month do the uh, public hearing and adoption of the budget based off of all of the information and decisions that have been made prior this year. Uh, just a little bit of the budget development. We are statutoily required to
085annually prepare a proposed budget no later than July 5th. Um we have to then and this will happen tomorrow. We have to then take that proposed budget. We put out there on our website and on AD that we are going to have a hearing for our budget and an adoption on uh June 24th. So we will post that tomorrow. We have to have 10 days in between the approval of the proposed budget and the hearing and adoption. And we have to do an adoption by July 15th. So all of that is leading up to what will happen in the next um couple days. This is just a look at our timelines. We've seen most of this before. Um we started in August with interestbased negotiations. Uh November starts the staffing prep. The bulk of our
086budget with M is with staffing. Um by March, we have that staffing part figured out when we start handing out contracts to our indivi our employees. Um we have talked budget every month since January. um and made changes based off of um what we've heard from the governing board and discussions within that within departments and um leadership looking at how we could save dollars. Um the budget development process we we don't have budget forms yet from the state because the state hasn't finished their work with the um developing the budget. So, um, we are using prior year forms because of that. The amount in it is the for the base level or amount we get per student is still based off of this current year's amount, it doesn't have the increase included in it because
087we although that should happen, we don't have that yet from the state. Um, so because of that, so that we can get the budget the right amount and set the have the state set the property tax correctly, we um increase the average daily membership so that we can then get to the amount dollar amount that we need uh for the budget that we anticipate the budget actually being once everything is adopted by the state. So that is one caveat I would say is base level in these forms is based off of the amount for this year. it will it will and should increase by 2% or at least 2%. Um but to get to that dollar amount that we know it should be we have to adjust the daily uh average daily membership. We projected
088a um student weight count decrease of $463 or basically $2.3 million decrease in revenue. Uh base level like I said should increase 2%. And we are spending more of our budget balance carry forward. So, we know that's going to go down about 3.1 million. What's not on here that we also have done is we are moving over 4.2 million from capital to M. Um that is to address some of the loss here in our M revenue, but that's also how we are paying for um the 1% increase we gave to all um employees as well as the million dollar contribution towards um medical insurance. Uh this just kind of gives a estimate of what we believe the tax rate will be based off of our property values. We don't set the tax rate. The governing
089board doesn't set the tax rate. Maricopa County Board of Supervisors sets that tax rate. Um we are keeping it basically flat for next year. Um it does include last year we had the Quasmir lawsuit issue for our district was quite substantial. um which impacts the amount of cash on hand we have. And so the only way to recoup that cash is through uh the tax rate. Um so we did we're keeping things flat and we're over the next two maybe three years recouping the um over 24 million $24.4 million that was taken from our cash account to pay for the Quasmire refunds. Um so that part stays relatively flat. Um, we will do, like I said, on June 24th, we will have a public hearing and budget adoption. It'll be at 5:00 pm at the
090Mojave District Annex. Um, information about that and the budget will be posted on our district website um, as required as well as AD. There'll be a link directly to the budget um, and the public hearing notice that. Are there any questions? Dr. Patinsky, are you leaning in? I see. I'm sorry. Okay. I didn't see the green. My bad. Go ahead, Miss Carney. Thank you, President Lewis. Um, I'm just wondering on June 3rd, I had emailed asking uh for you to send the board the school site level um budget cuts so we can better understand an email that the board received about cuts um at Desert Mountain High School and wondering where Yes, we have that nearly done. We are just double-checking numbers. Um and so that should be to the board. I was hoping to
091get it today, but it should be done by tomorrow. HR is just double-checking everything with it. Um, I can tell you at Desert Mountain specifically, there was a 2.6 2.5 2.6 FTE reduction. Um, in looking into that a little bit more deeply, it had to do with um, we made st changes in our staffing ratios for special ed this year. Um, and the bulk of that was in uh, LRC, I believe. Um, yeah, LRC. And um so looking at that, but within that memo, it will have all of the schools, what the rejection was for every single school. Um it all goes back to what those ratios are, staffing ratios. Looking at Desert Mountains today, they are still far below um what the approved staffing ratios are for those schools, our target ratios are for
092the school. Okay. Um I'll be abstaining from the vote tonight since I didn't get that information that I'd requested. Thanks, Dr. Patensky, I just want to say thank you to you and to the district leadership. Um, we asked for a clearer understanding of the timeline and you've made it crystal clear and you may not be, but I'm looking forward to August and starting this all over again. This time from the beginning. Um, we asked you to make tougher cuts at the district office. You've combined roles. You rethought things, I thought, very creatively. Um, and so I want to thank you on on that. We asked you to find a way to preserve the assistant principles and at least defer that, respecting the interestbased negotiation process, and you found a way to do that as well.
093So, uh, I just want to say thank you for listening and being responsive and I think what we'll ultimately be approving um is different from where we started um with the benefit of of your responsiveness. So, thank you to everybody. Great, Miss Warner. Thank you. Uh, Miss Croer, I have a request. Uh, we've had this conversation, I think, a few times, but related to the conferences and travel, which I I believe you say baked it into the budget. And I would like to see those itemized and ultimately um work with getting those put on the consent agenda so that we can see them every month or every other month when we get an update related to what those expenditures that are going out every month instead of having them baked in where we have no
094idea and um I'll send you an email with that as well, but that's my request. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shy. Thank you so very much. All right. So I make a motion to approve the proposed fiscal year 2526 expenditure budget and a call for the public hearing in accordance. I need a second. Second the motion. All right. All those in favor? I I and all those opposed abstain. And an abstain. Okay. Thank you. It passes four uh with zero nays and one abstension. Thank you. Uh I move for sorry let's discuss first. Is that what you want to do? I usually just move for a motion from my past practices. So may I'm going to make a motion. I'm on action item 8B. Correct. Just a second read for code of conduct. So you
095want let's just open it up for discussion. How about that? Then we can make a motion later. Or President Lewis. Mr. Mr. Bazan, may I make one statement? Uh, goes back to board member Shy's question about uh FURPA and and the sharing of information with a school vendor. Um, so I misspoke. It's not actually consented to in the code of conduct. It's part of the FURPA um acknowledgement that we notify. And FURPA actually looks at it as uh those types of vendors. If they have are school official with a legit legitimate educational interest, then they're treated under FURPA just like the school. Okay. Comments, questions, Miss Carney. Thank you, President Lewis. Um well, the board's goal that we set is to be the number one educational choice for families. So therefore, we we need to
096res reconsider our dress code for students. Uh as a board member, I've received numerous communications through the years about the need for more appropriate dress on our campuses. Uh we heard it from a dad tonight, and the survey sent out to the community shows that those results as well. Um on October 18th, 2022, a board member did single-handedly use their undue influence and had the word naval removed from the list of private body parts uh without any public conversation. So therefore, I'd make a motion uh for the revision of the code of conduct dress code policy to revise language under students must wear to say clothing that covers private body parts, genitals, buttocks, chest, and nipples, and the entire midriff. We are way more lenient than our neighboring public school districts, who I uh checked,
097and they all uh use the same language in a different maybe different wording. Um, but that is the motion I would like to make. Second. We've got a motion and a second. Uh, discussion. Go ahead, Dr. Patky. Yeah. So, if there's a spectrum of people who view student dress as like personal expression and people who view it as kind of a uniform for going to school, I am on the conservative uniform for going to school side of things. I think um Foot Loose had the protagonist all wrong. That was funnier in my head than it in person. Um so I I I agree with the motion. I guess my question you right now it seems to me in addition to having uh an opening in policy we also have um a challenge in enforcement that
098I mean you can correct me if I'm wrong but I think coming out of COVID as a parent my observation is that coming out of COVID um you know just you went to school in your pajamas and then all of a sudden you're back at school and there were so many contentious parent school dynamics that to add on top of that asking our school leadership and our teachers and everyone else to step into that was just going to add one more fuel to the fire. Something that I've also heard from folks that I hadn't considered is particularly male teachers are very sensitive about um being the source of a dress code violation because if I say hey I notice your you know whatever part you're showing then it implies I was looking at whatever part
099you were showing and then that could very quickly become very uncomfortable for me. So I am supportive of the policy. I'm also very sympathetic of the district to have two things happening at one time. Kind of the policy get stricter and a step up in enforcement in the policy for things that are already not allowed but probably are sliding through. Um you know and presumably we you there's communication to families. As a parent, I personally would love to get something in arguments with my kids to say, "No, see this is the drawing and and you're not you're you know, this isn't like uh interpretation like this is the drawing and what you're wearing is not appropriate. I don't mean to malign my own children, but could you just take a few minutes to talk a
100little bit about where are we uh Dr. Mensel, where are we in enforcement? And if we were to approve this motion, you know, any concerns you have about um both a step up in strictness as we're stepping up enforcement. So, consistent with what the board saw in the survey responses, enforcement is a concern. If you were to visit our 29 campuses, you would see different levels of enforcement and and dress code compliance or lack thereof. And there's actually dress code compliance issues at our three schools. um three I think now that are uniform schools, Cheyenne, Laguna, and Copper Ridge. So, so it's not that you won't have this conversation, but consistent enforcement, understanding what the expectations are, that's important. I think part of it you you hit on the head, it can be difficult to
101have those conversations. Um particularly for male staff, but even in talking with female assistant principles uh at the ASA conference, they said sometimes it's difficult for them to have that conversation. So, so, uh, when I discussed that this was going to be on the agenda this evening and talked about enforcement and going the next step to make it very clear what's compliant and what's not. To your point of having a visual to be able to show, as I'm looking at some of the language, I think it's very clear, you cannot under our code of conduct come to school in a sports bra. It says that you must have a top and a bottom and that underwear cannot be showing. So it's about being very clear on that's not compliant with the code of conduct the
102dress code that is currently represented here. So so then that's one part right I think that we should be very diligent in being clear on the expectations but to talk about some of the unintended consequences and some of the challenges of the motion that's been made. uh you may know that there's a period of time for children uh where they start a year wearing a certain size and they end a year wearing a different size and somewhere in between there a shirt that would have been compliant might not be compliant and might show part of the midriff. Now, some families can readily replenish the wardrobe at any point in time during the year, but some of our families cannot. And and sometimes a person might be sitting down and be compliant with the exposed midrift
103piece, but if they raise their hands or they stand up or they're doing jumping jacks, and I have a video of a young elementary student who's being a reporter, uh, talking about CLA curriculum and as she's getting very excited about the reporting, she's out of compliance if showing your belly button is a concern. So just by making the change, it still leaves open this gray area of what's the intent and and so I think what's most important is to be clear what's compliant, what's not compliant. A halter top without a sweater is not compliant based on the second paragraph in this code of conduct is currently configured. So the the challenge that I would have in going back to the team is is it in the intention that every time someone has an article of
104clothing that they've grown out of but haven't been able to replace yet, that's a violation. Or is it really and I understand where the other concerns are. I've been on campuses where there have been students who are out of compliance and I don't know why they haven't been addressed yet, but I've you're not supposed to see underwear. The short should fully cover the bottom. You know, all of those things are the expectation. And so for me, what's really important as we head into the 25 26 school year is to reiterate what those expectations are. Process for how we ensure that it's addressed at the beginning of the day. If someone in fifth period is now addressing a code violation that's been allowed to happen for four periods prior, that's also a concern. Doesn't mean a
105student couldn't have changed or shifted between period one and four, but you know, it's th those are legitimate concerns. And then the question is how much time are we spending on code compliance? The expectation is we want students to dress appropriately for the learning environment. So let's start with being very clear that's the expectation and there are some things that are simply not appropriate in the learning environment. And there are some areas it's not always black and white for those reasons. And so I I just want to be sure that we're clear about potential unintended consequences. Mr. Shy, thank you. Um to continue Dr. Patinsk's uh reference, I'm closer to John Lithggo than I am to Kevin Bacon uh on that scale. So, thank you for that. Um the enforcement issue is a key point
106here because what I want to do is address the issue of the proper learning environment. Um and I don't feel that adding any wording to the policy as it is will solve the problem. Now, if the folks who are doing the enforcement at the schools came to the board and said, "Could you please add this phrase to this code of conduct, it will make it easier for us to do our jobs and create a learning environment?" I would do it in a second because they are the ones responsible. I don't want to have it where we think because we change the wording in something that's going to solve the problem. In the survey, uh, 4,000 families surveyed, 11% said they're not in favor. 7% said they're not likely to enforce the dress code at home.
1074% said, "I do not support the dress code policy." So 10% of the respondents to the survey, we can change the wording to anything we want, and they're not there. Those the families aren't there to do anything about it. So while I support the direction we're going, I don't feel it's doing anything to solve the problem. For me, it's um we talked about this last month and I um I asked uh TJ and representatives from the teacher side. Where are the teachers stand? The folks who are actually on the front lines doing this. Um I would want to hear from them what would make their jobs better in order to do this. So while I'm not opposed to changing the wording, I don't think it solves the problem we're trying to solve. Miss Warner. Thank
108you. So, I also had conversations with staff and people who were um working in around the committee back pri pre2022 when this all went down. Uh so I like your idea with a drawing like you know this is the code and it either does m matches or it doesn't. It makes it very simple. And um I think that in my conversations it what was brought up was that on back to school nights that going over the code of conduct, the dress the dress code when parents are in the room so that parents are hearing it from the teachers and it's getting that reinforcement from the very beginning of the year. And uh if we have a diagram, it would make it easier for a staff member. I don't want a staff member to be uncomfortable
109about this, but um to be able point to the picture, you know, it either it is or it isn't. And when it comes to the unintended consequences related to somebody growing and um maybe not having the means to to keep up with their ward with their growth, we do have our community closet and I know that as a community, Scottsdale always comes together when there's a need for someone. And so I do believe that we have phenomenal staff that would be able to identify that and be able to help that student so they do have clothes that fit and that their body is covered at school. So um I will be, you know, supporting um board member Carney's motion because I do we do have to set a standard. As I shared before, you know,
110when I talk to employers out there, they are having issues with with their new employees coming in and not proper clothing for work and they're getting dressed coded at work. So, I I think that if our goal is to, you know, be the number one school that that parents want to put their kids in, we do have to set a standard that elevates excellence. And I do believe we do that by a changing, you know, adding the verbiage to the policy and then being just creative and um supportive when it comes to the enforcement with diagrams, ensuring parents are aware from back to school night and things like that. Thank you. As a former middle school principal, I remember being vigilant about dress code and I had a mother call me and say, "I so
111agree with what you're doing. Thank you, but I can't find anything in the stores except in the senior women's or the maternity department. Help me know what to do." I said, "I just want to support you. I want to partner with you. How do we help your child show up ready for learning and ready for focusing in a professional learning manner? And we giggled as a principal and a mom about how to partner with one another. And I think as we look at the awkwardness of body odor, lice, and dress code being some of the toughest stuff we deal with in in the schools, uh just kindness and and integrity and and gentleness as we approach these conversations, as awkward as they are. I also have doctoral students who show up in my class in
112flip-flops and shorts and I look at them and I think I'm preparing you for a chief executive officer position. Start dressing like it now. And these are, you know, rising adult superstars. So I do believe we dress for who we are going to be. And I am going to support uh this this bill, this adjustment. Uh uh but boy it it I have been all over the gamut in it including as a midriffw wearing middle school child myself. So I really respect the um the the dynamics that are going on and I know we have the maturity do it to do it well. So uh with that are there any more comments? Yes. I know I have a motion on the table but I do have a couple more that have come up since you'all
113are talking about a visual. We did receive email the board before asking if we had a visual uh from assistant principles. So that is something to consider, right? Um but we let's remember that the board is to implement kind of the policy and the wording and then it's up to the superintendent to implement it. He needs to figure out how that's going to happen in schools. Our job is to make sure we have the language that makes us the number one school district, you know, where families want to put their kids. That's our job. And the superintendent will figure out how that's to be implemented. All right. I miss Are you good? You're good. All right. Let's Let's go ahead and call the motion. We had a motion in a second to modify the code
114of conduct to include uh the the new phrase as presented. Uh all those in favor I I I I motion passes five to zero. Uh we'll go to 8C. Uh and I I see a few people uh in the audience wanting to head nod to us. I'll say uh approval of the umbrella general leave buyout plan. Uh I'll make a motion for passing the umbrella general leave buyout plan as presented. Need a second. Port president Lewis. I just let me get a second on this and then I'll bring it up. Yeah, I'll second. Okay. Thank you. Now, uh Mr. Buzz on. Um I just noticed in board docs that we didn't include the the umbrella plan and so we were going to ask to table this and and have it on the 24th. Oh goodness.
115Is that right? We we had originally added it and then it we made a mistake and didn't on the final include it in there. Yes. All right. I withdraw the motion and uh we will table it. Is that all I have to say or do we need a motion to table? We'll make a I make a motion to table the general leave buyout plan. I'll second that too. My apologies, but it is what it is. All those in favor? I 50 tableabling 8 D. Approval of 2526 association agreements. Questions, discussion? I'll make a motion to approve the Go ahead. Did I miss it? Sorry, Miss Carney. I've just got a few questions on the certified uh employee agreement. Um, okay. There's a lot in this. So under C, out of district job related uh PD,
116I'd like to understand why are we including this when the language says all out of district professional development must complement the district mission and strategic goals and may address but is not limited to one of the following topics and it lists them all. So if if this you know may address and is not limited to why are we taking up space and including all this this this year when this has never been done in the past. Uh President Lewis, member Carney, I am going to ask Dr. Lugo to come and address that. Uh board member Carney. Uh thank you uh Dr. Lewis and members of the governing board and uh Dr. Mensel and Miss Wagner. Uh this evening the there's a couple of committees that play into the IBN uh negotiated agreement and we have
117what's called the PDAC committee which I sit on and it's chaired by uh Stacy Pascow and it's important with that PDA committee. It's the professional advisory for professional development committee uh which governs over horizontal movement uh reertification hours and those things. So we wanted to be broad to make sure that if there was something that is aligned to the district's vision, mission, goals, strategic plan that that was in there. And there's oftentimes many questions that come through with 1,200 employees that are covered by this agreement. So the the committees the the professional development opportunities that were were in there have already gone through and this way they have a resource where they can see the wash list or if it's not on the list there's a form that they can fill out and make a
118rationale on why they think it should be included. Okay. Sorry, that was a really long-winded Okay, you got to it at the end there. Yeah, I know. I'm working on being succinct. So am I. So, it's okay. Um, okay. Thank you for that. Uh, I wanted to point out and or ask about on page 42 and uh in the technology use agreement, the appendix number eight, it says get written permission from the chief systems officer, but we do not have a chief systems officer. Mrs. Carney, thank you for that edit. We should update that and align that to the new verbiage for the new position. Thank you. We will take care of that. Okay, I'm still going. I got a couple more. That's okay. I think um then I I noticed that the technology use
119agreements are different and the certified and the classified agreements and I'm just wondering why those are different. Uh Miss Carney, that is an error. They should be the same technology agreement. So, we will update that as well. I apologize. But how are we to vote on it when they're totally different? So, which one are we going with? Which one is the correct version? I I would vote and and have that just taken out um and then we can update that at some point. We need to update it anyway. So, we are working with Dr. Watt uh in order to do that. So, let us work on that and we can bring that back. Okay. Okay. I'm not I'm not exactly sure how we'll do that, but that'll be for you guys to um figure out.
120Then I have a question on where you uh talk about the district level committees. Please check the name of this committee. Um it it lists um transfer professional development compensation. It lists 13 committees. I'm wondering do those all fall under policy CE? That is a good question. 42 I believe 42 is the tech this is all certified this is all the certified agreement this district level committees are those under policy CE I guess it doesn't have a that's that's a great idea a great but I couldn't I think it's page Thank you. I'm Yeah, thank you. I'm going in order here, but so Oh, sorry. The 45 went down on my line. It Yes. So, I I can take a stab at answering that. I don't know if it's covered under that policy specifically. Those
121are the uh committee work or task force for which employees uh gain professional development credit hours or hours towards uh horizontal movement uh which are approved by the PDAC committee. So it's not necessarily a um committee by policy. Some of them are site level committees and some of them are district level committ right because site level they were spelled out some were under site level and then some were under district level. I think if we could get a report on that so we understand what um what all policies follow or committees follow under policy C that'd be great. And then last lastly on page 44 you have district identified direction priority list pre-approved course topics and it kind of goes back to what I was asking about um you know where you're listing all the
122district job related PD. I'm wanting to know on culturally responsive instruction. Could you please define that? That's a good question. Um, we work on culturally based and instruction that is aligned to the students we serve in our school districts. Um, it does not refer in any way, shape, or form to DEI. Okay. Well, I just I just know um that when I look it up on Ed Week, it says that um it can be a problem because uh a lack of self-reflection and bias awareness. Many educators have not done the necessary work to unpack their biases. Without this critical step, attempts to to be culturally responsive can potentially perpetuate stereotypes or cause harm to students from marginalized communities. To truly embrace culturally responsive teaching, teachers must engage in conscious identity work and develop an antibbias
123intersectional lens. So I just feel like we should stay clear of this identity politics and stay focused on how we can help students reach their potential academically and therefore I think all PD should be focused on academic achievement achievement and nothing to do with identity. So, so I would argue um in opposition to that to say that we serve diverse student population and understanding where students come from, their background, their family history, their cultural traditions, the native students that we serve who inhabited this land long before people of European descent arrived here. They have a culture, history, and identity that's relevant to what they bring to the classroom. If teachers are going to help each and every student achieve their full potential, then understanding and respecting and valuing those customs and traditions and history that
124those students are bringing into the classroom with them helps the teacher better reach and understand the students who are coming in front of them. So, I think it's really important to know who our students are, to understand their histories, their background, and it could be a religious identity, it could be uh cultural and ethnic identity. But whatever that is, having teachers uh understand and be responsive to those uh background stories can help them reach students in ways that they otherwise might not reach them. And so I think it's really important if we want all students to achieve academically, respecting and valuing who they are, their family background, their traditions, their customs and their heritage is important. I would add just so people have the context. I mean other some of these are not really topics,
125they're categories like instructional strategy. So one could imagine instructional strategies that are objectionable and not appropriate for our district. Um, but that doesn't mean the broad category of instructional strategies is not something that teachers would engage in. So, I understand that definition, but I could imagine culturally responsive instruction that is not of the type that I think you're describing. Um, and uh, I I think that's true for a few of these categories where there are more like humanities. I'm sure there are humanity courses that are of topics, you know, again that are not um super relevant to how we want our teachers preparing, but it's a broad category of humanity courses. So, I just would hate to see us rule out an entire category based on one very specific description of it. Mr. Bazan, I
126see your light on. Is that intentional? Okay. Any other comments or questions? Mr. Shy, just to be clear on that last point, those are pre-approved course topics for teachers for development. Those aren't topics for students. Correct. Okay. Thank you. All right. Seeing no other questions, Miss Warner. Yes. I'd like to Thank you, President Lewis. I would um as I talked to staff and family members related to the people who had looked at this um I would have to concur with um board member Cornney related to the previous conversation but I just want to jump to the SAA uh agreement and related to the assistant principles I think it's page I don't and we so we suspended it for this year related to keeping the system principles at a 1.0 you know at at the schools
127and the language was changed here to per governing board action May 132 ratios and plan will be implemented in 2627 school year and it actually um I think that's pretty harsh and that it should be reverted to the you know option option for discussion and consensus instead of saying guess what sister you do not have a job next year and I know that there are still budget conversations there's prop 123 three conversations and um I I think that we we would be better off if we reverted it to the language where it's still a conversation instead of people are you know come December they're going to be planning to go somewhere else and um again um I I just I I think that this is is unfair to our to our staff and to our
128families who advocated strongly for assistant principles. So, I I I just find this um unfair and um you know, probably something that should have just been left to the way that it was before. Um member Warner, I will say that our intention was not to change any verbiage whatsoever, but just to update it based on governing board language. We certainly can be a little more liberal with our language. um you can make a suggestion to do so. Um please remember these get approved every single year. We look forward to working closely with the governing board this year, especially early on to help make some of these decisions moving forward. So can you elaborate on that going back to the calendar of sort of the August start to the budget cycle? So if we were to
129approve this, excuse me, but then we deferred it um and then in the upcoming cycle we still are not supportive of it. You're saying then the way to articulate that is as part of the new cycle express that and then that would be brought into the interest base negotiation process and by the time the 2627 budget cycle was being evaluated by us it would be the revised uh IBN outcome that would govern Dr. Member Patinsky. So in essence, yes, but but we would need to start rather early. So we start working on budgeting and staffing internally usually around October uh November to prepare for staffing etc. We work on uh getting staffing numbers out to our campuses usually towards the beginning of December. So it is rather early. We did not start working on the
130implementation of of the AP ratios until January, February um because we were trying to make time and space for that conversation given that um a new board did did come into uh effect in January. So we would ask that we have those conversations early. So, but to Governor Warner's point, what we approve here is the starting point for the budget cycle. So, it it does sort of matter if this is the policy of the board or the preference of the board. So, so I I just want to add on that though. So, so we've made a commitment that we're going to start interestbased negotiations earlier that we're going to engage the board on the front end in the fall. So, it's probably not August, but probably in September. uh there is the opportunity then through
131that process if this is a non-negotiable for the board then it means that there's some other things that we won't be able to do because this is a zero game some game in terms of the revenue that's generated so it may mean that it expedites a conversation about keeping a building open that's a conversation that we need to have intentionally this language reflects prior board action that suspended the implementation of the assistant principal ratio to the 2627 school year and so I I think to honor the IBN process, it's important to honor the language of what the governing board already approved. We made those adjustments to ensure there's a full-time AP and we will have sufficient time within the process to be able to make additional changes if this is a non-negotiable for the board.
132But it's hard for me to say that we've honored the IBN process and then do something different than what the governing board approved when we uh suspended the policy at the last meeting. Warner, thank you. So respectfully, when we made that motion and um suspended it, we did not say that it would be implemented. Uh the language could have been left the same. And I do want to honor and respect the IBM process and I have great respect for Dr. Dansky and I know she was working on this. Um, and I know our staff works really hard for our students and they most of them have been working here a long time. And so I I just struggle with this this um language where you're just ousted and that there's not an opportunity to, you
133know, if if if part two3 comes through, if the budget comes, if there's any shifts, then, you know, you're still out of a job. Um, and the other question that I have is since there are so many mistakes in the document that board member Carney uh read off at the beginning of the session, we have the language here. Um, could we table this to the next board meeting just to get the corrections done and um have some conversations with the Ivy team related to um, you know, possibly changing this back to what the original language was. um you know is that something that that we could do? So um what I would like to add to that uh potential is to incorporate the language from the universal leave policy language that was tabled earlier so
134that then we have complete documents because we were going to need to modify the language for the general leave provision payout anyway um if this was approved tonight. So, as long as the board is uh okay with us rolling that in so that the language is reflected, then you'll have a complete document, uh we could bring that back for consideration on the 24th. Thank you. I'd like to make that motion that we table this item today um to roll to roll in the um I don't remember the item, the general le provision so that on the 24th that we can vote on a complete package. I'll second that. So, we have a table motion to address first now instead of the motion which which I did call earlier, right? No, this is the motion. Okay,
135this is the motion. Thank you. Comment and a second. And a second. Mr. Shy, are there any unintended consequences of tableabling for two weeks? only if we don't approve um on the 24th then it would impact people but yes we need to approve on the 24th but the goal is to approve it. Yes. Thank you. So and that's my sense. I didn't hear anything that was not uh willing to approve it. We just wanted to be um technically correct address the typos and then this gives us the chance to to fold in the general leave provision that was uh the actual language of it omitted from the the board agenda. So we'll be able to do both of those at the same time. So, board member Wernern on your concern which I appreciate you bringing
136up on the will revert to the 26 27 year. Is there going to be a suggestion for changing that? Is that part of what's going to happen in the next two weeks? Uh, so I will make that suggestion. I will send an email tomorrow to Dr. Dansky and and the superintendent. Thank you. So, we just have to vote. Are you ready to call the motion? We already did. We did and second it. I understand. But I'm now ready to call for the vote. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone in favor vote I. Miss Warner says that I should say everybody in favor say I. I. I. I. I. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you very much. And I appreciate staff's uh kind of hiccup to the flow and willingness to address the technical and precision of the language.
137All right, we are moving now to second read and approval of governing board policy KB regarding parental involvement in education. Miss War uh Carney. Um thank you. I'm just asking your permission to get tech up here because I haven't been able to access I my board uh docs is not accessible. So I don't know. Sorry I keep trying to get it but someone could come help me. Thank you. All right. Any discussion? I move that we approve the governing board KB uh parental involvement as presented. I'll second. Any discussion beyond all those in favor? I I that it passes 50. Uh 8F approval of CKLA materials for 2526. Before we move on that one, I just want to point out that there's a a comma that should be a period on the option one and
138option two. So it's $55,419.79. Option two is um Uh, is that $300,000, Kim? That's what I thought. So, so there was some formatting issue that wasn't caught until recently. So, we just want to make sure that that that's clarified because that could the way it reads is very awkward. Pausing for discussion. All right. I make a motion that we approve CKLA with the appropriate dollar amount, moving the comma appropriately. option. Does that need to be said? Do are you recommending option one or option two, Dr. Karen? Yes, please. You can come to the podium. Trader. Trader. Trader. Trader. Did she hear me? He heard me. Good evening. Um, governing board, um, President Lewis, Vice President Sharky, members of the board, Dr. Mensel, um, Miss Wagner. We are presenting to you two options. So uh as
139you know as a board we bring forward to you recommendations related to our curriculum adoptions or any purchase with a more um of an exact amount. Um what we have found with our curriculum adoptions based on enrollment or specialized programs sometimes there are some tweaks to the approved budgets that you all have given to us. And so what we are presenting to you this evening are two options. And one option is that you would allow us to purchase additional materials for um specialized programs and variances with teacher needs. And that would be a onetime cost for one year. We would bring to you again next year and again the following year and the following year and the following year for the duration of the curriculum adoption. or we're um asking if you would consider option
140two, which would be entrusting us with an amount of money, approximately $300,000, that we would be fiscally responsible for utilizing that money over the course of the next six years in responding to the needs of our specialized programs and enrollment shifts. And that would still be reported to the governing board when the purchases were made pursuant to the other policy that we adopted when the board gives that kind of authorization. Is there a budget impact? Like, do we save money by making a six-year commitment versus one year or this is just a function? The math would seem so, but is this just a function of giving us the authority. This is not the aay and we get a discount. Uh, thank you for that question, board member um Patinsky. This would not be a prepaid.
141This would just allow us every year to go to our rep Tommy and say, "Here is where we are this year. Can we have a new quote?" It would vary. Thank you. So, does option two, the sixyear, uh, does that catch us up to the CKLA adoption from last year? So, we'll be on the same Yep. same schedule. Yes, ma'am. Um, board member Carney, last year when we presented to you all, we brought forward a quote that included information that we had at the time from our varying departments. Um, for example, um, language studio was a new product for us that we're utilizing in EL, for example. We have some teachers who have said, I love Language Studio, but I don't need all of it. So I am good with my um four copies that
142I can pick and choose from or I want to download from the digital resources to make personalized let's call them packets for kids whereas other teachers have said my kids need all of it and I want to go from the first page of the book to the last page of the workbook. I need more of them because I have more than four kids in my classroom. And so, um, this year what we've done is every month Diane Murphy and I meet with the respective departments and we talk about what's working well, how is implementation going, and we're taking that feedback from our teachers. And, um, in special education, for example, we bought, um, digital resources for all of them because we thought they would need to do a lot of modification, but they really want
143the hard copy flip book. They don't want to use the Vonic board. So, we're just being responsive to them in that manner. And so, the first year was based on everything we knew moving forward. years two through six gets us through that seven-year adoption. Okay, great. Thank you. And I do want to say that I did uh work with Leah to come down and I did go review a whole stack of stuff um for that. So, I'd like to make a motion that the board approve option two uh for the six years of the CK uh K through 5 CKLA curriculum. I second. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I I passes 5. Thank you. We are at uh 8G approval of the proposed increase in meal prices for school year 2526. So we're
144welcoming Patty and Brooke from our nutrition services team. Awesome with a very brief presentation to outline the rationale for this request. Welcome again. Good evening uh governing board president Dr. Lewis, members of the governing board, Dr. Mensel and Glattus. We are excited to be here today to bring forth our proposal for a meal price adjustment for the school year 2526. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this presentation, which did you see what I did there? Um I do want to bring attention to the photo that you're going to see at the top. This is not a stock photo. This photo was taken of Pueblo Elementary School of our fresh fruit and vegetable bars that we have in every single elementary school. And I think that we should give some props to our
145cafeteria team that this is the type of display we put out for our kids to choose from every day. So keep that in mind as we move forward. So you might ask why a price adjustment? Well, as you know, in the last eight years since we had our last price adjustment, which was the 201718 school year, we have seen an in insorbbitant amount of operational costs increase. We look at these increases. Well, I guess what we're looking at is these increases have no longer been sustainable within our department and that we decided to make a very very conscious decision to not increase prices over those eight years. During the pandemic, we saw an increased amount of revenue from some of the pandemic waiverss that were passed on and the increased reimbursements. We took those excess
146funds and we applied them to our families. We looked at ways that we could use those funds rather than going out and purchasing some whisbang new uh combi oven. We decided to put it into our family's pockets and say how can we hold off price increases. We were able to sustain that for eight years. Unfortunately, we are no longer at that point to be able to sustain that as those funds have been depleted. We will have a slide that'll talk about increased operational costs. As we all know, we've experienced uh increased costs in our daily lives. We too see this in our department. We also have to address the inequitable revenue gap. We will discuss that a little bit more in a further slide. It is a little difficult to explain, but it is required
147by the USDA that we look at that proportionate revenue that comes from a free reimbured child to a paid child and we have to find that there's some equity in those those amounts of revenue. also program sustainability. Um, fun fact, did you know that we are self-funded? We do not get district funds. We have to operate within the confines of our revenues that are received. And we want to be an asset to the district, not a liability. So, we pay special attention. That's why we have Brooke here. Forgot to introduce her, by the way. Broo Phillips, our finance manager. and she is the one that did a lot of that background research that you're going to that you saw in your board memo that we sent two weeks ago. A lot of data, a lot
148of background information that's going to show you why we are successful at being self-funded. We have never had to ask for district funds to be able to float us. We've always had our three-month operating expense, if not excess, in the bank to operate. We also contribute about approximately $1 million a year to the general fund. Is that correct to say the general fund, Shannon? In indirect costs every year, um we run from about an 18% to a 25% of federal uh reimbursements received paid to the district annually. So, expenses. Here's a little graph, and it looks so just so sweet, but it's really not. Um 20% increase in food costs since 2018. That may seem low to you that it was only 20%. We did a market basket of our highly used items and we
149found those items to be 117% increase. The reason you're going to see only a 20% increase is because we keep a keen eye on our menus. We look at what we're serving, how often we're serving, what our waste factors are, and ways that we can improve that to keep that cost as low as possible. 20% is still a significant increase over time. Our supply increase is exorbitant. 69% since 2018 has been our increase. And in fact, our department wig this year was to decrease supply costs in our elementary schools. And we were able to do that by $100,000 this year by implementing those fresh fruit and salad bars that are self-s served. So there's not a lot of plastics, not a lot of containers. It's open items for students to choose from. Although we've seen
150that increase and we s realized also a decrease this year, we see paper goods going through the roof, we also are looking for ways that we can continue to decrease some of our costs so we can bring in biodegradables and be able to meet the needs of our students. We've had a lot of ask for us to reduce our carbon footprint over time. That comes at a cost. So, we're looking at ways to balance those supply costs. Labor. So labor cost is significant. Since 2018, labor cost has gone up 106%. Now we all know what happened during the pandemic. Wages went through the roof, especially in the service industry. We had to compete with the McDonald's of the world who went from a minimum wage job to 15, 16, 17, and now about $20 an
151hour. If you go to In-N-Out, a kid's going to make about $21 an hour to start. So we had to compete with that in our same because those are the people that work in our industry in school food service. So through um the labor went up because of price inc I mean labor increases not just in our department but also some things that were passed on during the co time within the district to be able to add some incentives to our employees. Okay. Okay. So, the per student meal revenue gap. This is something that's required by the USDA for us to look at annually. It's called the paid lunch equity tool. I expect you all to remember this later. Um, it is looking at what the difference is between what a student who is on
152a paid status and a student that is on a free status. What the discrepancy is between the revenue received. For example, in the elementary, a free student receives a $443 federal reimbursement here to SUSD with a 9 cent menu certification reimbursement. We receive zero cash at the register for a total revenue of $4.52 for that student. However, a paid student, we get 42 cents reimbursement from the federal government. Not $443,42 cents. We get the 9 reimbursement for a menu certification. We take in $2.85 in cash at the register for a dollar, a total dollar amount of $3.36 per student for revenue. So there's a gap there of the free student, we receive a $116 more than we do for a paid student. So what USDA is saying is those paid students are actually being subsidized
153for a lower cost from the free with dollars that were meant to support free and reduced students. So we need to find what's that paid lunch equity. Right now, when we do our tool, it shows that we should have an average meal price of about $3.85 for every single meal. That should be what a student is charged. Of course, that doesn't take into effect any initiatives we have, the makeup of our district, the way our cafeterias are designed, but that's kind of a general rule of where we should land. So, we did look at that when we looked at our pricing. the um in your documents, we also have that same formula that it applies to middle school um high school and that revenue gap was 91 cents. And that's because their meal price is
154a little bit higher. So with that, we have a proposed meal price adjustment for the upcoming school year to take our elementary breakfast and our secondary breakfast to the same price. This is the exact same breakfast served. We've never understood why elementary is a little bit more than um or a little bit less than middle school high school. It's the same portion size everything. So that will go to 250. Our elementary lunch will go to 3.95. And then we're kind of excited about the secondary lunch. We kind of looked at ways to still keep some of our premium items, our Blue Zones items, our fan favorites from our kids, like a Western bacon cheeseburger, all healthy, by the way. um on our secondary lunch menu. So, we've gone to a three tier price at 3.95,
155450, and 4.95. Now, keep in mind that if a student is on free or reduced uh lunch, they can select from any of those meal cate or those meal tiers and not have to pay anything. They still get a free meal. Keep also in mind that all meals are entre, milk, juice, fresh break roll, and unlimited fruits and vegetables. So that's a pretty darn good price, I think, for our meal pricing. And always our families come first. That's why we waited eight years to increase prices, right? Free and reduced students will not be affected by this meal adjustment. We will definitely be doing outreach to our families on how they can apply for free and reduced meals should they need to, what the income eligibility guidelines, and also any other resources that are in the
156area that could help families through food banks, through pickups, through different types of um faith-based organizations that can help families. Also, the free meals um for all our community elig eligibility provision is still going to be in place at Coronado, POC, Tonali, and Yavapai. Those four campuses, all students, no matter what their demographic or income do receive free breakfast and lunch as they do qualify for that. And then free breakfast will remain at these qualifying sites, Navajo, Puma, and Tavon. So in essence, this meal adjustment is essential for our sustainability and our equity. We we must remain a um an asset to the district. We spend a lot of time, I should say Brooke spends a lot of time in our office really diving through our profit and loss statements. I know board member Carney
157and board member Warner Wernern were in and saw our really thick profit loss statement. We know where we stand at any time. Remember that we are an enterprise business that happens to be in an educational setting setting that supports academic success. We're unique in that way. We take that very seriously. We know that we have to have this price adjustment to maintain our high quality and all the variety our students want. We also have determined that this will probably come in at an estimated total additional revenue of $81,000 which we see offsetting all of our potential short budget shortfall in the next coming years. For example, right now it's not just food cost and labor that's high. A walk-in freezer in Navajo in 2018 or in Coochis in 2018 was $25,000. That same freezer is
158now $89,000. things have gone through the roof. They're skyrocketing and they continue to do so. We won't even talk about computer equipment. Don't you know that, Dr. Watt? So, with that being said, we are asking for approval for this price adjustment and we'll open it up to any questions that you have. Mr. Shy, um, thank you. Great presentation. I really appreciate that. on the uh paid lunch equity. Is there a requirement that it the paid lunch must be higher than the free reduced or as long as there is a co positive cash balance in the food service account, there is not a requirement. Should we be in a deficit in that cash uh in our accounts, we are required to go up a minimum of 10 cents. Okay. Thank you. So, you will see in
159some districts you will see that really low because they have a very high cash balance. So, they haven't raised their prices in years. Thank you. Good question. Dr. Patensky, I have a very comprehensive presentation. Somehow I still have a few questions. Um, I expected it. It's okay. Thank you. So, first, reduce lunch. Is that the government is that literally what it sounds like? The government covering a percent of our So, would that not be affected if the it now typically if the government's going to reduce the price? Yeah. Right now with reduced lunch, what's going on is a student would typically pay 30 cents out of their pocket for breakfast and 40 cents for lunch. The rest would be completely covered by the federal government. However, in the state of Arizona right now, the state
160of Arizona has taken on covering that reduced co-pay. So a reduced student is basically free in the state of Arizona. So when we file our claim for reimbursement for a reduced student, they will Arizona will reimburse us that 30 cents for breakfast and that 40 cents for lunch that would have come out of that family's pocket and the federal government reduce uh picks up the taxes in practice. So yes, it is a little I know that is a little confusing right now. I'd also like to add that that's only been in the last two years and prior to that Scottdale itself covered that. So our students that were in the reduced category were also free prior to that at least for 2018. Yeah. Yeah. Um second question I understand thank you for holding the prices
161for for the eight years at the same time the effect of that is an increase that's anywhere from 30 to 60%. Correct. Which is just a really big increase to absorb in a single year. Absolutely. So I I guess my questions are one, did you consider phasing this in? We did. And two, sorry. Um, what should we expect going forward? Because if our approach is kind of feast, famine, feast, famine, you know, and I'm in the unlucky year that my kids are starting or or graduate out versus a more continuous increase that keeps pace, which is our kind of pricing strategy going forward. So, I agree with you that there was a lot of conversation not just in our department but districtwide. We we talked about should we go ahead and pull the trigger to
162increase prices previously. However, we were in such a volatile economy. We were seeing prices going up and down. We didn't know where we were going to flatten out. We didn't know if a price increase would then mean that we were kind of inflated higher than we needed to be. So, what Brooke and I have looked at is what do we see as our futures going forward? What do we see? We feel like things are stabilizing a little. Tariffs have changed a few things, but we expect that to calm down eventually and we think that we can absorb that. We have put in this price to know that we can go at least several years without having to increase again. And then what we anticipate because now we've writed where we should be is those should
163be like our typical 20 cents, 15 cents from there forward. We also heard from our families it was people were still having some difficult times right out of the pandemic. people weren't back to perhaps their regular rate of pay, their businesses shut down. So, we looked at it as a way to kind of help our families. However, we do know now we had to have a large increase. So, so but to understand your answer, the intent is a bigger increase now and then the goal is to try to refrain from an increase. Correct. For a few years, correct? Few years and then smaller increases and then Yeah. smaller increases. And I guess the final question, um, and this may be on me. I'm still learning how to be a board member and there may be
164materials that I haven't seen. I mean that sincerely, but as you said, you're kind of a unique enterprise. So I'm struggling on how to approve a price increase for an enterprise whose budget I don't understand. So do we have should I know that we're in the red by X and we need this price increase to be in the black or it's subsidizing? like I have no sense of what the financial operations are that we're making price judgments on to know whether this is more than we really to bring my own judgment to whether this is less or more or in between. That's a great question. Um so it is in the budget and we do report so it's fund 510 in the budget. We do report um that it's in the financials that we send.
165It doesn't have the in-depth profit and loss that you'll see. Um I think it's important too to know we're not in the red. Yeah. Um there this is to keep us from going into the red down correct down the line. We're st that's a stable department. Um the idea is we need to address these things before it becomes a problem versus waiting, you know. Yeah. Board member Patinsky, I'd like to add that we always have about three-month operating expense in the bank at any given time. Right now we're in a little excess of that. that will shortly be gone because of some of the um repairs we have to do on some of our equipment. And that's why we are seeing this that we need to build that fund balance up. I'm going to give
166you a little bit of a snapshot on that three-month operating expense. Prior to the pandemic, we ran at about a $1.2 million need in the bank for a three-month operating expense. That has now grown to have to be a $4 million. So, not only that, we took some of our excess funds are now having to be brought in to be our three-month operating ex expense like by $2.8 million that we didn't have to just be able to continue to maybe fund school meals or um to fund our initiatives. So, therefore, we really are watching our budget. We make sure that we never run into the red. It is my job and Brook's job to make sure that we never are a liability to the district. I would invite you at any time to come in
167and you can sit through and look at our profit and loss statements. Look at what we got. It's pretty impressive and I dare say that there's any other food service department out there that has one as extensive as ours. Um it's it's a it's a novel. Yeah. with a lot of but I would love to go over that and explain to you kind of how we operate because we are very different than how the rest of the school district operates. We are an enterprise business and we would love to go over that with you. I like to share spreadsheets. Yeah. Spreadsheet she doesn't love. And I actually enjoy reading spreadsheets. Um you're Yeah. You're obviously an expert. You know the operations. You're throwing out numbers at me that I'm sort of following. It's the struggle
168I have is not really having that more comprehensive picture to be able to understand my own independent judgment to correct could we maybe make a more moderate increase and see where we are a year from now. I'm not asking you to answer that. I'm just trying to give you my psychology. Um, and and these are really big increases, but I would actually like to hear from uh Miss Carney or Miss Warner who have more experience on the board with this um and it sounds like have had a chance to visit or not. I mean, we put you on the spot um if you don't care to speak, but um yeah, I think it would be uh important for you to go down and meet with them. We we took many hours I think in when
169we were first board members and came down and um gives me much confidence in what you do because yeah we actually got to meet everyone see everything and so I s suggest you do that if if you have questions because that did uh that did help us out but I would like to know um are you using Titan Solutions? Is that the company you're using for uh students to pay for school lunches? So it was Titan School Solutions. It has now been it was purchased several years ago by link school technologies and they've actually done the full integration of changing that name to link this year. That's who we are using currently. Yes. And can families can students also pay by cash? Yes, they can. They can. So students can pay by cash. They can
170pay online. Families can do it through the link family portal. They can pay cash check. They however they want to pay. Okay. Because I know there's fees associated because correct. I have a correct I have a school lunch student. So I know I pay fees on there when I go in there. So you can mail me a check. You can send a check. Uh fees I don't think that if the fees go up. That is a third party vendor and we've not heard that those fees are going up. Are they fixed? Are they fixed? Yeah, they're percent. They're a fixed price by that third party vendor. So is it 260 right now? I think it's 260 for per transaction. Per transaction. Yeah, it's not. It's a flat fee per transaction. Okay. Not per kid per
171transaction. So if you put $20 in in one transaction and you apply $40 to three different kids, it's only going to charge you 260 the one time and that is outside our control to change because that is through the third party vendor. However, we always offer our families the fact that the child can bring cash through the line. You can send a check through your front office and they'll get it to us. You can mail a check to us and we will apply it to account that way. So, I think if we were to approve this, I think it'd be really important the communication that we put out to families, right, when they see these increases. um let them know how they can save money by paying, you know, paying by check or cash or
172to avoid those fees or just any way you can help families um and be upfront and communicate with them why we needed to do this if if the board approves it. So, that would be appreciated. I think that's a great idea. I think I would like to also add that you might see another a lot of districts in the same position very soon. As we know that we just passed HB 2164, the Arizona Healthy Schools Act that um eliminates some harmful additives including titanium dioxide, some bromeated oils, um artificial food dies. I want you to know that we've already absorbed that cost in our district because eight years ago we eliminated those items. So, we were ready. That is that becomes law. It's law. It has to be implemented in July of 27. We're already
173done. We we've been there. So, you're going to see some school districts that are going to ex uh bring on some additional costs because they're going to now have to clean up some of their labels where we're already there. So, that we also felt really good that we weren't going to see some of these added costs coming through that some other districts might. So, that should make you feel good, too. Thank you. Very thorough. Thank you for all the questions and discussion. uh important conversation for our kids academic success. Thank you. Uh I move to approve the proposed increase in meal price tax for the school in meal prices for school year 2526. I second the motion. All those in favor? I I Any opposed? I'm going to abstain. Okay. We have a four zero
174and an abstension. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Uh, I'm going to make a motion that we move into executive session per ARS 38431.03A1. A second. Second. Moved and seconded. All those in favor? I I It passes five to zero. We will move into the principal's conference room for this conversation. ready. Thank you. Uh I adjourn the executive session and it is 11:27. Hang on, let me catch up. Uh I'm like to reconvene the regular meeting and the next item on the agenda is item 12 board action required. Uh this is the board may award the superintendent performance pay in accordance with ARS 15341A39. And it is recommended that the governing board provide uh the superintendent with 38% of the pay for performance at $17,100 as the motion. Need a
175second. I'll second. All right. All those in favor? I I I. All those opposed? No. Um I I'd like to explain my vote, please. I I I do believe that with the crunchen times and the cuts that are being made that um um that and our staff that are suffering that I'm just not going to be supportive of races at this time for our district leadership. So, I'm Mau. May I explain my vote? Yes. I I think May I explain Can I explain the vote that I provided? Um I think we uh our talent is our key asset. Um if we agree to put in place a performance plan for someone, uh then we have a responsibility to see through fulfillment of that performance plan. I think for us to choose not to for non-performance
176related reasons pay someone their ontarget earnings would both create a risk that future plans have no meaning because if you didn't pay me just at the last minute then why should I believe that these incentives are going to be operational in the future and I think create a very significant reputational risk to the district that as we recruit future superintendent one day or other position positions uh that we are viewed as a district that recruits against an OTE but doesn't actually follow through with it. So, I think it is financially responsible both short and long term for us to see through this commitment. Um and that's why I voted yes. Any other final explanations? Okay, thank you. Action. It passes three to two. Uh governing board reports item 13. Mr. Dr. Pensky. Um, just had
177a joyous opportunity to be on the stage at the Chapperel graduation. I mean, there have been some other uh opportunities that I've had to be uh out and about in the Scottsdale community, but given the late hour and how much above everything else it represents uh to be on the stage uh not only for my daughter's graduation from SHAP, but also her friends um you know is just just can't put it to words. So, just an amazing experience. So, thank you. Thank you, Miss Warner. Any u I understand. I'm just coming down the aisle. No, but governing reports. Given the time, I will pass. Okay. Uh Miss uh Carney, you know, I I would just like to um ask that we move the governing board reports back up on the agenda back to where it
178used to be because we keep doing this. we have things we want to say or last meeting I felt like I had several things I wanted to say but it's so late that we feel we want to get out of here and so I I would request that we move it back up uh under superintendent comments how it used to be just so that we actually can say what we want to say in in two people two people what to people to to people because there were people in the room last time that I did want to talk about but at midnight your people no um so I'm just making that request of you as the board president. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Shy. Uh similarly on the graduations, a wonderful experience. Just blessed to be
179part of it and a perk of the job especially given since my kids uh didn't have their graduation in 2020. So happy to be on a SUSD stage for graduation. Beautiful. Uh, and my report is I went to a fabulous Arizona Schoolboard Association couple of days where we worked on team building and I think it would be wonderful if we all went and uh enjoyed the training together and you know good, bad and different. It would be an investment for us as a team. Um, and then I would also say uh I too had a marvelous graduation experience albeit in Colorado where I got to hood my son Dr. Sean Lewis who's now a vet veterinarian. So my heart is full. All right. Uh as we go to future agenda items, Dr. Patensky. So I
180have one related to the calendar and specifically graduation. I'd like the district um to uh so uh graduation falls on a religious holiday uh for people of the Jewish faith. It's one of the more major holidays. uh Jewish holidays bounce around based on a different calendar. So this year it falls. I want to acknowledge that. Um, I understand that there's physics to when commencement can happen relative to like finishing finals and so on, but I would like to ask the district to um first assess the potential of a Wednesday commencement to avoid the holiday and families having to make a choice and if that's not possible um to uh consider a communication strategy to families so that um the conflict is at least acknowledged and we're being transparent about it. Thank you. Any other future
181agenda items? Okay. Uh dates of upcoming meetings and it looks like uh item 15, our next meeting is June 24th and we start at five because it's a special governing board meeting and we will be having a public uh public comments regarding the budget public hearing. All right, with that being said, I need a motion to adjurnn. I make a motion we adjourn. I'll second. All right. All those in favor? I I All right. It passes 50 at 11:35 3 11:33.