001e I call to order this regular meeting of the Scottdale Unified School District governing board today is April 9th and the time is 6:00 p.m. want to welcome everyone lots of everyone it's great to see all can you hear me the microphone's not working testing testing no hello testing test no mine doesn't work testing testing we go wait no oh there we go all right try this one more time everybody Welcome All right I'm going to call to order this regular meeting the Scottsdale Unified School District governing board today is April 9th 2024 and The Time Is Now 6:01 p.m. and again welcome to all of you it's great to see all of your faces with a beautiful opening act there and they're going to continue and honor us with a singing of the national
002anthem if you could please stand the oh oh I need to do a roll call real quickly from my far right Karen Warner Amy Carney Julie sinowski Zack Lindsay and Libby hartells we have a quorum and now we may stand thank you e thank you to the Gold Dust Avenue AC capella group of chaperel high school that was beautiful all right we have a number of items to before we move to approve the agenda one Amendment would be removal table and for a future agenda item 8D is in dog the following items to remove from the consent agenda to be discussed individually items 7 K 7 I and Miss Carney you have advised that you would like to pull the item 7h Personnel action items could you please specify which item in the Personnel items
003that you would like to discuss so that we can only remove that one item or items that you'd like to discuss uh I think board member Warner is the one pulling that item could you please identify which item or item specifically in the personel items packet that you'd like to discuss Miss Amy paluchi you would like to pull the resignation for Miss palatucci from item 7h otherwise the remaining items all right so with respect to 7h out a consent agenda it will only be the item personal item of the resignation to accept or not miss paluchi I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended is there a second second thank you Mr Wells can can you re clarify the consent agenda the consent agenda items as amend to be amended are polling 7h
004only with respect to the proposed resignation of Miss batui item I the approval of the revised job description of the District athletic director and item 7K the approval of salary schedule for all employee groups thank you president Dr harw Wells all right so we have a motion and a second if we could all those in favor to approve the amended agenda say I I I I 5 that motion passes all right I'm going to read the meeting de Quorum citizens attending Andor 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 the members of the governing board and staff unauthorized remarks or demonstrations from members of the audience yells Outburst Andor other disruptions are not permitted all right we're
005now going to turn to the best part of our night Dr menel you'd like to present the staff and student recognitions and celebrations this evening well good evening president Hart Wells vice president Lindsay and members of the governing board and welcome to all of our uh guest staff members family friends students it's really a joy to be able to celebrate this evening I apologize that it's a little warm we do have people working on it um but at this point in the school year the celebrations of our student staff and schools come fast and furious and while we aren't able to bring all of them to the governing board meeting isn't it wonderful for our community that there are so many we have nine celebrations to share with you this evening in our April sampling
006of achievements and I have the honor of kicking things off I would like to start by inviting uh principal Mills along with assistant principal Erin scagal mountain lion cubby students teachers and parents to please come forward to the podium and Miss Cerna can you join them at the podium please you all look fantastic in those uh outfits as you will have heard by now but it certainly Bears repeating the Desert Canyon Elementary School has been named a 2024 Arizona Educational Foundation A+ School of Excellence it is fortuitous timing uh the designation just happens to coincide with the celebration of the school's 25th anniversary and I guess that just means we get to celebrate twice undertaking the A+ process is daunting it requires the close collaboration of teachers parents and students schools put their practices and
007culture under a microscope to evaluate what's working and where there is room for improvement the journey is Illuminating and serves as a framework for improvement regardless of whether A+ recognition is received as you likely know Desert Canyon is the starting point for the SSD Mandarin Chinese dual language immersion program offering General instruction in English and the beginning in kindergarten of a mandarin path of study principal Mills could you please tell us a bit about who is here with you this evening and I think the students have something they would like to share with our audience get to turn there we go all right good evening Dr uh president hartwell's vice president uh Lind Y and governing board members and Dr Benzel um this evening we have our staff we have classified staff our teaching staff
008we have our students parents uh joining us this evening but if I could say a few words I'd like to start off by thanking the governing board for your support and also sharing our gratitude to Dr menel and Miss Cerna for your support to Desert Canyon Elementary and also a huge shout out to to our school Community for their amazing support for our students and together they achieved the well-deserved A+ School of Excellence which speaks to their committed their commitment together so very proud of our staff and students do you have something you want to uh perform this evening all right you are the stars of the show right now oh we can't we cannot hear the video are we going to be able to start that over with [Music] sound spee [Music] h [Applause]
009what a fantastic job students we are so grateful that you shared what you're learning with us and this evening I'd like to ask Miss Cerna to present uh the principal and assistant principal with challenge coins and recognition of this outstanding A+ designation with our utmost congratulations and I hope you all know how special your school is to me and I'm so proud of you both and congratulations to the children and to the entire staff for your A+ designation so while you're welcome to stay for the rest of the governing board meeting uh we'd actually like for you to go outside and get your picture taken so that we can celebrate this moment and then you are free to go home we'll take just a minute and give them a chance to move and while they're
010stepping out I would like to invite Miss Cerna back to the podium uh to continue our celebrations this evening she has two more to recognize don't touch the mic okay um good evening president hartwell's vice president Lindsay governing board members Dr Manzel and Mrs Wagner this evening I would like to introduce you to a budding artist from Yavapai Elementary School with Jose Hernandez Salado gifted teacher Laura Mata and principal Kelly Perry please join me at the podium I should okay come stand here so they can see you okay last year to help celebrate Arizona's 111th birthday the Arizona historical society created a postcard making contests for third graders of course the contest involved learning too with lessons and activities to support the state's third grade Arizona history history standards in March the hysterical Society selected
01110 winners in the 2024 competition and the design drawn by this young man standing next to me was amongst them if you could please take a look up there um if that doesn't truly reflect what Arizona is about Sun cacti Cactus Ren the state flag and a bald eagle I don't know what does and this beautiful drawing has now been turned into a postcard hold it up so they can see it did you bring this for us to look at there she is oh she he's got some postcards for us all right these are beautiful where do you know where they'll be on sale because I want to buy some at the Arizona historical society at the Arizona historical societ right park I think we'll be heading there to buy some okay congratulations Jose on
012your winning postcard and thank you Miss Mata Miss wish oh this is her okay and Mrs Perry for providing yapi third grade classes with this opportunity let's give him a great big hand this is for you to keep forever congratulations mom and dad did all right all right good job okay buddy right thank you everyone okay this is getting fun okay our second Elementary celebration this evening is one of our fabulous principls and a good friend of mine whom I have the privilege to supervise with principal Matt patoff please come up we've known for some time that Mr Poff brings strong leadership to his school Buffalo's students and staff have benefited greatly from his Direction opening up new avenues and exciting opportunities in teaching and learning then there was the small matter of an overnight
013fire in August of 2018 when Navajo was forced to relocate the oak campus for two years with Mr patoff overseeing every challenge presented and was ready to open on what the second day uh back at their home campus now Navajo is strong healthy and growing and it's the city of Scottdale that is recognizing Mr poff's work now and how he translate into thriving thriving Scottsdale neighborhood last month the city named him the recipient of its 2023 Spirit of Scottdale award honoring him at City at the city council meeting congratulations Mr patof thank you for everything you do for your students teachers staff and making us so proud that you are one of susd school leaders please my friend accept this challenge coin and our thanks thank you congratulations Matt we're very proud of you you
014truly deserve this Spirit of scotdale recognition keep up the great work uh next to C to uh uh introduce the next celebration Dr David piski ssd's director of state and federal programs Dr pisy good evening can I please invite uh Dr Ran from Redfield Elementary cat Hughes and Miss tly from Echo Canyon up to Podium please president hartwell's members of the board Dr men Miss Wagner and guests we are thrilled tonight to celebrate the incredible incredible achievements of two of our uh Scottsdale schools Redfield Elementary and Echo Canyon as you are aware last fall we announced our fall cohort Innovation Grant recipients and they are excited to share their project impact reports this quarter this fourth quarter this past January we opened the Innovation startup grants again and awarded two more as part of our
015spring innovators cohort congratulations a round of applause to Redfield Elementary School and principal Dr Amanda Rand their their project is titled Bodify the classroom enhancing education through coding Bots this Innovation will Empower Redfield students to learn coding and Robotics at this time I'd like to invite Dr Rand to just say a few words about her vision for this project thank you so much we're so excited and want to thank everybody here at susd and thank you for choosing us we are so excited I want to introduce my uh Robo Force teachers please wave these are the ones that are going to be taking on this initiative we are going to be purchasing oo Bots which are small itty bitty simple coding Bots for our school that will um be in classroom kits those classroom kits
016will be able to meet the needs of all kindergarten through fifth grade students so every single student at Redfield will be touched with these um and so these wonderful teachers have have decided and chosen and and and I'm so excited to have so many who said we are going to take on this initiative we're going to learn about these Bots and we're going to teach our teachers so these are going to be our trainers we're going to teach our teachers and then they are going to bring them into the classroom so our hope is that these children at Redfield will become coding car Cardinal coders um they're going to learn about coding our hope is that they will become robotics students at dcms and then in the future they will have job opportunities because of
017what you have provided for us so thank you so much thank you Dr Ran also a big round of applause for Echo Canyon School principal Hughes and teacher Kelly Tully congratulations their successful application titled Tech Tinkers Junior Engineers Workshop this Innovation will give Echo Canyon students the chance to explore engineering design and Technology through Project based learning to tell us a little bit more please welcome teacher Kelly toly from Echo Canyon school thank you so much for having us here tonight we are thrilled to have this opportunity to bring uh coding and Robotics to our students at EO Canyon students will be working collectively to examine real world problems and then they will apply knowledge of cross-curricular Concepts to design Solutions um and we are focused on that future Focus learning with them so thank
018you so much and I look forward to seeing you in the fall to share our impact report thank you with up to $10,000 awarded to each School these grants are a testament to the hard work creativity and future Focus vision for our susd students our students are very fortunate to have principles and teachers who are committed to Preparing them for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead congratulations again and we would like to award CH SD challenge coin to each of the recipients we can't wait for the incredible impact that they will make with our students thank you thank you all we truly appreciate your commitment to Innovation and creating meaningful learning opportunities for our students looking forward to hearing that impact report in the fall and now we're going to return uh to the
019musical world and invite uh Finance coordinator Michelle irvan to the podium I also like to while Gold Dust Avenue is coming up want to say I am always amazed by the talent of our students how many of you were in in Mean Girls all right that was that was also amazing a mean Regina George mom lilan nice nicely done and and uh so with that I'm going to turn it over to Michelle Irvin to let everyone else know just how amazing you all are thank you and good evening board member hartwell's vice president Lindsay board members Dr menel and glattus it is my great honor to have a moment to talk about these wonderful students and their amazing director Dr Sammy Brower where is she okay okay the cherel high school Gold Dust Avenue singers
020brought home an incredible win from the sing Strong New York AC capella Festival it is definitely an achievement to get top honors at a state competition but it's a whole another different level to win at competing against other tops ensembles in the nation AC capella itself is challenging genre the coral performance is unaccompanied and requires training and teamwork that pushes the students to the highest level of achievement there's no piano or backing track to give a tonal Foundation it relies on their training and teamwork to be successful and boy are they successful these students brought home a second place in New York at a national competition if that was not enough Dr Brower pushes these students another level this is actually the second year one of her students have received an award for arranging and
021composing can you step forward a little bit Lillian so Lillian one I'm gonna make sure I see it the best composition at this National composition right best arrangement composition so that is outstanding if you think against all the students that went to this national competition and this young lady pulled away with the best so I am so honored to work with you Dr Brower and how she pushes her students to another level and provides these opportunities for them not to compete just in Arizona but to go to a national level I would like to take this moment now to bring up Dr Melissa Saks I know we've mentioned this evening about challenge coins and the spirit of a challenging coin is taking challenges and pushing against adversity and I feel that you guys taking that
022Next Level going out in front of that I know you were panicking and scared um but that thrill that you felt when you got announced second and then you won also so Dr SOS will be giving each of you a challenge coin for this incredible achievement and thank you so much you're such an honor to work for to be for in our district and Dr Brower we're an honored to have you as one of our teachers amazing can we give them another round of applause while Dr zakos is passing these out maybe you could go to the next slide I think it's the next slide this gives me an incredible opportunity and a perfect moment to mention that Scottsdale Unified School District has been named one of the best communities for music education by the
023Nam Society Nam is a National Association for music educators this award celebrates school districts for their support and commitment to music education and their efforts to ensure access to music for all students as a part of a well-rounded education as we come off March music and our schools months and enter April jazz in our school months we had Jazz night last night I thank the board Dr menel and all District administration for their support of the Arts and susd and allowing me to be part of such an incredible School District thank you thank you Dr Brower Gold Dust Avenue singers Mrs Irvin um I couldn't be more proud of Scot unified's Musical and Performing Art program and the dedication of the students and Educators who are part of it I hope some of you had
024the chance last week to experience one of our High School Musical Productions I already mentioned Mean Girls At chapparel The Adams Family was performed at Desert Mountain and they were just amazing Productions you've got another chance next week when the drama Don at Coronado bring Little Shop of Horrors to the stage you can also find plenty of imagination in our outstanding academic programs and tonight we are celebrating the amazing accomplishments this school year of one of our high school robotics programs Dr Melissa sackos assistant superintendent of secondary education has the honors on this as well as the news of a state recognition of one of our leaders Dr sackos all right good evening president Hart Wells vice president Lindsay governing board members Dr menel and Mrs Wagner it is my pleasure tonight to celebrate SaberCat
025robotics from Saro high school so team 4146 where are you come on up and Mr Brandt and Miss Lindberg please do not be shy and I believe Mr Milligan is with us as well this evening there he is all right one of the many great things for which Scottdale unified is known is its robotics programs beginning early in our elementary schools students are engaged in robotics and the stem learning activities they offer by the time these students get to high school they are experts in robotic building programming and troubleshooting engineering challenges what's more they share the wealth of knowledge and experience with our elementary and middle school programs they host and oversee each December's Lego league tournament support Saro sisters and stem event build child sty electric cars for disabled children and this year have
026taken their new Melody makers program on the road to our elementary schools to show our youngest students the many ways in which stem and music overlaps to say the saber cats is known in Arizona robotic circles is an understatement last month they were awarded the first impact award at the spring Regional robotics tournament hosted at chapparel high school robotics also provides the opportunity for student leaders to emerge among uh among them and one Noah sha I practice that um uh is one here a natural leader at the Arizona east regional tournament last month Noah received the American first organizations get ready for it $20,000 Steve Shanghai or Shang shangi sorry scholarship named after the longtime CEO or of local chip maker micro trip congratulations Noah all right have we had enough yet no I didn't
027think so um to cap it off this amazing year the team has qualified to compete in the annual first robotics world World Championships in Houston Texas and they leave next week congratulations Saro [Applause] SaberCats congratulations and good luck as you compete in Houston thank you Mr brand thank you Mrs Lindberg believe you have one more Dr sackos is that correct I do have one more so now where is our outgoing District athletic director Mr Nathan Slater you know this longtime susd leader our very own homegrown Nathan Slater he has appeared before many governing board meetings over the past seven years to celebrate the achievements of susd students athletes with you well now it's time to celebrate Nathan Nathan has dedicated his entire ire professional career to Scottdale unified he attended Yavapai Tona Leia and graduated
028from cornado high school returning to Coronado in 1994 to teach math and PE and to coach football and baseball in 2000 Nathan became Coronado's athletic director serving in that role for 11 years during which he was named the 4A conferences 2010 athletic director of the year in 2011 Nathan transferred to Saro where he served in all three assistant principal's offices before being named principal of Arcadia High School in 2014 where he served until 2017 when he was named the ssd's District athletic director Nathan's connection to High School athletics found him working closely with the Arizona inter Scholastic Association or AIA he has served 20 years on AIA boards in the 4A and 5A conferences and he was 5A conference president and he is currently sits on the AIA executive board and now the organization of
029the state's Athletic program the AI AAA as it's known um will induct Nathan into the Hall of Fame at its annual conference in Prescot in September uh in this achievement Nathan becomes the fourth susd leader to earn this prestigious award joining Bob Keller from sawaro Joe Court from Coronado and Steve Harris from desert mountain in the world of Arizona Athletics this is a pretty big deal uh seening Nathan's Legacy as one of the all-time most impactful athletic administrators in the state of Arizona congratulations Nathan and I'm sure you couldn't find a better way to celebrate your birthday with us today and be honored with [Applause] this congratulations Nathan and happy birthday uh it's truly an honor uh to to see you recognized in this capacity and we have one more celebration this evening it will
030be a first of its kind and I would like to invite Brian Wilder and Kyle bakus from the scottd Del charos to share this first ever award good evening adjust this a little bit uh president Hart Wells vice president Lindsay governing board members Dr Manzel and Mrs Wagner we appreciate the opportunity to come tonight my name is Brian Wilder and I'm with Kyle bachus here we're members of the Scottville charos I will tell you though I need to come to more of these meetings because that was awesome way to start it like the the choir the announcement and and uh Nathan Slater is a great guy so very cool um we're here tonight though to announce the inaugural winner of the Scottdale charos Dr John card Lifetime Achievement Award and I know many in this
031room are very familiar with the profound impact that Dr card had on this community but let me read a little bit about him and then I'll talk about the winner the Scott chars created the award in memory of Dr John card who passed away in 2023 card was a fixture in the Scottsdale and Paradise Valley school districts for decades serving in many capacities including principal and superintendent for both school districts he came out of retirement three times to continue his service to public education most recently he served as superintendent for susd where he spent more than half of his 40 years in education from our executive director who said the award acknowledges a lifetime devoted to fostering intellectual curiosity inspiring critical thinking and instilling a love for learning Beyond curriculum it recognized an Educator's creation
032of a nurturing environment that empowers students so without further Ado the winner of the inaugural Dr card Lifetime Achievement Award is Margaret Cerna so come on yeah so we're going to be recognizing Margaret at our April 19th banquet with a nice award and a bigger speech but let me just read a couple things about Margaret real quick one okay this is from our executive direct director Again Margaret is a legend among Scottsdale Educators she is known for leadership her positive attitude and her tireless energy and then from Dr Menzel Margaret always puts students first her ability to engage parents and unique way of coaching our principles results in constructive solutions for students no matter where they are on their educational Journey there's no bigger cheerleader for their success than Margaret so congratulations yeah thank thank
033you uh for being here and doing that presentation the charos are amazing partners with the school district and we're grateful for all that you do in support of our nearly 2 2,000 students the staff we look forward to the Celebration later this month of our teachers and Educators and Margaret congratulations thank you and with that we will conclude our successes yes I I just want to tell the Charles something that happened today um you know how when you have uh Facebook sometime pictures pop up from a long time ago I have a picture that popped up at John Creek C and I at a Charles banquet I'll show it to you so it was this is for you [Applause] so uh moving on to the superintendent comments I will keep these brief because we took
034a lot of time celebrating the most important things the reason why we're here but last week we celebrated National librarian day on Thursday and I just want to give a shout out to our Librarians and our library resource Specialists for all the work they do to instill a love of reading in our students and ensure that uh our students are engaged with um all sorts of diverse reading material so thank you to them I also want to acknowledge our par professionals last Wednesday was PA Professionals Day and last week was assistant principal week the staff in Scottsdale Unified School District are truly amazing and each one plays an important role in supporting our students and so I'm just grateful for the work they do April uh is autism aware awareness month and it's also um
035the month of the young child and this week is actually the week of the young child so when we think about our preschool and prek opportunities investing in the lives of children early all the way through a high school completion uh the work of our staff the partnership with our parents and celebrating the success of our students as a part of what makes Scottdale Unified School District such a special place to be this past Friday we launched our new podcast called susd Spotlight and the first episode featured Gold Dust Avenue in an interview with Dr Brower and Lillian aposto uh I hope that you've had a chance to listen to it if not I would encourage you to do so we have a number of other podcasts on the horizon I had the joy of
036celebrating the partial solar eclipse with students at lagona steam Elementary School and we did a podcast on site with our students to talk about what they were learning how they prepared to view the partial eclipse safely and that was very exciting and that will come out this Friday and then finally yesterday I also had the opportunity to participate and listen to a presentation by Holocaust Survivor Risa Stillman at coachi elementary with fifth grade students our students are provided amazing learning opportunities with people in our community who are willing to give back every day you can find something that's compelling motivating and reflects the high standards that we have for our students the support provided by our teachers and opportunities to celebrate their success and with that I'll conclude my remarks thank you Dr menel congratulations
037to all of our celebrations this evening that really fills your cup was fantastic um we are going to move into the public comment section and I'm going to just outline kind of the Rules of Engagement by reminder in compliance with open meeting laws the governing board may not discuss or take action tonight on any matters raised during public comment that are not on the agenda however the governing board members May respond to direct criticism ask staff to review a matter or that a matter be placed on a future agenda as a reminder each speaker will have two minutes our screen will indicate the time please be prepared to close your comments and relinquish the floor at the conclusion of your time the board ask that each speaker please introduce yourself by stating your name and
038whether you live in the 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'm going to read the speaker names and then the person who will follow our first Speaker this evening is Patricia pellet followed by Jeff Jordan good evening governing board members Dr menel my name is Patricia pallet I live in Scottdale and I have an amazing boy at cocaa um tonight on the agenda is a vote to force out Coronado High School principal Amy patuki um this is not voluntary um this is from tyrannical um bird well tactics to um um to intimidate her um also I'd like people to go to Scott Manel a.com and see if this is the type of superintendent we
039want running susd thank you Jeff Gordon followed by Jill Dunkin hello board Dr Mensel my name is Jeff Jordan and I've lived literally two miles away from here all my life South Scottdale for the past uh 38 years and um my direction I was going to go originally is changed with this meeting and it had to do with the challenge coins you guys have I was reviewing all of the district's superintendent clear back to 1922 and I've noticed that on average with most superintendents that most people are here for four years now no NE negativity or anything like that but I think the point is is that we are here temporarily and our decisions we make especially for the community that we're in South Scott Still's one of them will have a permanent and lasting
040impact on the community and I want everybody Dr Mensel and the board to really take in consideration what changes you're going to be making in The District in the South Scottdale and all of the district our students matter and our industry matters and what students we produce will impact what we have in terms of industry for Scottdale going forward thank you Jill dunakin followed by Mike Peabody good evening I respectfully request an investigation into Scottdale or to superintendent menel for what appears to be the forc resignation of Coronado High School principal Amy palatucci those close to her revealed that she loved her job and had no intentions of leaving Scottsdale un unified as a parent I am dismayed by reports that staff who do not fall in line with Mr Menzel's diversity agenda are being
041placed on administrative leave and forced out while others such as a teacher who watched porn at school or one who allegedly used mirrors to look up little girl skirts are defended and retained susd counselors have planned secret sexuality lessons for so-called leadership camps and they are still employed a club sponsor allowed a fa a factually inaccurate anti-semitic presentation that endangered students yet still he works for SD several teachers have asked children if they should hide their gender selection from their parents they remain employed susd staff who planned use of a gender support plan are still employed Librarians who order sexuality book kits and promote banned books on morning announcements are retained teachers who have shown sexed videos without parental consent in violation of Arizona law are still employed yet principal palatucci who has an unblemished
042record who is supported by her staff and who goes above and beyond to support not only her students but her their entire families is now mysteriously resigning from a position that she loved thank you for investigating this matter and ensuring that principal T paluchi has the chance to tell her side of the story thank you Mike Peabody followed by Jeff rete please stop clapping thank you Madame President Mr Vice President board members Dr Manzel cabinet members I am here on behalf of Amy palatucci I could Echo everything that the previous speaker said about her but I will just say this they're right Amy is very loved by his staff by the teachers by the students one of the erroneous things that I found was that no parent was notified that Amy would not be on
043campus for testing not on campus for a month we had no idea until we found the resignation letter I know Amy I consider her a friend I'm not here as a friend I'm here as a parent of a Coronado student that needs help and Amy has given her that help Amie has gone above and beyond for this school in so many immeasurable ways for her to be treated like this for her to be ridiculed if you will to be forced out because everybody knows she would not resign from susd or from Coronado because she loves this community she loves the people she loves everything about this school district one of the things also that truly alarms me with 30 seconds left the thought is she stepped on somebody's toes she made somebody mad because she
044was doing things that she might not have been able to do so there's a vendetta another part is that and this one comes from District employees somebody wants to merge Coronado and Arcadia again comes from a district employee please please please thank you by the way for pulling her resignation please investigate this independently with an independent lawyer and get her side of the story Jeff R followed by Dana fer Jeff R followed by Dana fer dear board members you took an oath of office and are expected to uphold the highest ideals of integrity and Trust I spent seven consecutive years as a paid head coach in the Scottsdale School District I was rehired by the principal as the seventh grade flag football coach at kcapa Middle School my brother ran the eighth grade program during
045the first week of practice Dr Menzel's office notified the principal that I would no no longer be a paid coach but could sign a volunteer contract there was no reason given rather than have the entire season cancelled on these 32 families as I was their only coach I agreed to volunteer it was an 11-week commitment a teacher from the school started hanging around my practices the principal told me that she was uh considering the athletic director position next year never coached in her life and wanted to observe good experienced coaches later I was shocked to learn that this close personal friend of a board member was given my nearly $2,000 coaching stien she never coached the kids and often wore address to observe my practices and games last week I learned Dr Manzel's office had
046submitted to the auditor's office this lady's this lady as the head seventh grade flight football coach I'm wondering if someone in your finance department was involved in this scheme Dr Menzel's office had submitted falsified documents with the intent to defraud the Scottdale taxpayers your lawyer simply tells me I missed the one-year statute of limitations to sue the district then president sinowski informed me there would be no compensation with a volunteer contract I expect the school board to do the right thing and pay me I never missed a practice or game I fulfilled all of the duties and responsibilities outlined in the governing board's Personnel policies and procedures manual for this position my brother was paid in full Julie I'm a 100% service connected disabled veteran how do you feel to know that Dr Manzel stole
047$2,000 of my money and gave it to a close personal friend of yours Dana Fuller followed by Robert vodka president htws vice president Lindsay and other members of the governing board Dr manzal and Mrs Wagner um my name is Dana Fuller I am a mother of five Scottville unified um School District students one graduate of 2022 and four others that currently attend three different scotvale Unified Schools um I was here during the difficult time during the leadership of Denise Birdwell it was a time with low teacher morale lots of other situations corruption I worked very diligently for months with other concerned parents and classified staff to shed a light on what was going on and push it for a positive solution going forward at times it felt hopeless but United We prevailed Dr Creek card
048gave us a gift of stepping in and Dr Manzel has continued to provide stability to our district and move us forward to much brighter days we've come a long way I have found I'm not privy to the Amy Puchi situation I just want to put that on the record um looks like there's some work that needs to be done there but I have found Dr Manzel to be a thoughtful leader and collaborative nobody gets it right 100% but I am strongly against searching for new leadership at this time I would rather the time effort and money be spent addressing the needs of at the site level and amongst our students rather than focusing on administrative duties such as this for these reasons I urge you to extend Dr zelle's contract for two more years on
049a different note um I see that the work calendar is on um the agenda today I'm curious about the results of the most recent survey um I don't know if they could give glean much if you could glean much information from them uh the survey did not allow for strong negative opinions in fact the theme closest to disagreement was this does not matter to me when in fact many of the questions mattered very much to me about the academic calendar but there's no answer that adequately demonstrated that so I'm wonder if we could have some sort of town hall another Outlet in which we can give feedback um to express like our opinions and concerns about um starting so early in in August just with the heat the kids are kept inside for a lot
050of their recess time for that month and so I'm just curious if we can maybe come to a different solution thank you Robert vodica followed by Laura whof hello board Dr Manzel thank thank you for uh listening my name is Robert vka I am a district resident I'm a occasional supporter uh or a volunteer at Desert Canyon Elementary School I am a husband of a substitute teacher I am a father of three uh girls at Desert Canyon one of which was one of the uh man Mandarin presenters and I am just here to to uh express my support for the teachers the administration um Dr Mrs Mills and for the school as a whole to um to continue to support the school and make sure that there are the resources available for our kids these
051public schools are the uh the backbone of our communities and they are crucial for us to continue to support our kids and help them grow and help our communities grow and provide the uh the students and the workforce and the leaders we need in these communities so I want to continue to support the schools and I will do whatever I can obviously our family will and and I know our community will as well so I want to thank you all and Dr Menzel I haven't had a chance to meet you I see you at almost every Desert Canyon uh event so thank you for your support and I do as well provide my support for you for another renewal for your term so thank you all right Laura whof followed by Kim McClure president Dr
052Hart Wells governing board and Dr menel as an scsd parent year after year I'm more and more proud of our district this year SD passed the override easily and has invested $2,000 more per student keeping administrative spending at just 9% and putting more dollars in the classroom 75% of our schools are a-rated and according to the New York Times SD did not suffer the same covid learning loss as the rest of the country with susd third through e8th grade students a year and a half ahead of pre-co national averages in math SD has four Flynn semi-finalists this year and the charter schools within SD boundaries still have zero likewise this year we have multiple neighborhood elementary schools that have outperformed formed Great Hearts and basis Scottsdale Charters Echo Canyon was recognized as a national Esa
053distinguished school and after 25 years of providing an A+ education Desert Canyon has officially received the much deserved designation dce has offered a successful mandrin DLI program for seven years and dcms has hired two outstanding teachers to carry the program forward our children are thriving my oldest was recently sharing how well she and her classmates did on their Mandarin stamp test and my youngest excitedly teaches me what she's learned from math to her research assignments governing board and District leaders I ask that you maintain our current funding and Staffing of our DLI program knowing that the district may cut 21 positions from 30 schools for our program to thrive our Middle School teachers should be able to focus on carrying out the Middle School vision and with our incoming Kinder class it doesn't make sense
054for any of our teachers to be responsible for teaching two grades I ask for your continued support of this program and for your continued support of Dr Mensel renewing his contract for two more years to maintain our District's stability and ensure our students in school's continued success Kim McLure followed by Arlene patruno hi my name is Kim McClure and I live within susd boundaries I'm a parent of two Arcadia students and a volunteer with SD I am speaking to you tonight as a product of the public education system and as a scientist my doctorate is in chemistry and Neuroscience and my expertise is neuroimaging using magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity in people at its core neuroimaging is a balancing act you want to maximize what is signal which is what you want to
055see over the noise which is just what it sounds like uninformative in practice maximizing signal and minimizing noise means you collect a bunch of data and then combine it by averaging the noise disappears and leaves you with high as images of the brain I'm telling you about signal and noise tonight not just because I think it is cool but it's also an analogy for what's happening right now on SD the signal is susd outperforming peer districts on financial and academic metrics it is amazing teachers and staff and it is passing overrides it is accomplishment in sports and the Arts the signal is also my kids coming home excited about learning it is them figuring out who they are and how they contribute meaningfully to their community it is them making friends from all walks of
056life and it is them surprising my husband and me with what they achieve in and out of the classroom the noise is everything else I urge you members of the governing board to focus on the signal and not amplify the noise focus on the Myriad positives happening in susd under Dr Menzel's leadership give our kids the stability and education they deserve by seizing the opportunity to extend his contract Arlene patruno followed by Mike Bangert good evening president hewells Dr menel and governing board my name is Arlene petruno I'm a member of the SSD community and I want to start by bringing up a name that we should all know Jonathan kle Savage inequalities what is more precious to us than our children that's why we're here as a community member I would like to say
057I am here on behalf of Amy paluchi and all that she has done for our community I've looked at the values on our agenda and the values reference Carol D Wick's work and am pleased about that because I have a quote from Carol dwick who wrote the book mindset which I encourage all Educators to read the Hallmark of successful people is that they are always stretching themselves to learn new things that is the hmark of what Coronado High School has been doing under Amy paluchi as the principal I encourage the governing board to reconsider and I commend you for bringing her back to where she belongs and that's the high school we all make mistakes and that's okay that's part of the learning process so good job guys continue and I applaud you for bringing
058Amy back thank you Mike bingert followed by Tamara Farah my name is Mike bengard it's official with the publication on March 15th in the Arizona administrative register the public is formally on notice there is no more automatic presumption of exemption from lure with the Board of Behavioral Health examiners for school counselors or School social workers in Arizona school-based Behavioral Health workers will need to reassess whether they are engaged in regulated activities requiring lure school districts will need to consider whether their intervention counseling policies and multi-tiered support services implicate the practice of Behavioral Health parents please understand no statutory exemption exists for school-based Behavioral workers to practice Behavioral Health without a license certification by the Department of Education is not a license to practice Behavior Health it is an employee classification unlicensed behavior health workers are
059not subject to the same standards of practice and ethics as licensed ones in accordance with ARs 3232 2 86c unlicensed behavior health workers may not engage in diagnosing or treating any mental ailment disease or disorder or other mental condition of any person the unauthorized practice of Behavioral Health is a serious matter and a felony if you believe your child has received Behavior Health Services from an unlicensed person you can report it by contacting the Arizona Board of behavior health examiners any school-based behavior health workers including counselors and social workers will need to reassess whether they are engaged in regulated activities requiring lure do supporting the implementation of the mtss including districtwide interventions for students at risk for academic mental and behavior health concerns fall within the regulated activities that require a license is assessing as
060part of mtss the same as diagnosing I suggest you review ar ar title 32 chapter 33 remember being certified by the Arizona Department of Education is no longer sufficient Tamara Farah followed by Emmy Cardella good evening my name is Tamara Farah I am the director of Arizona women of actions smart families Network and will address concerns about the second step program which will which will go to a board vote tonight at first flush the Second Step scope and sequence in the board notes appear benign when you pull back the curtain by visiting se secondstep.org you find the drivers behind the program appear to lean on questionable Science and revisionist History including systemic racism many consider it a myth the learning for justice section tells kids what to believe about sex and gender which arguably distracts
061kids mentally and emotionally from a focus on academics and is a discussion for families not schools there is also unconscious bias which speaks to equal opportunity for all which speaks not to equal opportunity for all Races colors Creeds and Sexes but to a forced non-merit based approach this is likely to cause great consternation in young hearts and Minds who then worry that they are guilty of it in summary secondstep.org boasts its resources help schools Implement social emotional learning in a way that quote Builds on students cultural assets critically examines systems of power and develops better ways of teaching learning and being this sounds like social engineering founded upon a questionable Phil Emmy Cardella followed by Shay najafi that one okay um good evening governing board members Dr Mensel Miss Wagner my name is Emmy Cardella
062and I an susd parent I'm speaking tonight on two topics first is the March 26th meeting board members Carney and Warner at the March 9th meeting you both requested that a special meeting be held so that the board could have a thorough discussion of the budget and then you could get your many questions answered you regularly criticized the budget and asked for these sorts of discussions amongst the board members the March 26 meeting was your opportunity to do this so I'm confused by Miss Carney you did not show up at all for the meeting Miss Warner you came an hour and 10 minutes late then when you had your opportunity that you asked for you had zero comments and you asked zero questions of the budget I hope that you both find the time to
063watch the meeting on YouTube it was very informative and it will be useful when you're asked to vote on the budget at a future meeting the second opportunity is the opportunity to renew second topic is the opportunity to renew Dr Menzel's contract I've been a parent in this district for 14 years the level of vision and accountability that susd has achieved under Dr Menzel's leadership surpasses anything I have seen SSD faces considerable headwinds with a decline in school age population persistent teacher shortages and a tight labor market for classified staff and of course the lasting impacts from covid of absenteeism and division among our community it's vital that we maintain steady leadership and keep moving forward Dr menel has broad support of parents students teachers and staff and the relationships he has built in the
064community have bolstered ssd's reputation please take up the discussion to renew his contract at the earliest possible opportunity to ensure that we can stay on this positive path thank you Shane najafi followed by Leanne Brecklin thank you DRC Manzel board members my name is Shane najafi and I'm the proud parent of peblo Mojave and shap students I've recently learned something shocking susd has had 16 superintendents since 1997 and three in just the past seven years since I've lived here in contrast the Littleton School District in Avendale has had only five since 1910 let's think about this for a moment if you were applying for a job and you found that on average employees in that role never remained for longer than a year or two would that give you pause if you were approached with
065an opportunity to purchase stake and a company would you invest your money if that company flipped through one CEO after another I wouldn't any organizational leader needs time to analyze systems and budgets review Personnel research programs and truly learn how to serve their Community to implement Innovative programs be responsive to outside pressures and to form working relationships with Industries and Business Leaders we must have consistency in our leadership according to the learning policy Institute 10 years of class teaching greatly increases the number of days in which educational gains are made throughout the school year as well as gains in standardized test scores SD knows this which is why they place an emphasis on retaining our experienced staff why would we not do the same for a superintendent we must maintain consistent leadership to be effective
066we are fortunate to have Dr Manzel and I encourage you to extend his contract another two years thank you uh our last speaker lean brookling good evening members of the board thank you for allowing me to speak I am a Scottsdale resident with two kids in SD schools when my first child started attending SD in 2018 the district was mired in controversy B on brought on by birdwell's Reign there were negative headlines bad School reviews on Yelp and principals and teachers were leaving but under the leadership of Dr Manel the district wred itself and I never gave it a second thought I didn't feel there was any controversy controversy at the district and until until a few years ago I didn't pay attention to school politics but I'm paying attention now for the last four
067years Dr Manzel has proven to be the leader that SSD needs he has defended himself and our schools from activist extremists that want to destabilize the education of our kids for their own ulterior motives he has maintained his composure dignity and attention on the performance of our schools and isn't interested in playing politics or chasing airtime on cable news he's a true educator and an effective leader we have an opportunity to extend Dr benzel's contract for another two years and I suggest we take it it would be a detriment to our children's future to change leadership for someone new when we already have a superintendent who has proven himself over and over again starting a new search isn't only unnecessary and a distraction from pressing work it could result in a Fox news media cycle
068that I bet a few on this board with love however it would come at the expense of our reputation and potentially damage our home values and status as one of the most desirable school districts in the country we don't need that and my guess is that no one except for a few media hungry political social climbers want that right now please extend Dr Menzel's contract for another two years and ensure our kids have as many years of stability as possible thank you thank you everyone that concludes public comment do any board members wish to make a comment to correct the record it's not a correction of the record but uh Dr Manzel I would like for you to provide the board a full review view of the investigation into Amy paluchi due to the concerns
069from the public Mr danowski yes thank you president Dr htws I would like to make a correction of bits of misinformation shared this evening one specifically from Mr R he stated that I had discussed payment for his coaching and that is false any other statements thank you I also wish to uh correct the record there were a number a couple of speakers at the beginning who made a number of incorrect statements and misinformation if not disinformation um and ask that you take those with a grain of salt all right we are moving on excuse me we are moving on to oh Pardon Me Miss Carney yes sorry thank you president Wells um I would like um Dr Manzel to provide the board a list of our school-based behav behavioral health workers um and ensure that
070we um have all licensed counselors and social workers that are um assessing and working with our children so if you could provide the board a list of those so that we are um staying within statute that would be appreciated I'd like to modify that just slightly as opposed to having names listed if we could just have an aggregate of numbers of of those counselors and or social workers who are licensed versus those that are not want a perception of identifying anyone retaliation all right thank you very much uh we're going to move into our information discussion items uh first up is the presentation of audits and compliance questionnaire for fiscal year 2022 2023 and I'll just point out for the community we do have an action item on this but it will be later in
071the evening so that our Auditors don't have to stay through the whole meeting um but we will take a vote after we get through the consent miss kroer you lead us through this thank you yes Dr hartwell's uh vice president Lindsay members of the board Dr menel and guests tonight we have with us um uh Jennifer schields who is with heinfeld and meech this um heinfeld and meech is our contracted auditor that goes through all of our books and financials and I wondered about that um and and make sure that we're in compliance with State Statute with our audit so she is here to present what the audit of the uh 2223 fiscal year good evening Madame President members of the board Dr menel thank you for um allowing me just a few minutes to
072um speak with you this evening I apologize I'm looking for the mouse there we go sorry oh there we go okay apologize um so thank again thank you for giving me a few minutes of your time this evening to talk about the financial audit for the district so I'm here to present um several pieces of information all of which you have um in your board dos packet I believe and so first and foremost there's a number of communications that are required to occur between the external auditor and those charged with governance so those of you sitting behind the dis there one of those items is the audit timeline so as U Miss kroer mentioned we are the externally contracted um CPA firm so the financial um the financial statement Auditors so we were contracted after
073um a an RFP went out um the district issued a solicitation and we were the successful bidder and with that began the process for the financial audit so you can see the timeline up on this um on the screen um the audit is not an easy process it takes quite a long time for um both auditor to perform all the procedures and also for district Personnel to gather all of the information that we need so you can see that everything um started in July and then we ultimately issued the audit report in January um so that's the timeline in terms of the scope of services that we were hired to provide we were hired to perform an audit in in accordance with several sets of Standards um of of course you us um generally accepted
074auditing standards there's also government auditing standards given that the district is a governmental sub um a a governmental subdivision and then also we um are hired to perform procedures in accordance with the usfr um compliance requirements the the um usfr is put out by the auditor general for the State of Arizona and then um the last item too is that we perform a single audit in accordance with the standards under uniform guidance because the district is a recipient of federal dollars so in terms of financial um responsibilities of you know me and my team versus District management um in terms of fraud all of the responsibilities to design adequate controls and put procedures in place to prevent and deter fraud that all rests with the board and management our job is to conduct various inquiries
075regarding non-compliance and um any known known issues or suspected issues and to design a an audit a set of audit procedures that would um you know uncover um material fraud but we do not aine on anything in that nature so there was one new audit stand or accounting standard that was required to be implemented this year um in our world we call that gby 96 and it has to do with how um subscriptions for long-term subscription agreement are handled and so if there is a long-term subscription that involves a long-term liability those are now required to be reported on the district's financial statement so that was a a large undertaking um to gather all of that information and put that together by the finance office and they did all of that so that standard was
076in fact implemented this year it did not result in any changes to the district's financial statements um in any set of financial statements there are significant estimates that may occur um and those are listed on the screen the largest one is probably depreciation of fixed assets so the the usage of all of your assets over a period of time for example a bus you know you buy a bus but it lasts you 10 years or so um and then um there are also um specific estimates related to employee health and wellness and other insurance um needs of the district so there are estimates that are made by your actuaries for those items and then also the Actuarial valuation for the pension plan that's probably the largest one but all of that comes from the Arizona
077State Retirement System and the fact that your employees um here at the district participate in that plan in terms of audit adjustments there were no audit adjustments that were we were required to report to you that were made through the um through the audit process we also perform non-ed test Services which I think is probably the next slide I have um we do perform nonattest Services which involves the compilation of the financial statements and putting those together in the format that's required by um generally accepted um accounting principles so we do also assist the district with that we take your Source documentation and then sort of you know add the adjustments that are necessary for that process to occur we also assist with the preparation of what's called the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards
078which is the summary schedule of all of the federal expense in accordance with uniform guidance and then there's a related um piece of information that goes on onto the federal government called the data collection form um we had no disagreements with management about accounting practices or policies so that is a good um thing to report management at the conclusion of the audit provided all of the um necessary representations to us basically indicating that anything that we had asked for in terms of what we needed to complete the audit management did provide that information for us and then one of the things of course since we are independent Auditors we have a series of um you know rules and regulations and ethical compliance requirements that we have to meet as well and so we continually assess
079our client relationships and I'm pleased to report to you that there were no violations on our end of um any violations that would render us unable to be your Auditors so with respect to the actual reports that were issued there were um three main reports one of them the largest is called the annual comprehensive financial report there's a single audit reporting package and then there's also the uni um uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire the annual comprehensive financial report given that it is like the largest of the documents it's about 150 pages of financial data and footnotes related to the financial statements I've highlighted for you some various um PDF page numbers if you are interested in perusing that at some point in time um I will point out that page 20 is the
080independent auditor report and I'm happy to report to you this evening that you received an unmodified opinion which means that no material misstatements were um detected in the financial statements but there's a whole lot of other um really good information in the report um it's kind of my life's work so I hate that I gloss over it but you know it's it's a 120 pages of numbers um the single audit reporting package is a much smaller report this is what's required by uniform guidance so this report is much smaller it's about usually 12 Pages longer so this is where that schedule of expenditures of federal Awards is um in your case the district expended more than 27 million of federal assistance during the audit fiscal during the audit year which was year ended 23 um
081and so that that is much larger than the minimum which is currently 7 $50,000 so any governmental agency that spends more than $750,000 in any fiscal year is subject to this type of an audit um in particular I'll point out that there was one audit finding that was noted a significant deficiency in internal control um we believe that that item has already been resolved and that is reported in Management's corrective action plan um in the report it had to do with um some some things that happened in the crossover of auditor to current auditor and then um the other thing that I will tell you is that the uniform guidance requires that we rotate Federal programs for testing for specific compliance requirements and also um the internal control environment with related with which is related
082to insuring compliance so this is an area where we rotate different Federal programs during this particular fiscal year the three programs that we tested were the Child Nutrition cluster which essentially is your um your free and reduced lunch prog lunch and breakfast program for students we looked at What's called the coronavirus state and local fiscal Recovery Fund which um it escapes me what that is it's um like had to do with like 100 day grants and other types of grants that were um uh that were governed by um issued by the governor's office so the district spent a little over a million dollars of that money and then also what you call the Esser funds those were also subject to audit and just a sneak peek to next year it'll be audited next year again
083as well because the federal government is requiring all s funds to be audited so um there's th those were the three major programs that we looked at and then the last report is the uniform system of financial records compliance questionnaire it's quite a mouthful but this is as I mentioned the the questionnaire is um put out by the office of the auditor general each year it contains 18 different subject areas so this is the area of the audit where we focus a lot on state compliance requirements so this is where we will um choose samples to test um say student attendance or um we will look at things like your student clubs and organizations your athletic you know ticketing and gate receding processes and some of those types of things um so you can that
084that has um it's about I forget like 30 pages long and it has over 400 questions that the auditor required then to design audit procedures so that we can answer yes or no to every single question that is on the questionaire so that is quite a lot um last but certainly not least I would like to just um give a big shout out and a thank you to miss kroer and all of her staff um everybody that we worked with here at the district um was very helpful providing information um and preparing all of the information that we asked for and so that concludes my presentation but I'm happy to stand for questions thank you very much board members are there any questions followup clarifications very good all right thank you very much thank you
085yes thank you Shannon right moving right along to our next information discussion item will be a first read of the cheyen K through 5 math adoption Dr dods Karen are you leading Us in that discussion good evening president Dr harwell's Vice President Lindsay members of our governing board Dr menel Miss Wagner our community present this evening as well as in the cloud tonight Donna Dempsey our elementary math coach and I have the opportunity to bring forward the work of the Cheyenne K5 math curriculum adoption committee for recommendation for a new curriculum for Cheyenne Traditional School you will notice tonight A Familiar Cadence for the presentation as our teaching and learning Team Works to ensure consistent processes are utilized during the important work of a curriculum adoption Cheyenne Traditional School has a long history of using
086the Saxon Math curriculum at their campus for their K5 students in the winter of 2022 we learned that hoot Mifflin heart Court would be sunsetting Saxon Math the original end of publication was to be June of 2024 the adoption process was started to make sure that Cheyenne's students and teachers would have access to high quality curriculum for math Donna Dempsey our elementary math coach will spend the rest of this presentation elaborating on the rationale for the curriculum adoption process and our ultimate recommendation that we are bringing forward for board consideration I'd now like to introduce you to Donna Dempsey a member of our team you have not met yet Donna Dempsey Elementary mouth coach good evening governing board the curriculum adoption process started in September with the launch of committee recruitment via the district Committee
087website shortly thereafter Dr dods and I presented at a PTO meeting at Cheyenne in October to discuss the adoption process and to encourage committee applicants once the committee was formed all meetings were held at Cheyenne Traditional School considering previous board feedback on how difficult it can be to decipher content in multiple products submitted during the application process when the work of the committee had led to the selection of the top products a community viewing night for the material was held and Al ultimately the vender presentations were held at the Cheyenne Cafe in order to encourage as much P public involvement as possible it's also important to note that the public display of material was held at Cheyenne Traditional School while R viewing this timeline you will notice there is an asterisk under public review of
088materials after publisher materials were due for this adoption and products had been received for committee consideration we learned that Hooten Mifflin hardcourt had decided to continue to publish Saxon Math copyright 2018 with a stipulation of being available to existing customers only until June of 2027 after learning this the committee requested that Saxon be submitted for consideration and on January 19th Saxon was added to the programs being reviewed by the committee the committee was comprised of 15 members including teachers parents and two administrators a Cheyenne teacher from each grade kindergarten through sixth grade served on our committee some of the committee members are here tonight and to show our support for the time they put into it we would like them to stand to be recognized [Applause] the work of this committee was grounded in ssd's
089strategic plan the goal of this committee was to review and evaluate instructional materials and provide recommendations to the governing board for approval during the first committee meeting we reviewed the Strategic plan and the recommendation placed in front of you today aligns with this plan we wanted to share a few statements from the committee members as they ref reflected on their participation in the process participating on an adoption committee is a big commitment and I think one member said it so nicely he said it's incredibly fulfilling to be able to join the committee and be a part of the success of our school and our students the Cheyenne K5 math rubric is divided into three sections the first section was accuracy and Alignment it included elements such as the alignment to Arizona standards and the teacher
090directed instruction to represent Cheyenne's corners Stones the second section was engagement and ability to meet students needs and it included elements such as rigorous learning opportunities and guidance and resources for teachers to scaffold and differentiate for students the third section was ease of use and support it and it required reviewers to consider how the program assessed student learning and how it spirals the previous learned content creating a rubric as a committee allows the team to consider the characteristics that are important for students teachers and the cheyen Community after evaluating the curriculum and learning more about our top products the committee used the consensus decision-making process to arrive at our final recommendation this is a process that teaching and learning team committed to developing for consistent use across District committees it's critical to have in place
091so that all voices are heard and the committee would accomplish its goal of submitting a recommendation to the governing board for approval for every adoption public display is set up and feedback is collected the display of Cheyenne K5 math materials was held on Cheyenne's campus this was done to encourage as many stakeholders as possible access to the materials that were submitted this slide highlights the community input via public feedback 49 people sub signed into the public display space and 96 entries were collected on the public viewing feedback form after reviewing seven curriculums hearing from the vendors of four programs and discussing the strengths of each program the committee came to consensus to recommend a three-year adoption of sax and math copyright 2018 for Cheyenne kindergarten through fifth grade teachers and students the committee believes that
092Saxon Math best aligns to Cheyenne's cornerstones this PR program spirals previous learning in a way that Cheyenne has seen success with in the past and additionally many teachers parents and community members shared their support of this resource on this slide you will see the recommended curriculum its cost and the resources included in the purchase K3 will receive consumable workbooks and fourth and fifth grade will receive hard cover textbooks the quote includes manipulative kits for each teacher and digital access for a teacher to download copies of resources the cost listed is what susd will pay this fiscal year and the contract will cover three years of resources and access the cost per student per year is also included with increases in student enrollment additional textbooks or workbooks may need to be purchased in choosing to adopt
093a resource that Cheyenne teachers are already familiar with the implementation is simplified from a professional development standpoint there have only been slight changes made to the resource as compared to the version that Cheyenne currently uses knowing that the math standards are not directly aligned to this instructional material after the materials are received cheyen teachers will work collabor atively to complete a standard correlation and redesign their current Curriculum maps this work will allow them to assure that students have access to the Arizona math standards for their grade level throughout the year we will monitor the success of the new resources through feedback from teachers and data analysis we can collect data utilizing student performance on common assessments and classroom walkthroughs while the committee is recommending a resource the campus is familiar with Cheyenne is committed to
094academic excellence and ensuring that all students meet or exceed grade level standards at this time Dr dods and I can address any questions or comments that you have thank you very much Miss Dempsey and Dr John's Karen um not just for the presentation but also just so all of you know they provided an extraordinary amount of information to the board in advance and I thank you for that I also want to thank the committee members for your time and effort in serving uh to pick a high quality uh math curriculum to put forward for consideration I'm I'm going to do something a little different I'm going to ask my questions first so just I'm going to attempt to I did these in advance so that I could meet the top five minute courtesy time limit
095here and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues on the board so the math adoption that is put forward typically we have math adoptions I'm sorry any curriculum adoptions are typically seven years and my understanding is that is in part to make sure we realize the return on the investment of having gone through this whole process and the professional development and that's pretty consistent budgetary approach is that correct M crer we typically see a seven-year adoption out of three that is correct thank you in The Proposal that's been put forward um I just I want to understand again three years now you provided the purchase orders for what that cost would be the curriculums that were were reviewed Big Ideas at 96,000 over 7even years would just some easy math just under 14,000 per
096year Revel was 137,000 for seven years so just under $20,000 a year math and focus $179,000 for 7 years which is roughly 25 a half th000 per year and then Saxon is 107,000 over 3 years which is $ 35,600 per year so it's a substantial increase uh for three years not including the opportunity costs of having gone through the process so there's the money side of this which is a question for me in my head I don't know if you have a reaction to that but the numbers are not you know not great um and then I had a question there were a number of comments that were submitted um and again you provided those summary public comments to us thank you you showed the chart here for everyone to see 96 entries there's roughly
097600 kids in K through 5 at Cheyenne um that's what 15% or or so if you just assume a one to one one entry per student um do you think that there might be value in having an opportunity for more parents I I observe that's a Cornerstone at Cheyenne parent uh engagement um to have an opportunity to comment on this curriculum one not just the cost but my understanding is it's not aligned to the Arizona state standards as they are today is is that correct uh board member hartwell's a few answers to questions I think there's a few here so the question about standards uh the product Saxon that we are recommending is not aligned to the current Arizona standards the product was um updated with some um graphic changes but there is a coherence
098map that we would utilize to look at what standards are taught when and then identify the standards that are not taught at the respective grade levels and identify supplemental materials to support those standards throughout the grade levels um the the cost and the years of the adoption the reason we are recommending this product with a threeyear is because that is the commitment Saxon well hoot Mifflin can make for the Saxon product today the publisher the publisher and then I think you had another question about parent involvement I want to thank um principal Kellum she has involved Donna and I from the get-go um inviting us to PTO meetings utilizing parents Square uh to make sure that parents were aware and I know board member Carney that's been one of your biggest concerns you know how
099are we getting this information out to our families um they allowed us to use a room at Cheyenne to display all of the material Our Hope was we know that Cheyenne is a very um actively involved campus we hoped that when people were volunteering in classrooms they would swing by 104 and take a look at our product and um and they did um but to your point the amount of people who do come in to view the product doesn't correlate you know a Ono one uh the PTO was informed and they were also a big supporters of allowing us time and um getting the word out so that people could come to the presentations which was one of our first um curriculum adoptions where we had people present to learn from the from the rep
100uh so we did make concerted effort but if the board has ideas of what we can continue to try to do to get more involvement we're always receptive to that and we do still have the materials on display at the MDA and at Cheyenne and the and the feedback form still open so if parents have other comments to offer that Avenue is still available for them and how long is that open we have it scheduled through the 30th as of right now through April 30th okay so there's still an opportunity for more of the parent Community to weigh in on which curriculum is it clear that Saxon is not aligned to the state standards is that clear to the parents I'm not questioning what the committee's work here I'm trying to wrestle with so when
101we when the vendor had was presenting to us one of the questions that we asked was what adjustments had been made because they currently have the 2012 edition and so this is a a different edition of the book and so when when asked what addition like what changes were made to to reflect the change in in the math standards in 2016 they said that they had a coherence mat but they hadn't changed the scope and sequence of the program your question so the substit content has not been changed since 2012 is that fair that is fair um to your question uh I we haven't publicized that it's not aligned to the current math standards okay it seems like that transparency should be communicated um to me I I would want to know that if I'm
102apparent um okay I I'm going to last question this is about peers um I believe this curriculum has been at Cheyenne right so we have peers to Cheyenne traditional identified in the valley have those folks um maintained Saxon or have they so with the way the timeline worked we all kind of were informed last last in 2022 in the in the winter that they were planning to stop publishing it this June and so a lot of our other districts and other traditional campuses around the valley were in the same situation we were we're like we need a book the kids need something in their hands and so I reached out to 14 different traditionaly to ask kind of what they were using now and to see how they had proceeded from it and the no
103one is still currently using Saxon so we would be um and I didn't even count them in mind I did reach out to basis and basis utilized Saxon as a platform to create their own in-house curriculum so they now have shifted to something that is Basis published instead of purchasing from a publisher um so theirs is no longer Saxon but may may have some similarities to it but when I reached out to some of our other traditional acmy they had moved into different things like neie uses math and focus now which is one of the products we reviewed we talked to Madison Traditional and they pilot they piloted math and focus and reveal which are two of our programs we reviewed also and they'll be adopting reveal starting next year um Legacy uses invisions I
104mean we I can provide a whole list of the people I've spoken to but we kind of reached out just to see how other people were handling it also but a lot of them did In fairness make the shift before the publisher made the decision to change their their end publish publication date and we found out in the middle of our adoption process that that was the case so math and focus is the same publisher as Saxon is that correct that is correct okay all right thank you very much for answering your questions I appreciate it colleagues do anyone have any additional questions Miss Carney I saw your light first okay thank you thank you for that and I'm actually very happy to hear that um saxon's going to be able to continue I know
105that was very important for the Cheyenne parents and they were very concerned when they heard that that might go away so um I also would like to reiterate that um Cheyenne does have our highest math scores I mean they have a higher and highest so um I think that's something to to look at and uh the parents there and on the committee we should be able to trust um whether it's aligned to the math standards or or not so I also want to know if you uh spoke with Chandler Unified because Chandler Chandler we spoke with and they are using my math in their primary grades and Glenco in their upper grades and their supplementing with the Eureka Sprints so they did not end up continuing with Saxon after they I know the conversation you're
106referring to okay okay thank you very much um and as far as the data goes we can definitely provide you with a full data report so you can see some of the trends but we have seen some Trends where your correct cheyen is is a very high performing school and for a long time it was number one in every grade level and we've seen some shifts in that Trend and so as we look to reevaluate the program we were looking at District state state level data as one of our our Avenues to kind of see where some differences lie okay in the board we all have the the scores so we're we're aware of that thank you Miss Warner so thank you for your presentation and um I'm very happy that this is what the
107committee decided upon I had spoken to several Cheyenne parents and it was very important to them that uh the Traditional School continue with sax and math so thank you for all your hard work thank you I I'm going to pull the thread on the academic performance data because the data I have looked at I don't think that's an accurate statement um can you can you speak to that just a little bit you referred to trends I think we need to be correct about what the data says here sure this is important uh and again governing board we are happy to write something up for you utilizing the data that we are able to access through Dr bna's office we have seen changes in the achievement as measured by state assessment with Cheyenne as compared to
108our other schools and I know that when we speak of the data aasa currently is a benchmark that we can all relate to um overtime Cheyenne was always our top performing school we do see some changes that have begun um after the pandemic there were a few things that have occurred obviously the pandemic but prior to the pandemic we also had a new adoption districtwide for a new standards aligned curriculum because again the mass standards changed in Arizona so we do see a shift beginning um after the pandemic once the new curriculum was in place throughout the district we do have other schools who are outperforming Cheyenne based on standardized test um achievement for the State of Arizona thank you Dr dods Karen I appreciate that followup um and if you could provide the board
109with the most current assessment comps that would be fantastic can I add to that um because I was looking at the data when parents were contacting me concerned with losing their sex in curriculum and um I believe when I'm talking about uh Middle School they are leading uh the score the last scores of the week uh we had they're leading our middle schools and so that I take into account what we're using in elementary school um you know obviously matters in middle school and so I think we need to have k through eight scores absolutely the middle school scores are impressive for sure and they do utilize no they utilize the same program that the rest of the district uses and their team really did use ready mathematics with Fidelity and they their results showed
110okay great so just to clarify the proposal that's been put forward is K through five 6 through eight at cheyen traditional is not part of this adoption and they do not use Saxon they use the district adopted State aligned curriculum that is correct thank you okay uh Miss sinowski thank you board president Dr Hart Wells um my colleagues asked most of my questions so I appreciate the questions um I do believe it's our responsibility to monitor Student Success and to utilize our resources most efficiently so if there are indicators saying the comfy blanket is what we want and the comfy blanket is not best for kids then I urge us to make those decisions however I do also understand and respect that Cheyenne as our Traditional School option has very unique cornerstones and I honor
111parents interests in not just um selecting but supporting um academic um curriculum and success of their students I think that the latter pays plays a huge element in Cheyenne Traditional School Success is a high parental involvement appreciate that um um um I would hope that we are making decisions based on not what we know and what's most comfortable right now but Based on data and evidence and utilize our resources most effectively and efficiently so whatever that ends up being according to the committee then I respect that but I also want us to be very cognizant of if we're taking on a curriculum that's not comprehensive according to our state standards and we have to Now find supplemental materials to enhance instruction that that becomes another layer of um communication and with parents and with our
112Educators and potentially training so I I say this to you guys as experts you know this but just saying this publicly I think it's important for people to understand it's not as easy as this is is what we like so um thank you for your work um I think the data and evidence is really important as we continue to move forward in deciding curriculum thanks that's it Miss Carney yeah I would just like to uh end with what I what I'm trying to say is that it's proving that they're coming into Middle School more prepared and there you know that's that was my point of that is what we do through K through five matters for middle school scores I I think that's true at every school okay um thank you so much we appreciate
113it we will move on to our next item 6C the governing board policy kja regarding booster organizations a first read Mr bozen are you going to lead this discussion thank you president Hart Wells vice president Lindsay members of the governing board Dr Manel and Gladis um so one of the reasons to have an attorney on staff is to provide uh other employees with clear guidance and rules uh to follow without a governing board policy it's difficult for uh an attorney to give that guidance um and so that's one of the reasons at least that uh Dr menel and I wanted to bring this policy kja uh relations with booster organizations to the governing board currently there is no governing board policy that governs uh booster organizations in totality um in 2012 after receiving a threat
114of a lawsuit H which was a dispute about who owned what and what was gifted when um and what was not gifted SD's governing board at the time uh with the help of athletic director Cliff McKenzie came together to create a comprehensive booster club handbook uh that would assist the district in avoiding disputes and would help create strong relationships with the boosters uh the parent organizations and the district and the governing board uh so the governing board adopted uh this similar handbook back in June of 2012 but it never went forward and adopted a policy um so uh I also uh in in in looking at this um I searched asb's policy manuals and it showed that a vast majority of the public school district governing boards do have a policy just like this that
115essentially gives the administration uh the guidance and the necessary the enforcement me mechanism necessary to um oversee boosters and to deal with some of the issues that come up around that so what is exactly the administration suggesting so first uh the policy um the recommendation is to accept kja which espouses the board's desire to support its parents and booster organizations and to encourage Community involvement in the goals of the district um so I think there's a sort of two-part gain to to having the policy there um not only does it provide enforcement but it also encourages the community to come forward um and then the second part of the recommendation which is to have a regulation um in which the superintendent and the the district office uh would Encompass pretty much all of the rules
116um that are necessary to oversee uh the boosters so that um regulation would Encompass a handbook there is precedent for this in in other board policy uh for example in JL uh the student wellness guidelines give a lot of the specific details to staff and parents um and is published separately outside of the regulation um this would be something that if there were ever any changes to the regulation it would be brought back to the board uh for oversight um and that um so some highlights about the handbook approach uh the handbook that was submitted to you in your in your supporting materials indicates some Financial oversight and guidance for the booster club's or organizations themselves on page four is a checklist for parents wishing to organize um and to follow and um thus the
117district is supporting booster clubs that are trying to grow and organize this includes a financial component as I just stated which um enhances the governing board's oversight and enhances the credibility with the students parents and staff um second component is a purchasing and Gifts component it the handbook essentially points booster organizations and the community to policies that the district already has kcd and kcdr we're not trying to amend those policies in any way um it just would be a central uh point for the boosters to to see those policies and to understand how to to follow them um the handbook would require boosters to go through athletic departments and um make sure that uh it clar ifies the transfer of ownership when gifts occur I think everyone on the board here is aware that uh
118the board often times wants to accept all gifts as do do everyone in the district uh but they come with with different ties and responsibility um as the board knows gifting uh creates title n issues and other Equity issues um it it's so amazing to live in this District to see such generosity um but it does require the the school district itself to provide oversight and to uh ensure uh that legal requirements of Title 9 are are followed um the same is true for and this is on page 11 of the handbook uh for the funding of consultants and offseason staff um so that that particular component talks about conflict of interest rules with District employees and boosters and uh this handbook provides some guidance over that the last thing that I'm going to touch
119on is it outlines roles and responsibilities for the for the different organizations uh page 13 has a list of dos and don'ts for the booster clubs um which if if uh the don'ts are followed create legal and time issues for the district and um ultimately harm the educational environment because the staff is focused on those types of issues instead of uh the things that that they're there for and and and which enhance the educational environment um another component of the handbook is on page 15 it ESS essentially assists The District in this oversight by uh requiring the booster clubs to submit annually to remaining good standing uh this is an enforcement component I think is necessary and there's a protection of susd employees so they don't get too uh far connected with the boosters and
120and uh misunder understand their roles and responsibilities that's on page 16 and uh this notices to the boosters also about their key roles and responsibility so in summary um this presentation is really just to outline the roles and responsibilities that are included in the handbook I think it's a win-win for the district and the community to have more oversight um and to have the governing board involved um without it it it can be a headache um but it it's still something we are very grateful for to have uh such a really amazing Community here i' I've seen it here in the last nine months myself um I'd like to thank uh board member Lindsay for assisting me uh in understanding more about the boosters and some of the issues um he he uh provided invaluable
121assistance to understanding uh some things that uh need oversight from the governing board in my opinion and also I'd like to thank Ean Slater for his service as the athletic director um this this handbook already exists I think having it in a policy just enables the governing board and the administration to really have that enforcement mechanism uh to make it real uh to alleviate some of the issues that um do come up so that's all I have for this this stage this is just a first read of it um I'm here to answer any questions I think Dr Manel is as well uh but at this stage uh I think there is a little bit more work to do to enhance the handbook right now what we provided you was what has been created over
122the years it still needs some edits um this is really just a true first read to bring it to the governing board's attention and hopefully um get this going so that we can go back to what was initiated in 2012 and really make it stick thank you Mr bozen board members any questions questions Miss sinowski thank you Mr buan for bringing this forward yes it's long overdue um I'd like to make a suggestion and I'll leave the words up to you as our Council to add a statement relating to financial expenditures and and what the purpose is to assure equital Equitable use of booster club funds raised on behalf of our students on the campus specifically in our district overall so for example how are we ensuring that there is equal consideration for males and
123females sports teams and their needs on any assorted campus in our district I know we have um some boosters that are much more um engaged some of that is because of the time that they that individuals have or their their interests are really focused On Athletics of for their children so whatever the reasons um I do want us to make sure there is some whether it's a check the box do the girls have this as an option if we're spending it on the boys I know we as a board um have made those decisions um for lights on some of our high school facilities if the boys are getting it we need to make sure the girls team is getting it as well so I would like that to somehow be embedded in this policy
124right now um I did really like and appreciate um the statement that athletic coaches um were not to be serving as treasurers for um the boosters um rule one I learned 30 years ago as a coach was you don't dabble in the funds at all it goes through the appropriate source and the dedicated Source um and so I would like I I really appreciate that and I also one more question on this um topic before I put this to bed um what are we going to do to train all of our coaches and our building level athletic directors of this because this directly relates to their work thank you thank you miss sinowski any other Miss Warner uh does the PTA and the PTO and the aps have separate um uh guidelines so this would
125not be pertaining to any of those the recommendation I'm glad you asked that board member Warner is to include um in the definition of booster organizations it's not there in the policy um but this would include ptas and PTO okay so uh you mentioned uh something about um you know raising inequity so having been part of a football booster program for many years years you know we were raising over $200,000 a year to have a program function and be able to do what they needed to do so how do you take that from in every and every every sport and every Fine Arts should have a booster because it it takes funds to to do the extra things so um so I'm supportive of that but when you take a football program you take a
126badm program that the costs of those programs are very different so when you're talking about raising funds uh or excuse me the inequities how is this falling in line if you're wanting things to be seem across the board and I have I have another question after that well um you know it's not really a policy or a political issue uh for me it's just a title 9 legal issue and where inequities between boy and girl Sports occur then uh complaints are made and investigations are had and the district is responsible for that so um it's best to understand so that even the boosters that are giving know up front what the district is legally required to utilize uh the gifts on and and so that's where the governing board I think can assert its um
127strength and sort of alleviate that issue I'm not here to tell you that everything should be equalized everywhere I'm just telling you that you know Title 9 is a real thing and um when we receive complaints if we do we have to investigate them and so having some clear guidelines out of the gate um sort of alleviates that issue okay so let's go back to to football which is about a $200,000 a year program or at least it was when my son played here so and you take um badminton which is not as as pricey so you're so if if you're telling boosters that or people that are going to donate to football they're going to have to donate equal to badmington I'm just trying to clarify here because um you know parents and people
128who are involved with their whether it's B or acquire they work really hard to support their kids and and raise funds so that the kids can do extra things inside of their activity the intent is not that it would be equal that way so so when you think about Equitable football is an expensive sport we know that um some sports girls basketball and boys basketball are probably going to have comparable needs and expenditures because they're played on the same surface they're you know they have similar uniform needs those kinds of things and so you have direct comparison when you have the same sport that are both boys and girls other sports your example of badminton for EXA example its needs will be different so what's Equitable is to ensure that you're addressing in the system
129and and Miss sinowski talked about the light situation at chaperel that's the title line consideration you can't invest in a boy's facility make it Superior and have a neighboring girls facility be inferior softball field baseball field for example so it's attending to those questions and we know that there are boosters that have the ability to raise funding we rely on that it's really important this is about ensuring that we have consistent practices so we can ensure accountability that there shared understanding of how that happens and and so it's not the same dollar amount that would be a misunderstanding of the intent it's really about ensuring that we're consistent across Sports and that we don't get out of balance with respect to how those funds are utilized yeah and to add to that um in my
130experience the office of civil rights does recognize the difference between footb in bad mitton and the need uh of the district to spend you know lots of money on football um it's a it's an expensive sport the equipment's expensive the travel's expensive there's more players um nobody's saying that you know they should be equal I don't think okay that's the way I heard it and I'll throw cheer in there it's very expensive as well cheer and P yes they are but I so um now with with regards to the the PTO and the APS and the ptas um there's a problem here because the p some of the pto's pay for staff and AIDS in our schools and and that is happening at some schools and not the others not every school can put together
131a good PTO and and that you know we've tried to do other things where you know one PTO can help support another school and so on but at in sports and I don't know about Fine Arts but I know in sports the booster cannot pay a coach so how do you you how do you have that those be part of the same policy when they they're doing two separate things well we're not asking to make any amendments to policy kcd which is and kcdr which is has those detailed um gifts from the organizations and how they're required to be utilized not this this amendment isn't or this suggestion to have kja isn't uh to change that at all so um I don't want to say status quo because that sounds kind of negative but ultimately
132there is no suggestion to change uh the current process for gifting for for PTO does that answer your question yeah okay Miss Carney um thank you okay a few questions on this I'm I'm very confused I think on on this now um but I'd like to know did Mr Lindsay bring this forward or what I'm confused on what his role was in this and why you mentioned him Mr Lindsay and I have had Communications like I have with all individual board members including yourself uh and we talked about um the things that he's interested I know Mr Lindy Lindsay is very vocal about being involved uh and interested in athletics I think he's probably went to maybe 500 games by now I think it was at 300 somewhere around December um we had a discussion
133about uh some things he was concerned about um with sports and um he essentially educated me on Scottdale unified and and the Athletics programs really in a broad way um and so okay through that I understood that we didn't even have a policy on this which um you know that's why I started off my statement with if you're going to have a a school attorney present you got to have the the rules in order to assist the governing board to enforce you know any rules and and so we couldn't even really get off the ground uh discussing some of these issues because no policy you know less enforcement uh opportunity okay and I guess the issue is I don't know the issues as a board member right so that hasn't been been put forward to
134me um so I'm not really understanding the Imp impetus of this policy because private discussions have been had maybe we can speak to that after but um I'm not understanding uh the impetus of this policy so I want to know how this is helping our goal of attracting and retaining families uh into our public schools which is our priority uh is enrollment growing enrollment how is this policy helping uh grow enrollment bring people to our schools because extra extracurriculars and sports are a huge part of why people come to our schools I want to I want to answer the first question and that is the governing board within the last few months accepted a gift from chapparel of the Fieldhouse that was built more than a decade ago that the building um by all account
135should have been gifted at the time it was completed and it wasn't that led to a number of other questions about okay so how do we have some things that um are seemingly gifted but not properly gifted per board policy then we discovered well there is there was a manual that work was done in 2012 that helped create parameters and expectations so that you could have some accountability but there was no enforcement so then when Mr muen and I had the conversation we we talked about the fact that there's no umbrella structure so we've got the gifting policy but we have no um board policy that says this is the expectation with respect to those organizations that are supporting our goal and purpose so if you look at the document from 2012 you see very
136clearly that the district recognized and celebrated the contributions of the booster organizations they're critical to Our Success whether they're parent teacher organizations APS band boosters or Athletics all of them play a critical role but we also have a shared interest in accountability because at the end of the day this board is responsible for appropriate stewardship of public resources well-intended individuals that want to contribute can create liabilities for the district with respect to Title Nine and some other things and so without an accountability structure then we're at risk and so that conversation surfaced and I just used the the Fieldhouse as one of the examples that caused us to start digging and we've had those conversations so that sort of led us to this point of saying we have to go back and say fundamentally we
137need that umbrella policy then we can ask the question okay what needs to change or be modified in the the work that was done a decade ago what what's good what can be different and are there other models that might help inform that so that we can have the Synergy that's required between the school district and the community to create those opportunities for our students okay so I'm surprised to hear tonight that this applies to APS and ptas and uh pto's because I did not read uh read that in this and I also want to know why you removed um the the word parent uh from the model policy the asba model policy uh repeatedly said support from booster parent organizations and you removed parent and I'd like to know why um it says parents
138in the first line some of this I I I didn't make any amendments to the actually I did make one Amendment to the very last part of it uh I said codified as regulation kj- that was the only amendment I made because that didn't that that was not in the asba policy but I don't I did not make any other amendments which is why I provided a clean uh copy and and black line with with no black line um because this is exactly how it came from asba okay because when I went on and look on uh asba and looked at model policy kja it's it lists support from booster parent organizations three times that was removed out of this and I'm just that's just my question so you're the model policy I looked at
139is obviously different um than the one that you looked at but um and this just and this is just a first read any suggestions um to deal with some of the issues that you're bringing up obviously we're here to listen here to meet with you uh every individual board member or um my apologies I did uh intend to provide a board memo with some of the impetus um it is very tricky to talk about some of these things because um as the board knows uh they are you know Evergreen issues um and so uh I I will still provide a board memo uh under attorney client privilege uh for you um but I I wasn't able to get it done before yesterday at 5: so I apologize well I think for all of us right
140so we're all on the same page so we all have the same information which I know isn't issue um lastly I think I'm going to end on this um could between now and the the second read we need an updated um this guideline book that has a lot of out outdated information so before we can even consider it if if we can have the correct information um throughout here that we're actually going to be approving uh and I would like to have that printed uh for each of us that'd be great miss I want to ask a hang on a clarifying question so what's being put before the board is the policy which from which the guidelines and the handbook will flow out of what appeared to happen as a reaction to a situation in
1412012 correct me if I'm wrong as I understood it was that they started from what should have flown flowed down out of a policy they just started with the the handbook as opposed to really building the infrastructure so that there was a solid kind of compliance network from which then the guidelines would flow out of so this was kind of backwards so we're trying tring to reverse engineer this situation so it almost confuses the situ the issue to just even have the guidelines there because they'll they'll need to probably be updated in some way after if the policy is accepted by the board so we need to start with just the policy this other stuff is not the task that right step one is to get this policy in place from which a regulation from
142which the guidelines SL handbook will flow correct yes that's that's definitely correct and just historically speaking uh what it appears is that it was a one-off adoption by the board and and then nobody ever treated it with um any uh intention after that although I did major in history I don't know all the history of Scottsdale unified and um I did some digging to try and find it out I talked to multiple Witnesses here um all of which uh forgot what happened between 2013 and 2020 you could be forgiven for that that's okay Miss Carney more questions I'll just end on um but we do have kja SLR on here which I know the board does not approve regulations but we are um we have a regulation here in front of us that says the
143superintendent is required to develop procedures pursuant to policy kja which can be located in the Scottsdale Unified School District booster organization handbook found at and there's nothing there but I'm just because yeah I think I'm confused because okay there's so much information here what I agree so let's peel the onion back that regulation is is going to just be a template um right it'll have to change once a board adopt adopts a policy whether it's this one or amended version thereof then you'll do the regulation then you will do the guidelines that's how it should work in healthy governance not the reverse so I don't think we even need to see this regulation it it is confusing the matter I think you gave us all the information because you were collecting and doing all your
144diligence trying to reverse engineer a situation that should have happened in 2012 and it did and that's okay um but we're going to fix it yeah absolutely I mean I provided the regulation and the handbook so that you could see the issues um which this 2012 board identified and really came up with was some good guidance on but I wanted to have make sure that the board had it so that you could ask questions about it and uh determine whether any of the uh rules that are in there you know would that this board would so we definitely have to go back to the drawing board and and fix the handbook before it's fully uh adopted but at this point the proposal is to adopt kja the policy so first step is just the policy
145so let's just focus on the policy and then this this regulation will be next but we really can't build a regulation if there's no policy that doesn't make sense correct I don't know if that helps Miss Carney um that's how I'm understanding tackling this issue but um Mr linday I was just going to say in the last week we found a possible solution an alternative with Chandler I don't know maybe want to give a quick rundown um but it may solve a lot of these um and Chandler's highly successful and they invite collaboration with their booster club so the boosters have a voice so so Chandler has an umbrella organization so all of the boosters whether it's a parent teacher organization or an athletic booster club they're all a part of this umbrella so they
146they have some independent work they do but they're all a part of shared governance with respect to that and accountable to the same kinds of reporting structures ethic expectations and and sure it's different between Athletics where you have AIA guidelines that you have to follow and what's happening at an elementary but they have an umbrella structure that's designed to do uh what we're contemplating here so I think there's something we can learn and whether it's that model um hybrid of that and what we saw before or something else that we may discover I think that there's there's a way to put something together that meets the needs of our community um but again I agree with Dr hartwell's first step is to have a policy that would then guide the work that we do administratively
147Mr Lindsay I was just going to say maybe in the memo can also outline some of the issues that we uncovered so the whole board can can see them um what I've noticed going to athletic events is we're blessed with very gracious booster clubs raise a lot of money um and historically there's been a lack of oversight and so when you're raising a lot of money and competitive sometimes you can go astray a little bit so it'd be helpful for the district to provide some oversight and some guidance provide some help all right well said Thank you thank you Mr bu all right we are moving on to item 6D uh joint education subcommittee report uh this was at the request of a board member and I am not going to go through it but
148in your board docs for the board members and the community there's a document entitled council's uh subcommittee on education accomplishments and goals and you are welcome to read that at your leisure this was prepared by the mayor's office so if you have questions or concerns please direct them to him all right we are going to T oh miss sinowski thank you for bringing that forward president Dr herwell I just want to also put out into the community that um this joint education committee is is really like a mayor's organization a mayor's committee so the the work that is comp completed there is really um with the input of susd and Scottdale Community College and other stakeholders and it's not something that we necessarily are responsible to drive the the outcomes is that correct assessment that's
149been my experience as well thank you Miss Carney did you want to add yeah I just I wanted to add um that we need to be aware that the written state statement of purpose for this advisory committee uh says it's compliance with GB uh with governing board policy BDF which we no longer have so that needs to be corrected noted thank you all right very good uh let's go ahead and do our consent agenda what's you know the 99% that's left of it we have some special guests we'd like to honor and then we're going to take a break because I need to go to the bathroom so um I move to approve the consent agenda as amended is there a second second Mr Lindsay seconds all those in favor please say I I I
150that motion passes 5 um and with that i''d like to recognize and congratulate two of our incoming principles for school year 2024 2025 Mr John Andrews as if you do not know Mr Andrews the illustrious Mr Andrew is a current assistant principal at Desert Mountain high school and will be stepping into the principal role in the fall uh filling some very big shoes left by Dr Lisa hirs who is retiring and leaving us congratulations Mr Anders and we have Brittney walk Miss Brittany Walker who will be our incoming our new Copper Ridge principal congratulations and welcome to the susd family all right and with that we are going to recess for five minutes we will re uh Jour uh convene at 8:26 e backwards so we're going to start with item [Music] 7K and I
151believe two different board members asked for this one to be pulled both Miss Carney and miss sinowski so either one of you wish to start with your comments on item seven K the approval of Sal schedule for all employee groups including classified certified special service providers and administration Miss sanowski you'd like to lead us off please thank you board president Dr hartells um under K in regards to the contracts for administrators I'd like to learn better about the um differences in work expectations between director and coordinator positions um specifically art and Athletics as many of you know that has been a concern of mine those positions they as they both have um oversight of students and programmatic success as their main objectives so what is that difference so I'm going to invite Miss Wilson to
152talk a little bit about this but uh when you look at our uh structure of employee classifications coordinator and director um they're on different parts of the salary schedule for a variety of reasons some historical some very intentional but I think Miss Wilson can talk about where we are in the process uh president hardwell's uh board member saski so specifically on this item we're talking about salary schedules if I understand you correctly your question is about the responsibilities about the job description for the various not yet so on the salary schedules there are addendums that include the specific um assignments um and they show both of those positions in different understood sections with different labels yet it seems they sympatico uh I appreciate the clarity so we are that is part of the compensation study
153that we are uh in the process of right now which will they actually just got started to review all of those different positions with our comparator districts and other um uh some cities as well so that is part of what we're looking at right now agreed that there are some to your point coordinators and directors in some of those uh particular grades and that's why we're undergoing the compensation study okay and then I would like to make a suggestion moving forward it doesn't have to be right now or today but my suggestion is to streamline the directors in because they're in boxes and they're in different boxes if they're if they're having that title of a director it makes sense to me that they are in the same box for pay range if they're as
154valuable from one position to another and the success of outcomes of our students thank you thank you thank you Miss Carney uh thank you while while we're on the uh subject of the administrative position I just got a question on the 12month administrative position classifications and salary range sheet uh under N I see director of special education listed twice and I'm just wondering if that's a typo which I believe it is but if it is the exact same um title then I'm guessing that is a clerical error but let me double check I'm sorry it is typo thank you it looks like it's there twice so we can uh edit that that's perfect that wasn't why I I pulled it but while we were on it I had I had noticed that so I thought
155I'd mention it thank you um what I wanted to talk about and what I wanted to learn is about consecutive years of experience um as a certified employee um we've had longtime valued teachers in our district reaching out to us asking why we use consecutive years of experience instead of total years of service and on March 29th I emailed Dr Manzel inquiring about this and he said he uh asked Shannon kroer to analyze this yet I have not heard anything so I'm wondering if Dr menel or Shannon or Alexis can speak to why we use consecutive years instead of total years of service board member hartw Wells and uh I'm sorry president Hart Wells board member Carney we discussed this in interest based negotiations with the certified team and um last year and at the
156time that was the recommendation to look at consecutive years of service in Scottsdale unified we have some employees who had a break in service that were less than one year and we've honored those employees uh and not um penalized them for a break that was less than one year if they did leave scottone unified for more than one year then they are not getting the consecutive years it is something that we can certainly take a look at I think we'd have to analyze every certified teacher that has perhaps left us and then come back to see what the financial implications would be if we were to um make a change to that yeah I I think that we need to do that because we've got um valued teachers who have had extend you know you
157know circumstances causing them to have to leave the district for a period of time and then they've come back uh and they're having to start over um and I think this is you know it negatively impacts them and we one of our goals is to retain right our our qual quality teachers and so I'm really concerned about this and I would like to see us have a discussion uh on Switching that language so that was that was my concern with this all right thank you thank you you're you're welcome very good thank you Miss Wilson there is any other Miss sinowski yes thank you uh for the record um it's that one particular individual um has been given that credit right but also to be clear it's not that they are starting all over on
158the pay scale it is that they are put into a different additional compensation visible in table two of the addendum correct the there's one employee who had a break in service for less than one year they they were placed accordingly on their education and experience there wasn't much of I don't any change if I recall in the salary that person 's additional compensation was corrected for this current school year to reflect no break-in service um so anyone that had a break in service for more than one year however would reflect the zero to eight-year band uh of additional compensation thank you Miss Wilson any other questions Miss Carney so were you just saying that what I what I said only affects one employee only one employee had reached out that that particular situation um was
159relevant and I was clarifying because there are multiple tables in front of us on the same um document there are actually four tables and I just wanted to make sure that the general public understood that it wasn't they were starting over on table one for their salary but they were actually um in a different category potentially for their additional compensation visible through table two correct and president Hart Wells and board member Carney that would be something that would require further uh looking research to see about employees other employees that did leave the district for more than one year and have since returned yeah I just think I mean our goal is to retain our talented long time teachers and I want us just do everything we can to make sure they're compensated properly thank you
160um just to clarify I think board member Carney I made a note you had requested a discussion at a future uh governing board meeting but I'm just going to clarify that that discussion would would need to come after an assessment and I would argue budget impact assessment correct did I I heard that correctly is not fair okay so the timeline for a 45 days I I don't we'll we're in the in the throws of finishing out the school year here so once that assessment's done uh in HR then we'll get it on on a future uh board agenda okay very good all right no further discussion on item 7K then I'm going to move to approve item 7K approval of salary schedule for all employee groups including classified certified special service providers and administration as
161presented is there a second second second by miss sanowski all those uh actually I'm G to ask for a roll call because I'm having a hard time hearing each one of you miss Warner I miss Carney I miss sinowski yes Mr Lindsay I and I'm an i that's a 5 o thank you very much we're going to move to item 7 I recommend approval of revised job description of District athletic director um Miss saski would you like to lead thank you um after many discussions on this topic um I feel it is relevant that this position also include um oversight of physical education grades six through six through 12 in our district um as they often utilize similar staff members for coaching and they also um use similar facilities from instruction for versus extracurricular activities
162um I have asked for this in the past and I do not see it if please bring it to my attention if I if it's an oversight but I do not feel this is appropriate to have under the Fine Arts coordinator's job Dr Mel would you like oh Miss Wilson yes uh president harwell's board member sinowski The District athletic coordinator does not oversee the fine arts program uh the supervision of that and in the employees within that not now and and not proposed in the in the revised description I I think the question is the other way around that that right now physical education is overseen by the Fine Arts coordinator correct and I think the recommendation from Miss sinowski is that 612 PE teachers would fall under the District athletic director correct thank you
163and I apologize if I misspoke so what I would uh invite Dr Benson to do is to talk about the curricular aspect in terms of supervision of that part in teaching and learning because the athletic director function is is one discret um situation and I'm not arguing for or against the recommendation I just think that there's some Nuance that you can speak to good evening all uh appreciate the question there's some history with the where that has landed over the course of Scottdale um in large part when we did pre-post test the better part of a decade ago um in conjunction with pay for perfor pay for performance dollars there was an awful lot of support to our PE teachers to also create pre- and post tests based on standards and so we got very
164familiar with standards years ago so it's moved around at one time it was um associated with a director of curriculum we don't have a director of curriculum uh position um at the minute and so that we've had lead teachers and we still use lead teachers to help us with this standards um and that which we have at the high school department leads we've reinstated the high school department leads and enlisted their help this year too so there's various layers of leadership but we had done our homework last fall when some of these questions had been posed and at the better part of the districts across the valley the athletic directors typically don't oversee the PE part but there is coordination with whomever is because of the shared uses of spaces and equipment so that there's
165a very natur natural connection there so I think it speaks to um a a a very important need that you've identified it certainly doesn't need to land um on the lap of our Fine Arts coordinator there are other options we can talk about so it could be tucked into this position knowing we would need a u more support from the teaching and learning area to make sure that we are aligning our instruction to the standards and expect expectations of the course thank you president Dr hartells um Dr Benson um I appreciate that information where does it land then right now so it is with our fin Arts coordinator Michelle Michelle has the K8 part and we've had some shared responsibility at the high school level with um our current athletic director based on conversations from
166the previous board presentation that was couple months ago so there's been more interaction there but yes um I I want to make sure that we're recognizing and valuing the work that our coordinator of Fine Arts has done um because her relationships with our teachers is pretty significant and so she uses our lead teachers that get a stien for this and coordinates much of our early releases so she's done a great job so I want to make sure that we're not situating this as a deficit conversation not at all and actually it's in defense of her good work and understanding that sometimes when we overburden great employees they get burned out and so I'm not okay with this sticking with Fine Arts it does not make sense from an instructional standpoint it does not make sense
167from a facility usage standpoint and I'll I'll leave it at that can I can I add we did have this discussion um in looking at updating the job description and agreed that the descrip destion doesn't prohibit moving that responsibility to The District athletic director but or the organizational chart for next year is something that we'll be working on with um a great deal of intentionality now that we know some other changes are in process and so it gives us an opportunity to think about where this properly lands but we didn't want to put it in there and then discover that really there might be a better place or the bifurcation of that the the elementary or the K8 component versus the high school and since that the other moving parts and pieces haven't been settled
168we didn't bake it into the job description as a requirement but it's not um prohibited based on the way the description is written Miss sinowski thank you president Dr Hartwell Dr menel does that mean we're approving a job description that we are going to be hiring someone for beginning July 1 that would potentially be adding this to their plate after the hire that would be correct and and we've contemplated that as we will be screening candidates and determining what the background experience and and talents that they bring to the table are so that'll be part of our calculation as we're um considering the best candidate to bring forward for the governing board to approve thank you Dr Menzel thank you Missi I'd like to add to the um PE conversation if you could also contemplate
169the relevance of oversight over the sports classes all righty any more discussion on the proposed job description all right um with that I will make a I am making a motion to uh approve the recommended revised job description of the District athletic director as presented in board dos is there a second second seconded by vice president Lindsay um again we're going to do a roll call Miss Warner um yes M Corney I miss sinowski nope Mr lindsy I and I'm an I so that is 41 and I would like to just reiterate the promise that was made to expand the conversation going forward a good point point was made about bringing in somebody new and then shuffling the deck on them all right very good thank you we are now going to move to the
170last consent um agenda item that was uh 7h Personnel action items but only the item with respect to the resignation of Miss palushi Miss Warner thank you so I would like to motion to table this item for lack of information as elected board members it is at least my job and my goal to keep good Educators and to make good faith effort to build the community and the community of schools and due to the Outreach of people through email through phone calls and other Communications the concern with what happened with paluchi um the reason for the tabling is the Board needs to get a top- down review of this investigation including decent communication timelines evidence ensuring policies and procedures were followed and evidence that d process was awarded to miss paluchi this can all be
171handled in a executive session and if pal this Miss paluchi would like she could be present as well give a second I second that motion we have a a motion on the table Miss sinowski would you like to speak can we have discussion we may have discussion of course would you like to comment further I absolutely would um I do not think we can base good governance decision s on personal interests or hearsay or personal bias we do not pick and choose adherence to our policies or our laws for our students or based on whether we like them or not as I understand Miss palatucci was directly included in her due process and out of respect of facts and her privacy she has decided to offer her resignation I understand that we are not compelled
172to share personnel information and at times cannot share specific reasons why individuals choose to make their decisions other than staying with susd this is Miss puchi's story to share and we have been tasked to apply policy despite hearsay or pressure from the community seeking to better understand what happened we are tasked to oversee the best interests of our educational institution based on facts and data as and as I said not on hearsay that's all I'd like to say thank you I'd like to continue we have no facts or data that's that's why I had asked several times for an executive session tonight so that we could have a discussion as a board to understand what happened we have very little information to no information on this and I was denied the executive session as as
173well as I had asked for Miss paluchi to be notified of my request but that also was denied um so it is our duty as elected board members to have proper information and to know what's going on and we do not have that and if and that is a fact that is we do not have the information on that we need it and that is why I seconded the motion to table this until we can get together in an executive session and understand uh what happened to this abrupt resignation that's for December 31st 2024 and I I don't even know why we don't even know why so no we need to we must table this and go into executive session to understand the facts Miss Warner yes so in In fairness and I had also
174asked for information which we've received in Pre under previous investigations that doesn't violate the priv privacy of the individual um but there is too many irregularities here I've had conversations with uh with Menzel and um there In fairness to the boort um we do make decisions and we are held accountable to the decisions on the things that we vote on and I think that it's very reasonable to ask to table this just so we can have a conversation in executive session about it Dr msel do you have any thing you'd like to share so information has been shared with the governing board uh and and the thing that I would point out is that it's not common for the governing board to question anyone's resignation so I understand that there are questions here about that
175and there are a lot of rumors that are spec circulating within the community I also know having been in the superintendent chair for a very long time that with partial information people make all sorts of uh conclusions um that uh absent the full story may lead to something that's misinformation and so I would respectfully ask that the governing board honored the request of Miss palatucci and and um act accordingly I do recognize the whole situation makes me sad but at the end of the day um we have a resignation in front of the board and I believe that we should honor the request of the individual um May I miss Warner thank you so um you've been a superintendent for a long time but never for such a district as this with this amount of
176students and staff and it is my understanding per conversation with Alexis Wilson that people who are not going to be renewed or may be terminated are offered the opportunity to resign which she stated in the audit committee and my concern is that that is what happened here and so I would just for the board to make an educated decision when we vote on this I don't think it's too much to ask to table this to have an executive session around it so that everybody can feel good about what's happened here so my motion stands Miss mclenon would you like to add anything Madam president members of the governing board you have a motion to table on it I would suggest you vote on that motion to table we're going to do a roll call and
177good Miss Warner on the mo this is a vote for the motion to table yes Miss Carney I'd like to explain sorry I'd like to explain my vote I um second to that motion only if we can go into executive session as a board to discuss what happened because we don't have the facts and if there is misinformation then it's your job to fill us in so that we do have the information and then we can make an educated uh educated decision right now we cannot do that that so um I am a ie for that motion Miss sinowski for me this is a tough decision to make because I choose to recognize an employees request I don't know all of the details and I don't think that's relevant because I think that becomes microman
178management of the board and I feel that um if Miss palatucci has offered her letter of resignation that I would recognize her interests to be able to move on and with that I would say no on tabling vice president Lindsay no and I'm a no that motion fails 32 I'd like to make a motion to approve the line item to accept Miss palat tui's resignation under consent item 7h and we'll do a roll call please miss Warner no no Miss Carney no Miss sinowski yes Mr Lindsay yay and I'm a yes that motion passes 32 all right we are going to move on now to our action items item 8 a acceptance of audits and compliance questionnaire for fiscal year 2023 and we had our presentation earlier had an opportunity to ask questions per state
179law this has to be a roll call vote as well is there any additional discussion or questions that board members have Miss Carney uh yes I had a couple questions that I'd like to ask if Shannon if I may on the USF R uh report um under credit cards and P cards it's listed uh here that we have four District credit cards but you and I had a discussion that we have two credit cards so I just want to clear that up uh yes the district has two credit cards one is under name one is under Dr benzel's name that are used districtwide um they're held within the MDA or my office for staff to use if there's a um sometimes there's required purchases that have to happen um that require a credit card so
180they would come down to the district office and check that out those'll stay at the MDA or the district office locked up in a safe um I will need to go back I guess and look at that a little bit more in that there are two those are the only two credit cards okay well that's what you and I had discussed but on the usfr report it says four credit cards so if you I I will go backy that yeah is there any chance Shannon that that could be reflective of the fact that two had to be cancelled and and reissued um this past year and and so you ended up with different numbers because of the fraudulent activity that was discovered it is a possibility we do have there was fraud activity on both
181of the cards so they were both canceled and reissued um I'm sorry I I will go back and clarify that yeah there were charges that were not authorized by the district that were discovered due to the the postal situation so so that's what I'm I'm remembering so I just wonder if that might be the explanation because both of those had to be canceled and reissued okay yeah that would make sense but if you can clarify that and get back to us and then the only other question I had is under financial reporting um where is it oh um number one it said the budgeted expenditures reported on the AFR agreed with the district's most recently revised adopted expenditure budget uh no the answer was no and it says budgeted expenditures reported on the AFR did
182not agree to the most recently revised expenditure budget for fund 300 399 by 94825 could you just clarify what that is yes um we the AFR was when the budget is done and um and submitted those numbers then pull into the AFR um interestingly those numbers are actually locked in the AFR like you have to go into a cell and unlock them to change it which is a practice that we know not to do um so we're not sure how a number got changed um there are some there there are multiple people who have access to the file so we have now moved it so that that is strictly under mine um my or the uh Director of Finance control um she it's you know her practice she knows we don't lock unlock those cells
183um so she herself is a little baffled as to how the number got changed or where in the process that number got changed because they are locked cells in that format um so there's a little of she's flat outside I don't know how it happened because I know not to unlock those those cells so it does it has to do with um additional budget coming in after the you know Grant got amended after the AFR was done but um again those are locked CES it's not supposed to be able to be changed so we have made a correction so that that does not happen there there will only be two of us who have access to that file okay thank you any other questions for board members all right I move to approve the acceptance
184of audits and compliance questionnaire for fiscal year 2022 2023 is there a second second Miss anasi seconds and we Again by state law have to do a roll call here so miss Warner if you could lead us off I miss Carney I miss sinowski yes Mr Lindsay I and I am an also an I that passes 5 we're moving along to item 8 B second read and approval of secondary World languages and Elementary dual language immersion curriculum adoption for 2024 2025 school year this is our second read so are there any additional questions or comments miss sinowski your lights on I didn't okay all right if that is the case there are no additional questions or comments I'll move to approve item 8B second read and approval of the secondary World languages and Elementary DLI
185curriculum adoption for 2024 2025 school year is there a second second vice president Lindsay seconds all those in favor please say I I any opposed all right that motion passes 5 moving on to item 8 C second read and approval of the secondary science curriculum adop for 2024 2025 school year are there any follow-up questions or comments since our first read all right hearing none I make a motion to approve the second read and approval of the secondary science curriculum adoption for the 2024 2025 school year all those in favor please say oh second second vice president Lindsay seconds all those in favor please say I I I uh any opposed all right that M motion passes 5 and in our amended agenda item 8D was removed so we're moving on to item 8e second
186read and approval governing board policy ha regarding negotiation goals and priority objectives what happened to D we removed it it got pulled at the very beginning the sorry I missed that it was removed to be put onto the April 30th uh governing board y um any comments Miss car on you know I just had I'm thank you for allowing me to butt in when I'm not really supposed to be right now but I did have information I want to give to the board members regarding that policy so maybe if I could do that that would be great before the next meeting because I had mentioned to you you certainly um I I we removed it tonight so I don't recomend emailing it yeah I can't email it so can you give it to Nick Nick
187is that yeah is that you want me to do it just so you could better understand what I was talking about how other districts have the board members appoint committee members and this could be um a collaborative okay if you could um present that to yeah Nick that would be great and then he could share it safely with the rest of us thank you okay are we ready for AE now that ha any comments on the second read for policy ha all right hearing none I move to approve the governing board policy ha regarding negotiation goals and priority objectives as presented this evening all those in F oh we need a second please second Miss sinowski I'm ready to leave okay uh all those in favor please say I I I I any opposed 5
188motion passes and then to our last action item here 8f approval of Second Step middle school project and I believe that we have a presentation Miss Cron and Dr Michael will also be and Dr Michael thank you for joining us you had family obligations this evening thank you all right good evening uh president Hartwell vice president Lindsay Dr Manzel gladus and governing board um I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight and share with you an overview of the Second Step project so that you are able to make an informed decision about whether or not this is an opportunity that would benefit Scottdale Unified School District so the Second Step project well one thing that we I guess we've all heard is that supporting the whole child or the social emotional needs of a student
189also benefits their academic achievement so the US Department of Education and the American Institute of research have combined forces and want to have a better understanding of if Second Step um supports the academic achievement of our students and so susd was invited to participate in a study which would really be looking at whether or not that is true and helping us have a better understanding so if we were to move forward with this opportunity we would be provided with three years access to the Second Step Middle School curriculum which is all web based we would receive significant training for our Educators for our staff so not only would they receive in-person training they would also be provided with um PD opportunities online with videos that they could share with their students that videos they could
190watch themselves we would also receive funding for data collection data analysis and dissemination so this would not be our first time uh participating in a research project with the US Department of Education and air um back in 2015 we participated in the multi-tiered systems of support research project where five of our elementary schools received that support training to implement ntss what we saw was a significant decrease in behaviors through that study we learned um a lot of information that we've been able to take with us and continue you know that implementation across the district um over the years we've seen a significant decrease in office discipline referrals however um what we have seen in the last four years is an increase in office discipline referral specific to middle school and so one of the questions
191or concerns is we know that our students have been taught those behavioral expectations we know that they understand those behavioral expectations but what we're seeing is that they are struggling to engage in um productive conflict right they're having a hard time kind of navigating the social relationships um regulating their emotions and in turn we've seen that increase in over time um with office discipline referrals from our middle school students so the second Second Step implementing the Second Step um really looks at how are we supporting both those social emotional and behavioral needs of our students and is that going to have an impact on the academic achievement and that climate and culture we know that if students uh behave in class that teachers have more time to teach right less distraction so students are again
192able to you know focus on their learning and it creates more of that positive environment right students are able to take more risks because they feel safe they feel connected to school and so it really aligns with our strategic plan um Second Step is not new it has been around for several years back in 2017 they did revise their curriculum so if we were to move forward with um Second Step we would be looking at the implementation of four different units and So within those units you could see the first one focuses on mindset and goals the the second one is developing a positive sense of self third one is thoughts emotions and decisions and that fourth one is managing relationships and social conflict so each of these um units consist of six to seven
193lessons um where each lesson takes approximately 25 minutes to implement so they have communicated with us that they would be very willing to customize um the implementation based on our needs so if reviewing these you know lessons or these materials and there was something in there that we felt you know would not be appropriate for our community or people were concerned about we would be able to block those lessons so that we wouldn't be able to access them our teachers wouldn't be able to access those lessons um there's an additional 200 you know optional advisory activities so if a teacher again is having a difficult time where you know they're seeing that students are having a hard time persevering when tasks become difficult they can pull some of these you know ideas or lessons for
194their students um this again might be perceived as a benefit because one of the issues that we have had is that you know teachers are it's coming from a good place but they want to address some of these needs in their classroom and they're creating their own lessons so this is something that would be you know again we would agree to participate in we would have eyes on it we'd be able to block something that we didn't feel as appropriate for our community um but teachers wouldn't be left up to their own devices to be able to you know create lessons um I've included a link for that full scope in sequence so that you guys are able to take a look at um the different lessons and again just share if you have any
195concerns so second step is not new to SD um it has been implemented for several years or was implemented for several years in our special education uh programs and it has also been implemented since 200 17 over at angle side I will share with you and I think this is interesting is um when we look again at our data where we've seen that significant increase in office and discipline referrals specific to Middle School when we look at Engle side we've seen the opposite so we've seen a significant decrease in office discipline referral since 2017 so I'm not saying that it's you know only because of the implementation of Second Step but that is something that Engleside is implementing that is a little bit different from some of our other middle schools um when we look
196at the average number of referrals per Middle School student across the district um it's 0.008 referrals at Engleside it's 0.02 so again you can see a significant decrease in some of those um behaviors so next year uh we will be implementing that intervention and enrichment period and you know recognizing that the behavior and academics are closely tied together our schools our committees are looking at you know what uh what material are we going to provide our teachers with um to support students during that period we want something that is easy for them to access um which again Second Step provides you know those lessons for our students or for our students so for our teachers so they wouldn't have to create that material on their own um the research study does ask that we uh
197participate by teaching at least one lesson one 25 minute lesson a week if for some reason a teacher was not able to teach that one week they would be able to you know break it up into two lessons you know the following week but they are very you know flexible with that implementation um over the last two years our mtss stat committee has had several conversations regarding behavior and the implementation of you know mtss and then looking at you know is that enough or are we seeing other areas of need in regards to again supporting kind of that social emotional Behavioral or that whole child and the area of concern is you know specific right now to Middle School we've got that time carved out during the day and so one of the proposals of
198our mtss committee was to look at different you know opportunities or different uh material that would be available for our teachers so this is another area where it's kind of actually a perfect opportunity it presented itself at a perfect opportunity so we would be looking at perhaps buying you know the materials and instead in this situation if we decide that it is you know could be beneficial to our community we would be receiving the material for free um through participating in the study so the timing of it could not be more perfect um to at least have the conversation and decide whether or not this is something that could benefit our community so with that um I want to just turn it over to Dr Michael so he can share with you a little bit
199more about what that implementation has looked like uh at Engleside and share with you real experience from being handson and the implementation thank you I usually don't try to uh speak at this time of the evening so I commend all you guys for doing this regularly um but yeah so I think Shannon hit most of the points uh first of all good evening everybody um but I think the thing that I like about second step and it was already there when I got there and um I did some research today and what I was told was a former assistant principal when Dr thuman was here brought it on because they had experience with it at a previous District um and just like many things in schools I'm sure it was in response to all the
200relevant topics that are covered within the units that they saw at the middle school and so we've had it I believe for five years and what I like about it especially because of um previous experience in a different district is whenever you see things that you're responding to we ask teachers to create curriculum um in a previous District basically teachers were given uh a pretty uh substantial amount of um um resources and told to create some kind of comprehensive uh education for our students right so Second Step um it it's it's ready to go for our teachers so they log in the resources are there the lessons are there so that's one of the primary things that I appreciate about second step and then the second thing is the relevance uh it hits all the
201things that our students experien in the Middle School huge transition from elementary school to middle school and so a lot of things covered in there are very relevant to our students so with that if there's any other questions um I won't say it's perfect uh but the reason actually I want to go back the reason I think we've seen the declines and um the discipline data is because of the people at Engleside our assistant principal the staff uh a curriculum is just as good as the people who are teaching it so we have a lot of good people at Engle side so thank you board members are there any questions or comments Miss Carney thank you um all right Shannon I I've got many concerns on this you you know that that and both of
202you I've had conversations with uh regarding this and I appreciate that um over the past couple years but honestly um it's impossible for us to make an educated decision on this when we can't review the curriculum I was not able I asked to review it I've not ever been able to review it um so I'm not sure how we can vote on this uh when we can't review the curriculum I haven't been able to see it so um I've had conversations with you like I said regarding my um aversion for this intervention period uh amidst the school day and what's happened to my own child personally so um also we've heard from teachers they want to teach their subjects of expertise from Bell to Bell and the more that we're making them learn and do
203is taking away from academic uh classroom time so I'm concerned with that but I've uh got two major questions here I want to know um can parents opt out of this curriculum um and can they review it so yes if this is something that we did decide to move forward with we would have that 60-day reval re review period where parents could put eyes on the curriculum and then opt out as well so just like our novel I think it would be similar a similar process right where if there is a novel or you know a study that parents did not want their child exposed to um we would provide an alternative activity during that time period okay and so that is you know those details would definitely have to be worked out so we
204haven't gotten that far um right now we've just been presented with the opportunity and you know we'll make a decision whether or not you know it would be of benefit for us to you know continue to explore um and then we would be able to you know air has communicated because I did share you know that there would be concern right from some you know community members and how do we address those concerns are we able to put eyes on that curriculum are we able to block or customize you know lessons based on the needs of our community and they did communicate that yes that would be possible if we did choose to move forward okay I think that's the concern is I have not been able to review it as a board member so
205can Community can families review this curriculum uh for their student and opt out I think if if we're going to move forward we must have that and um I had to do my own research looking into this um on the second- step- study.com website is where all this information is um that I found on my own and there's some concerning things on this um that I wanted to address uh it talks about for academic years these three years researchers will collect the following data one teacher survey at the beginning and the end of each Academic Year One activity log four times throughout the year so once again this is more for teachers to do so that's a concern and then my major concern is that there's one student survey at the beginning and end of
206each Academic Year um but surveying students without informed consent from the parent is against the law and it's against our board policy JRR so how are we addressing that our kids cannot be surveyed without parental consent and we did have a conversation with air and the project leads around that concern um they did say that we would be able to opt out at that student survey they've also addressed that this would be more of an attraction versus edict so perhaps if we do decide to move forward we would not require that all of our teachers participate um if they are interested they did mention that there would be you know small stiens you know for participation and for that data collection for their time to participate in these surveys so that would be again something
207where we would have to have more conversation around it to just to understand you know the logistics and whether or not that is possible for our school district so I'm thinking it sounds like we need to table this item to get more information um and and be able to review it as a as a board if we're interested in doing so Dr menel yes so I just want to um clarify that that we were invited to participate in a research project that's not going to uh cost any money so tabling it might end up meaning that we don't have the opportunity to participate and an alternative would be to move forward with conditions to say we need to be able to go through our curriculum adoption process so that there can be a proper review
208of what's there to your point that parents haven't been able to see it the board hasn't been able to see it that we can address those other conditions like the survey question because we've got to comply with Arizona statute so an alternative to tabling it would be to indicate that we could move forward with the stipulation that these other components are met alternatively um the MTS SSB team has been looking at what other resources because we there's there's a need that's been demonstrated those other things would cost money so there's an opportunity here that if we can customize this we can get something to meet that need and save the district dollars so my concern about tabling is that we lose the opportunity and then we're going to come back to the governing board to
209ask to spend money to support those needs of our students uh when we might have been able to do it with no cost yeah thank you and um I I did anticipate that there would be some concern and so I did talk and we are in a time crunch where they need us to respond um sooner than later and they did agree that we would be able to put conditions into that letter of commitment Miss Warner thank you so I think there might be a breakdown in the communication between your staff and administration here so I have some notes from um the concerns of of of the staff that teaches this so um and I'm just going to read it for VM of what I was told Second Step requires you to go in Chron
210chronological order making it difficult to teach as they feed from one to the next it is great specific which makes it a logistical nightmare for elective teachers specifically with with multi-grade levels the topics and content are uncomfortable to teach students families and teachers will have different views on how and what they feel about the topics and subjects that's key right there the questions are very personal that they ask for for discussion here's a benign one but for example um has anyone ever started or heard a rumor so then the students students either hesitate or they participate and have no problem blurting out rumors and causing issues the visual examples the topics seem childish for the grade levels that they are supposed to represent it is also a paint to make copies hand out and handouts
211that go with each which usually just gets recycled the minute they are done writing them so it's a waste of resources for only being used here and there for supplemental it doesn't seem cost effective or productive I understand this is coming for free at what it cost with the sions for the teachers to teach it teachers would rather focus on their academic lessons than planning and preparing for the Second Step lesson there's a difference between working to support a student who has specific needs when it comes to social emotional whatever it might have transpired in that child's life versus telling and training them on how to act or be be social as a whole questions asked bring up feelings and emotions in students and the teacher is not equipped to deal with that so I'll
212leave with that thank you I don't know if Dr Michael if you want to respond to that just in again with Hands-On kind of experience and working with teachers if they've shared some of these concerns with you or if that's something again I appreciate you sharing that feedback with us well first of all it's one data point I'm not dismissing it but it's one data point I think what's being lost here is that you know what also disrupts learning are behavioral issues in the classroom you're observing some statistically relevant impact on mitigating against disruptive behaviors you indicated Dr Michael that you don't credit 100% this approach and I think that's fair I that's honest um I also trust that your staff if there is concerns will be you'll be accessible for those to be communicated
213to you and I'm sure that they are I'm sure you're all learning together you've ruled this out for five years that's a long enough time to see if it's efficacious or not and what it suggests I'm not saying proves it but certainly suggests there might be some there there this red herring of distraction from academics behavior is in essential in Attitude to academics so I don't want that lost I thought the proposal was a constructive compromise of look we want this crafted to the way that we do things here and they said okay so that sounds great to me anybody else I like make another comment Miss Warner um so I I it is it is rude to dismiss the voices of the staff that have reached out to you no no you are you
214are mischaracterizing what I said because it's convenient I am not you cited one data point and it is not good governance to react to one piece of input we need to look at this more broadly so let let's let's be fair here okay you this is from multiple of your staff and staff across our district and like I said there's a breakdown in communication between staff's um comfort and coming forward and speaking truthfully about these things and what I read to you was from multiple people and um it these are concerns that they have and it is taking away from their teaching their academic subjects and um like you I'm also elected and I represent the people that elected me here and and our our students and staff so I am going to speak I
215I will speak and I will bring forward the concerns of the people that reach out and talk to me so these are the concerns that were brought forward and and I'm going to hold firm with them on that so and because I do take their concerns seriously thank you I mean I can speak I can try to speak to that those are concerns that um have come up and our staff do communicate that and so like I said second step they don't pay me uh I'm not here to you know get it out there uh so my belief has been as a principle that we use the best resource available until something else comes along and right now I do believe this is the best resource that I've seen for these kind of uh lessons
216right and hopefully Miss Carney will testify I am I am willing to Circle back on anything that's not appropriate or a good fit and we've made modifications if we have to and then to the op out question we've done that uh in other areas and we would do that here too so thank you thank you Dr Michael Miss Carney what so what I'm sorry did you have your light on first I okay sorry Miss sinowski first four seconds thank you um I actually had the ability to come and watch a second step lesson as part of a visit to your campus and I didn't know I was going to be seeing that so it was a doesn't surprise because in my experience if you can give kids any additional tools to deal with personal issues
217that um inhibit their ability to learn that's a win for us and if that includes conflict resolution that's going to free up more instructional time for teachers to address corriculo a question um you had mentioned Shannon that behavior office referrals you you said 08 versus 0.02 was that per day number of kids no for year to date yes so if you take that average number of office referrals per Middle School student from year to date it would per Middle School student year to date okay thank you um I like the idea of consistent resources relevant to student concerns especially if we can do this through um without expense to our district this seems like a win-win for students you know students can get out of these lessons what they need to and if it's going
218to help instruction I'm all for it thank you Miss Carney could I just ask you to clarify Define red hearring and what you meant by that that's not agendized so we'll keep moving do you have a question about second I'm just trying to understand now you're trying to be dramatic can we just stick to the point here please okay um because it has affect me personally and my family and my child so I would like to know um which middle schools will you be implementing this so it would be on a lottery system and we would half of our middle schools would receive Second Step year one and then and half would not receive second second step year one um after that we would be able to use Second Step across the board okay I
219just think we need better details on all of these things um that we've heard tonight and um like I said when we can't even review the curriculum I just have a huge concern with that so thank you any any other comments or questions thank you very much for your presentation and Dr Michael I know you rearranged your family schedule to be here with us this evening so we sincerely thank you and your family all right um I would like to make a motion thank you to approve the acceptance of participation in this program um with the condition that the district's curriculum approval process process be followed and that the inclusion at the Engleside campus or whatever campuses it would be used also use the uh parent optin process that's available for other um other programs
220on campus on our just in our all of our campuses so those two conditions I'd like to second that motion as amended from the original agendized item Missi seconds um all those in favor please say I I I and those opposed please say nay no no that motion passes 32 as amended thank you all right all right we are now on to governing board reports are there any board members who'd like to share a governing board report Miss anow sure I would love to thank you Dr hartells um through my um observations I've actually had the privilege to see our sex advisory committee do huge important work under the guidance of Dr Benson thank you Dr Benson for doing such great leadership in that um that advisory committee there um also was able to attend
221the uh proposal community community meeting for the 68th Street proposal here at Coronado the meeting took place with many community members participating um SPC I was able to attend one of their meetings and it was on volunteers and chaperone engagement on our campuses and then also it was really great to go to cooches during their young author's day if you haven't been able to do that at some time I suggest you do that it's amazing the whole campus gets out and reads on blankets and there's someone from every grade level on a blanket with the parent volunteer as well um attended the Scottdale family Arts Festival at Sky song and then was able to um go and recognize Echo Canyon staff and students that did a great job and earned the a award that celebration
222was topnotch at Echo Canyon and then uh visit to cocaa middle school just to see what's going on there at their campus and then attended the Desert Mountain high school baseball senior night so it's been a fun month of Engagement with SE Westy and that's it thank you Miss sinowski you've been busy would anyone else like to share a governing board report no all right I'll share a few words um first again I want to congratulate all of our honores this evening that was a really fantastic um night of celebrations we're very proud of everyone's accomplishments and grateful for all of you um for being you really so I did have the pleasure of attending the robotics uh competition the first robotics Regional competition that was held at chaperel high school over spring break uh
223you heard our award-winning Saro saber cats we has a mentor here in the audience for the chaperel firebird team um this is really a fantastic example of learning by doing in the Sciences technology engineering math art business they do business plans to fundraising um Finance teamwork collaboration leadership one team had they were like ambassadors across the valley it was fantastic um so I would thank to all the volunteers who it's predominantly volunteer-driven actually um parents and businesses that had supported our students through their journey and continue to Journey on to Texas um I also attended the first blue zones School sector committee meeting I want to thank Patty bilbury and her team awesome for hosting us uh over at nutrition services headquarter at Yavapai Elementary School and the second meeting of the calendar year with
224the city of Scottsdale's joint subcommittee on education where we did hear from actually an SD parent Alum who seated and continues to grow the FLC robotics teams uh across the valley and uh that was very nice and some compelling research and Workforce Development and how high pain jobs are um at the red for students who participate in these robotics programs so it's really encouraged to hear about the impact uh grants for the students at Redfield and Echo Canyon and with that I will end and we can move to Future items do any board members wish to request any future items and I will just note Miss uh Carney I do already have your requested uh discussion on the uh continued years of service versus total years of service okay and I also also um have
225another item on March 18th I had requested an executive session for today's meeting for the board to discuss BD g-a General Council evaluation so I'm again requesting that this executive session is scheduled to discuss uh this evaluation as a board at our next meeting on April 30th uh I just want to point out for the uh Community the executive session to review the general council's uh performance is not required Mr buan does not report to the board uh and the board members have been invited to submit their feedback to Dr minsel who performs the evaluation we do not perform the evaluation um I do believe some board members including myself have submitted those to Dr mens already and by board policy as has been dis uh communicated the uh evaluation does have to be done
226by April 15th uh and that's a date certain that's in the policy so we can do an April 30th discussion but it will be after the fact so I would strongly encourage you to share your feedback so that it can form the evaluation that is done by Dr menel right I had requested that for now I would like to understand and I had emailed you asking you why you're today you emailed me Miss Carney I don't know who you emailed on March 18th and this is not agendized that's right so this is um okay I'm making my request for this for next meeting that's just what my request is again and Miss sinowski thank you board president Dr Hartwell as all of us know we have been we have been inundated with calls from our
227public to extend Dr Menzel's contract I ask that we place this discussion of his extension on the agenda for our next meeting of the governing board and I will complete the written um format um I have it partially completed I just didn't know if that goes to glattus or does that go to you board president Dr menel Dr menel okay thank you thank you oh so just to clarify the future uh board agenda item is to discuss Dr Menzel's contract renewal extension correct cor all right vice president Lindsay all right um Miss Warner thank you um I'd like a full report for the board to get a full report on the um the status of the visitor check-in systems that we approved last year how many are up and running and in use and what
228is the result and feedback from staff and parents um I would like uh to Dr Manel to present to the board his calendar for the last 14 months to be printed out as he serves on eight boards the GCU president's Advisory Board Scott chamber blue zones the ASA legislative committee Center for model schools vice president of community celebrates diversity vice president of guppy Mack and the Scott Community College president advisory I'd like to review um time spent away from our district um lastly I'd like an investigation into the HR department and their investigations particularly with the assistant superintendent in charge of that a full investigation from top to bottom for all of the the um people that resigned we're given the choice to resign over being non-renewed or terminated thank you so I just want
229to remind all of the board members that according to board policy these future agenda items have to be requested in writing I think we that information yeah and that went for everybody not just us Warner uh and then also um an association with the relevant kpi so that we are staying in bounds of what we are here to do and I believe All Of You' received that information about you know two or three weeks ago from Mr buen i' appreciate that you follow up in writing and also uh in doing so I'm hoping that also will articulate kind of more more clearly um what the charge is you know what the ask is all right very good I have nothing to add to that um let's move on to our dates of the upcoming meetings
230here the next meeting is Tuesday April 30th 6:00 p.m at be a special governing board meeting at the MDA uh followed by Tuesday May 14th uh at 6 PM regular governing board me meeting here at cornado high school and that will be another one rich in celebrations there's no further uh comments or suggestions I will move to adjourn this meeting is there a second second Miss ansky seconds all those in favor please say I I I all right that motion passes 5 we are jour