SUSD Governing Board Regular Meeting and Executive Session 12/12/23

001I call to order this regular meeting of the Scottdale Unified School District number 48 governing board tonight is Tuesday December 12th and the time is 6: p.m. um Vice President Warner can you please lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and I'd like to ask everyone to remain standing in a moment of silence and recognition of our recent tragedies and traumas which have directly impacted our school district and the families in our community following the Pledge of Allegiance please stand for a moment of silence thank you start with a roll call order from my far right please Amy Carney Zack Lindsay Ken wner and I'm Julie sinowski is Libby H wells in the cloud yet Dr herwell I'm sure she'll chime in if she is um okay we do have a quorum with four of

002our five governing board members present um we're on to 2D of the agenda and that is the approval of the agenda and I'd like to make a motion to amend the agenda and move item 12a which is the approval of letter of intent with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottdale regarding Renovations and use of the of portions of the tanala middle school campus um I would like to have that directly following agenda item number four which is our public comment section is there a second to that motion second seconded by Vice President Warner all in favor to amend um this particular item in placement on the agenda say I that motion passes 4 Z are there any other um alterations to the agenda at as it is presented tonight yes I'd like to

003board member wner I'd like to uh pull item 11 I from the consent agenda motion noted is there a second to that board member Carney uh I also have I would like to amend the agend we're waiting for a second is there a second to that second seconded by board member Carney all in favor to remove um consent agenda I approve the award of requests for proposal RFP digital resources for K5 Ela and math um uh question how would this impact student learning so generally um when it's pulled from consent it's just a part of an amended agenda we don't any board member can pull okay further discussion got it thank you not like eliminate it thank you okay understood um then I will call for a vote all in favor say I I any

004opposed okay I note that board member Warner has pulled or for later discussion item I so we will discuss that item separately any others board member Carney your lights on yes I'd like to amend the agenda by pulling item 11e for discussion Personnel action items is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member wner all in favor say I I I motion passes and board member Carney has asked to pull consent agenda 11e Personnel actions for further discussion are there any other proposals for amendments NOP okay seeing none um we are going to approve the agenda as it is amended I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda as amended is there second to that second seconded by board member Carney all in favor to approve the agenda as amended

005say I I I that motion passes 40 all right I am going to read the statement of dorum at this time for a reminder it is up on the screen um you are welcome to read along um citizens attending Andor participating in the Scottdale unified school district meetings either in person virtually or telephonically are required to observe the same Rules of Order and deorum applicable to members of the governing board and staff unauthorized remarks or demonstrations from members of the audience yells or outbursts and or disruptions are not permitted members of the public are not allowed to approach the Das at any time while the governing board meeting is in session without express permission from the governing board President we appreciate your participation in our meetings and you caring about our school district um so

006I re request that you do follow that meeting decorum statement all right on to more happier notes here let's uh talk about student and staff recognitions and celebrations Dr menel well good evening president sinowski vice president Werner and members of the governing board our celebrations tonight are a fitting blend of our continuous effort to be a worldclass future focused School District tonight we celebrate outstanding students dedic ated Educators and behind the-scenes staff who make these achievements possible we'll begin this evening with Dr Melissa sackos our assistant superintendent of secondary education introducing us to two amazing students who are already well on their way to making their Mark in the world Dr sackos good evening president sinowski vice president Werner governing board members Dr Mensel and Miss Wagner I'm so pleased to be able to introduce

007you to two students this evening one from Desert Mountain high school and the other one from from sawaro high school they are both members of the of the respective schools graduating class of 2024 would lla Gregory please come to the podium and join meaa Lea I I I did give her disclosure that I was known for messing up names so she already gave me some Grace for that um so ilila and I know that Dr hirs principal hirs could not be here this evening but do we have any ofa's teachers or hi hi come on up great hi everybody and you are I'm Shad Willingham I'm the theater teacher at Desert Mountain high school all right thank you for being here my pleasure uh so this is ilila mcgregory she is the winner of the

008Jerome mcdu award at the Arizona thespians Festival in Phoenix last month the Annual Festival brings together budding playwrights such as Lila actors student directors and behind the scenes theater Tech Crews um from high schools across the state for a two-day workshop on all aspects of bringing theatrical production to life from lighting and sets of costumes choreography improv uh auditioning and writing Lea's original stage play I'm Not the main character was chosen as the festival's top original play the story follows a side character in a romance novel who is massively unsuccessful in his pursuit of the play's main character despite his best efforts while we are here to celbrate the most recent successes we need to also note that Ila is a talented performer appearing in Alice in desert mountains recent production of Alice's Adventures and

009Wonderland she is an officer of the school's drama club is respected by her theater peers for her abilities and perspectives is a violinist and a quiet humble leader and is an outstanded creative writer who um with the class meet is currently adapting a seam from Shakespeare's as you like it into a short story um she also contributes lead vocals to her band Calamity I got it right didn't I Calamity um which we're told can be found on Spotify Leila would you like to share a few brief Thoughts with us I would thank you all my life I've dreamed of inspiring others through my words but I never would have thought that I would write a play that would be showcased in front of 4,000 people thank you so much to my family and friends who

010have supported me through my writing journey and thank you for my bandmates who helped me during the writing and promoting aspect of our original album Mosaic and that's on all platforms if you want to listen to it um thank you Shad my wonderful theater director for helping me through this and most importantly importantly I would like to recognize Mr Kevin Shay he advised that I submit my original play to the thespian playworks competition and help me every step of the way if you're amiliar with the famous movie Dead Poet Society then I must tell you that he truly is the Mr keing to my Todd Anderson thank you so ilila please accept this challenge coins as a recognition for all of your accomplishments both at Mountainside Middle School and at Desert Mountain high school and

011we know that you have a very bright future ahead of you was Alex Stevenson able to make it tonight from Saro high school he is not but Mr Milligan I see you're here come on [Applause] up you may recognize Alex from a few months back when he when we introduced you to su's class of 2024 National Merit uh scholarship semifinalists well he was supposed to be back but he's we're recognizing him again Alex is well known uh for at Saro for his enthusiasm for helping others he is the driving force between the sawaro and Na Go baby go initiative that modifies children's electric cars for students uh kids with disabilities he has worked on the art installations for the city's can Canal convergence event and is pardon the pun the driving force of the Go

012baby go program between Saro and Northern Arizona University that adapts toy cars for special education children just this fall they've built three cars Alex is a candidate for recognition in May as an academy distinguished graduate we're told that Alex uh is an analytical self-directed and natural leader who is well respected by his peers and he is an example for them on what can be accomplished if one works hard and applies their talents with passion um as if this this is not enough uh this young man um is also a part of ssd's new work-based learning program um and is the youngest employee at axon as an engineer contractor um he advises R&D engineering projects creates prototypes and works with various police and fire departments impressive right um it is a Wonder then um that Alex

013was recognized last week by the local Scott leadership organizations as its Bill jenin student leadership Award winner um congratulations Alex if you're listening are looking back at this on your many accomplishments and those to come and we will send you a challenge coin in the mail back to you Dr menel thank you Dr sackos and congratulations to Lila and Alex I'll just point out that bill Jenkins Not only was a former mayor of Scottdale but also a longtime teacher here in scotdale Unified School District so it's an impressive award for uh Alex where would our students like these be without the commitment of teachers our director of teaching and learning Dr Kim dods Karen is here to help us recognize two excellent teachers who make our students success as possible Dr Karen the podium is

014yours thank you Dr menel good evening board president sinowski vice president Werner Governor board members Dr menel and Wagner Wagner M Wagner uh I usually call you glus um I'm so pleased to be here to share the recognitions of two of our outstanding Educators who bring future focused worldclass learning into their classrooms every day for their students first up I'd like to invite chapperal economics teacher Chris hack to join me as well as principal Josh paner and assistant principal Megan [Applause] bird I will tell you when I first met Mr hack this evening I recited to him a song that I learned when I was in high school about economics and he gave me an a I think I got an A um he was impressed that I still remembered it so my teacher did

015a great job so um we want to recognize um Chris tonight because the AR Arizona Council on economic education is a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to entrepreneurship economic in financial literacy and work Workforce Development here in Arizona acce is the only Statewide organization in Arizona that is Affiliated academically with our State University and community colleges as well as a partner with the Department of Arizona education and the Federal Reserve Bank that was my song but it is also another aspect of his work that brings us here tonight that is of preparing teachers in teaching and students in the learning of personal finance Eon and Entrepreneurship we are very happy to share that Chris has been named the Arizona high school 2023 economics teacher of the year while some might think that studying econ is a

016little bit dry and he thought it was a little too and with the support of Mrs bird who might I mention won the elementary version of this wward herself six years ago he later took a hard look at his curriculum and how it was ordered and decided to change things up and make it a little more relevant for his students students are able to choose for themselves what product or goods and theories they would like to examine in depth all the while making sure they also understand underlying major economic principles when he's not teaching economics he can be found teaching apus history at chaperel in short he has become a force of both economics and history education at Chapparal which is something we've known for years now but we are happy that he is now

017receiving this Statewide recognition for his contributions to education congratulation Mr hack and please accept this challenge pointed from the district and recognition of your honor thank you and for the next celebration I would also like to invite our susd facilities director Dennis raer to join me at the podium our celebrants are Saro High School honors biotech and preap biology teacher Scott mil and susd Facilities grounds lead Joe artea gentlemen thank you for joining us if there's anyone else from Saro principal Milligan come on up thank you for joining us um over the past two years or so as you know susd has been working to advance student learning through an association with the McDow Sonoran Conservancy based here in Scottdale the conservancy's mission is to preserve and Advance our community's natural open space through Science

018Education and stewardship through empowering awareness with science research learning and teaching the conservancy's willingness to open the landscape and it is charged with protecting to the students of susd has created a powerful partnership our elementary and middle school students can be found many times each school year on The Preserves Trails learning about the sonor and desert that we habit and all of the connections to it last year Saro high school students under Mr mil's Direction decided to jump in feet first Fe T first with three projects aimed at furthering their fellow Sab scats SaberCats understanding of the soran desert the environment that we call home and also contribute scientific data to the conserves research they removed invasive plant species from the Saro campus replacing them with native plants to create a pollinator Garden in a

019central part of the campus they also took over an unused planter between the Innovation Center and the cafeteria turning it into a cactus garden to study you guessed it Saro cacti how fitting that's pretty funny the third project was to create a learning Corridor in the 300 building turning an empty trophy case into a display about biological soil crust or bio crust the communities of living organisms on the soil surface in an arid and semiarid ecosystem such as ours Mr mil was behind the scientific aspects of the environmental club's work but there was more work to be done which Dennis is going to tell us about good evening I'm not much for scripts so I'm just going to wing it thanks Nancy for writing it up for me but I I don't do scripts so

020um Mr mil reached out to us in Building Services and uh shared with me some of his vision and I have the easy part I just say yes yeah we can do it um and then I leave it to my guys and tonight I'd like to recognize we'd like to recognize U Mr Joe arka um our Carpenters had some uh part in this but uh Joe really jumped in if anybody knows Joe uh he takes everything uh to heart and he really wants to impact the students uh he his heart is at Saro he was a facility coordinator at Saro for years and so when this project came along he was both feet both arms all every part of them was was into this project so he helped them uh work on the irrigation help

021them refurbish the the planting area really dug in literally um and even showed the kids how to dig in so um I I'd like to recognize Joe for his efforts and uh and the team members that helped him with that and Mr mil for his efforts because we've uh seen that project grow now uh we were all there when they did their their kind of their ribbon cutting ceremony very cool project and it's something that that has really come together and makes a big difference at Soro High School [Applause] thank you Dennis and as he has just passed out Joe and Scott please accept these challenge coins in the recognition by susd for the work you are doing with the conservancy and for our students thank you well congratulations Joe and Scott thank you for

022the work that you do the partnership opportunities of Saro High School through the McDonald sonor and Conservancy with our partners at the City scotdale Community College and and uh Northern Arizona University it's truly impressive and so it's nice to be able to celebrate those this evening our final celebration tonight is one that early on might not have seemed if it was going to happen um but District athletic director Nathan Slater is here to tell us how the tables turned this season for one of our High School varsity football teams Mr Slater president sinowski vice president Warner members of the board Dr menel glattus thank you for having us this evening we'd like to congratulate the 2023 6A state champion srl SaberCat football team to the podium congratulations guys we're joined by uh first year head

023coach Zack Hill his team captains who will introduce shortly as well as Mr Milligan I think Mr Milligan's been standing up here all evening so oh he disappeared he's doing pictures and uh the very humble athletic director of sorl High School Mr Matt Harris who's uh not standing up with the team but he's big literally and figuratively when it comes to the success of sarl uh Athletics in general so uh with that the saber kit and Dennis I am a fan of script so I don't screw it up the saber SC the saber cats finished the season with the hardest schedule in the state according to Max PR including games versus the two open division qualifiers Liberty and Centennial and National Powerhouse Sierra Sierra Canyon after going five and five on the season the Soro

024SaberCats entered the 6A Conference tournament the number three seat in that tournament the SaberCats played their four game to a tournament average of over 45 points per game winning by an average of over 23 points per game culminating in a 40 to20 victory over Red Mountain on December 2nd at ASU in the 6A state championship game it is the 14th 14th State title in Soro history and the first for first year coach Mr Zack Hill according to Zack quote it's always tough when there are major transitions with a new head coach a new defensive coordinator a new offensive coordinator and our players adapted and we started coming together at the end of the season and finished off with another amazing sorl state championship sorl finished with five consecutive wins and they were led by quarterback

025Mason Bray who had almost 3,000 yards passing and 25 TDS and just eight picks those are interceptions uh yeah I know I'm a football guy I'm just the crowd but Jaden Matthews had over 1300 rushing and receiving yards and 21 TDS and Trey Morrison led the team with over 10 tackles per game with that coach you want to introduce your captains again thank you for having us I appreciate being here it is a definite honor uh being a part of Saro football and and being hired into this position and definitely want to thank uh Matt Harris and uh Zack Lindsay Dr Manzel uh Nathan Slater and our our principal uh an O singer um so great great group of guys uh absolutely a wild year uh to say the least but uh some of our

026guys that are here with us uh with the trophy uh we actually brought one at each in each class so uh our senior linebacker Captain Trey Morrison and uh then we've got our Junior uh wide receiver uh reys raldi and we've got our sophomore running back uh soon to be the man at that running back uh Jacob Brown so uh I wanted to bring you know one one of each class and uh we've got so many guys that we would want to bring here and be able to uh you know enjoy this moment with everybody but uh appreciate them and and all the hard work it's a it's a long season we put a put a ton of dedication and effort into things so but again appreciate you thank you very much again congratulations to

027the 6A state championship sorl saber caps Zach Hill congrats I got challenge coins for you we're going to go outside to have some pictures so congratulations guys congratulations so proud of the resilience the dedication we've had so many successful athletic uh teams this year nice to celebrate one final thing uh with a number of subp parts to it this evening I it would be uh I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the many Good Deeds our susd students have been undertaking during the holiday season on behalf of others and this will not be an exhaustive list but just by way of example the Kea student council is overseeing the decoration of holiday cards for the patients at Phoenix Children's Hospital Copper Ridge student government is conducting a diaper drive with the diapers to be donated

028to a bridge to Hope a phoenix Foundation that offers housing to homeless single mothers Hy students collected toddler clothing for the Foster Alliance which provides essential needs for kids in foster care Redfield and Hokum conducted food drives and cocoa gathered gift cards that will be delivered to Devon families some of these projects are new and some have evolved to help address new needs others are long-standing Traditions but all exhibit heart and a passion for making a difference in the community by helping others so tonight I just want to thank all of our students for giving back at this time of the year and appreciate that their their dedication to service is is an essential part of what it means to belong to our susd community and I want to again express my gratitude for these

029efforts thank you president sinowski thank you very much Dr menel and it's great to be able to celebrate all of our students and recognize the dedication of so many staff members along the way to get the students to those success points um at this time we're going to move on to the public comment portion of our meeting um every I think everyone understands clearly understands and I hope put into practice the decorum expectation um during our meetings each govern or each uh person who has requested to speak from our community will be given two minutes of time um and when you get to the podium please State your first and last name and your affiliation to our scottd school district and up first is Mr Sam Baker thank you to the council for the privilege

030of appearing before you today my name is Sam Baker I'm an engineer a children's book author I started my seventh career at 95 years Young when I was given a new computer and asked to write down the stories pardon me I told my children when they were small I was inspired to write because I love sharing stories at Delight youngsters and because reading is the foundation of all other the learning I thought if I could write something funny that also taught children about manners kindness and friendship they will be better citizens and Inspire to keep reading so I wrote to silly Adventures of petunia and Herman the Worm an award-winning cap book during Co 19 I was inspired to create a picture book Oscar the mouse about a little mouse looking for friends Oscar the

031mouse is a huge hit with kids especially those who have issues with reading I had reading challenges as a kid but after becoming a good reader my library card became my ticket to Adventure and enjoyment when I turned 100 I wanted to send Oscar on another venture so I sent it to my best friend Dr Dr Casey a veterinarian who I met at my retirement home he and I both were Marines in World War II you see Oscar eats way too much cheese so it's off to the vet for him in this books Oscar learns about sharing friendship and love Oscar has EBT and we've all had it I have time go I bigger than the tummy I request that the district includes my books in scale School library where children and teacher can find

032them and laugh while learning I'm available to read to children in person or on zoom and I thank you very much thank you Mr Baker up next is Patricia pellet followed by Jeff R hello I'm Patricia pellet a mother of a child in susd I'm here to talk about a AZ Department of education's deceptive report card system the grades sound great on the surface unless you understand the factors for deriving them I will use cornado high school as an example Coronado High School was assigned a b-grade for 2022 a b grade is usually between 80 and 89% under the Arizona Department of Education the range is 66 to 82% Coronado High School scored to 74 30% of the grade is derived from math English proficiency corado scored at 12.29 out of 30 20% is graduation

03324% of students in 11th grade are proficient in ela and 16% are proficient in math yet 85% of the students graduate Coronado scored a 20 out of a 20 20% is growth measuring individual students growth against peers who scored like the student in the previous grade Coronado scored a miraculous 19.53 out of 20 10% is English Learners growth and proficiency a school's percentage of students proficient and their growth compared to the average 9 to 12 English learner proficiencies corado scored a 10 out of 10 20% is for college readiness measured by average points from a current senior's achievements accomplishment as the Matrix of category successful completion of a career in Tech education program performance on math placement exams Coronado scored a 12 out of a 20 Coronado High School students susd students the parents deserve

034better ask the Arizona education to review this grading system thank you jeffre T up followed by Jeffrey stefen is Mr R in the room yes did you want to still speak yes okay for seven straight years I have been a middle school paid head coach most years I did multiple Sports all the jobs are listed in the governing board's Personnel policies and procedures manual with Comm compulsory duties and responsibilities last January I was rehired by the cocoa principal to coach flag football during my first week of practice Dr Menzel's office notified the principal that I would no longer be a paid coach rather a volunteer I wrote a letter and hand carried it to Dr Menzel Dr Manzel's office that day and I got no response if I walked on those kids and families their

035entire season would have been cancelled there was a nice lady hanging around my practices she was a teacher there and a close personal friend of a board member the kid said what's she doing hanging around I said let me find out principal said she was thinking about being the athletic director next year had never never coached in her life and wanted to observe a good coach in action wow for the next 10 weeks I coached those kids for free never missed a practice or game we had a great season at the end I found out that this board approved paying my $2,000 coaching stien to that lady for hanging around my practices and games neither Dr Manzel nor president sinowski will communicate with me we had two meetings scheduled they cancel them at the last

036minute it was always talk to our lawyer so let me address the board how would you like to be remembered for participating in a scheme in which thousands of dollars was taken from a 100% service connected disabled veteran for the sole purpose of lining the pockets of a friend of the board by the way your lawyer and that law firm Gus rosenfelt was also involved in this Swindle If the parents of the kids that I coach were to find out about this they would be outraged this community deserves answers I'm asking for the board to authorize an outside investigation as you did with the Denise Birdwell National Scandal Jeffrey Ste Stefan followed by Mike Bangert ah good evening board members looks like the clock's going to start it's definitely Snowbird season I almost needed a

037helicopter to get here traffic was so bad um I'll use my short uh amount of time two minutes to give words of spirit today life uh words of peace prosperity love kindness goodness gentleness and all humility I've got two kids in the three C's and they really enjoy your school district so keep up the good work uh 2,000 years ago something that you can never even think or imagine happened what was it a 14-year-old virgin became pregnant by the Holy Spirit her name was Mary she bore a son and his name was Jesus in fact an angel of the Lord appeared to her husband Joseph and let Joseph know that Jesus will save the people from their sins all sins even violating open meeting law just joking um even as a baby Jesus had people

038falling to the ground and worshiping him rejoicing exceedingly with great joy as an adult Jesus walked around healing all kinds of diseases restoring sight to the blind casting out demonic spirits doing all different types of Miracles like one of my favorite feeding 5,000 men with only Five Loaves and two fish Jesus Christ lived a perfect life free from all sin and then was crucified as a sacrificial lamb for my sins and your sins so that all who believe in Jesus Christ will not perish but have eternal life in heaven my prayer tonight is that the Holy Spirit Will convict your heart of your sins that he will pierce your Consciousness from unbelief to belief and from Fear to Faith my prayers for those who do not know Jesus as the Christ that this Christmas season

039you will drop everything that worship Mike Bangert is our last speaker for this evening my name is Mike bengard I'm a grandfather in the district I've been asked with all the good things going on how can you criticize the district there are good things going on in the district at every board meeting Dr Manzel gives his report and individual student successes are recognized there are there are many dedicated teachers who have assisted and guided them along their way but I feel like these successes are in spite of not because of Menzel the purpose of my speaking out is to call attention to things going on that are not in the best interest of the students if the board votes to eliminate the recognition of students academic achievements it will be another example educators are quick

040to chase the latest shining new object today it is Seal CRT gender identity and VR math to name just a few one can only guess how many students education has been negatively impacted over the years by these experiments as bad as some academic ideas are they pale in comparison to what is going on today when a new approach to teaching an academic subject is tried and it fails it creates a gap in the students learning this Gap can be closed by the parents doing work at home or hiring tutors and students May attend summer school what is happening in susd today is not easily remedied 25 kpis that only four deal with academics the emotional and mental health damage being done to students starting in kindergarten and continuing through High School can create lifelong problems

041it is more like social emotional damage Dr Menzel it is unreal the damage you have done to USD but is not without help from the board when you have board members who care more about the feelings of extremely small number of students with mental and emotional issues than they do for the majority of the students it is any wonder susd is losing students when discussing a new bathroom policy one board member says a student is at a great risk at home if their parents find out about their gender identity issue another says her 82-year-old mother is not afraid to go to the bathroom and a senior staff member calls a board member a liar how can anyone take this board seriously Manzel refusing to provide a straight answer about boys using the girls' bathroom says

042a lot a principal saying you are not in trouble for not telling a parent about a child using different pronouns and Menzel saying they must tell parents only if they specifically ask is another violation of multiple Arizona laws add this to the oml violation board members are part your time is up all right at this time we are um do any of the governing board members would they like to make any um commentary Corrections according in to uh statute limitations um I would just like to make a notice of um the commentary by Mr rete I am entitled to correct false statements and uh there were many within his summary again um and it's not true in representing saying that I never communicated with him that's also false um and that's all I'd like to

043correct from false information shared during public comment is there any other commentary at this time okay um at this time we are going to move on to 12a uh the first action item on the agenda as approved by the board to switch the location of it in the meeting um this would be to discuss the approval of a letter of intent With Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottdale regarding renovation and use of portions of T Leah middle school and I believe Dr menel is going to introduce our presenters this evening this evening I'd like to welcome Ivan Gil Marian M Gunther and chief Walther from the Boys and Girls Club you may recall a few months ago we uh presented a concept before the governing board regarding a potential use of space at tanala

044middle school we moved a little further in this process and tonight we're asking the governing board to consider approving a statement of intent and to bring us up to speed with the work that you've done I turn it over to Ivan all right thank you so much it's a uh honor and pleasure to be in front of the board again I'm Ivan Gil CEO with me tonight is Maryann Gunther she's the chair of our board and chief Jeff wther who is also on our board and chair of our safety committee so we come in front of you tonight to talk again about a project we are very excited about in partnership with the uh the Scottsdale Unified School District at talyah so uh if we could Advan that's the slide just to give you a

045real brief recap of the project it's going to be at talyah middle school and this will be the 10th Branch for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Scottsdale we have branches in and around Scottsdale uh North Phoenix uh Anthem Fountain Hills and and three on Native American sites so this will be our 10th branch and a site that's very much needed in South Scottsdale um what we look to do with the kids who come from the school is to provide a safe stable environment for students and that critical time from 3:00 to 6:00 when students just seem to to get into trouble we'll have that covered but we'll be open much longer than that we'll be open for teens until well into the evening but that critical time between 3: and 6 will be

046open we'll have 50% teen space and 50% youth space so in addition to the kids from tanal Leah coming directly down who are all Middle School will'll also have feeder systems from the elementary schools that those kids were were sent to this year uh we're estimated to see over 200 members a day I think that number is very low because when you have a club right on the site of a school and and you have great staff you have great programs you have a hot meal every night it's amazing how those kids gravitate to that site so I believe that number to be low we're going to build a new full-size gymnasium gym space is at a premium there they told us that uh that that current gym would be used all the time so

047we're going to build another one CU you can't have a teen center without gym space and uh like I told you before hot meals every night that that's really big for the kids in South Scotsdale some of those kids if they don't eat at the clubs at night they're probably not going to eat that night so it's very important it's important for their academic success and uh probably the the the best thing for the school district is when we're not using this space you can use it so you can use our space our maker space our gym uh all of our space for kids during the school day or when we're closed uh you know where I came from we had similar models and teachers would use it for recognition they would be if you

048achieve all your goals we're going to go over to the uh the club and play pool and pingpong gym virtual reality or whatever and so uh it's just a uh it's a great concept for for all of us so I'm going to let Maryann say a few words and we're going to let Chiefs say a few words absolutely thank you Ivan thank you board uh we're very excited about this potential partnership with uh sketel Unified School District we did present the letter of intent to our Board of Governors last Tuesday at our quarterly board meeting and All 48 board members did vote unanimously to proceed with the hopes that you all are excited as well to vote on this this evening I don't know if you're going to discuss this in a minute but we

049are currently in the midst of a fundraising feasibility study we have hired Partners in town that have been used by other nonprofit Partners as well and we're uh currently in the middle of that we expect to hear some answers back from them in early February thank you uh enjoy being before you tonight and really what this does for us is it fills a gap in the community and that's really what the Boys and Girls Club is about is it it fills gaps you know Ian talks about the 3 to 6 um or into the evening for our teens um really important for filling the Gap when parents aren't available or they're working or both parents are working um or are young people are are young children in particular uh their folks are working as well

050and so that so the boys and girls club is an amazing uh organization that fills the Gap and fills a need that we have in the South part of our city yes there is a club uh that is close about 2 and a half miles away but when you look at the number of kids uh that need service in this area it's very significant especially when you come together with uh three different cities that come together at that Nexus uh between the City of Tempe the City of Phoenix and the City of scoto all come together in that location and so there is that need or that Gap that needs to be filled um in the in the lives of our young people so this really does fill that Gap it puts it in a

051location um that is very serviceable both for susd and for the boys and girls club so it's a it really is a symbiotic relationship between these two organizations and really thank you for your consideration thank you both if we could advance to the next slide so um really and I'm not sure Dr Menzel what happens here but what we're hopeful tonight is that there would be a board vote to uh to allow that letter of intent to be signed and we can continue the uh the process of this project and uh right now one of the things we're doing that's very important here is completing a uh a fundraising feasibility study to see if it is it is feasible uh for what we want to do so we want to continue to progress this project

052down the road and so tonight we're hoping that we can get uh a vote to sign that so we can continue forward we're open any questions anyone has and you are correct with that's what we're here this evening and that's why you're here again thank you um do any governing board members have any questions at this time or comments I don't see any requests um I would just like to say uh thank you and it's great that there was a unanimous vote to proceed that makes me feel um comfortable and also to see who's here I mean this is um we've got administrators here who support this I believe and um esteemed members of our community so uh thank you um at this time I'd like to make a motion to approve um signing a

053a letter of intent with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Scottdale regarding Renovations and use of portions of Talia Middle School is there a second to that mot second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I that motion passes 5 all right thank you so much thank you [Applause] all all right moving on to item five of our agenda this evening the governing board board May convene an executive session regarding an appeal of a long-term suspension of student number 21542 pursuant to ars1 15- 843a regarding the appeal of a long-term suspension and to AR 38-4 31.03 a.2 for discussion or consideration of Records exempt by law for public inspection um I'm making a motion to move into executive session for that spoken reason um and I'm I would like to

054ask for a second to that motion is there a second to move into executive session second second seconded by um board member Carney all in favor to move into executive session to discuss this situation say I I I I that motion passes 5 before we move into an executive session we have another um topic that we will continue to discuss um if approved to go into executive session the governing board may vote to convene an executive session pursuant to ARS State Statute 38- 43103 A3 and A4 for discussion or consultation with the attorneys of the public body in order to receive legal advice consider its position and instruct its attorney regarding the public body's position regarding the proposed settlement agreement and release in Ray at all V Greenberg at all I make a motion to

055continue our conversations in in executive session for this purpose is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I that motion passes 5-0 we will move into executive session at this time and reconvene when we have finished our business thank you is 8:34 p.m. we are reconvening our regular governing board meeting at this time I'd like to make a motion motion to um depart executive session is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Warner um all in favor to exit executive session say I at this time I Dr Hartwell are you with us we'll accept the vote as it is that motion passes 4 Z to leave executive session and in reference to item 7A I'd like to make a motion

056at this time um to take the matter into further consideration and make a make a final determination by the end of the school day on December 22nd is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I that motion passes 40 and reference to Executive session Item B um at this time I'd like to make a motion to accept the legal advice received in executive session um and improve the settlement agreement is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I Dr her are you with us can some can someone verify whether she's not on okay [Music] um she participated in the conversations do we wait um I'd like to make a motion to table this

057this response momentarily is there a second second seconded by board member Warner all in favor to table this very momentarily I hope um say I I I I okay now that you're back Dr hewells we're going to um scoot back a moment and I'm going to respond to Executive session um Item B and um I made a motion to accept the legal advice as as instructed and discussed in executive session and to instruct our legal councel to um approve the settlement agreement as we had discussed I made a second or I made a motion it was seconded by board member Lindsay and we are about to vote on that are you prepared to vote I am thank you yes um all in favor say I I I I um against say no abstain and abstentions

058there were two by board members Warner and Carney that motion passes 30 okay we are going to move on to superintendent comments Dr menel uh good evening president sinowski and members of the governing board it's been a long evening already so I will move quickly through these comments uh first I want to address uh concerns that I've heard subsequent to the governing board's last meeting uh where uh we held a executive session but the YouTube video when we came out of executive session had a glitch in the video just want to clarify for people in the community that that was something related Rel ated to YouTube and not to the district the YouTube service that we have is free and sometimes you get what you pay for uh Dr Watt and our it team has

059been working with YouTube to try to get the video to uh correct so that the full video and audio can be heard that hasn't happened yet it's been escalated up the chain and as soon as that's available we'll make that available U but uh the minutes are something that the governing board will approve tonight the draft minutes have been included in the board agenda but the motion by president sinowski was to direct the attorneys to proceed as directed in executive session there were three yes votes and two extensions uh at that meeting now on to more exciting news the Desert Mountain high school marching band is a top five finalist in the Metallica for whom the bells to Bell Tolls marching band competition lots of bands were invited to participate both high school and Collegiate

060and Desert Mountain high school is top five um the band itself Metallica will make the final decision and that will be announced the week of January 1st so we're going to wish our wolves marching band good luck and there's a $155,000 prize attached with that there's also a $10,000 prize available for the fan popularity contest that will go into musical instruments and people can go online to vote also want to uh note that last night was the all District athletic banquet for fall Sports and that's always an an amazing evening celebrating our student athletes in badminton golf cross country swim and dive volleyball and football our chaperel badminton coach carry Davis was celebrated for um and recognized by the national Federation of State High School associations as the uh as the Arizona inter Scholastic badminton

061coach of the year for the 20 22 23 school year uh she was um recognized um for leading in their sport shaping students and contributing in a positive way to their community and she was presented with a challenge coin last evening uh also recognized last evening and presented a challenge coin was Rob Renwick who has been a track and cross country coach for nearly 40 years in Scottsdale both at Arcadia and chapparel so it was a tremendous celebration and the guest speaker was Richard berbert many of you have read his writings on high school sports and he is a graduate of Scottdale high so a lot of exciting things to celebrate there finally uh as the last meeting of the 2023 school year I just want to express my gratitude and appreciation for all of

062the staff who work in Scottsville Unified School District they come to work every day no matter how hard no matter how difficult for one reason because kids and so I want to just say thank you to our staff I want to wish all of our families and students a safe healthy and happy holiday I'd also like to encourage us to remember remember those for whom this holiday might not be so happy sometimes it's a very tough time of the year and part of of what it means to be part of the Scottsdale unified family is to recognize when others might need some support and with that I conclude my comments thank you Dr menel and we are going to move on to um agenda item 10 information and discussion items I remind the board and

063the public that we will not be making decisions this is basically to learn more information on some of these topics first up summary of the Sundial agreement and financial input I believe Shannon and Dennis Dennis is shamon's ready to back you up my guess you're on that's very small yes do you guys have it pretty good on your screen okay oh better thanks fellas good evening president sinowski vice president Werner members of the board Dr men and glattus um it was requested that I bring back some information for uh that Sund dial purchase that we made uh to break it down a little bit to help everyone understand um what it is that we've uh that we've gotten ourselves into I know you guys have a lot of work ahead of you yet today so

064I'm going to move through this fairly quickly governing board members have had this for a little bit over the over a week um to digest so um I i' just like to say that in um 2009 10 11 12 there's about a 3 four year period that the school district was very aggressive in their efforts with solar um it was new to uh the country to the public sector it was um there were big dollars associated with it a lot of tax credits and a lot of different things that made it seem like it was a really good deal um over the years that deal has soured a little bit um in that the expected rise in the APS and SRP costs did not quite get to where uh they thought it was going to

065be and so what we are paying for our solar is a little bit more than if we were just paying for APS or SRP dire IR ly so there are benefits we have shade structures in parking lots and different things um but ultimately you know we need to be uh taking care of the district's money so uh as some of these um these incentives go away for the people that installed the solar uh we're starting to see them come back to us and say hey we're ready to sell uh we'd like to get it off of our our list our uh portfolio and and maybe you guys can take it over so Sundi was the first one we had two Sundi uh systems one at Arcadia High School one at chapparel those contracts were written

066at the same time so the proposal was that we purchase those two systems for a million $48,000 that uh number was closer to million2 originally but we went back and talked to them about the age of the equipment uh the service entrance section some of the other things that we know we're going to have to deal with as we uh as we move on through the years so they gave us a discount um you approve this a few weeks back and that sale is done uh what I would like to do is assure you that we uh did the right thing um as it turns out uh as we look at Arcadia that campus if I could direct you to the to the green highlights um after the district purchases of sundow solar Arcadia will

067immediately start saving and to the tune of $56,000 a year we have to do nothing with that system we we bought it outright it um is fully functional it is currently carports in the um uh south and east Lots near the stadium and we have to do nothing with it so we're just earning generation from that we won't have to pay any additional to APS we'll just be making money on that as we go down to chapparel just remember that um chapparel we were awarded a $7 million roof replacement from the school facilities board so one way or another that solar system was going to have to come off of that roof whether it was a good deal a bad deal or anything in between it was going to have to come off the roof

068when the sfb pays for a roof they do not expect that you're going to put solar back on that roof so we were looking at Alternatives and the alternative was to put it back on the property there at chapparel um to the tune of $2.1 million uh that didn't seem like a really good deal and then as we're going through this process sundow reached out to us and said hey uh we're ready to sell and so at a, 148,000 for both Arcadia and chaperel combined um we thought okay well this is a move in the right direction uh we'll own it and then we can start realizing savings well what we didn't realize initially was that those savings would be just from not paying their rent or their lease payment so by not paying them

069directly for the kilowatts that they generate we will be saving $102,000 now because we're not generating with solar we will have an increase to our APS bill and that will be an increase of about $75,000 so if I do nothing else with the solar but take it off and put it in storage containers and pay APS for the lack of generation from those solar panels will still be earning $27,000 the offset would be $227,000 so I could do absolutely nothing with those solar panels put them in a storage container and we will still be doing better than if we were paying the lease payments okay well we've paid for it we might as well put it to use something that will be coming forward to you in January so I wanted to include this in

070the calculation is for us to take um a percentage of that system from chapparel and move it over to Cocoa pop now we reviewed we being our friends at fuse boox and our friends at verie to uh we actually looked at at four sites and I'll bring that to you in February we looked at Yavapai we looked at hocom we looked at cocoa we looked at um Mojave there's a lot of things that go into that the direction of the Sun the way the parking lots laid out the proximity to the service entrance section there's a lot of variables that have to be considered ultimately we landed on Cocoa as being the most efficient the most effective for a portion of the chapparel uh system and so we're looking to put that in the if

071anyone's familiar with with cocopa there's a pretty large uh staff parking lot on the east side of the of the campus and so we're looking to put it in there the service entrance section is very close by so we get that electricity feeding right into the building building right away so the cost of doing that we're still working on that number but we know it'll be north of of 500,000 we're thinking it's really going to be about $600,000 to reinstall on parking structures providing shade for uh the staff at that campus um and we will offset our electric bill um and still be earning $27,000 on that so we'll be saving 70 or $27,000 worth of electricity that we would normally be paying to um APS so um in the end it's it's win win

072win win um I I don't think we can go wrong in this in this regard I would not bring it to the board unless it was um if anyone's heard me speak about solar I always speak badly about it I don't even let I I moved into a house two and a half years ago and if you move into a new house uh the solar people are like uh Locust they come like every other day and want to sell you something I just close the door and tell them to go away um I'm I'm not a fan of solar but in some cases when you own it outright you can make money on it it's when you're paying lease payments on it that you are probably not doing the best you can do we have

073plenty of solar around the district we even have a solid system it's a absorption Chiller with thermal water and everything else and even they have approached us saying hey uh we're losing our incentives and we need to talk about how we can generate more Revenue we sent them back to Austria um so in the end with the work that we're proposing uh we believe we'll be saving about $111,000 a year or avoid paying $111,000 a year through the through the sundow lease and to APS so I'll open it up to any questions I know that was very quick um but we are very confident in in what we've done and uh what we will do moving forward and I will make sure that you get the cocoa information in plenty of time so you can

074digest that and get any questions to me but again we'll bringing that to you in February thank you Mr raer and my favorite part is that highlighted in green right there at the bottom the freeing up money of $1,139 per year and I do not have any questions any other governing board members have questions or comments for Mr hearing that there are none thank you thank you up next okay up next um libr book selection and review process Dr menel is going to introduce thank you president sinowski I'd like to invite Dr Kim dods Karen and Nick bazon to the uh to the podium I'd also like to acknowledge our lead librarian Gail oper who has done a lot of work on this as well uh tonight's presentation will focus on the policy and legislation

075related to uh libraries and library books and our systems and practices here in Scotsdale it will conclude with a discussion around gifts and donations and this is a topic that's relevant not only for uh books but for other things in the district as well tonight we'll be talking about uh donations that have been recommended for libraries and our process uh what we've done in the past and where we're going and we're going to invite the governing board to provide some feedback I had um things that have been submitted to me for donate donation to the libraries and so tonight we'll outline our our current practices policies and procedures and invite your thinking and bring that forward then for uh future action by the governing board okay thank you Dr menel good evening board president sinowski

076vice president Werner members of our board Dr menel Gladis those present and watching online tonight Nick and I are going to be providing you with information about our library processes and practices during this presentation we will share susd policy igl laws for posting new books criteria book selection processes for susd libraries that are supported by our library resource Specialists and our teacher Librarians Provisions for parents to opt out of specific books processes for challenging a book or requesting its removal and processes for donating books ssd's policy kcd thank you Dr dods Karen um so ssd's governing board policy igl uh was was most recently updated on January 5th of 2023 almost a full year ago at that time it was updated to come into compliance with 2022 legislation at that time there was House Bill

0772439 um the legislature there mandated that school districts um really do three things for libraries and it was really all about uh requiring procedures that essentially uh complied with parental rights and and included an additional parental right so one of those procedures that was required was to allow parents access to the school library collection of available books and materials uh another requirement was to enable parents to receive a list of books and materials borrowed from the library by their children and number three the law also required districts to have procedures to make library books and materials available for public review like I said said that was an additional parental right that was codified in Arizona statute finally uh the law required districts publish on their website a list of books purchased after January 1st 2023

078uh which I will talk about on the next slide notably Scottsdale Unified School District in observance of this law and in recognition of this law and of parents rights immediately updated their policy and practice to comply with this law law uh in discussions I've had with with uh Gail in the library department and Dr dods Karen the practice was already to provide uh these rights to parents uh but the policy needed to be updated to conform with statute um so jigl is largely based on a statute 15- 362 uh which has some of the language on the slide above or or the slide slide here of note the policy recognizes that the governing board now now I'm just talking about what the governing board is is uh authorized and and required to do I think

079it is a May um the governing board May establish the library and may delegate the control of that library to qualified persons um here at SD the board has delegated the duties to the superintendent and Librarians to manage the elements of this policy listed here and like in all policy the district's management of libraries can be found in multiple places on the website at susd.org and essentially what I'm getting at is that there is no regulation for this policy the procedures and the practices are listed on the website and Dr dods Karen is uh going to discuss them here in a moment do I go next slide so this um additional component is the public notice period that's required um in 15722 uh requiring a 7-Day posting um of all new books purchased by the

080districts and then those new books have to stay up on the website for 60 days that is on ssd's website uh and as stated uh like I said it's on the website I'd like to point out that Scottsdale has an additional procedure um that not only posts the books that are purchased which is what the law requires but also permits parents concerned parents to prevent their child from checking out that book so that's not required in statute but is something that the the library uh department and Dr dots Karen can speak to um which is an option on the website uh for the next few slides we'll take a look at these laws and policies as they relate to the site level the purpose of our school libraries are to provide books and learning resources

081for all students staff um so that we can support and enrich the education of our students develop and strengthen their love of reading and broaden Horizons through the books that are available and we are fortunate to utilize Capital override dollars to create the incredible libraries that we have in each of our schools it is certainly a point of pride in our k um it's a point of Pride for our K8 Library resource Specialists and our middle school high school teacher Librarians on the slide here you can see the criteria for book selection these long-standing practices have been utilized by our teacher Librarians and our library resource specialists in susd the book selection process also includes a vetting process where consideration from varied sources are utilized to also complement the selection process we do see an

082opportunity for growth where we can work with our Librarians and our library resource Specialists to partner them so that maybe they could work in learning communities or in grade bands with trusted colleagues to cross reference the books they are selecting um as Nick mentioned in our school district as with curriculum that is uh teacher facilitated in our libraries we want to make sure parents are also aware of their ability to view the materials that their student will have access to so here on this slide you'll see an example of a hyperlink to our main library page found on our district website that uh Library link provides families all sorts of information about Destiny book checkout history um processes for opting a student out of a book and it also includes a link that will take

083people directly to the sites for the 7-Day notice of the 60-day posting of any new materials that are being added and what also um we think is helpful in addition to having that checkout history the steps for a parent to follow are listed for um any choice that they might have to not have their student check out a book um book challenges and removal this lines with policy i j l and Nick will talk a little bit about that so at the bottom of the slide there you can see there's a a link which is up on the library website for any parent that objects to a a book that's in the library to fill out a form that form directly goes directly to the curriculum Department um and there is a a process then

084where the curriculum Department would then communicate with the principal and um potentially remove that book temporarily and then uh perhaps have a committee process to discuss the book uh what I'm going to get into momentarily is to discuss the policy and sort of why it is a a difficult um space to be in from a legal perspective um so the removal of books from school libraries like I said U the statute gives the governing board the authority to govern the school library um but the US Supreme Court weighed in on that back in 1982 when I was we little um and at that point what the Supreme Court essentially said was that the first amendment is Paramount to the governing board's discretion and so some of the law and some of the analysis comes into

085a First Amendment analysis um which makes it difficult to create procedures it makes it a complex problem so a book may be objectionable for a multitude of reasons uh but on the other hand the like I said the governing board's discretion is limited um similarly there are there are two additional limits on removing books that are in your policy in a in susd policy um and and also in statute so number one the policy states and that's it's up there um that removal for disapproval of political ideas or social perspectives is a is a prohibited uh something that the governing board cannot remove books for that that language political ideas or social perspectives and like I said this policy was um adopted by this board on January 5th of this year um and so this

086particular policy makes management at the district level uh something that the district is going to air on the side of caution on right you you as a governing board have given us guidance uh to not remove items for political ideas or or social perspectives and that's and that's going to make it difficult to ever remove any book because of that at least in that subject matter uh the additional limitation on removing books is 15362 it's a state law that prohibits the governing board at all from having books of a sectarian partisan or a denominational character uh now I spent some time looking at this prior to this meeting this particular definition is not defined in statute uh the Attorney General even before uh that Supreme Court case that I mentioned before I was born um

087discussed this a little bit and in an opinion and at that point they said that what sectarian partisan and denominational means or what you're going to look at is really what is the basic purpose of the book or of the material so if the basic purpose is to promote a sectarian or a partisan ideal then it's prohibited from the library however if it contains some partisan but that's not the basic purpose of it then uh then it's not necessarily prohibited uh the example at the time which I'm not sure is still around or at least in wide circulation was the Christian science monitor used to be a widely read newspaper um had some editorials that were partisan but the rest of it was a reputable newspaper for the time period um so all that all

088of that is to say that susd has a process for parents to request to review a book and once requested a principal May opt to REM remove the book temporarily uh while this difficult analysis is conducted and now Dr dods Karen is going to discuss the donation process and policy kcd thank you uh donations are an area that is quite new to us earlier I mentioned the support that we receive from Capital override and the ability to purchase books for our school libraries so donations are not something that many of our schools process regularly um as such uh in alignment with policy kcd following guidance from finance and also benchmarking off of other departments who do receive donations regularly like Fine Arts and Athletics um you'll see here on the slide and um we've outlined

089a process that would align with our district procedures for accepting donations which would include the donator contacting the school the teacher librarian which is what we have at our middle schools and our high schools or the library resource specialist who we have in our elementary schools would then discuss with their principal the request that has been brought before their school then um they would reference our book selection criteria that I previously shared and then they would say okay we think that this would be an appropriate donation then they would complete the gift request form that is found on our website the princi School fills that out it if I understand correctly it feeds into finance and then that's how it feeds into you where you see the gifts and donations that the board then approves

090once the board approves the gifts and donations the schools are notified and then our teacher Librarians or Library resource Specialists would go through their process of 7-Day notice 60-day posting barcode the books and then add them into the library so that is um something that would be new for us because like I said before we haven't had um large scale donations for books and with that we wanted to have an opportunity for questions and discussion feedback from you as a board um thank you both for the meaningful presentation um question about policy um kcd um re referencing donations um where does a request for purchase to be included either for um recreational use or instructional use where would that fall into our policies for books so let's say a a teacher or a parent or

091students are requesting the purchase of a particular title what's the process to follow that's great so um I mentioned um previously that our Librarians really appreciate the opportunity to select books so they have um a keen awareness of what's trending in their school what units teachers are working on that they might be able to add books to the libraries to support so I wouldn't call it a formal process where we have um a Google form that a teacher fills out or a student FS out fills out um but instead it would be teachers talking with the teacher librarian the librarian talking with the kids in the library um I know when I was a teacher I certainly loved Robert Munch books and they were great predictable books for my young readers so if they weren't

092my library that might be something I would have gone to Mrs Reigns our librarian to say hey can we get more Robert Munch books in our library so it's just that relationship between the Librarians our teachers and our students thank you any other questions or comments for our presenters um board member Carney thank you president soski um thank you for the presentation I've just got a few few questions um since you're referencing the policy igl talking about um that the board has no say in removing books with certain political ideas or social perspectives uh I get that so how um are Librarians held accountable to not purchase books that fall into that category um and I believe the term was we have limited discretion it wasn't that we are not allowed to clarify I'm sorry

093we the I believe believe the term that was used was that the governing board has limited discretion so we do have decisions we can make have input on decisions that are made right I understand but the policy says M may not be removed due to the Border or District's disapproval so I was just clarifying so how are the Librarians held accountable to not purchase books of political ideals ideologies or social perspectives how do you want to start that or well just to clarify the the policy and the statute um because I think it's it's two separate requirements one the board policy if the board wants to remove a book for these reasons your policy prohibits you to do it so you would need to change the policy in order to to do that um and

094so it's really the administration's responsibility um to execute this to uh you know establish procedures for the removal of these books and and so then your follow-up question is how is that actually being done or yeah or what guidelines are we do we have District guidelines for our Librarians to follow at all on at all schools do we have the same guidelines so so the policy um there's there's a bullet point there objectionable materials for reasons reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns that's part of the the guideline legitimate pedagogical concerns so I'll let Dr DOD Karen discuss the way the Librarians actually deal with that issue so when Librarians are selecting materials for the libraries they're going to do their very best to ensure we have a balance and not like a one for one

095I bought this book I have this book um but they we do have books that have um a wide range of perspective um and that's important because we want a broaden student understanding um to either support what they already believe or to have another um perspective to either validate or negate what they're thinking about um but in terms of a a policy for a political perspective we don't have a policy for a political perspective I just mean it it seems to vary from school to school depending on on leadership on what books are being allowed in our schools so I think that's part of the the issue but um I mean parents do have the right to easily know what books are in their child's School library and they also don't have time to go

096searching for specific titles um is there nowhere is there anywhere where the titles are linked to a summary um or parents can learn more about the books because it's from what I see it's just a title with an author so it makes it difficult for um parents to really know what that book is about or what yep the library resource catalog thank you for that question board member Carney our library resource catalog through Destiny a parent can view any um book that's in the library at their school they also can check out their child um checkout history but when they look at the book they would have to do they would have to do some some research to see what is the story Stephanie's Ponytail about and learn a little bit about um by reading

097that review that is something though too that um our teacher Librarians when they do look for materials they do reference some um very important resources that are well respected in the library associations so you could always have somebody reach out to their school librarian and gather information like that for them they could do that okay and then it's uh it's come to my attention that there are different labeling uh on on different books according to different School libraries so are there any guidelines for Li The Librarians to follow as far as how they're allowed to tag or label uh the spine of books or that's another great question um I can certainly defer to um Gail oer on any other stickers I do know that at some of our campuses um our Librarians have added

098some additional labels to let students know um genre or um theme Within in a story so that they could either choose to go to that section or not um sometimes book covers can be misleading and so um often we're drawn to the cover what does that look like and so um there are some cues that can help kids in making that decision right so I think that's something that we need to be very transparent about and I think parents uh must know and understand what labels are being used on books in their child's School library okay um because that's something that's come to my attention and um I'm wondering I saw a long list but it right here yes perfect um so can Librarians use whatever sources to vet books before purchasing or is it

099consistent across the district what sites they need to go to to vet the books thank you again board member Carney um members of the board the examples that we have listed here are re resources that we ask Librarians or Library resource Specialists to use and that's an area that I mentioned that we do see this as an opportunity for a double check and so if we partner people up either by grade band or by Learning Community I could present to Nick hey these are the books that I'm thinking of buying for my school library here's why I selected them and then he could take a look at them and say yeah I you know what I'm adding that one too and I hadn't thought about that one or hey let's read another review about this

100um so that we can make sure we do have a good cross balance of that okay because I just I do have a concern that uh one of our Librarians did give me um this summary of a of a review from booklook and I don't see that on their booklook dorg and it was five pages of controversial things um along with 20 uh 20 a count of 20 profanity profane words and then it was still purchased so I'm just concerned on maybe reigning it in onto a few sources where people can vet uh all Librarians can vet so that it's more consistent um across the district because I don't see how we can uh be having five pages of controversial things and we still purchase the book for um middle schoolers so uh it's a

101concern the vetting process I think um and then lastly I just want to know can you you speak to what are overdrive purchases because I can see that um listed when you go in and look at what books have been purchased uh for our digital books um overdrive and Sora are our digital um platforms for purchasing or logging materials it's like our database Gail you can come on up an overdrive I don't know I just I just saw when I went you know there's a list of overdrive books but it doesn't really say it's names like one school whether it's it's purchased for all middle school or all high school so you can do it that way and people have their own money but we share the books usually it's a database it's a database

102they call they can all use but we do middle school has a certain level so they can't get the high school books okay and then parents do have access to that app to that Sora app that you're talking about well you'd have to go through your child's ID number but those books any anything new we're doing a running total on that same page that we're posting we're just leaving it up there cuz they might get one book might get purchased one day and we get it in you know to half hour so those are just staying on the site okay it's a um board member Carney it's a digital book I think I more wanted for the community to understand because if they go on and look it says OverDrive books but it doesn't explain

103what that means ORS we could be more clear on the website about that would that be helpful if we added that it's an ebook kind of like at the public library when you select an e-reader versus the hardback book that just pops into your Kindle I think so I think just so everyone understands that that's actually not a hard book in the library that it's one of the ebooks so thank you for the presentation and for answering all the questions Dr Hart Wells thank you board president sinowski I just wanted to uh this Avid Reader thank our esteemed Librarians for the great job that they do across the district in the past couple of years it's been a tough position to be in and they've done a wonderful job and just to reiterate what Mr

104Baker during public comment had made a a reference to the library being a ticket to Adventure and I certainly shared that sentiment growing up so I just wish to thank them and thanks for the presentation I appreciate it you're welcome uh V Vice President Warner thank you for the presentation so have you guys considered doing a library openhouse at the different campuses where you can invite parents in for so they can tour the libraries and just see what's in there and just for transparency and getting parents comfortable with with there particular the middle schoolers and and younger kids to see what's in the library is that something that you guys would consider because I I think it'd be an awesome opportunity I would go as a parent thank you for that um Vice President Warner

105we certainly um could add to I know that when we do um a future Firebird night that all of our buildings are open and parents can go visit I know on an open house night or a um Scholastic Book Fair um but we could certainly um work with our Librarians maybe even during parent teacher conferences to say hey while you're on campus swing by I'd love to introduce myself to you and and share the great resources and um truly thank our citizens because because of their their votes we get the the capital override dollars to to maintain wonderful libraries for our kids thank you um I just want to throw out there something that I think is really important when we talk about um procedures and um safeguards that we have in place I personally

106think that we need to trust the professionals that are trained and serve in those positions because they deal with a lot of these issues on a regular basis so you know through our district we have qualified um Librarians it's not like they just decided to one day wake up and become a librarian there is extensive training in that professional field so you know out of respect for our our trusted professionals we need to acknowledge that as part of the procedure for vetting book titles and they're they better judgment now as human beings are we always perfect no not at all so yes there are things that we can do to improve our system consistency I think is really important across our district at least as far as procedures are concerned but again you know I

107think it's important to trust the employees and their professionalism um I don't see any other requests to speak on this topic so thank you both for your presentations and we're going to I think Mr buzan is going to stay up here and um Roger Spivey and maybe Shannon are going to provide support to the governing board policy did regarding inventories good evening members of the governing board Dr Manzel Mrs Wagner did this is the first read um this is the the district's policy on inventories I believe it's going to be up there momentarily oh good you're putting up the black line copy thank you all and all governing board members did receive this information before so that's the clean copy and the black line is showing the proposals okay it's a it's a little bit

108different than the proposal so I may have a question for Miss kroer um if you would go back to the black line copy please thank you so this uh policy was sent out to governing board members a time ago um this this policy requires a superintendent to establish a program to implement District inventory procedures which shall include inventory of land buildings and Equipment as required in the uniform system of financial records Roger Spivey and the finance department uh reached out to Legal um last month and stated he he essentially requested that musical instruments which the old policy or the current policy states um that have an acquisition cost greater than $150 shall be placed on the stewardship listing so he asked that uh that be lifted for musical instruments alone uh he said this policy

109um was last change in 2009 that the policy is currently requiring the district to inventory very uh small items even mallets um and so he's he's requested that this be removed the request I believe was for for items at musical instruments up to $500 uh but the black line just has that completely out of there so M kroer yes and um I know uh Roger is also online so it really came down to um aligning the price of instruments at this point in time is so much higher than it had been um that it was getting to a what is really feasible when it comes to instruments and the idea not being that every single thing for disposal come um or be on that stewardship listing and really looking at what is the right of

110price um I believe Roger was there a dollar amount that should have been in there I think there there was so after uh after reviewing some feedback from other districts we thought it would be best just to align it with the general stewardship listing of $1,000 um and then we wouldn't have a separate category just for instruments so this would line anything of a of $1,000 regardless if it was a musical instrument or not would be $1,000 before it goes on that stewardship listing so it's kind of to align with other policies that are out there also recognizing that most things anymore cost more than $150 yeah and all all other equipment it is only tagged and inventory at $1,000 for some reason SD implemented a separate policy for instruments uh but it's really not

111necessary any longer question it seems a large jump as I'm understanding this to go from $150 to $1,000 it would only be for the musical instruments going up to $1,000 so it would line it more so with um the the general policy on on assets which is what we're seeing um other districts do yeah I I reviewed policies from probably 15 other districts in the valley uh we were the only other District that had a separate policy for music instruments and I understand in 2009 uh something of $150 might have been something we wanted to track but now when we're when we're doing annual inventories and we're really spending hours looking for things like mallets um it's not a good use of our staff's time um and it doesn't align with any other equipment any

112other inventory standard that we have Roger can you um address how the inventory process will take place for a musical instruments that we lease out to students for use or will there be not so so I can't say that there wouldn't be any so obvious obviously um anything that we already have in the system will still have be tagged and that will still be inventoried until it goes through the disposal process um we currently inventory every site at least every three years and that includes all equip all equipment including Mis musical equipment and so this will re will eliminate the need for us to tag this item and track it in our financial system but most of this equipment will still be tracked in Destiny so we'll still have the ability to track it an

113inventory in Destiny it's just not going to be tied to Visions anymore and not be tied to our uh Financial audit and our financial inventory that comment is super helpful thank you Roger yes ma'am um Vice President Warner has a request to speak how does this affect the students and the parents who pay for the leases or pay for the instruments I can answer that it'll have no impact yeah there would be no impact when they check out um an instrument so if a student is checking out a musical instrument the tag part on it is really just on the financial side so we know what assets we have but when that's checked out it's still checked out and tagged to that student so when they bring it back in through like a library book

114when they bring it back in it's it's taken off of their record okay thank you I don't see any other requests to speak so thank you for the conversation on this topic we are going to move on to the first read of the Middle School planning guide for the 2425 school year and I believe Dr sackos and dods Karen are going to be on hand for this good evening board president sinowski vice president Warner members of the board Dr menel Gladis Dr Hart Wells I apologize I did not acknowledge you in my previous meetings um up here but hello Dr Harwell is in the cloud and all others um present are in the cloud I don't know why I look up at the sky like I can see you but I know you're there tonight

115uh I'm going to present to you the first read of the Middle School planning Guide tonight I will share with you the annual review process the stakeholder input how we coordinate with our student information um dep Department as well um for courses and the codes that align with the ad we'll share with you some new courses edits and updates the Middle School planning guide similar to high school planning guide has a great committee it's a little smaller in scale but on the slide here before you you see members of our middle school and K8 schools the principals represented members of our teaching and learning team in terms of coordinators directors coaches as well as Stacy and Kelly over in simar and Tiffany our admin assistant um this is a committee that Dr SOS and I

116lead together uh tonight uh one of the first courses that I want to share with you and just for knowledge sake the information I'm going to share to you is um sequential by page number so I thought that might be easier than having to flip back and forth if you were looking at the the guide but on page 16 um I'm going to start with a new course that was proposed by principal cat Hughes over at Echo Canyon for a course called Middle School guitar and this is born out of an interest at her campus and some resources that they have available this course is designed to cover such areas as fundamental reading basic techniques for playing the guitar students would be responsible for providing their own acoustic guitar or utilize a rental if available

117and this would be um available for students in grades 6 7 7 or eight on page 25 um you will see that we are recommending the addition for the continuation of the Dual language immersion Mandarin program at Desert Canyon Middle School looking ahead on page 25 to adding that science component for seventh grade and then thinking about the following year that we would begin prepping for 8th grade as well you might remember that last year we added in the sixth grade on page 37 you will see another new course this falls under General electives and it's an advisory intervention and enrichment course it's designed to offer students an advisory time as well as intervention or enrichment based on individual students needs um in grades six seven and eight it would be available at Cheyenne copperidge

118cocopa Desert Canyon Engleside Mojave and Tonia you might think well why not Mountainside they have some other electives for their middle Year's IB program and also over at the K8 at Echo principal cat Hughes has some other interventions already happening on her campus with her um existing ka8 model um this course really emerged from uh our principles who have all been doing something a little bit differently some have been calling it wind time some have been calling it Power Hour some have been um adding in a reading period but as we've been spending now this is our second year of the multi-tiered systems of support mtss stat team for our strategic plan having um principal um Dr jagodinsky on our committee principal Kellum at Cheyenne has served on that committee we really all been talking

119about what are we doing to Target student need for tier 2 and tier three intervention and just kind of a um a beautiful um consequence of all of this has been our principal saying you know what we could just simply tweak what we've all been dabbling with and formalize it build it into our schedules and working with Stacy gabrielson looking at what those instructional minutes look like um they all came to a consensus that they thought this would be a great course to add in officially to their campuses we also um are bringing back into the guide while not new for um all of our schools with Avid what we noticed when we looked through the planning guide was that that Avid elective course description wasn't actually in the planning guide there had been some

120other iterations of that type of elective so we looked back to a um a planning guide from 2012 to see how did the district Define that Avid elective in the Middle School planning guide then we took that description shared it with our campuses that utilize Avid made a few tweaks which then presents to you here here this Avid elective description that would be a reinstatement of a former description in a a previous planning guide we would also reactivate that previously approved course code also last year um director Sarat torion began doing some updates um for the gifted program we didn't get them into the planning guide last year so we Revisited them again this year with our principles so on page 39 you will see that there's an update for gifted Humanities for those independent

121investigations there's a language update for that and then on page 54 there's gifted program um and eligibility descriptions that have been updated so um on page 54 you'll see that there's a replacement recommendation we've just kind of swapped out one page for another um that can be found on page 54 on page 4 we are recommending that we remove math for success and reading for success and the reason we are recommending that we remove math for success and reading for success is because we already have another course in the planning guide we have um a language and literature support class and a math support class and so we see those as the same and campuses were using them kind of interchangeably so to make um every campus have a consistent course offering we thought it

122would be more appropriate to remove that math for success and reading for success and then we had some edits and Corrections that I just wanted to mention of course we'll update the date on the cover page U we'll have the new susd logo we will also um add to this planning guide just as we have been doing in the high school planning guide as we move to the Latin honor System of recognition the elimination of the term class rank we also um changed some language related to the principal list in honor role to mirror the grading guidelines that were revised and updated um with our principles last year so those are just a parallel if you were to look on the grading guidelines document and you look now at our planning guide it would be

123that same language we found a typo for social studies on page 26 um we also needed to add in course numbers for computer science the Cs 101 cs102 the coding in Python and then we also updated the version of the legal notice that will be further updated when we go into the new year as well with the 2425 school year and since um submitting this presentation to glattus um we also were made aware of a typo for the word semester on the coding courses so we have um fixed that as well um something that our committee has been talking a lot about I mentioned to you how in the last two years we've been really been talking about multi-tiered systems of support we've also been thinking about what does it look like to be future

124focused what does that classroom environment look like what courses do we need to be thinking about and so from that we um believe it's important for us to form an additional focus group that kind of Blends together the work of that Innovation stat team to evolve our principles our student Advisory board members of our team in teaching and learning at ed services as well as Community Partners and you'll see we created just kind of a graphic to think about a variety of components that we believe would lend toward future focused learning the integration of some new Ed text standards um voice and choice for students and teachers listening to what the community is Desiring for our our um graduates looking at what Innovation looks like in a classroom in terms of our teaching and learning

125practices real world problem solving the foresees of collaboration and communication and critical thinking and creativity and then you'll see we have in a a smaller dot AI we know how important um AI is but we don't think for us that that needs to be our overarching goal that that's a component of it so we do think that that's an important component to really develop um neat courses that could be available to kids or tweaking of our existing courses that can foster more voice and choice that can integrate those edtech standards not just as a standalone we've coming off the um hour of code in computer science week where there's a a lot of emphasis on that for a a period of time but what does that look like more frequently for children um in their

126English classes in their math classes their social studies and their Sciences so it's not just always a standalone so those are some important next steps that we believe we need so that we can um do more of a Grassroots effort to shift what's what's going on in our classrooms so with that questions or feedback questions governing board members board member Carney thank you president sinowski um thank you for the presentation and I just have a question on uh the the new course the The Advisory the intervention and enrichment is that going to be for all students all students at a point in time in the day will be divided into um imagine it's all of us who are present here today and you are the classroom teachers some of us would go to you board

127member Carney some would go to board member Lindsay some would go to um Vice President Warner Etc based on um Readiness so if I've been struggling perhaps with something going on in reading class and you have a passion for reading you're an English teacher maybe you're the social studies teacher and you're you just draw kids in I might be going into your class and you are going to help me for about 30 minutes the time ranges um a little bit between the campuses based on their schedules but then you would go and you would give me like a double dip an extra help okay who and how long is this class how uh currently it's a we're going to tighten that up right now it ranges from 17 minutes to 30 minutes so working with

128our principles looking at their schedule seeing what that class period could look like um for them we're we'll we'll finalize that and the best that their schedules can and accommodate okay and um is this something that that parents will be have knowledge of or be able to opt into or opt out of um this will be on their students schedule so the whole school will go to it so like for example currently at um tonala or at Mojave they have a period Mojave is right after their lunch period right now where every student um does a focus on reading and so that's what they do at Tonia it's called Power Hour and the kids are divided up among teachers and and we would certainly inform families because there it would be on their schedules as

129well so parents would know too okay I I just think it's vital that that we spell out exactly what's going on uh each day in that course because I do have knowledge of um this course and did not have knowledge of what was actually going on in that course so I highly recommend that we make sure parents know exactly what's going on in that class yeah that'll be thank you that's important for us to be sure we do especially um we'll be utilizing some of our our digital resources for Progress monitoring kids let's say and so kids will know how they're progressing so that'll be important for them to go home and celebrate or if we have kids who are going to enrichment because they're already doing really well in school they get to do

130a passion project so how are we allowing the student go home and communicate that too will be important for us and this is a past fail past fail course yes that was something that our principles were very passionate about as well especially for students who were struggling they didn't want them to have one more area of struggle on their report card okay thank you board member Lindsay my computer shut down so I have to go off memory but on the honors classes would it be worthwhile to notate what the prxs are like say see page 54 oh certainly it's stashed in the back that's a great idea and then I noticed I just picked this up kind of like we do on high school planning guide where we have a little note that says must

131have completed algebra with a C or better or something like that good idea thank you on Ela I'm a literal person but on Ela it says for honors it builds a strong foundation for college readiness doesn't say anything like that for jeda thank you for that catch too because certainly every course we would expect that okay but that's the only one like I didn't see it for math I didn't see it for science or social studies just Ela okay differentiated honors gets you ready for college didn't say that for Janette okay any other questions Dr her Wells yes I do have questions and I'm having some technology kind of lags so I'm just going to follow up Dr dods Karen with an email and line those out rather than try to do this over the

132ethernet um but just there is just one question I'll leave you with but the rest I'll send out and you can just respond to the whole board and that is there's a chart uh of the math uh trajectories and an overarching question here is how has that math pathway at susd been changed or amended in in the last couple of years since we've been talking about how important it is to revisit how you know math proficiencies particularly in the middle school and how is that reflected in this planning guide or how has that conversation and those goals over the last couple of years informed what we're looking at tonight uh thank you for that Dr hartells and I will certainly add that in the memo I will tell you when I look at one of

133the illustrations I um very much remember Dr Benson at the time creating the graphic that we have when she was our director of curriculum and so our courses certainly have um been the same for our six sth um eighth grade Algebra geot trig kids in the middle school I do believe that the high school course that has the asterisk symbols and the plus signs that that has been updated more recently and I can certainly work with with our math coaches um to get a little bit of a timeline on that too but also your bigger question of what constitutes the courses in a response to the growing needs in our communities and um University Systems that yes and and even maybe more acutely the conversations of the board the last two boards rather and the

134Strategic plan the kpis all focusing in some way I'm prioritizing math proficiencies particularly in the middle school years so I I am Keen to understand how the current planning guide proposed today for next school year took that into account and aims to elevate those proficiency levels so I I'll leave it at that and and I think we can just handle that through email um and then I'll follow up with my specific questions with page number to help cross reference thank you thank you I noted that other governing board members shared some of my concerns and questions as well um the next steps is the most exciting part to me and I'm disappointed that those are next steps and not things we're actually putting into initiation for the next school year because progress moves so slowly

135sometimes it's like those ideas why aren't we running with it we know our kids need this whether it's enrichment or uh Remediation in my mind we should be providing those and living really leaning into our um strategic plan and our objectives to create a worldclass future focused learning opportunity and you hear from experts all the time how that begins with students in the middle school years preparing them for their High School preparing them for their life choices so um I think this Falls a little flat I'm not going to ridicule in in public by any means but I I do see we have great opportunities here and given that this is a first read I I hope that um some of the input from the governing board members is um seriously considered and not a

136it just as a thought that it goes into some action thank you and I do not see any other request to speak um so thank you thank you to your team too I know this is a heavy lift thanks okay we are going to move on to agenda item 11 which is our consent agenda um I'm going to make a motion to approve the consent agenda as it was amended is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I and that was five governing board members approving um the consent agenda as amended and a couple items were pulled by our governing board members uh first pulled was item I um by board member Warner to approve the use of Mojave Educational Service Cooperative contract

137for the purchase of furniture no oh I'm looking at L sorry guys sorry they kind of look the same in capital yeah I'm sorry it's to approve the award of request for proposal RFP 2401 or 011 digital resources for K5 Ela and math correct okay go ahead can you hear me okay good thank you so um was there a committee that approved this did this go through open meeting law or anything like that is what was the process for this very much appreciate the questions and opportunity to clarify so thank you um uh Vice President Warner so as many of you know the I ready uh resource was identified years ago um and has been part of our evidence-based intervention a key tool to address learning loss in our Esser plans including Esser 3 which

138has a targeted closure date of September of 2024 we've shared that previously I ready is no longer on the co-op we were using and so while we didn't anticipate needing to do so we needed to do an RFP to identify an intervention tool to use for the remainder of this school year um and potentially Beyond ironically two important conversations were happening this fall that are kind of working in our favor in that as you've heard uh referenced again this evening the work um of our mtss strategic action teams had actually identified a need a wish before we even knew this um was shaking out in this context to identify a handful of evidence-based resources moving forward so our sites weren't locked into one resource at tier 2 or tier three um affording our sites some

139choice to meet the needs of the students on their campus much like was the request um by our governing board members last spring with the tutoring not just locking us into one tutoring and so we've expanded that a similar process um is at work here the other big piece to our context is that uh since last fall actually on in towards the end of October the department of Ed has indicated if districts have remaining dollars as we Sunset Esser this year we can use um we can elect to extend the use of intervention tools to prepay for them um for up to three years prior to the September 2024 Sunset hard stop so your vote tonight allows our sites a little flexibility in determining which tool they can use for the second semester so it's

140an RFP process that was was sought out um specifically to your question and instead of us just staying locked into uh I ready it afforded us choices to look at any resource for the second semester and moving forward okay and so since we um this District was just um handed down a letter from the AG regarding the open me meeting law violations does this particular curriculum fall into that category that it should have been so that we don't H so the district doesn't have an issue with what that letter said bringing something back that that would trigger the previous violations appreciate the question the RFP process is different than a curriculum process and I think Roger is still on to and he may want to speak um I okay so so let me go let

141me go to the side so it didn't need to be approved by a committee or go through any of those things that's my question no no it was not because it's not a curriculum adoption it's curriculum resources then it would just fall under the regular RFP process thank you for you clarified the question thank you very much so um the here's some challenging things that that have come up in Communications with teachers with parents community members regarding the decline in proficiency rates in math and Ela and the question that's come up and what people are starting to struggle with with the people I communicate with is that is it the curriculum itself is it the content itself that is is contributing to the decline and I really had high hopes for the ISL um and

142I understand that neighboring schools are using it however it is embedded withal and it's a focus on feelings and developing identities and and other things that come along with the castle model and seal has its place it's just not a math and when we look at the schools Even in our district that have high proficiency rates in math it is because those teachers teach the the way that they have been and what has been working for decades so my point here is sometimes new is not better and I want what is best for our kids and I don't believe that thatl in math is helping our kids they already have SE other um curriculums and they have time set aside foral most of the schools have that where they work on those things so I'm

143I'm not in support of these today for that reason and I would love to find something that could be as um exciting for the kids to learn from because I understand thatl was very good in the past um unfortunately they've just gone the direction of of embedding things that doesn't necessarily need to be in math um and so you know aren't there other options out there that aren't not just fully embedded with with feelings and identities when it comes to math um Vice President Warner uh I I understand your to your desire to look at other sorry this is Roger Spivey we sent this out to dozens of vendors and we had a dozen vendors respond so multiple vendors were given Apple ample opportunity to review the rfpn to provide the option for their product

144right based on what we received these top four scoring vendors were by far the best options for the district with the response that we had so and I understand that and you you set something out people had an opportunity to to fulfill that request but what from the district was sought out to have a higher quality product that is truly focused on math and not this other stuff if anything I don't remember if um in some of the information that was requested and sent that we sent the criteria with what we were looking for in the RFP I believe that that was sent so it's highquality evidence-based resources we have to use we have to look at the ratings of what's most effective for both Ela and math in our assessment of the tools and

145so that was the criteria that we're looking for are those those qualities and characteristics the The Proven resources that are going to uh most likely be most supportive of that which our teachers are doing and create the best learning of our kiddos we've reported out uh previously on learning gains with tools for um and I already previously to the board showing the effectiveness how uh the frequency of use of students and the learning gains that we've seen in those so all of those factors and pieces we're looking for those proven resources known to make the biggest difference for kids learning when you're we're evaluating the RFP okay so you find that that the um companies that partner with castle and embed Castle um beliefs into the products is what's working best for for the students

146so I don't know I can't make a connection to that we're not so EXL is is embedded with castle with the uh with those social emotional learning tools so is that what was you said that there was specific requirements that you sent out was that one of them so we actually had that I could pull it up too do you have it with you I can read to you what the criteria was that we were looking for I don't know that we were flagged an seal component when we're looking for an Ela and reading resources for an intervention tool but you have it with you we did not uh we were looking for things that aligned with uh the requirements from ad right that aligned with standards that were approved by ad but we did

147not identify a a need for something that aligned with Castle okay thank you so um it is my commitment to um support the best products for our kids and um I'm not so sure that we um hit the mark on this one thank you I'd like to make some comments here shiny objects we should not be chasing them shiny and a shiny object in education is best instruction best instruction happens in my opinion when teachers have a trusting relationship built with their students period teach students cannot learn learn if they are not cared for if they are hungry or frightened they will not learn andal is not to be clear it is not a class that we make our students take it is not a curriculum that we intentionally buy and Infuse into instructional lessons

148social and emotional learning is a concept describing a human being and their needs to be cared for it's pretty basic and so this narrative that's out in the the scare to scare the public that we're indoctrinating kids through social emotional learning is absolutely unfounded and ridiculous you must care for a student in order to help a student learn period anyone who's dealt with a classroom of students understands the value of creating a trust trusting environment for that student to learn regardless of how they show up to school I'm just going to end it there because I think it's something that our general public needs to be aware of this seal fear tactic is unfounded um Dr Benson appreciate the opportunity to be able to clarify that which um we were purposeful in looking for because

149we we were not looking for a social emot um learning curriculum we are very specific about Lang uh Ela and math so briefly our objective was in support of our district kpis of increased academic achievement mtss academic initiatives and to address learning loss the district is Seeking a digital resource for use in K5 classrooms that will provide personalized learning for reinforcement and development uh towards students Mastery of skills and Concepts within the content areas of English language arts and math this had stay in step with um expectations of move move on when reading as well we can't just pick any curriculum we have to pick those that are in line with that the scope of the work um included that it needed to be um include an English language arts curriculum a math curriculum had

150to be digital in platform with the capacity for personalizing learning which means responding to where kids' Readiness is engaging in developmentally appropriate for our K5 students it's aligned to Arizona State Standards approved by the department of Ed again for move on when reading it includes a pre and a post assessment it is integrated or could integrate with our district it system um which is clever and it would be accessible for our students a minimum of three times per week those are the things that we are the pillars of which we were evaluating the resources and looking for multiple vendors for our sites to choose from and and those are the four choices that you have before you today board member Carney thank you president sinowski so my problem with this is that there's no backup

151information at all there's no contracts no nothing and I had asked for that to be sent to the board last week um and received nothing so I'm not sure how we're supposed to vote on this without any detailed information on this curriculum um we it is a resource not a curriculum per the interruption yeah so we there is no contract at this time because there would be we can't have a contract until um it is approved and even with that many times the contract is essentially the purchase order but we did send over to the governing board last week um the scope of work for the RFP the responses the scorecard um and what the letter of Engagement or I think it's called letter of acceptance form for that should it be approved that was

152sent over to the governing board last week okay I'm sorry I did not see that so could you tell me when that was sent so I can look at that um yes um I'll have to pull up my emails but I'll have that for you shortly or other governing board members did you get that it was sent on December 8th thank you thank you Dr Hartwell okay thank you seeing that there are no other requests to speak or address this um consent agenda item um and based on the recommendations B brought forward from our staff um I would like to make a motion to approve the award of request for proposal RFP 24011 digital resources for K5 Ela and math is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in

153favor say I I I opposed I no no that motion passes three to two and we are going to move on to consent agenda item e Personnel action items um board member Carney requested that that get pulled for further discussion go ahead board member Carney thank you president sinowski so uh I just wanted to pull this because this is our only opportunity as a board to have discussion is here in a public meeting and I just wanted to discuss or make a statement I guess uh about my concern with um the board we received many intense Communications from an employee um that is now on the agenda with a resignation um and I had asked for the board to be sent some backup information on that um and did not receive that and so I'm

154just concerned I don't know what happened between all the communications we were receiving to now um a resignation and someone being put on leave and I just as a board I think we need to understand better um there needs to be better communication before we're being asked to approve uh putting some placing this someone on administrative leave um is there someone that can address the issues of personnel um discussions in public as well as um the request by board member Carney as I understand it Miss Wilson go ahead I'm going to take a stab that I think that uh without proper notice of discussing an employee that we cannot do so in a public meeting thank you um and then um what what would happen if we this item does not get approved this evening

155what is the impact on our employees and our district Dr menel I was going to say it's this is the Personnel action report so there are there are pay implications and all the rest unless the governing board were to remove a singular item from the the Personnel agenda it would have significant consequence in terms of being able to make timely payment to our staff uh the other thing that I understand but I would like clarification on is we have a resignation in here I don't know that there's a recommendation to put someone on leave in the Personnel Action Report unless I'm missing that part Alexis you have that correct well so the employee chose to resign okay here's here's my point of this though is just wait Miss Wilson without specifically knowing who we're discussing

156I and again I wouldn't refrain from speaking about that I I'm not sure I can assume who we might be discussing but there is a resignation board member Carney but this is my point is that um we we're not understanding what happened from the communications we received to this resignation being on here if we if there was better communication we would I wouldn't have to pull this and we wouldn't have to have a discussion um so just we would have to discuss that in executive session as I understand okay so if we if we need to to pull the one employee and and go into executive session we could do that while we're in there for the the other item is I just heard two potential actions one is poll an item from the Personnel

157requests and the other is to go into executive session to discuss um employment status so we have to notify said personnel uh if they are going to be discussed and they have the option to have that discussed in public as well so that has not occurred and and with them in the room correct thank you okay please make a motion if you'd like I have a comment go ahead thank you so I miss Wilson where the confusion is is that there are Grievances and complaints then it shows up as a resignation I had requested a um executive session on this matter so it could be discussed with the person in the room so they're just concerns on the processes of these matters and um and I appreciate this being pulled today so that we could

158say that because this isn't the only time so thank you to clarify was there a KB report filed through our district process on this particular issue of ass assumption right now president sinowski and members of the board again I'm I'm cautioning about discussing this without having properly notice notified the employee and and making assumption as to the employee we discussing understood thank you um Mr buzan yeah i' just like to add and Echo that um for the benefit of that particular employee and the district at large that I think we should be very careful about the discussion the specifics of what I think we're getting into uh you know there is the executive session option for legal counsel on a particular item but I I'm not sure that we're prepared for that on this situation

159I know there was an update to the board it sounds to me like the update was insufficient you wanted more information out of it I think uh that can be done and then uh we can reconvene potentially without violating open meeting law or any suggestion of a violation of open meeting law but I would like to C you know temper caution on discussing this matter further board member Lindsay just curious how would you remove somebody off of there without naming them point oh you would have to name them yes I move to approve 12 or uh Personnel action items November 14 2023 to December 12th 20 2023 um item 11e I second that motion is there a second I second that y all in favor say I I I I opposed I'm abstaining for lack

160of information so we have three yeses an and an abstention board member Warner were you going to vote I didn't hear you I'm sorry I said I okay so my my apologies we have four approvals and one exstension okay that motion does pass the 11e does pass we are we are ready to move on to 12b of our action items board action is required on these next many motions some of this should move rather quickly approval of Performance Based pay plan for General councel Dr Mensel I'm pursuant to the the contractual agreement with general counsel uh it indicates that the governing board will approve the performance-based pay plan uh consisting with what other is done for other cabinet members as noted at the last meeting U because Nick joined us after that original performance-based pay

161plan was approved now this was brought for board consideration and approval uh consistent with the provisions in his contract thank you Dr menel um all governing board members have received this information in advance to the including the written details of the employment contract I see board member Carney is requesting to speak go ahead thank you president sinowski uh I just have a question on why um Mr buzan's performance goals were not set up like the uh the other cabinet members administrators where there's a weight assigned to to the goals the waiting for that when not specified means that the five goals are weighted equally board member Warner so it's my understanding that it actually says may in the contract it is not a given and I'm really challenged to support um any package any compensation

162package that's over six figures when we have staff that are barely making ends meet so um when I voted on this before is because of the way that money is being spent in this district and it's not going to where it needs to be it is being spent on administrative bloat and redundant software redundant redundant technology and I understand this is going to pass today however um I'm not in support of it I'm we have to readjust how we pay our staff and it has to go to our teachers and Frontline staff not our administrators and um administrative bloat I'd like to make a motion to approve action item 12b the approval of performance-based pay plan for General councel is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor

163to approve 12b say I I I opposed no no that motion passes 3 to2 moving on board member board president's announ could I just comment please thank you uh we all receive the same legal advice we all receive the same legal advice on this item I just want to make that clear yep that is correct thank you Dr herwell and with that we're going to move on to action item 12C approval of selection of audit committee members um I show Shannon kroer Dr menel are you leading that discussion so so um the audit committee is appointed by the governing board uh there is a vacancy that needs to be filled two applications were submitted for governing board consideration as has been our practice since the establishment of the audit committee we invited the audit committee

164to um rank the applicants we had uh differences of opinion about which recommendation should be brought forward and so given it is ultimately the responsibility of the governing board to appoint a person to that role we brought for both candidates without a recommendation for the governing board to decide whom to appoint for that open vacancy thank you Dr Menzel and for the general public's information internal auditing is an independent objective Assurance an advisory activity designed to add value and improve the district's operations it helps the district accomplish its objectives by bringing a systematic discipline approach to evaluate and improve effectiveness of risk management internal control and compliance that is the purpose of the audit committee um I just wanted to review that before we have any discussion about the candidates and I see board member

165Carney is requesting to speak go ahead thank you president sinowski um so I just find it highly inappropriate to appoint a recent Bo board member to serve with a current sitting board member on this committee um unfortunately uh Miss Beckman has undue influence as a recent outgoing board member and the other candidate Mr bingert has the ability to remain neutral and without bias and without Insight or knowledge and relationships and that's what we need does anyone else re uh request to address this I have a comment please Dr herwell thank you board president sski um I have a question in the consent um item it's referencing the audit committee's vote did everyone on the audit committee vote including the current board member so there was not a vote by the audit committee the audit committee

166was invited to um rank the applicants and that information was sent into individually to Shannon croger and because there were there were some people who ranked um one person higher than the other person it was not unanimous and because there were only two applicants uh we made the determination administratively to bring forward both candidates so the governing board could decide rather than um allowing for a situation where there would have been a board member uh who also serves on the audit committee voting twice but in that ranking did board member Warner provide input yes so it was would she be influenced unduly influenced sorry I didn't mean to overp speak you I know we have a delay would that be um well as no decision was made right no so no but it could have

167affected the outcome um potentially Ian it's not something that's why we're here right because the decision was not made the audit committee doesn't get to make a decision on who's appointed to a vacancy the governing board makes a decision who's appointed to the audit committee let me back up then to clarify so they didn't make the recommendation thank you is the word make a recommendation because there was all board members includ I'm sorry all audit committee members provided input including this board member appointed to the audit committee correct I'm just asking a factual question not all provided three of the four sitting members provided input on the candid the applicants and the fourth was board member Warner incorrect it was another audit Committee Member who did not provide input no I'm so the four so

168there were four board members board member Werner provided input there was a fourth member of the audit committee who did not provide input so we had three people who provided input there was not a meeting of the audit committee to make a recommendation there never has been a meeting of the audit committee to make a recommendation when we have an open position we ask them to provide ranking of the the applicants they give that to the administration so that it can inform a recommendation to the governing board but we don't have them make a formal recommendation I understand thank you for the summary of The Facts I'd like to move to nominate Miss Beckman to the audit committee I will gladly make a second to that motion a motion has been made to nominate um

169Miss Beckman and it has been seconded all in favor to approve that say I i i i opposed no no that motion passes 3 to2 we're going to move on to D approval of the facility use decision making rubric so as part of the kpis the governing board established there was a request to develop a process by which we determine how we utilize um facilities and land that aren't currently being utilized as School uh properties and the first step in that was to work with our team to develop a decision-making rubric that would help guide those decisions what you have in your board packet this evening is the result of that work that identifies the key areas for consideration where we need to make sure that we have adequate information and then the rubric that's

170on page two really creates a um a process where we can identify green yellow and red so instead of a a fixed and rigid system this is you know Green indicates we've checked all the boxes this is a good project yellow means there might be some additional work to do and red is it's probably not advisable to proceed uh Dennis did a test run with this on the 68th and Oak Property and indicated that from his perspective this worked very well uh so we believe that what we have in front of the governing board tonight provides a process by which the governing board can analyze as well as the administration future use of different properties think choya Apache 68 and Oak and some of the other project proposals that are in front of us so

171the recommendation tonight is to approve the decision-making rubric that's presented uh we will then operationalize that with respect to some of the properties that are under consideration for future use uh we expect that we'd bring forward 68th and Oak by February at the latest uh in 2024 excellent thank you Dr Menzel I'd like to make a motion to approve the uh facility used to decision making rubric is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I that motion passes 0 moving on to 12E second read and approval of the high school planning guide for the 2425 school year Dr menel actually I'm going to turn to Dr dods Karen and Dr Benson if there are any questions otherwise there was a presentation at the last

172meeting yeah do any governing board members have any questions on this recommendation I would point out that there is an opportunity in March or April uh we bring back additional revisions so this approval is necessary for us to continue with the course selection and scheduling for next semester um but there are opportunities for us to make further refinement to the planning that's super helpful to hear thank you um seeing that there are no requests from govering Ward members I'd like to make a motion to approve the high school planning guide for the 2425 school year is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I opposed I I think we had a squeaky eye there in the cloud so I believe Dr hartells was yours

173an affirmative vote it was an i yes sorry it was thank you um that motion passes 5 z um moving on to 12f and that would be again second reading approval of governing board policy B CB regarding board member conflict of interest Oh I thought that was our legal council making gaining attention um all governing board members can see the information in the proposal does anyone have questions for um our legal counil Nick buzan on this issue um Mr Lindsay NOP okay nope I see no request to speak maybe Dr Menzel okay um I would like to make a motion to approve governing board policy BCB regarding board member conflict of interest is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I I that

174motion passes - uh 12g approval second read and approval of governing board policy BDA regarding board organizational meeting um all governing board members have received this uh information um do they have any printing questions or concerns about it seeing none I will make a motion to approve um the second read uh and governing board policy BDA regarding board organizational meeting is there a second to that motion second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I I that motion passes 5 as well on to H governing board policy be so this is a second read and approval regarding school board meetings any questions or concerns to address at this time on this board policy update uh note for the general public we're just not cruising through these this is a second

175read and most of these are at the requirement of State legislation and updating our policies accordingly um no questions or concerns I'd like to make a motion to approve 12h governing board policy be regarding school board meetings is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I that motion passes 5 moving on to 12i governing board policy B DB regarding the agenda any questions or concerns on this second read seeing that there are none I'd like to make a motion to approve governing board policy bedb regarding agenda seconded by second board member Lindsay thank you all in favor say I I I I I that motion passes 5 moving on to 12j Second reading and approval governing board policy EBC regarding emergencies um board member Carney sorry

176oh okay no questions or concerns about this second read so I will make a motion to approve governing board policy EBC regarding emergencies is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I that motion passes 5- Z on to 12K second reading approval governing board policy ikc regarding class rankings and great Point averages any questions or concerns about this particular one I do um board member Carney I just have a a quick question as I know this seems a little bit backwards to me that this this was already somewhat approved in in the through the high school planning guide I think I'm not sure the previous board right that uh approved that so I I was just wondering why why was policy not approved before it was

177actually implemented Dr dods Karen can speak to the the timing and the planning that that took place with respect to this question thank you thank you uh good evening everyone I'm board member Carney when we presented let me rewind prior to the pandemic it is my understanding that this conversation start started and I know when I began in susd in 2021 the conversation from the governing board then was let's revisit this because we came forward to the governing board and people felt like because of the pandemic people weren't really aware of all of the work that had been going on leading up to a recommendation for the Latin honor System to replace class rank so at that time we relaunched everything and the governing board then voted to approve in the future for present time

178class of 25 to begin with the Latin honor System so we did not bring forward the policy at the time because it didn't apply because of our students who were going to continue to be in the rank system through this graduating class so we're bringing it before you now as we prepare for our Juniors who will be seniors next year keeping the cart before the horse or the horse before the cart yeah board member Warner so I was actually in the audience when it was approved um and so I I fully understand that this is you know you're trying to align with some colleges it gives more students the opportunity to be recognized however there is something kind of special about being the valid dictorian and the solitarian and um you know is there could

179we amend this to ceremoniously recognized the valedictorian and solitarian so the the kids that do strive to be number one that they do get recognized and I understand it's not part of the platform but I would really like to see that and and um so that you it's not just getting to the 4.25 and then you you've you've made it right so it's there is there's still the top one and two three four five students even in the system and so that is my my recommendation I'd like to to see that Dr Mensel I'd like to ask Dr sackos to talk about the the practice in Scottdale because um the the practice of identifying a valorian and a salutatorian isn't something that has been common practice so we did a little bit of um digging

180with our High School principles to look at the history of valedictorian and salutatorian and of course that recognition is often used um simultaneously is when you have a rank 1 2 3 4 your one to valorian salutatorian currently um one of our high school campuses acknowledges valedictorian and salutatorian at high school graduation um that is Arcadia High School um that began in school year 2017 2018 of the other campuses is it has not been in practice at least 10 years uh two campuses they went back into programs and it looks like for the past for the last 18 years has not been in practice um our our previous policy did not say um that you cannot do it we it was just outlined here um because the high school principals felt as though and the

181school counselors felt as though there should be consistency from one campus to the next and right now that's just the one campus that again 201728 began that practice so are the the the top 1 two 3 4 five students recog recogniz as being the top students so um with class rank one could look at it and say you're number one if there were a validator and salutatorian you're the valid dictorian um and then two salutatorian um but not necessarily validor and salutatorian often was acknowledged in the program and those were your speakers at high school graduation right now um there's often times a student body presid president and then they do auditions for the speakers there um so um even though there's not an explicit recognition of valedictorian and salutatorian colleges can recognize that if

182you you know and again even though rank is not going to be part of our system for those colleges that require rank the student can still get a rank and the counselor can communicate that to the college um and and I we continued conversation with the counselors and one counselor said to me the other day you know colleges know if a student is a 5.0 that student is likely in number one spot um or tied for that number one spot because 5.0 is the highest um that you you can have thank you does that help yeah um and and just for sake of um going through a little bit of history on how we got to that process and that decision it was input from our guidance counselors our teachers our students and parents they

183were all involved in this process and it did not just take place overnight just to be clear because we started getting a few canned emails about this and um it it wasn't relevant because it they were assuming that we were going to have this first discussion to make a decision tonight and that's not the case this is I recall having many meetings um And discussing this as well as understanding the history of where this was coming from and I think it's important to note that um Arcadia High School for the class of 2024 will acknowledge valedictorian and salutatorian because we this is a year where We're still ranking one two Etc um but the that change would too occur for the class of 2025 much like the Latin honor System super thank you um seeing

184that there there are no more requests I'd like to make I have aad Dr Harwell I apologize thank you board president ssky I have a um a question so following assuming approval um I would ask that each of the high schools please amend their grade transcript templates to remove class rank from the grade transcripts official and unofficial going to make sure that that process but follow through is there yes and that will begin with the class of 2025 but for next school year even when the students are applying in the fall for their colleges those transcripts need to be devoid of class rank because right now they're still on there correct so ranking does um typically did occur at the end of a sixth semester which was at the end of um well sixth semester

185end of junior year um so uh there will no long without without us ranking for the class of 2025 there will not be anything on their transcript that indicates such a rank right now I I appreciate that right now the template has that on there so I'm just asking if we just from ad administrative perspective make sure that those templates are revised before the start of the school year next year for those students who are applying early and we can certainly do that Dr hartwell's in working with our system I believe it would be through parchment thank you Dr Hart Wells did you want to make a motion uh I will make a motion I move to approve the second read and approval of governing board policy ikc regarding class rank grade point averages I

186would second that motion all in favor say I I I I I opposed no that motion passes 4 One moving on to Second read and approval of governing board policy ikf regarding graduation requirements do any governing board members have questions or comments on this second read I do board president sinowski go ahead Dr herwell and I'd like to offer actually a motion to table um this second read of board policy ikf um I want to acknowledge though first uh all the work that has gone into this I appreciate it and as well as a lot of the content that was removed in the proposed um amendment is indeed obsolete but I feel like we have a great opportunity here to amend the graduation requirements to make sure that they have recalibrated ated in line with

187the Strategic plan and specifically what the term future focused means right now as proposed other than removing the obsolete references uh there's not been substantive changes to the graduation requirements uh but nonetheless the world has moved in a different direction my recommendation is that the superintendent Dr Mensel gain input on what indeed graduation requirement for a future focused student future focused um pardon me future I guess for lack of a better word would indeed look like and what I'm referring to here is perhaps um obtaining input from subject matter experts to inform a definition of what that should look like and further i' would ask that that recommendation and updated staff recommendation be brought to the board no later than April of 2024 so that we can consider it for the following school year was

188that a complete motion those were my comments my motion is to table this item okay until April with an updated staff recommendation got it so table it with the stipulation as stated yes um I would second that um I had commentary on this particular item but I feel like I don't need to share that tonight and I can share it through email if if the beings are interested um I have seconded that all in favor to table this item at this time say I I I I that motion passes 5 to T that moving on to Second read in approval governing board policy JK student discipline um seeing that there's no request to speak I just want to make clear on these next three agenda items have an exception in quotations there um except in

189cases where a student is determined to have brought a firearm to school or as listed Below in item F and that is I in all three of the next um proposed governing board policies um stating that I'd like to make a motion to approve governing board policy JK regarding student discipline um is there second to that second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I that motion passes 5 5 and N states that second read and approval governing board policy JKD regarding student suspension any conversation on that if not then I will move to a motion to approve governing board policy JKD regarding student suspension is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay again thank you all in favor say I I I I that motion passes 50

190on to O second read and approval governing board policy jke regarding expulsion of students seeing no requests of commentary I'll make a motion to approve second reading approval of governing board policy jke regarding expulsion of students is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I that motion passes 5 Z last action item of this evening um under this part of our agenda is a second read in approval of governing board policy jlh regarding missing students any questions or commentary seeing none I'll make a motion to approve governing board policy jlh regarding missing students is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I I I that motion also passes 5 moving on to agenda item 13 a discussion and consideration

191of the superintendent's midyear evaluation pursuant to governing board policy CBI evaluation of the superintendent and AR ARS state statute 38- 431.073 I session accordingly to discuss this is there a second second Mr buzan I see your light is on I just wanted to recognize Luis Casada our paralal who worked on a lot of these um black lines for the board she did a lot of work on this and she's probably listening right now so thank you L thank you Lise back to our motion it was been motioned and seconded and all in favor to move into executive session um board member Lindsay yeah um say I I I I and that motion passes 5 we will move into executive session all right the time is 11:49 p.m. I make a motion to leave executive session

192is there a second to that motion seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor to leave the executive session say I I I that motion passes 4 um we are reconvening our regular governing board board meeting at 1149 p.m. governing board reports governing board reports anyone for the record um board member Warner I attended the SAR 6A championship game um last week and it was awesome to be back with the SAR staff and the players and a huge congratulations to coach Hill and his staff and the team that brought home the big trophy I toured Mojave middle school with Mr Akerson and met Mr Ferrero and I know they were working very very hard to make Mojave excellent I also ended the be project full circle Gala and spent time with Mna principal paluchi and

193Mr kroer it was such a good great program and proud to have eight schools and with hopefully two additional schools coming on board to be be kind schools and um I know Mna is coming back soon and um she would love for us to be uh the first be kind District in Arizona so thank you seeing that oh board member Carney go ahead thank you president sinowski I just wanted to thank uh the employees and anyone that's stuck with us tonight on this nearly 6our meeting and I just want to say it's a i this is a consequence of going to one board meeting um in November that we have to be here this long tonight but thank you for all of you who have stuck with us um I also want to let the

194community know that uh SSD has a sexed human growth and development for grades 6 through n curriculum adoption committee which is open for applications until 12:00 noon on Friday December 15th so if you're interested in that you can find that at susd.org slash committees and then just a happy holiday season and I hope everyone has a great break my governing uh board update will be brief um update on my community engagement since our last meeting aside from going to meetings with our community members as requested I attended a very funfilled celebration recognizing Desert Canyon Elementary School's 25th anniversary since Inception um joined some of my board colleagues and administration and many parents and families um watching the Saro High School return to another another State title to susd in the 6A football championship game um

195represented the Scottdale Unified School District by attending the multi-day Arizona School Board association annual conference um and that reminds me I have certificates for board members Warner and Carney for completing their first year or whatever um and then I also had the opportunity to attend a very um spectacular three School winter Coral concert and that was with dcms Mountainside Middle School and Desert Mountain high school and uh last night helped recognize many of our our district scholar athletes at the all District fall Sports banquet um seeing that there are no other requests to share governing board reports um we're going to move on to item 17 board members May propose topics for future consideration are there any proposed topics board member Warner I would like to have a public discussion to review modify staff manuals

196for grievance processes and policies thank you board member Carney thank you president sinowski um I would like Dr uh menel to discuss the recent Attorney General open meeting law investigation findings to the board and to the public okay seeing no others we're going to move on to 18 that is dates of upcoming meetings next Tuesday that's Tuesday January or the next meeting is Tuesday January 9th it's a regular govern in board meeting here at Coronado High School and we'll have another meeting on Tuesday January 30th that will be a special governing board meeting at 6m at the Mojave District Annex we have a continuation of learning community Town Halls again with um that the next one is Thursday February 22nd 2024 at 6 PM Desert Mountain high school library and Wednesday March 20th 2024 6

197p.m. Soro High School in ation Center um at this time I'd like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting is there a second second seconded by board member Lindsay all in favor say I I that motion to adjourn passes 40 the time is 11:54 PM this meeting is adjourned